The Big Picture

I'm back

2009-12-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

Greetings BPers!

I am finally re-entering the blogosphere. I know it has been a while since I've written anything -- over a year??? There are reasons for that. Last year it was the presidential election, and many other of life's little details which took over and filled all my time.

First I had a computer crash. That led me into the world of programming. I spent months learning just how Windows works, and all related dirty little secrets. I also developed quite a windows utility toolkit. Fun stuff. Well, no not really, but now I understand how it all works.

Then I moved. Yes, I no longer live in Las Vegas. My little family picked up and moved to Seattle, Washington. And I gotsta say... We love it!

As far as my blogging plans go, I will resume discussing topics revolving around science and the bible. I have also returned to writing books. In that regard, I have begun to work using Google Docs. There are some really cool features available there, like sharing, document control, online forms and surveys, and Google gadgets. I have gotten to be a geeky fan of iGoogle.

Well, see you around the campus. (P.S. I will have some links up sometime soon.)

Creationism's simplistic lies

2008-08-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

Once again, I have to thank PZ for this link. Go check out this video of Dr. Ron Carlson on Worldview Tube. It would be funny as a parody of creationists like Ken Ham and Ron Comfort if it wasn't for the fact that this guy is serious.

His entire point isn't just wrong because he is ignorant of the truth and facts, it is wrong because he lies about the truth and facts. He is egregariously lying about the truth of science. He leaves out all the significant details which completely destroys his entire argument.

So what is his argument? It is that there is circular logic (solely) being employed in dating fossils and geologic strata. And that circular logic has its end in wrongfully substantiating evolution and the age of the earth. His argument is based on only one aspect, that fossils are used to date geologic strata and geologic strata are used to date fossils. This is plainly a lie. But then again I can almost understand why he would use such a blatant and easily falsifiable lie. The bible tells him he can lie about anything if it furthers the cause for Christ:

"For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" [Romans 3:7 NKJV]

At least we know why he lied so willfully and easily. But let us consider the nature of the lie and its sheer magnitude.

1. This is false first and foremost because this is not the only way things are dated. If he had taken the time to read those encyclopedia passages he cited, he would know this. I am sure he did because he had to in order to find those quotes he was looking for.

The truth is there are many ways of dating fossils and the geologic strata. Radiometric dating (and not just radio-carbon dating) all are used to date both rocks and fossils. Now here is the proof. We have roughly 10,000 years of human history where we made a non-natural mark on nature; cave-paintings, buildings, pottery, tools for hunting, etc. We can date those things using history and physical evidence. But further when we turn around and independantly date those things using science -- radiometric dating -- we come up with the same ages. So we know the methods are accurate. Thus we can date almost anything within a relative range of accuracy and trust that those ages are both real and fact. Dr Carlson never tells you this because it destroys his entire argument. He prefers to lie.

2. Dr Carlson's logic is internally flawed, he knows it and ignores that glaring flaw. His entire "circular logic" argument of the geologic strata and fossils would -- by definition -- be entirely relative. In other words, if what he were saying was true, then there would be no way at all, to put specific dates on anything in the strata or the fossils. For if the only way to date strata is by the fossils, and the only way to date fossils is by the strata they are in, then there would be no method to put a numbered age to either.

Either one or the other, or both, must somehow be able to be dated using an independant method which does provide a numbered age in order to provide an age scale for the entire geologic column and fossils. That is done by radio-dating the samples.

So when Dr Carlson says the Jurassic period was 65 million years ago, or the earth is 4.5 billion years old, he is admitting that there is another method to date things, one that is more objective than the subjective method of comparing fossils to strata to fossils.

3. When Dr Carlson is discussing the geologic column and evolution, he fails to mention one very important fact which completely invalidates his entire argument. That the reason fossils have been used to relatively date strata is that complex organisms all appear late in the column and simple organisms all appear early in the column and that has never been found to be untrue in all of the research ever done.

That fact that horses, humans, chimps dinosaurs, etc, have never been found in the earliest strata and only in the most recent strata shows that organisms grew in complexity as time passed.

4. Speaking of the geologic column, Dr Carlson indulges in some tiresome chicanery. He makes the claim that the "entire" geologic column has never been found in one place. What he fails to mention is twofold; one, that the earth is an active body, full of energy and motion, constantly churning up the surface via such methods as plate techtonics and magma discharge, and second that all the layers have been found in various places around the world, proving that they all exist and existed.

Failing to mention that makes his argument dishonest at best.

5. Finally he claims that the world is only 6,000 years old. Not only is there verifiable proof that humans have been around in modern "civilized" form for at least 10,000 years, but his only evidence to the contrary is a book. I don't even trust my science books that much to unequivacably accept them, I like to reproduce the experiments they explain, and find outside proof that their claims are correct. But this guy trusts implicitly a book written by superstitious goat herders written three thousand years ago.

Not to mention that this particular claim, that the world is only 6,000 years old runs into problems with exactly every single area of science, thus by making it, Dr Carlson is saying that all science is wrong, and nothing valid can come out of it. Quantum physics, wrong because the world is only 6,000 years old and thus radioactivity is false. Astrophysics, wrong, becuase the world is only 6,000 years old and thus all light from all stars can only be at most 6,000 years old. So that nuclear reactor and that computer and that microwave oven you have? Those are all delusions in your mind because they cannot exist because the science they are founded upon is false because the earth is really 6,000 years old.

5. Oh, and did I mention that PZ Myers also wrote about this, and picked apart his claims about Charles Lyell? It seems that Dr Carlson cannot help but tell lies and mislead and hide the obvious truth.

Who knew that the "Truth" was maintained by so many lies and deceptions? I guess that is why I prefer the truth, which is comprised of, well, the truth, facts and reality.

[Update:] P.S. At least Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham are --shall we say-- thorough enough to acknowledge that there are other methods of dating; namely radiometric dating. Their excuse turns out to be that we cannot know if radioactivity, that is the radioactive decay constants, are actually constant throughout time (e.g. here). They are and we have proof of that as well. But they use as proof the fact that science while determining another constant, the speed of light, changed the value many times meaning the actual speed of light must have changed. Of course the fact that instruments moved from a state of crudity to a state of sophistication over that same period makes no difference. Again, this is an example of just how horrid their excuses and feeble lies really are to someone who knows the truth.

Religion, moral conscience and health care

2008-07-31T18:04:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post has an article up concerning a new Bush rule winding its way through the government towards becoming the law of the land.

A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting health-care workers who object to abortion, and to birth-control methods they consider tantamount to abortion, has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients' rights.

You can read the article for more specific information on this, but the short of it is that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. under this new rule can refuse to provide services to patients who desire them based on their own personal religious views. In other words, if a pharmacist is personally anti-birth control, then he can refuse to sell the pill, condoms, etc. If a nurse is anti-abortion and considers "plan B" abortion, then she can refuse to administer it to a rape victim. If an ambulance driver does not believe in being exposed to a woman who was having her period when she was ill then he would not have to give care to that woman.

That, on the surface, sounds quite reasonable. Why be forced to do something that you find morally reprehensible personally? But here is the problem:

What do you do about a white person who refuses to give care to a black person? It was only a mere few decades ago that that moral reprehension was in effect. Do we bring that back for white doctors who refuse to treat black patients on moral grounds? The same goes for gay patients, patients of another religion which is found to be "satanic" in its origin?

Just where do you draw the line when it comes to personal religious morals and those patients who violate them? Do you say it is acceptable to not give plan B to a patient, but not acceptable to refuse treatment to a black man?

No, the only real solution, and the real rule Bush and Co. should be pushing through is this: If you are not willing to fulfill all your duties as a doctor/nurse/pharmacist by giving your patients all that they require, then you should consider another line of work.

HAHA Ray Comfort can be funny!

2008-06-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

Ray is such a stitch. He has a post up, I call it the "water is wet" post. He entitled the post, "Top Ten Predicted Atheist Objections to the Below Statement:"

"Water is wet." -- Ray Comfort

My response must have come in at number 11: "so what?"

I thought about how useless and inconsequential this statement is. And looking down his list, I came to the conclusion that he is pulling off a "Seinfeld;" a statement about nothing. He seems to want to show that something so obvious can be made to be contestable by atheists if it is uttered by a young earth creationist. [And I decided to leave out the actual real science which makes this statement absurd; along the lines of heat is hot, the sky is blue, ice is cold, etc.] Because real science is totally lost on people like Ray Comfort.

Instead, I thought about making another statement and propose similar rebuttals I predict Ray and other fundie Christians would say:

"God is good" -- Jeffperado

1. "Of course God is good, he's God after all"
2. "God has to be good, for he cannot be anything else by definition"
3. "If God were bad, then he would not be worthy of worship"
4. "Other Gods can claim to be good, but only God is good"
5. "God only does good things, so he must be good"
6. "The bible tells me so, and I believe in the bible"
7. "My parents taught me about God, and they said he was good, so he must be good"
8. "I go to church every week, and all I hear is how good God is. If my church tells me this, it must be true"
9. "Anyone who says their God is better, or says there is no God is wrong, therefore God is good"
10. "I believe, and my beliefs are right"

Just like the absurdity of the "water is wet" canard, the "God is good" is a canard as well. The truth lies in the nuance; what exactly does it mean to be 'wet' or for that matter 'good'?

Just like I would tell Ray that wetness is a property of water, and not an absolute one at that.
(Consider deep freezing water into ice -- is ice wet? Yet ice is still water). But can we do the same for God and good? Is there a way to seperate them? Christians would say no, that by definition, everything God does is good, and everything good that happens comes from God. Except, of course, when God --according to the bible-- kills babies, pregnant women, and small children. Or when an atheist does a decidedly good thing.

Then it isn't "God is good" any more; it is "God has a plan". And that plan is good.

Now go back and reread Ray's post. You will immediately see that what Ray is really saying is that he is projecting his own brand of convoluted illogic and lack of facts unto atheists in hops of convincing himself and others like him that atheists are really as screwed up and misinformed as he is, and thus his belief system is as valid as the system of reality found in atheism.

But really all Ray Comfort is, is funny in a sad sort of way.

Dobson and Obama: Biblical Christianity

2008-06-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

I have to say, I am amused by James Dobson. But not so much that I can just ignore him and his power in this great country. He is, by any terms, a silly person. He claims that he cannot be compared to the Rev. Al Sharpton, because he is not a reverend. He claims he is not a theologian. Yet despite being neither of these things, he can claim:

"Evangelicals are people who take Bible interpretation very seriously, and the sort of speech he gave shows that he is worlds away in the views of evangelicals," he said

And that makes him silly.

Notice how he is an evangelical, but not a reverend or theologian.. That makes it all ok to say ministerial and theological things with authority and then claim not to have that authority.

But the real core; the real meat of the issue is not what Obama said, or what Dobson claims. It is that there is this perception among the Christian Right that only their views on Christianity matter, and those of all the other millions of Christians out there are ignorant or unimportant. And most importantly, this great nation should only be controlled by those Christian views approved by the Christian right. Thus making this country a theocracy, even though it isn't because other Christians and non-Christians can have their views, only that they are not important or useful in governing.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Dobson.

Family Research Council Misses The Point Yet Again

2008-06-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Tony Perkins' Washington Update has this blurb:

Bench Pressing: Equality CA Urges Court to Strike Initiative

The clock is ticking on California's brief honeymoon with same-sex "marriage," and homosexual activists are doing everything in their power to make the court's May 15 verdict permanent. In a last-ditch effort to rob the people of their input in November, advocates of homosexual "marriage" are asking the high court to strike down the marriage protection amendment before it reaches the ballot. Using a tactic that same-sex couples test-drove in Oregon, the groups argue that the initiative "would change the state's Constitution so profoundly that it would amount to a revision." Unlike a simple amendment, a revision--as defined by California law--would require both voters' approval and that of the legislature. When liberals used this same argument to overturn the marriage protection amendment in Oregon last month, it failed. The court of appeals upheld the amendment, sending a powerful message on the effectiveness of a constitutional amendment defining marriage.
This week, Equality California is fine-tuning the strategy, suggesting that "if enacted, [the ballot initiative] would eviscerate the principle of equal citizenship for gay and lesbian people and strip the courts of their authority to enforce basic constitutional guarantees." (Translation: We recognize that the people of California oppose homosexual "marriage," and we'll use every possible loophole to circumvent the democratic process). Unfortunately for same-sex proponents, judicial activism may be common in California's courts, but the nullification of ballot initiatives is not. As the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out, justices seldom intervene once an amendment has qualified for the ballot. Obviously Equality California is more afraid of the people's verdict than the court's. Join us in making more Californians aware of what's at stake this fall. Log on to www.frc.org/marriage to order your free marriage protection kit!

Just how many falsehoods and scare words did you see?
To show you exactly how absurd this line of argument really is, let us take that first sentence and change its meaning a tiny little bit: "The clock is ticking on California's brief honeymoon with [emancipation of slaves] and [abolitionists] are doing everything in their power to make the court's May 15 verdict permanent." If the subject were changed to reinstituting slavery, and that lying on a popular vote then slavery can simply be made legal by a popular vote. You cannot simply vote and take away the equality and rights of one group of people just because they happen to be a bit different in some aspect. Yet this is exactly what FRC and the California initiative are doing. They are attempting to repeal the civil rights equalization of gays. It is no different than the Jim Crow laws of the south and their fighting the entire civil rights movement of blacks.

This sentence repeats the inanity: "(Translation: We recognize that the people of California oppose homosexual "marriage," and we'll use every possible loophole to circumvent the democratic process). " Let me translate the translation: If a majority of Californians vote to kill all the citizens of Los Angeles and burn them for fuel, then the democratic process rules! And cheap energy to boot!! Unfortunately that completely ridiculuous analogy completely shows just how brilliant our founding fathers were and how ignorant the FRC and Tony Perkins. For if you were to use Tony's "logic" regarding our true democratic process, then he would support the murdering of every Los Angelean for fuel if California voted for it. Our founding fathers put in a safeguard against that "majority rules" abuse and desecration of the minority. It is those very same "activist" courts!

What if 50.1% of Americans voted to permanantly ban Tony Perkins to some desolate area of Antartica permanantly? would he look to "activist" courts to stay the decision, or would he just shrug his shoulders and say ok?

Look, its all very simple. America will adjust to this just like they did when it came to the civil rights movement of the 50s/60s. Equality is inevitable in the psyche of America. Some fight it, but they are on the losing end, as American history has shown. Opposite-sex marriages are not in the process of losing their value to their participants. It is just that their next door neighbors who happen to be gay, now have the exact same rights as they do.

Same-Sex Marriage.. A Question

2008-06-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

Considering the complete apoplexy of the Family Researh Council over the recent California Supreme Court decision to allow same sex marriage. One has to wonder the simple..

Just what is the reason to fight same-sex marriage? I have been waiting for years for an actual reason, but I have yet to hear even the most modest of excuses/reasons. So what is it?

I mean I hear some railing about 'traditional' marriage, but we all know that reality shows there is no such thing. "Traditional" marriage has changed so much over the centuries... We've had plural marriages, arranged marriages, same-race marriages, "shotgun" weddings. Then there is the issue of divorce; is it Mosiac? Is it Pauline? Is it Jesusian? Is it a product of the 19th century? Is it modern? Is it Catholic pre-Vatican II or post? There seems to be nothing in the standard vernacular of 'traditional' which actually is traditional. Even the man-woman thing is flexible in history. The Greeks and Romans had differing views on this. Even Judeo-Christian views are highly flexible on this; what represented same-sex protectorate companionship and what difference from this was marriage? Jesus and his disciples? Jesus and the one specific disciple "whom he loved"? Paul and Titus? There is nothing there either in terms of male companionship and wedded protectorship at all.

So just what is the fierce apprehension of fundamentalist Christians to same-sex marriage? How does it 'destroy' the institution of marriage for all those currently wedded opposite-sex marriages?

Sometimes I hear non-sensical posturings about it being "harmful/detrimental" to children. Or that it will cause sexual-identity problems in children. Both of these are are unfounded and fear-mongering to boot. If children of straight parents have no sexual identity problems, then there would be no gays at all. That is so bleedingly obvious, I cannot fathom that that excuse is ever even honestly made. Gay parents do not make gay children. Gay parents make children who take their own paths and respect those who take other paths, because they understand them. Gay parents raise more straight children than they do gay children.

But there is one argument against gays and same sex marriage that does make sense. Hatred of gays and the desire to keep them pinned down as second-class citizens not deserving of the same rights and priveledges as straights. How could I possibly argue against blind hatred?

I cannot. The hatred of gays will always remain among these people. There is no arguing that and no changing that. They hate and they struggle to make their hatred the law of the land.

They have that right. They can continue to hate on gays and actively try to keep gays from enjoying the very same rights and priveledges they benefit from. They can do that.

But the same is true of those of us who support gay rights. We can fight and proclaim as well.

So then, just what is the problem with allowing others to live their lives as they want and enjoy the exact same rights as we enjoy?

The answer seems to be, as always, that these fundie Christians want to force their personal beliefs on all the rest of us.

And do you think that will stop with same sex marriage?

Let them profess, proclaim, and pursue activism all they want. That is their right. Just don't let them write their views into all of our laws.

Really. I am interested in knowing why this is so bad.

Possible Republican VP Bobby Jindal

2008-06-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Over at Crooks & Liars, Nicole Belle shares with us a clip of possible Repub Veep Bobby Jindal. Head there for the clip. This quote is what interested me. As you know I am a scientist and love science in all its branches. Biology however seems to be the one singled out for attack by fundamental Christians (Republicans pretty much frown on all science...)

As a parent, when my kids go to schools, when they go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking. I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves. I want them to see the best data. I personally think that the life, human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator. I’m a Christian. I do think that God played a role in creating not only earth, but mankind. Now, the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want them to be–I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness. The way we’re going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also let them contribute to that body of knowledge.

I thought it would be fun to pick this apart line by line and show just how absurd (and often self-contradictory) it is. Idiocy seems to hold more value than fact and reality when it comes to Republican science policy.

As a parent, when my kids go to schools, when they go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking. Translation: School vouchers, baby! Send my kids to private Christian schools on public tax dollars and let all public schools die a starved death.

I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves. Translation: I want them to make the exact same decisions as me regardless of what they are taught. For example, no real sex education, only abstinence only edumacatin' for my kids....

I want them to see the best data. Translation: I want them to only see the data I approve of and not that of the real world. For example, they will only get abstinence only education; none of that safe-sex nonsense.

I personally think that the life, human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. Translation: All evidence to the contrary, they will only learn what I was taught to believe no matter what new evidence has arisen.

I do think that there’s a creator. Translation: Teach God in schools even if other parents do not want their children to have your own personal flavor of religion forced upon their own children; that is their tough luck.

I'm a Christian. I do think that God played a role in creating not only earth, but mankind. Translation: Forget all that factual sciency stuff. Teach Genesis in our schools! Just because there is a mountain of evidence and a working theory of evolution (just as --if not more so -- than gravity) means that I can ignore all the anti-gravity and other science flaws in the bible, if I can deny reality and teach biblical fantasy in classrooms in the form of creationism.

Now, the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. Translation: I want my kids exposed to the very worst non-science, but only if it can be called 'science'.

I don’t want them to be–I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness. Translation: Teach them any and all crazy theories and let their untrained newly-forming intellects defer all judgement to that of their equally uneducated and scientifically-illiterate parents. Hell, let's throw in geo-centrism and angels-pushing-down-on-all-objects as an alternative to gravity while we're at it -- oh and don't forget to throw in flat-earthism as well. Those are all also equally credible (to creationism) alternative 'scientific' theories too.

The way we’re going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also let them to that body of knowledge. Translation: Mix shoddy non-scientific junk in with the factual real-world premiere science, claim the two viewpoints are equal and on the same factual footing, then set these kids free to: build our airplanes, powerplants, and perform our medical research, of the future. Surely, God's laying on of hands and prayer has the same potency to cure diseases as bare-knuckle hard fact-based research does.

This is what you can expect from the creme-of-the-crop Republican thinkers

Redux: An Alternative Spending of the Iraq Money

2008-06-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I wrote about what could have been done with the money spent on Iraq if it had instead been spent on energy research. Today we learn what the most current cost of the war is and also what the total projected cost will be. Just imagine where we would be as a nation, if we had spent over $600 BILLION on energy research and deployment from 2003 until today and were projecting spending a total of $2.7 TRILLION on energy research over the life of the program.

Just where do you think we would be if we instead of spending this money on a war in Iraq which killed over 4,000 Americans (more than died on 9/11) had spent it on energy research and implementation in our society? We would all be driving vehicles which had a zero carbon footprint, were cheap to operate, were more safe. We would be using electricity generated by zero carbon footprint sources; fusion and fission nuclear power, renewable resources, and our nuclear fuel cycle would be complete (no long term nuclear fuel storage problems).

On top of that, our social issues would be next to zero as well. Every single American would have the best and most thorough health care our children would be the best educated and science would be advanced to almost unimaginable levels. How much is a manned mission to Mars expected to cost, $1 Trillion? Done.

So spend this money on killing 4,000 Americans -- That is sane in the eyes of diehard conservative Republicans. But spending that same amount of money on making this great country a shining star of all that is good -- that is wasteful?? And anyone listens to these people? Instead of our children paying for a great and saving blossoming of science, energy and social salvation (if this pat I have laid out were to have been taken), our children and grandchilden are going to be paying for the deaths of over 4,000 Americans for what?? A halfhearted and despised liberation of Iraq? What sense does that make?

I really do cry when I think about just how wasted this monstruous sum of money has been. And I mourn when I think about how far along we would be as a society if it had been spent as I've outlined.

Evil does not even come close to describing these people who have guided our country for the last 8 years.

Should I bring back Dolly's version of Imagine again? Naw, I've used it too many times already...

Acts of God in Nature: The Latest Chapter

2008-06-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

When a major hurricane hits New Orleans, it is an act of God -- He is punishing a city for hosting a gay pride event. But what about tornadoes? Are they acts of God as well? They can be every bit as disastrous and deadly as a hurricane but only to a smaller area -- say a boy scout camp.

Currently, it is known that four scouts have died. That is tragic to say the least.

But what I have to wonder; actually the thing that I have to wonder about is, is this an act of God? I mean we know why so many of these fundamental/Charismatic Christians claimed that Katrina was an act of God; God hates gays and wanted to destroy them -- taking all of New Orleans with them. So why would God hit the Scouts? They deny entry of gays and atheists into their midst, they profess God. So why would God so specifically target them?

I cannot say. And, I know, that we will not hear an explanation from that very same gang of Christian goons who laud Katrina (and 9/11) as punishment for gays and American secularism (i.e. stark atheism). I almost expect to hear some nonsense about this tragedy being some part of "God's plan" whatever that is.

"Acts of God" indeed. Nature is blind but God is not (if you subscribe to the notion of the Christian's God). Thus everything happens for a reason. Making sense of killing young Boy Scouts via an act of nature can only make Christian rationality look inane. Unless these Christians come out and say God was extremely unhappy (at the same level He is with gays and atheists) with the Scouts expelling gay children and non-religious children from the scouts. Maybe that is God's latest and greatest plan -- secularism, equality and inclusiveness.

Yeah right. Now pull my finger, it plays "Jingle Bells."

The only thing this shows is that nature is real and God is imaginary. And children suffer and die.

Revisiting Ray Comfort

2008-06-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

You know it has been a long while since I have mentioned Ray Comfort. I discussed him even before he had his own blog, Comfort Food. Reading his blog one thing becomes clear; simple questions to him beg absurdly simply answers. And more importantly, well-thought-out questions do not exist and thus have no need of answers. This is obvious in the types of "questions" which get asked and answered As anyone who peruses his blog can see. Nothing tough or above the simple strawman is ever addressed, just simple-minded questions and even more simple-minded answers. This leads one to wonder if this simplemindedness is the only level on which Ray Comfort is able to operate. He after all, is the arch-architect of the infamous "banana" argument for creationism. This alone should has disqualified him from and reasoned Christian discourse. But alas, he has hung around like that pesky "common cold" virus.

I have to admit that I am thankful. For if his is the level of Christian apologetics, then reason, logic, fact and reality have a chance in overcoming Christianity. We can all thank our good friend Ray for that.

Let us take for one example of this, this recent post by our good friend Ray, The Faithiest. He opens it by posing a "question" he recieved. One look at this question and you can instantly tell that it is nothing more than an overly simple question asked in hopes of being overly simply answered. And Ray jumps at the chance of making the simple completely over-simplistic:

"Life forms change over time and given enough time they can and did change dramatically. GET OVER IT! No one is ever, ever going to go back to the idea that species were created fully developed at a specific point in time. NEVER. The details of the theory may change but not the framework. There is no faith involved. Move on. Evolution happens." Milo

I cannot say that I know the mind of Milo, but I can say that his representation here is so absurd as to be laughable. Reality is that humanity learns on a daily basis, we know more today than we did yesterday. Thus what we consider to be factual from day to day never changes, how we interpret those facts as we learn more, changes. Faith is the complete absense of fact. A Muslim has faith in their god, as does a Jew in theirs, as does a Christian in theirs. No fact is involved. Consider a man standing atop the tower of Pisa with a stone in his hand. He cannot say to his friend there, that he has faith if he lets go of the stone it will hit the ground, and his friend cannot say that he has faith it will not hit the ground. This is because they are talking about facts of reality, the real physical world. But in terms of religion, there is no reality whatsoever. It is all faith-based. How can one supernatural god based upon some holy book be better or more real than another god based upon some holy book?

Just look for example at the bible: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" [Heb 11:1 NKJV]. Since all of nature can be seen of evidence of it seen, then none of nature can be considered in terms of faith. This includes evolution. We see evolution, we see evidence of evolution in the past, we have mountains of facts not just including fossils, which are all nature and thus not faith-based to back up evolution. We have the natural laws of physics to back up dating and relational chronographies. We have chemistry and bio-chemistry, DNA, embyonosis. All these are natural and fact based; thus outside the "unseen" realm of faith.

But none of that shows up in Ray's post at all.

Here is what we do see in Ray's response:

You have said, "Life forms change over time and given enough time they can and did change dramatically." This is what you believe. Its a statement that is based on faith. You weren’t there when the life forms were created, and you didn't see them change. You don’t know how life began; you simply believe that what you have been told actually did happen. Like it or not, you are a "believer" in the theory of evolution.

How life began is not an issue of evolution at all. Evolution deals only with how life, once it occurred, changed over time. How difficult is it for Creationists to understand this very simple fact. The origin of the chemistry of life is completely different from the origins of the diversity of lifeforms once life came into existence. One is a question of speculation, the origin of life, and one is a question of understanding all the facts of life and how well we understand the process that fits all those facts together. And here I repeat this simple, nay simply simple fact that every day we learn more facts and thus have a better -- more precise -- understanding of how all present species came to be like they are today.

But look more closely at what Ray actually does say. Take this quote, "This is what you believe. Its a statement that is based on faith. You weren’t there when the life forms were created, and you didn't see them change." Could this not also be said about George Washington? Who today could have personally seen George Washington? Thus according to Ray Comfort we can only "believe" in George Washington via "faith". Furthermore, we have witnessed lifeforms change, even change into new species. So not only do we have a flat out lie about not witnessing evolution, but we have either deceit or ignorance when it comes to the value (or lack of value according to Ray) of things we have not seen but can verify in totally natural records.

This is again in stark contrast to the supernatural and unknowable ways of any god, not just God or Jesus. Since the bible was written by humans and is undeniably rooted in specifically historical events, it is also natural not supernatural. Thus even the bible itself is not proof of anything supernatural other than the supernatural desirables of its wholly natural authors.

So again we come up against this whole canard of faith applied to the provable and understandable natural realm when it is defined solely by the unseen, unknowable and supernatural realm of the gods. Even the bible tells us this.

Ray Comfort, then must either be a charlatan or wholly ignorant of both real reality and biblical reality.

And more importantly, this is just an example. His entire philosophy and blog is exactly the same.

How about this Proposition?

2008-06-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

You know I have written much about Rapture Ready and end-times-believing Christians in the past. They all believe it so firmly that no amount of reality will ever sway them. Their dishonesty in their very own writings and beliefs can never be changed. They all have their eyes to the sky looking for Jesus to return at any moment.

Then there are other Christians out there looking to make a few buck off these gullible people. Take for example the website You've been left behind.

I think that maybe I should into this racket as well. I mean that as an atheist, I will most certainly be left behind, and I will most certainly be able to send out emails and actively work with recipients of these emails. That is more than I can say for the staff of that other website. They will all be gone and cannot offer the personal services that I can, being as I will still be around after the rapture.

So what do you think? Should I go for it? I will even go so far as to offer cut-rate prices at half of what that other left behind site offers. Or should I just offer my services as a post-Rapture contractor (with the obvious pre-Rapture fees) to an already established firm?

Dishonesty and 'T'ruth vs real truth

2008-06-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

For decades (possibly even centuries) Christians have been champions of possessing Truth -- capital T -- which clashes with truth -- little t -- the knowledge of humans and their real world around them. The story told by Christians regarding evolution and creationism is the perfect and most clear example of this. Just look at the NYT article about the "strengths and weaknesses" debate in Texas. Much has been written about this article in science realms, so I need not go into that. I merely wish to point out this dualism of truth. The line in the article which shows this most starkly is this:

"Dr. McLeroy, the board chairman, sees the debate as being between “two systems of science.”
“You've got a creationist system and a naturalist system,” he said."

That is the reality of the difference of 'T'ruth and truth. Paul wrote in Romans, "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" [Rom 3:7 NKJV]. So we see that dishonesty is part and staple of furthering Truth. This is because the Truth of God's kingdom may mean lying about the truth of this material world. This is an ingrained belief of Christianity since the days the New Testament was written. It is exactly why the reality of this world can be so easily discarded by fundamental Christians, because what is true in reality has no value in God's realm. Just look at the only source of evidence of this Truth; the bible. It was written and interpreted by humans, living in the material realm. Yet it is the only source of God's realm where Truth exists. Thus the contradiction, the only source of God's realm of truth is via a materialistic, humanistic, realm of truth. If Truth can only be learned via the material (the bible), and the material has no value when compared to the Truth of God's realm, then there can be no way to know the Truth. That is where faith steps in, in God's realm of Truth.

This contradiction means that the only thing in the material realm -- that realm which we all know and experience on a daily basis -- that can be True is the bible. All else can neither be trusted or even called true. We see this to be fact in relation to evolution and the stance of people like Dr McElroy. If this obvious contradiction were to be lived out to its fullest by believing Christians, then they should be even more reactionary than the Amish or Mennonites who reject modern technology. For all that is built upon the backs of science and materialistic fact. Yet they do not reject the reality of modern technology. That contradiction of Truth vs truth is laid bare and completely ignored.

If only Christians could step back and look at themselves; their beliefs and real world practices, then they would be ashamed. They would all move to reject literalism because of its disasterous realities and all embrace a more liberal form of Christianity. Not that I see that happening any time soon though. The blinders that keep the strictly materialistic Bible firmly ensconced in this supernatural ether of God's realm cannot be lifted by logic, reality or truth. The lie of Paul has already cemented that.

When it comes down to it, the real difference between fundamental Christians and atheists is simple, These Christians want to accept as true something which they cannot know in a materialistic sense, and atheists only accept those things which are knowable in the materialistic sense. This total lack of understanding between the two groups is founded on this basic lack of fundamental cooperation.

Christians will never take a step back and look at their beliefs from a fact-based and true perspective, and atheists will never give in to the idea that the completely unknowable (i.e. faith) has any merit whatsoever to determine what is True and what is true only in the material realm.

It becomes obvious that 'T'ruth is inherantly dishonest, in that it relies on materialism and humanity but claims to be the pure extraction of the exact opposite; the Godly realm. Paul and his 'lies for God' and the constant lying about the truth of this material world are inherant staples of the fundamental Christian psyche. There is no distinction between dishonesty about the real world and professed faith in the 'T'ruth of the bible. Anyone, even every single Christian, can know the truth of this world via our amassed knowledge, but no one, no even one single solitary Christian can know anything about the Truth of God's realm, without faith -- the simple act of merely believing it is true without any way to know it is true.

I am sure we will return to this philosophical and theological discussion again in the future.

A Problem with the "Good Person" Test

2008-06-01T23:02:00.000-07:00

Now I wish to say upfront that I understand the ultimate purpose of this test; it is to simply show that there are no good people outside of accepting Jesus.

But we all know that this is total bunk. Even the most basic Christian who remembers even the tiniest amount of Sunday School knows this to be totally false. For that would mean that no one of the Old Testament made it into heaven, because they would have to pass this very same "good person" test, that is unpassable. Yet the Old Testament tells us of a number of Old Testament Persons who made it into heaven, some even bodily.

Thus we know the test is false and a flat out lie on its face. But have any Christians out there thought about what it means for that test to be false? I doubt it because it would mean that Christ is not necessary for entrance into heaven. And that is not what the New Testament tells us. So if those two testaments are in conflict, then which is right and what should we all believe, Christian and non-Christian alike. I will look at that question at the end of this post.

First, I would like to share with you the email I wrote to the authors of this "good person" test..

Greetings,
I just took the test, and I felt wholly unsatisfied. For I know of no one who passes, no matter their Christian leanings. All would fail regardless. Why?

Consider what you wrote:
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
There is none righteous, no not one. Romans 3:10

This is false and misleading. Just consider for a moment the Old Testament. Is Moses in Hell? Is Elijah in Hell? Is David in Hell? What about Aaron, Elisha, Lot, Noah, Solomon? Ruth? I think it harsh to call these people "righteous" "just" and "heroic" and yet tenets of hell. Don't you agree

So there must be a level of "righteousness" that gets one into heaven that a mere human can perform. This makes Jesus irrelevant. Again, I say, this evidence of the "righteousness" of many Old Testament Characters makes the redemptive power of Jesus irrelevant if one can maintain that same level of righteousness as the Old Testament Characters, unless they are not in heaven.

Then you wrote:
"Imagine you are standing in front of a judge, GUILTY of serious crime. All the evidence has been presented and there is no doubt of your guilt. Your apologies
and good works cannot erase your crimes; therefore you must be punished. The fine for your crime is $250,000 and you have no money."

But what happens if the judge is guilty of the exact same crimes as you, and all others, and guilty a hundred thousand times more than you are. If you stole a pen and the Judge stole thousands of acres of land. If you killed a person, but the
Judge killed tens of millions of people, if you raped, but the Judge raped thousands of young girls, and ordered the raped of countless thousands of more. If you blasphemed, but the Judge blasphemed many more times than you and all other humans combined. If you lied, but the Judge lied infinitely more than you. How can that judge be in any way superior and able to judge you?
Remember Paul told us that it is acceptable to lie in God's name. He wrote: "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" Romans 3:7 Lying for God is moral.

You also noted: "Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by GRACE ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: NOT of works, lest any man should boast.""
But in James 2:14 "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?" Followed by James 2:17, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead"

So even the bible lies and is misleading, and you fell for that lie. Just as Paul stated you would when he told you those of the bible would lie to further the message.

I suppose it would be easy to just say that because the New Testament happened second it should supercede the Old Testament. But that in and of itself creates a fundamental problem. God does not change nor does God's laws. Both Testaments attest to this. But if there is a fundamental change, that being that there is a way into heaven by being "righteous" enough, as the Old Testament states, then why even is there a need for the New Testament and Jesus Redemption, if everyone in the New Testament need only to live up to Old Testament standards?

Let me give you an analogy:

Suppose that you you live in an exclusive neighborhood, aimed solely at keeping out all crime. You and you family earned a spot in that neighborhood by being strictly lawful for your entire lives. This same strict standard also applies to all your neighbors. Now suppose some new owner of that subdivision comes along and says that anyone can move in, no matter what their past crimes are, if they simply accept him as their new lawgiver and they promise to abide by his laws. How would you and your neighbors feel that first of all being lawful is no longer the rule or standard, and second of all that murderers and rapists and theives are now allowed into your very own neighborhood, as long as they promise to abide by a set of new rules that didn't even exist when you moved into this neighborhood?

Yet this is the crux of the "good person" test. This is the very founding core of modern Christianity.

A New Day

2008-05-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

50 some odd years ago, "traditional" marriage was redefined to be between one man and one woman. That was the landmark court decision "Loving" in which an activist court fillied with activist judges decided that the majority will of the people was notvalid and decreed against the will of the people, that interracial marriages were not only valid, but legally binding.

At that time, the Christian right went nuts. How could these mere judges decide what not only was legal, but what was moral? At the time of the decision of Loving, "traditional" marriage changed from being between "one man and one woman of the same race" to "one man and one woman." And yet the idea of "traditional" marriage remained.

Today we are witnessing another change of "traditional" marriage. Only this time it is not a change in terms of one man -- many women, to one man one woman and many concubines, to parental arrangement of marriage between one too-young man and one too-young woman without the benefit of love. We are now seeing love take precedence. Choosing whom to love and marry is now becoming an actual personal choice between two adults who love each other.

That is a most positive movement, but it is not frought with pitfalls. There are still Rick Santorum's and Family Research Council's of this world who claim that this freedom is actually the downfall of all of society because it perturbs "traditional" marriage. A "traditional" marriage which they crazily claim has never changed since God laid down his law. Even though it has changed quite frequently throughout history.

Keep this in mind as you observe not just what happens in California this year, but also with these Christian groups who proclaim adherence to "traditional" marriage. For they are the ones with a lack of knowing of history, even biblical history. They are dangerous.

God, Satan and Armageddon

2008-05-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

I freely admit that there are many varying doctrines of Christian belief. The more fundamentalist and literal-minded they are, the more silly, and easily refuted. Thus it is not within the scope of this blog to debate the more liberal or figurative flavors of Christianity, merely because they require more in-depth argumentation and much more nuance. (It is easier to refute any and all known versions of "God" as being nonsensical.) So I stick with the straightforward fundie Christians. With that in mind, here is one lone paragraph from Joseph Chambers of Rapture Ready; "Hell is rehearsing for Armageddon." (Note, I really have no use for the rest of his essay, for it is absurd. This is the one single idea that really has any impact on Christianity in a general sense, the rest is cultist uber-belief .)

The entire “One World Government” and “One World Religion” that Satan will promote and control is his grand scheme to create such a world power and spiritual (evil) force that he can finally succeed in defeating God and take his seat as the “Supreme Authority.” You may say it is crazy to believe that Satan is expecting to win. How can you read his grand design for world control, economic mastery (by his controlling all buying and selling), and the entire religious harlotry of Biblical prophecy, and not believe Satan plans to win? Satan is preparing the ultimate effort to remove God from His throne, to defeat the Lord Jesus as the Savior of men and to defile the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit of Holiness. Believe the Word of God; Satan will lose.

I guess the most obvious is this, why would any supernatural being be obsessed with material things like wealth and power? It makes no sense whatsoever. Seriously, just look at how the supernatural is described by Christians. It is the realm of miracles, a total nonvalue of the material, timeless infinity, no cause and effect, unlimited pure knowledge and power beyond everything in the material realm. I would also add that the supernatural is wholly unaffected by the laws of physics or even nature as a whole.

So his own realm why then, would a supernatural being care in the least for the riches and materialisticness of the real world? Why would Satan care about money, gold, or wealth. For in

his own realm he can generate, out of nothing, an infinitely larger amount of gold and diamonds and money, etc.

The obvious answer is that Satan does this to entice us humans over to him with dreams of wealth untold. But just how realistic is that? Why the need to accumulate natural supplies of gold when miracles can produce so much more?

Now we've pondered the obvious, now let us consider the less obvious. why would Satan want to control this world? It is material, natural, after all. The Bible says that this world will not last forever, only the supernatural realm lasts forever, so why would Satan want to limit himself to something that is quite temporary? If his battle is against God, then this makes no sense whatsoever. In analogy, it would be like an enemy commander saying to his troops and the superior battle force, that he has no intention of winning the war, all he wants is to win some small, insignificant battle which in repect to the entire war is utterly meaningless. This is true because no matter how you slice Christianity, it teaches that this natural material realm is utterly meaningless in the scope of the Godly supernatural realm. Just look at these New Testament passages:
"Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things" [Col 3:2 NIV]
"There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another" [1 Cor 15:40 NIV]
"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands" [2 Cor 5:1 NIV]
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." [2 Cor 4:18 NIV]
"those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away" [1 Cor 7:31 NIV]

All of this really has to do with this passage, quite possibly my favorite:

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? [1 Cor 1:20 NIV]

And yet it is the foolish knowledge of this world that has made everyone as happy and prosperous as we are. Cell phones, microwaves, medicine, medicine, medicine, and can I also mention medical technology... All foolish knowledge in God's realm.

And in Satan's realm as well, since it is all in passing. I guess the really foolish are those who buy into this nonsense of God and his arch-nemesis, the devil.

Religion and Apologies

2008-05-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

I have a simple question. Why must a Christian or a particulr Christian religious sect apologize for something they preach? That sounds like a simple enough question, doesn't it?

But when you look at the apology of Rev. Hagee regarding the Catholic Church, Barak Obama regarding Rev Wright, the Catholic Church regarding Jews and WWII; and I should add the non (missing) apologies of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell regarding their "blame America first" excuse for the 9/11 attacks. You see a pattern. That pattern is that the apologies ring hollow, and missing apologies ring sincere. There is no apology for Christian doctrine. There cannot be. Just like Rev. Wright meant what he said, so did Jerry Falwell (along with Pat Robertson's agreement), Rev. Hagee, etc. They were not just "spouting off" they were saying things which are central to their Christian beliefs. They believe that of course the gays and the abortionists are responisble for 9/11 and hurricane Katrina. They view those as sins. So how can they take them back and apologize? They cannot.

The same is true for Hagee and his comments about the Catholic Church. According to his religious beliefs, it is the "great whore."

So are these people denying their core Christian doctrines? That would certainly be hard to do and yet remain true to their faith. It must, therefore, be talking out of the side of their mouths -- lying. For you cannot claim that you believe something to be absolutely true and recorded as such in the bible, then turn around and claim that you misspoke or said something that is more emotionally charged than based upon biblical teachings. For that makes no sense. You cannot have it both ways, telling everyone that morality is clear and absolute and defined in the bible, then turn around and say that you said something that you claimed was in the bible, but now apologize for because it isn't true.

I think what we see in reality is this: Preachers (et al) believe that the bible is true and their teachings are correct, but that they must be kept within the confines of the faithful. Once they make it out into the larger public, they must be denied. In other words, the public cannot handle the truth.

This means that there is some sort of disconnect between reality and biblical Truth. To most anyone, that disconnect begins and ends with reality.

[The irony is that this whole situation is a deep-seated throwback to pre-Christian religion precursors known as the "Mystery Religions"; Religious sects amazingly similar to Christianity in their views and details and who held that their most sacred religious truths had to be kept secret except for those few initiated into the inner sanctum. Sound familiar?]

Family Research Council Loses it Over McDonalds

2008-05-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

As you may have guessed, I am on the mailing list of many, many Christian organizations. I rarely ever discuss them. But this one from the Family Research Council absolutely takes the cake. No. This one takes the cake, imprisons the baker, shuts down all the flour and sugar refineries, and burns all wheat and sugar cane fields...

So why are they all pissed off at hamburger pusher, McDonald's? Let's see:

Sadly, McDonald's is now financing attacks on marriage and the family as a new Corporate Partner of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC).

The NGLCC promotes businesses owned by homosexuals, but it also pushes the homosexual political agenda in statehouses, courthouses, and the halls of Congress. Thought crime ("hate crime") laws, homosexual and transgender "civil rights" preferences, and domestic partner benefits are top-priority issues of the NGLCC.

So I guess now families of Christians are not allowed to eat at McDonald's because MickeyD's allows gays to work there and have, you know, lives. So now gays cannot even be allowed to work and eke out a most meager living working at McDonald's and should just all be unemployed and starve to death because of their gayness. And a company that looks out for all its employees equally is a bad thing because well, I guess because all gays should just waste away and die from being denied any life or employment.

I suppose that's true Christian love for you: Be unemployed and die you filthy fags!

Of course the saving grace to all this: No one, not even the most ardent Christian will stop eating at McDonald's. So not only is this latest FRC notice stupid, it is completely butt-assed ignorant stupid.

Note: The entire release by the FRC is below:

McDonald's is funding homosexual activism--and I'm NOT lovin' it!
May 5, 2008 Refer a Friend
Apparently, serving McFlurries and Big Macs to the public is no longer enough to satisfy the hunger of McDonald's to make a cultural impact on the United States. Sadly, McDonald's is now financing attacks on marriage and the family as a new Corporate Partner of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC).
The NGLCC promotes businesses owned by homosexuals, but it also pushes the homosexual political agenda in statehouses, courthouses, and the halls of Congress. Thought crime ("hate crime") laws, homosexual and transgender "civil rights" preferences, and domestic partner benefits are top-priority issues of the NGLCC.
Richard Ellis, Vice President of Communications for McDonald's, was recently named to the Board of Directors of the NGLCC. In a press release, the NGLCC praised Ellis for his "vast Board experience with LGBT and advocacy related organizations." It's alarming that the overseer of McDonald's advertising campaigns directly geared toward families will now be a leader in the NGLCC's campaign to weaken traditional values.
The NGLCC's efforts on behalf of homosexuality threaten the family, the definition of marriage and the very religious freedom we hold so dear.
Here are two effective action steps you can take to get McDonald's back on course:
1) Sign the attached petition to McDonald's Chairman Andrew J. McKenna. FRC will compile the names and signatures and deliver them to McDonald's at their corporate headquarters.
2) Print out the attached flyer (Click here to download a PDF of the flyer) and bring it to your local McDonald's restaurant. Ask to see the manager, give him or her the flyer, and respectfully request that he or she notify the corporate offices that customers are upset about this policy. We ask that you NOT attempt to post the flyer in the restaurant, hand it out to customers, or put it on windshields in the parking lot--just bring it to the manager. Be polite, of course (the manager probably is not even aware of this new corporate policy). DO print additional copies of the flyer and give them to your friends, however, and ask them to take them to the local restaurant manager as well.
McDonald's has enjoyed enormous success providing affordable food to billions of people; it should resist the temptation to play politics with its business. Thank you for taking action, and may God bless you.

McDonald's is funding homosexual activism--and I'm NOT lovin' it!

Sincerely,Tony Perkins
President
P.S. McDonald's has thrived on selling an array of affordable products to American families. Please forward this email to your family and friends and urge them to sign this petition to get this American-grown company back on track.

I have a truly hard time putting into words just how vile, disgusting and immoral these people are. The irony is that these vile and disgusting people are perfectly free to individually and as groups hate on and demonize anyone they like; they are free to go to their churches and pray to their gods that all gays suffer under torture for all eternity, they are free to express their hatred in whatever manner they desire as individuals and groups and churches, they are free to live their lives in whatever manner they desire. But they turn around and claim that those who disagree with them have no rights whatsoever to enjoy those same freedoms they do. That is beneath contempt. Any Christian who claims to be a patriotic American and believe in the Constitution and "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" should be fully ashamed of these Christian groups.

Evolution, Expelled, Christianity, and Hitler

2008-05-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

Over at Pharyngula, PZ posted this:

Now here's the thing, the world is a complicated place, it always has been. Then Ben Stein comes along and claims in his mock-u-mentary that "Darwinism" led to Hitler and Nazism. But something kept digging at my brain about this statement.

I finally came to realize just what it is. The same is true for Christianity as well, but not in the murder millions sense. Ben Stein claims that the concept of Darwinism (i.e. natural selection) gives rise to the social intent (purpose) of selecting races/groups/slivers of humanity as being superior and thus all others in need of extermination. But this is a social construct, and is utilized in many ways (again I will stress without the brutal murder and war). Christianity claims exactly the same thing as is applied to Hitler and Nazism as we see so clearly in Expelled.

What I mean is this: Look at Christianity as a religion and as a social movement. Christianity proclaims that it is an outgrowth and progression of the ancient Hebrew religion and is superior to all other religions. Christians actively spread out via missionaries to spread the good news of Jesus and convert all non-Christians to Christianity. That is exactly the same argument used against Hitler, and by extension evolution. In the case of Hitler, this Darwinistic natural selection is evil and proves why evolution is bad, but in the case of Christianity, this very same Darwinistic natural selection is good.

I can only conclude that science and Darwin had it just right all along. "Darwinism" spreads good and evil without conscience. If I were coming from the perspective of a Christian, that is. In which case I would have to thank Darwin and his natural selection for giving Christianity the exact tool to spread Christianity. For without natural selection, then it would be impossible for Christians to figure out a way to propagate their message.

This at least makes as much sense as Ben Stein does.

The reality is, "Darwinism" has nothing more to do with the spread of Christianity than it does Nazism and the holocaust. For to condemn "Darwinism" for Hitler's actions is the same as to blame the spread of Christianity on "Darwinism".

I have finally figured out that the spread of Christianity is exactly like, and completely analogous to the horror of Hitler and his extermination of Jews -- If "Darwinism" is used as the tool. In one case you have a superior race exterminating its inferior enemies, and in the other you have a superior religion extermininating its inferior religions. This is Ben Stein's folly: The holocaust is just as reliant upon "Darwinism" as is Christianity. And from the standpoint of Christians, this therefore cannot be all bad....

..or maybe, just maybe, reality and the actual theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with either, and this whole argument found in Expelled is total smoke and mirrors.

On A Personal Note

2008-05-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

I offer these videos soley as a personal feeling..

Toni Braxton.

Celine Dion.

And of course, Elvis Presley.

Fortunately I have not lost my loved one, but I am missing her, more than I ever thought possible. I long for the return of Ms. Jeffperado.

Is Christianity a Dictatorship?

2008-05-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

As I have pointed out many times in the past, there are a huge number of problems with the theology and logic of Christianity. The theology I focus on is the particulars of the bible and the logic is the practice of Christianity. My blog is dedicated to these things.

But today I have to approach a question that is so central to the idea of Christianity that it is not even considered by Christians, just openly accepted. That is, Is Christianity a dictatorship? I ask this because of an essay that Joseph Chambers wrote over at Rapture Ready. In it he was disparaging Catholicism, but he added this statement:

The Catholic view of both the political world and the church is that of a dictatorship rather than a democracy. They brag about their One World views and international monopoly of their contingencies, but their dictatorial and dogmatic approach has always squashed any private views or open debate. [emphasis mine]

Now I have to wonder, is Christianity (or Catholicism, for that matter) really a dictatorship or a democracy? For all I can see, if Christianity were a democracy, then it would be a majority rules situation. And since the majority of Christians happen to be human, then it would be entirely in the hands of humans to decide. Thus if a majority of human Christians decided that abortion and birth control were ok, then the Christian religion would thusly say it is ok. We know, however, that this is not the case. The last word does not come from human majority (i.e. democracy) but from on-high. That is Christianity is a pure dictatorship. Now what if that godly dictator set up a human surrogate (let us call this person, "the pope"), would not this person also have dictatoral powers? If God commanded His own authority within one person, the pope, then would that not constitute a dictatorship?

Then who is Joseph Chambers to argue against God Himself?

That is what I want to know. I say this because the pope has just as much biblical mandate as does Joseph to claim dictatorship. But what is really interesting is that somehow, in some biblical re-interpretation, Christians are magically transformed into a democracy, when every last word of God and law of God claims the exact opposite. God is the ruler, and God rules with an iron fist; so strong, in fact, that if one violates His laws here on earth, that person is eternally punished without any possibility of redemption. That is dictatorship at its extreme.

But just what does this say about our human endeavors into democracy and dictatorship? Shouldn't we all follow in God's model, if we are a God-fearing peoples?

Maybe I should turn this question over to the good folks of Christian Exodus....

Meanwhile, here is the return of the south's version of John Lennon..

Yes, I know Dolly is cheese, but her video, and interpretation of Lennon's song, is particularly powerful, if you ignore her person.

Nature of God is it Defined by Humans?

2008-05-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Jason Rosenhouse over at Evolutionblog has a very interesting post up regarding theistic evolution. I highly recommend that you read it. I'm not going to summarize it here. I am really only interested in his money-quote:

People like Ayala, Miller and Conway Morris are surely among the best theistic evolution has to offer, yet their arguments represent the crassest sort of desperation and special pleading. Ayala's argument for why evolution resolves the problem of evil is afflicted with obvious holes. (Lest you think that the Times article was too short for him to develop his argument seriously, let me assure you this is not the case. I have read his book, and he does not provide any additional illumination there.) Miller's argument is based on an obviously false premise, and even taken it at face value does not explain why Darwinian evolution specifically had to be the mechanism through which God created. Conway Morris' argument is almost certainly false biologically, but even leaving that aside it leaves us in no better position theologically than the ID folks. If we can not explain why God directly creates nasty creatures, we also can not
explain why he sets in motion a process that inevitably leads to nasty creatures. [Again, read Rosenhouse's article for this quote's context]

The tangent he presents here is what I am interested in. I rarely discuss theology here (I prefer the cold hard testimony found in the bible as the basis for my philosophical discussions and reasons to not believe in God.) But theology here is what is in question, and I think it is a very interesting question. The question is all about the nature of God. From the bible we are privy to many human-filtered aspects of God's nature; He is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, jealous, vengeful, just, and above all perfectly moral (but only because he is defined that way -- or should I say that morality is solely defined against the background of what God considers moral). Thus when we come across passages in the bible such as this: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." [Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)]

If we define God to be all good and all moral, then it must be moral for God to create evil. This is the loophole that is used by all theistic evolutionists which Rosenhouse is discussing. He nails the root of the problem that whether God directly created nasty and vile things, or just set up the process which would lead to nasty and vile things is no different. In a weak analogy, it would be like a car designer actively causing a cars brakes to fail by cutting the brake lines, or passively causing the brakes to fail by designing the brakes to eventually wear out, but do nothing to inform the car-owner of this defect. In both cases the brakes fail and the driver is injured.

So what we really have here is a question about the nature of God. We have the creationists on one side who claim god created everything exactly as it is, and on the other we have theistic evolutionists who claim that God set in motion a process which would lead to humans and nasty and vile things. But both have the clear problem that God created evil and sin and nastiness and suffering. This was Rosenhouse's point.

I would like to build on that and step ever-so-lightly into the realm of theology. Clearly the bible and Christianity define the nature of God. Those are our only sources for what the nature of God is. We certainly cannot determine the nature of God from independent sources. Nature and our (humanity's) own personal experiences cannot ascertain God's nature, because of the simple fact that we can never intersect with God. The only way to know the nature of God is what He intentionally reveals to us through super-natural interactions. The only problem with this, is the we (humanity) and nature have no means with which to filter this information, for we have no access to the supernatural; we have no knowledge of the rules and "nature" of the supernatural. All we have is nature itself.

This leads inevitably to two possible conclusions. The first is that religion (Christianity) must, by default, re-interpret the nature of God via the nature of humanity. Thus God is defined by human terms and given human characteristics. The second is that if the supernatural is undefinable because its rules and nature are by definition, unknowable, then it cannot be determined in any sense to be real or imagined. That is the exact definition of agnosticism. (As a side note, then atheism would be defined as saying that anything that is unknowable is not real until it can be shown to be real -- in other words atheism is the simple rejection of the existence of anything that cannot be proven real.)

I am interested solely in the first proposition. That God is supernatural and His nature is defined in the only way possible, via human terms and knowledge and experience. Thus any conception of God is a product of the incomplete knowledge and experience of humanity. I think it is then obvious to say that God can only exist in the natural realm because of humans. Humans place upon god their very own qualities and characteristics. Humanity knows of power, knowledge, justice, compassion, hatred, violence, meekness, and fealty. Thus those are the very qualities that humanity bestows upon their god. Humanity's god(s) is (are) simply super-sized expressions of humanity's own characteristics. In fact there are no qualities bestowed upon God (any god) which are completely non-present within humanity.

This, to me, is the most fascinating (and shall I say, damning) aspect of God; either God is severely limiting only to humanistic qualities, or there exists no qualities beyond the grasp of humanity. In other words, God is nothing but a "super-sized" human. God's qualities are all the perfections of all human characteristics. God can kill in a more perfect way than humanity, God can save in a more perfect way than humans. god is more powerful, more knowing, etc. But then have we not defined just what the supernatural is?

If the supernatural realm in which God resides is simply a drastic expansion of the qualities of the natural, then we are left with a clear theological problem. The supernatural realm cannot possess qualities with which we have counterpart. For example, time must be drastically expanded in the supernatural. But this leads to a real problem. Just like the problem of God being all good, but by default God has to allow evil to exist, God is all-powerful, but he does not have the power to simple will the devil out of existence. There is a limit to God's infinite powers. There must also be a limit to time. Again, this is all because we have seen that everything in the natural realm is greatly expanded in the supernatural realm if there is to be a supernatural realm at all. Also there can be nothing in the supernatural which isn't also represented in the natural realm, because we would be helpless to grasp it at all. Thus time itself must exist in the supernatural. And like power and goodness, it has its limits as well.

This means one thing. Time had to begin in the supernatural just as it did in the natural. It also means that God is a slave to time just as we are.

Thus: If we attribute to God qualities which we have as humans, and we have to limit those powers of God because if the powers of God were unlimited, then the natural world would not look like it does (and that is our only possible evidence at all). Then all attributes we give over to God must be similarly limited. But this means God is also a slave to time as well. God cannot be infinitely old. God had to have a beginning. This is certainly true in the same way other qualities of God are so limited. But if God had a beginning, then he had a cause too. Maybe that is the super-supernatural realm. I.e. the god that God worships.

But here is the crux. God by godly-constraint, has to allow evil and nasty things to exist, and He had to create them because He is the creator of all. God had to do this because he had to give humans free-will to choose between good and evil. They could not have free will if there was no choice to make. Thus God is responsible directly and absolutely for all the nastiness and evil and vile things. This is the blight on the supernatural chacter of God. For that is not all-good. The alternative is that humans do not have free will. Then the case is that either all humans go to heaven becuase they had no freedom of will to do evil, or those that did evil were specifically designed by God to be evil humans condemned to eternity in hell. In the second case God is a monster who deserves no respect and is completely deviod of even the most basic morals of humanity. In the first case, God created beings who are irrelevant, their lives have no meaning whether they are mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler.

If God created evil and allows free will, then the morality of the will is dependant on humanity, not on God, because God is just as limited and flawed as all humanity, just on a magnified scale.

See how confusing that all is when you want to bring the supernatural into the natural, especially when you can only claim to know about the supernatural those things which you already know about the natural.

Isn't it all much simpler when you only pay attention to those things which you can know and determine? That being the purely natural world. And that world has no god.

[Update:] As an analogy, suppose you are an American. You live by all the rules of America. You are well informed of the culture and livelihood of America. Now you come across an obvious foreigner. That person also abides by all the rules and laws of America. You also learn that that person has lived in America since their onset of adulthood. But you are unconvinced. You want to research that person. You find that that person has never been arrested, and in fact, has been a part of catching the bad guys in America. You would judge that person to be just and moral by the rules and laws of America. But heres the thing, you do not know his country of origin, you do not know if that person is a criminal in that country at all. You have no idea what the laws and morality of that country is, so you has no means to judge or determine the goodness of that person based on the rules and laws of his country of origin. You only have the powers and knowledge of your own country. That is God. We can only judge him and evaluate him based on our own knowledge and experience. And that means that we have an independent means and method with which to judge God. Thus god is subject to our rules and knowledge and experience. Not the other way around. That means we have no need for a God in the first place. So not only do we have no way of knowing if he really exists, we do not need him in the first place.

Faith, Prayer and Humanity

2008-04-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

CNN has an update on the story about the parents of a girl with diabetes who died because they decided to pray for her rather than send her to the doctor.

As always, PZ Myers has more on this tragic event.

I would point (maybe wag...) my finger at any believing Christian (I have Rhology, in particular, in mind) and ask them point blank whether they would take cold hard, fact-based, tested, secular, humanistic, agnostic science and medicine over the fantastical sky-fairy god of their very own religion when it comes to health and well-being of their children. If they say science and medicine, then I have to wonder just how much they really do believe in their magical sky daddy they call Jesus/God. If they say faith and prayer, then I have to wonder how much they really love their own children, since they could so easily be cured via human knowledge and ingenuity but are assigned certain death if faith and prayer is used.

Let us go back to the CNN article and look at a few statements of the Jesus-believing parents and friends. I really am curious as to just how out of the mainstream of Christian thought they really are:

Family and friends had urged Dale and Leilani Neumann to get help for their daughter, but the father considered the illness "a test of faith" and the mother never considered taking the girl to the doctor because she thought her daughter was under a "spiritual attack," the criminal complaint said.

Test of faith. Sounds reasonable enough from a Christian perspective. But we are presented with a tangible proof of just why it is not. A girl -- a young daughter -- needlessly died from an easily treatable and controllable disease simpy because the parents chose to trust God over trusting humans and human knowledge. Just look at what that faith in God got the girl; death. If this does not make you feel bad then I can only say that you are hollow and rotten inside. If you have faith in God them you have to side with the parents. That makes you a horrible person as well. If you trust in faith in God, but still would take your very own child to see a doctor, then you are admitting that faith in God is fantasy, and mere shadow in the light of reality. The whole "spiritual attack" is but icing on the cake. For if you are Christian, then you have to accept evil forces at work. And denying faith or prayer in lieu of human ingenuity and humanistic healing, then you have to deny the whole dark side of your belief. And in doing so, then you cannot accept Jesus, for his act was one of fighting an evil force, and not one of making an empty gesture in the face of only one being -- God (no devil).

According to court documents, Leilani Neumann said in a written statement to police that she never considered taking the girl, who was being home-schooled, to a doctor.
"We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her. My husband Dale was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor and I said, 'The Lord's going to heal her,' and we continued to pray," she wrote.

So how did all that praying work out? One dead little girl. Look at it this way: With medical help and friends and family praying, many children are healed and live. With praying alone, all children die. What is the random variable there? Medicine and science. Those things create healing. Prayer never does.

I wish the moral to this story was that faith and prayer are useless and superstitious wastes of effort and only through human knowledge and ingenuity can people live better lives. But you and I know that this will not be the real case. For all Christians will simply say that there was not enough faith or prayer present, or that it "was not God's plan" or some other fantastical baloney. They will never get it. They will never see that religion harms, it never helps. Especially in cases where simple human intervention and reality-based knowledge would help.

I do this, I write and I stomp my feet, because if I can get get even a few Christians to realize the absurdity of their beliefs (even if they are liberal Christians) and reject that, and accept real-world and truthful knowledge, then so many of our little tragedies (like this one) could be avoided. For accepting personal responsibility for ones own actions makes those actions much more personal, over attributing them to some magical sky fairy and absolving oneself of all personal responsibility. That is why atheistic morality is now and always will be far superior to any religious-based morality; because it is solely and uniquely based in the personally responsible category. No atheist can claim they did what they did because some sky daddy wrote it down in some musty old book.

Expelled! is Ignored

2008-04-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

The anti-science "mock"-umentary and Ben Stein comedy vehicle "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" just opened this weekend. The IMDB unofficial tally (note this is a dynamic page and a week from now the results will change) has the opening weekend take of Expelled at $3.15M. Falling just short of the children's actual comedy, "Horton Hears a Who" which amassed $3.5M.

[Update: Expelled only achieved $2.97M in the final tally. Horton managed $3.51M]

Maybe it is time for all those Christian conspiracy-theorists to just pack it up and go home if they cannot even sell their B.S. propaganda to Christians enough to surpass a bad Dr. Seuss movie.

Oh, and just what did Ben Stein's faux-documentary have to say about Christians who accept evolution (and thus destroy his entire thesis)? ...Why nothing, of course. No interview of Ken Miller at all. Certainly a gaping hole in his whole "believe in God and therefore be expelled from all science" theme. And who is Ken Miller?

Final Update: Check out this review by Alexander J. Sheffrin in the Christian Post. He says:

In an impressive opening weekend, the film debuted at No. 9 at the box office, earning a respectable $3.2 million while only appearing on 1,052 screens.

And now for some quick math.. $3.2M divided by 1,052 screens gives us $3042 per screen over the weekend. Now I am going to be kind here, lets assume just two showings per day for the three days. That means six total showings per screen. Also assume $9 per ticket (person). So divide $3042 by $9 and that that gives you a total of 338 people per screen. Divide that by six showings total per screen and that gives you a total of 57 people per showing. Now does 57 people in a theatre of lets say an average of 200 total seats sound like it could be described as "impressive"?

A reason to Return to the Catholic Church?

2008-04-20T20:08:00.001-07:00

Well, to be honest I'm only partly kidding. This is a priest who has a glimpse into reality, and could make a convincing case for Christianity -- If he were to remove all the miracle and supernatural stuff ala Thomas Jefferson.

These two clips have made the rounds on the internet. Here at Crooks & Liars and at BradBlog.
First here is what you saw on the O'Reilly Factor:

And here is the interview which actually took place:

It is clear to see that Bill O' is speaking as a completely hypocritical Christian and the priest as a true Christian. I don't know, but through all Bill O's ranting, he is coming close to placing himself in the role of anti-Christ (thanks to Rapture-Ready). Lying about men of God in the name of Jesus? Sounds pretty bad to me.

But again I have to give this priest many many kudos. He knows what is going on and what is true and real. Bill O' still does not.

God's Real Plan Revealed

2008-04-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

PZ Myers has a post up over at Pharyngula about a family of Christian missionaries. In this he cites a story about a plane crash and its survivors as well as fatalities. PZ's take on it is dead right. I encourage you to go over and read it.

But I am seeing some subtext here, and I thought it important enough to point out. We now have an actual peek into just what "God's Plan" really is.

"God's Plan" is to kill off all those who are not evangelical, fundamental, or Christian missionary types. For if there is no one left to preach to or convert, then all those missionaries' work is done and they can all go home and watch tv for the coming of Christ. For the more dead, the fewer there are to convert.

For the survival of a family of missionaries is much more important than the deaths of dozens of people for which God had no plan.

Curiosity

2008-04-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

I don't care what your political leanings, your religious leanings, or any other "leanings" are; but I am curious as to what you think.

Question:

Would you rather die for what you believe in -- say your rights in this country, or would you rather live and give up those rights?

See Crooks & Liars.

In my view, I would rather be a little less safe and a lot more free (but I see religion, for example, as what it is -- oppressive in said rights). I do acknowledge that there are others who are the opposite. I just see them as wanting it if -- and only if -- the limiting of rights is as exactly as they would have them, and not someone else would like to place upon them.

Food for thought.

Rhology and Morality

2008-04-13T23:28:00.001-07:00

A while back Rhology challenged me to respond to a thesis of his. I did. He then challenged me to respond to a moral situation. I did, here.

He then wrote a non-rebuttal rebuttal (read the comments --ignore mine for obvious reasons -- they are hilarious). I responded on his blog. But along the way I re-challenged him to examine his theistic morals/morality.

His response:

..Crickets chirping..

I really did not think my meager challenge would amount to much, because of its sheer simplicity. But maybe simplicity is the hardest thing to refute after all. Occam's razor and all that.

Here was my simple and meager challenge:

And finally. Here is my situation. You believe in the Ten Commandments I presume. One of which is, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Now presume your neighbor is married. His wife comes to your door; she is bloodied, barely conscious, obviously been hit by a baseball bat (or other blunt instrument) and says to you, protect me, my husband is trying to kill me. So you bring her in and give her all the aid you can, and call the police. Then your neighbor comes banging at your door, he has a gun and a bloody baseball bat. "Do you know where my $%@$#$ wife is?" Do you bear false witness against the wife and tell your neighbor, "No." Or do you tell the truth that she is inside (and the police are coming)? Sometimes lying is a good thing, but you would never know that from the Ten Commandments. Another example is a parent who sexually abuses their child. Should that child submit to the abuse and be right under the fifth Commandment that all children should "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you". Or should the child dishonor their parent and bring to light the evil that that parent does and therefore violate God's unequivical dictate?

Because it was buried within the comments of a post Rhology had been responding to, but is now ignoring, I will assume he did not read it. So I will pull it forward and open it up to everyone. What are your thoughts?

And Now for Something Really Surprising

2008-04-13T23:14:00.001-07:00

Get this! I actually agree with something written over at Rapture Ready.

Ron Graham pens a tangential critique of some book I will never read because it says something so dumb that reading it will not add one useful bit of knowledge. That is where we agree.

Ron and I agree that evangelism is not dead. Evangelism will exist as long as there are living Christians.

But as for the rest of his post... Well need I really comment?

Enjoy for yourselves.

A New Perspective on an Old Meme

2008-04-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

As you may well know, I am fascinated by Christian thought, rationalization, and theology. I read as much as I can, given my resources (of course). I generally prefer reading and learning about the more popular Christian sources -- in spite of the fact that I write about the more, shall we say, extremist, sources. Very rarely do I ever write about, say, liberal Christian views or theology.

There is a reason for that. It is not really interesting. The differences between liberal Christianity and secularism is almost undetectable. The only difference being the source of the supernatural (or lack thereof). Morality and life-views are almost identical outside of this mysterious supernatural realm. Giving liberal Christians, or even lapse Christians a pass is hardly difficult to fathom. They view the real world much as agnostics and atheists do: It is all up to us to make our lives better; some magical fairy sky-god isn't going to do all our work for us.

Which leads me to this abrupt realization. I, throughout all my reading journeys, have never come across something so stark and so startling as this statement:

Many religions describe many different gods. Buddhism has Buddha and other gods; Islam has Allah; Hinduism has 300 million different gods from which to choose; and while Judaism’s god seems very similar to the Biblical version, Judaism’s god is one that requires little faith and lots of works. Any god that is different than God Himself is a false god, and there are many in the world today. [emphasis mine]

In other words, there is no Judeo-Christian God. There is a Jewish god and the one, true, Christian God. The two are not the same.

I just wonder if the god of the epistle writer, James, is not the one true God either...

18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? [James 2:18-22 NKJV]

James seems to be saying that gobs of faith (as was shown by Abraham) and lots of works. But then again James only wrote one minor epistle in the New Testament, so he can be ignored.

Oh and the source of that quote? Jason Lovelace in his piece, "The False Gods of this World" over at Rapture Ready.

Would it be bad of me to remember this and pull it out any time some Christian mentions "Judeo-Christian God" or uses the Jewish (i.e. Old Testament) bible as proof that Jesus is part of some trinity of gods which includes said Jewish "God"?

Nekkid Ladies and Dick Cheney

2008-04-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

There is a news story floating through the internets about a photo on the White House web site showing a reflection of a naked woman in Dick Cheney's sunglasses. (Example here).

(Link here to original)

The problem is this, it is not a person at all. It is a reflection of Cheney's hand holding his fly fishing rod.

While a good story and I am sure it will continue to make the rounds, it is nothing in reality.

Sorry.

(P.S. is there any reality, or space-time dimension, in which a woman would want to be naked in front of Dick Cheney?? The cost of that would dwarf anything Elliot Spitzer ever paid for sex....)

[Late, late update:] But I will say this much, what is up with his teeth? Are the millions he reaped from Halliburton not enough to get his teeth cleaned and capped?

Atheist Statistics

2008-04-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

I really hate to base yet another post on a YouTube video, but...

(Thanks to Dirk Diggler over at Unscrewing The Inscrutable)

Personally, I have to really think on the implications of these types of statistics. For on the one hand it shows that the more you learn about the world, and the universe we live in, the more likely you are to dump God. But on the other it shows, quite starkly, just how right the religious right is in their hatred of education and learning. Keep people stupid and they belive in God, allow them to be educated, and they begin to ignore pre-historic god figures. Facts and reality do not jive with any sort of God-belief at all.

The bible, in its entirety, is my best proof of this. I have spoken at length about the problems, errors, and outright unfactual "facts" found in the bible. I have even written a book about this subject. God kills babies, willfully, and with intent. But today God hates abortion. I guess god hates doctors taking over His role? Oh wait, doctors today heal people of illness, yet in biblical times, it took a prophet of God, or his own Son, to heal the sick... Christians Unite! No longer is abortion the only right-to-life God morality issue, going to the doctor is just as evil. Or something like that.

And of course, my thanks go out to Rhology. For he has proven beyond all doubt, that fact, proof, education, are all in the eye of the beholder. With Rhology, if it is supernatural it is real and proof in and of itself, and the pittling proof and facts I offer of this world we all know is nothing compared to his causeless god who caused the cause-needing Universe. For with logic like that, I am but a child in a world of doctorates.

I obviously, can only be defeated by a level of knowledge and fact which can possibly claim that even though the bible tells us the value of pi is 3.0, that in reality it is only an approximation because of the imprecise language of the ancient Hebrews, but on every other matter (that is not related to science or mathematics) the Hebrew text is completely and utterly true and factual and the absolute words of God (not word of God).

So we are back to fact and fantasy, education and ignorance, academic and religious. Statistics show that the more one leans to former and less the latter, the more one tends to be atheistic.

All the more reason to make sure all our children are better educated.

This is pretty cool too:

Let us close with Dolly Parton, a Tennessee establishment:

Rhology's "Scenario"

2008-04-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

In my post "Atheist Morality" Rhology challenged me to this scenario: (Which he gave me permission to copy in its entirety, and is shown below.)

This is probably my last post before the Christ-mas holiday takes me away from the computer for a while. Merry Christ-mas!I'll celebrate by posing a slightly disgusting question for atheists to answer as they like:

Situation: You are traveling in a foreign land and go to an out-of-the-way picturesque temple. There you meet a native, there to offer religious piety. He finishes lighting
his candle and then greets you, speaking serviceable English. Edit: He introduces himself as Tkalim.He offers to tell you a little about his religion. You, being the courteous gentleman/lady you are, invite him to proceed. He tells you that he and his whole society worship 5 gods of the fish, air, earth, fire, and tree. He then tells you that part of his worship devotion is to go with all the men of his society to steal girls between the ages of 3-8 years from their families in the nearby large city, take them into the jungle, and rape them.

Once raped, the tribesmen leave the girls in the jungle as an offering to the tree god. He says he knows of no girl that has ever returned to the city to her family.

Once he finishes his story with calm voice and clear eyes, he falls silent.

I have something to say to him about this practice. What would YOU say? How would you try to explain that what he is doing is wrong? *Is* what he is doing wrong? On what basis?

Interesting.

I am sorry, I meant boring! First of all just how stable would this be as a moral imperative? Certainly the members of the society who had their girls stolen would be quite (and I say this delicately) pissed. Surely after enough time they would retaliate. This retaliation is what we commonly know as war. They would have a good reason, their girls were being raped. Now is war moral? If your self-preservation is on the line then yes. Clearly we have a situation where war is moral. But what of the other side. They were following a "moral" practice and now are fighting for their lives because of it. Is that moral? No. Because win or lose, they lose valuable resources: their men, their religious practice during the war, and much time and effort which could have been avoided.

As for the coda. How horrible is that for those on the side of morality? They say it is acceptable because none of the victims complained?? Read the Bible. It is rife with victims who never complained (most likely because they were women or children who were stoned to death); and yet died because of moral tenets that everyone today would call vicious and horrid (killing children because they were disobedient, killing virgin women because they were raped and their rapist wanted nothing to do with them, etc.)

Morality is sick when it comes from any supposed supernatural outside-of-human-experience source. Morality only becomes useful when it stands the test of time and human experience. That is precisely why things such as incest, slavery, and plural marriages are now immmoral when they used to be moral within the framework of the Bible, and things like interracial marriage and freedom are now moral when they used to be immoral.

I don't make these rules or decide morality. And it certainly isn't the Bible either. Society does, and it does so only after time and (human) experience determines it as moral. Morality is uniquely human, even in Christian and Jewish circles (which claim to use the same faux source -- God).

Oh, and as for any argument that I ignored/failed to respond to/provided no substance for, Rhology's actual argument. Take what I offer as fair and balanced. For I have never once claimed that because the bible never says anything about genetic manipulation or cloning it is ignoring or providing no substance on those specific issues. (I simply claim that the bible is a work of its times and that it predated real science -- thus has nothing to say on it at all).

Update: Rhology, I never imagined that you would consider your very own duaghters being raped a moral act, if that rape was performed in the name of some god (any god at all), whom of supposed supernatural origins, could never be contested via human experience that rape is bad. In other words, would you Rhology, allow your daughters to be raped if God ordained it, but would call it immoral if some other god ordained it, both being via supernatural origins.

A Bizarre Poker Hand and a Math Puzzle

2008-03-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

Ed Brayton shows a YouTube video of a very unusual hand. For fun, I'll include the video as well.

My puzzle is this. Obviously -- do I even need to say that? -- we in Vegas have thousands of video poker machines. If you've never played them then this may be unfamiliar to you. But there are two methods of handing cards based on the cards held out of the five original cards. With each of those methods comes a prababilistic model one can use to establish the probabilities of a winning hand. But the really interesting mathematical question is how to determine which of the two methods is used by the poker machines. Or can it be determined?

First let me briefly describe the game (we'll limit it to straight poker, but joker poker is essentially the same problem but with one wild card added to the deck -- deuces wild is the same as straight poker). You are given five cards, anything including or better than a pair of jacks wins. You can keep any cards dealt or dump all five cards. Replacement cards are then dealt, and you win or lose based on those final five cards. Thus, at most ten cards in play from a deck of 52 (or 53 with the joker). The question is how are those ten cards handled by the machine? The two methods of dealing those cards are:

1) five cards are dealt and then five replacement cards are used based on the number of cards discarded. Thus at most ten cards are in play, and the replacement cards merely move forward in the stack to replace the disdcarded cards. For example the ten cards are numbered (unrelated to their actual value) 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. If the player keeps two cards, let's say in position 3 and 5, then cards 6,7,8, move into positions 1,2,4.

2) five cards are dealt and five replacement cards are underneath the five original cards, as if there were actually five stacks of two cards, with the second card hidden underneath the first card. Going back to our example: 1(6),2(7),3(8),4(9),5(10). If the player keeps the same cards, 3 and 5, then cards 6,7,9 are revealed.

Now in case one, it is obvous that it would be impossible for cards 9 and 10 to be revealed, but in case two it would be impossible for cards 8 and 10 to be revealed.

So herein lies the mathematical interest. Which situation would give a player (or the house) a stastical advantage? And more importantly, without knowing how the cards are dealt out, can one determine which method is used, even if no advantage is conferred by either method? Your knowns are what I sketched out above, plus the fact that no hand can be replayed to see if different cards are given out in the exact same situation.

The answer to the first question is faily obvious I would think, it is the second question that makes this puzzle interesting.

Christian Exodus: Christians Shoot Selves in Foot With Gun

2008-03-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

I have always maintained that the most fundametal christians tend to be the least logical, knowledgeable, truthful, and intelligent people. I think this "news" post from Christian Exodus proves it.

The US Supreme Court is hearing debate about the meaning of the 2nd Amendment - specifically whether it protects a "collective" right to keep and bear arms or an "individual" right. What seems to be missed is the fact that ALL rights are individual and NONE are collective. We do not assume unto ourselves more "rights" simply by increasing our numbers. More numbers results in more "might" but not more "rights". The best treatise on this subject is The Law, by Frederick Bastiat, which can be ordered from CE's online store here: Online Store

I will ignore the sound of shooting oneself in the foot here. For if this is a country of completley individual rights, then there can in no possible way be a collective right of Christians to call this a "Christian nation" since the collective nature of this country being Christian in no way overrules this superior "individual" rights rule, and more importantly, if individual rights rule, then Christian views, morals, and majority has no "collective" right to tell "individuals" what they can do, say, believe, or practive as individual rights.

Christian Exodus has just proved beyond all doubt that this is not a Christian nation, and Christian ideals have no place being used as rules for all individuals in this great nation.

One thing this "news" article proves, there is no limit to stupidity, individual or collective.

Update: Here is the email I sent to Christian Exodus. I wonder if they will reply or not...
Recently, your president of Chrsitian Exodus wrote: "What seems to be missed is the fact that ALL rights are individual and NONE are collective. We do not assume unto ourselves more "rights" simply by increasing our numbers. More numbers results in more "might" but not more "rights". "

Now I have a problem with this. If what he wrote is true, and what he wrote, he truly beleives, then there can be no "Christian nation" and there can be no laws against abortion, stem-cell research, euthenasia, or any other anti-Christian stance because all American rights are individualistic and not collective. Thus your president has just argued that the collective Christian morality is invalid in this country, and individualistic rights and values take supreme precedence over any Christian value.

In other words by saying, and I again quote, "What seems to be missed is the fact that ALL rights are individual and NONE are collective. We do not assume unto ourselves more "rights" simply by increasing our numbers. More numbers results in more "might" but not more "rights"." that there is no Christian nation, and the entire existence and purpose of Christian Exodus is a fraud, because even by moving to South Carolina, if there is even just one non-Christian resident they have each and every single identical right as the Christian Exodus Christians and have every right to live their lives as they see fit.

With this one statement by Christian Exodus, the entire premise of christian conservatism has been completely unfounded and without any merit at all.

Every single liberal, pro-choicer, gay and pro-seperation of church and stater thanks you for finally coming around to agree with them. You have just admitted that they are right and you are wrong.

And you did this all for guns. May you and Jesus enjoy your guns while liberals enjoy the country you just handed them.

Thank you,
--jeff-perado

Still Waiting for that Fabled Christian Love of Enemies

2008-03-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Jesus said:

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighborand hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. [Matthew 5:43-45 NKJV]

As an atheist I only guessed that I was an "enemy"... But I have to wonder now. For I have gotten no love from any Christian at all. Not one person took the trouble to send me any of the pro-Christian apologetics materials I requested in this post. I can only guess that either spreading the gospel of Jesus is a false canard for Christianity, or virtually all of today's Christians are not actually Christ-like and all are just as hell-bound as I am.

But as I am a kindly soul, I am willing to offer second chances. You can make up for your sins against Jesus' teachings here and now. Here is the list of Christian materials I desire to read and learn from:

First up is this tome from Coral Ridge Ministries. Who Is This Jesus; Is He Risen?- Book and DVD

Next is the book by Norman Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback)

Otherwise I would love to have copies of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ and C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Both of which I have read before but were not my copies and I had to give them back.

Please email me for my mailing address. If you have ideas for some other books in the apologetics vein which you think would be useful, please let me know in comments.

P.S. I certainly appreciate more comments along the vein of Rhology's as they just do more to show how hollow, deceitful, and hypocritical many Christians truly (or should I say 'T'ruly) are. Rhology makes me proud to have given up Christianity and in its place embraced humanism.

Rapture Ready pt II -- Heathen Rapture Debunked

2008-03-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I identified a two part series of posts by Wilfred Hahn over at Rapture Ready. I will focus on part II in this post. We have already seen how he ignores fact and reality to twist current world events into "proof" that rapture is imminent. Only he showed that in reality it is nothing more than a self-generated series of events that have no relation to anything supernatural -- i.e. God. In spite of this plain and simple fact, he proceded to expound on his thesis that somehow, someway, nonChristians can see these events and recognize that the coming of Jesus is indeed a certainty in short order. In his opening paragraphs of part II he writes:

Therefore, the simple question we pose is this: If Christians, who supposedly possess the Bible and therefore are without excuse to hear what God says and means, would at least non-Christians have a legitimate excuse for their blindness? The Bible answers this question clearly in the negative. Unbelieving humanity will have no excuse.
While Christians also “have the word of the prophets made more certain” (2 Peter 1:19) the entire rest of the world still remains without excuse. This indictment is even more valid today. Why? The first verified appearance of the prophesied Christ has already occurred. If He “[…] had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.“ (John 15:22) Moreover, God “has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:31)

Any time a fundamentalist Christian uses a Bible quote in their argument, I know that I can easily defeat their argument. For there is not one single quote in the entire Bible that proves anything at all. even the moralistic quotes only show that the Bible writers were aware of moral tenets that others had also learned through non-God-revalatory methods (trial and error). But lets look at this passage from Wilfred.

The first verified appearance of the prophesied Christ has already occurred. If He “[…] had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.“ (John 15:22)
Well then, wouldn't we all be better off if we had never heard anything of God, Jesus or his message, because then we would be free of all guilt! But we know that is false. Even the Bible denies this. For look at the very first book of the Bible. The story of Noah should be enough to prove this false. Innocents who had never heard of God were all summarily killed off, even animals. So this is a lie. It is certainly not a good start to convince non-Christians of the accuracy and supremacy of the Bible. and if this blatant falsehood is protrayed as proof of Jesus, then there is no reason to believe at all. (or maybe telling lies is how proof is given; See Paul in his epistles to the Romans, "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" [Romans 3:7 NKJV] )

Moreover, God “has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:31)
Excuse me, but no proof of anything is not the same as proof of something. Prove that Jesus was raised from the dead first. That is a pretty extraordinary claim, and somebody merely saying it happened is not enough. If it were, then all Christians should be Mormons, since the claim of Joseph Smith should be enough proof that it really happened (The visit by the angel Moroni). Besides we have already seen that the founding Christians, like Paul, were willing to lie to further their evangelical goals, so how can we take a statement by another "Paul" as truth, if it is established that they lie?

So let us continue and examine just what the next five end-times signs Wilfred has lined up to prove to us heathens that the rapture is real.

6. World Energy Supplies

At first you may wonder just what our world energy supplies has to do with rapture and the Bible.. That is an easy one to answer; nothing at all. But, as I am sure you could have guessed by now, the obvious is not what Wilfred wants to discuss:

In recent times, energy prices have been soaring. What could this have to do with the endtimes? It certainly speaks of an eventual end at least of one type — the end of the Oil Age. Our secular observer of this development — whether an energy expert or geopolitical strategist — would agree that oil assuredly will run out some day based upon present-day trends. Moreover, they will also surmise that this will have a destabilizing effect upon the world. But, from the evidence, could they also conclude something more apocalyptic even without reading the Bible?

The answer to his question is: No. Of course everyone agrees that oil will run out. It is a finite quantity after all. But science and almost everyone who is not an insane conservative also knows that new alternatives to oil are possible and should be researched. Science wants to solve the Oil problem -- the energy problem -- by finding new sources of energy, but that requires money. Liberals and heathens want to give them this money, conservatives want to invest in finding new places to drill for oil. ANWR anyone? So no, there is no evidence of "something apocalyptic" coming in terms of energy except that Cheney and Republicans do not want to change from oil. So the problem is the stubbornness of conservatives, not the supply of energy. So, again, conservatives cause the problem and then these end-of-the-world religious nutjobs claim this means something that it does not. What they fail to realize isthat they are only setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Consider these facts: Roughly three-quarters of world oil reserves are found in countries that are either predominantly Islamic or members of the 57-country member Organization of the Islamic Conference. Muslim nations have 3.4 times as much oil per person than the world average and almost 7.7 times as much as major Christian nations — what I call the Top-10-X countries

So what? Oil is found in a region that has also traditionally been Islamic. Let's see what Wilfred says:

These facts and many improbable others relating to the world’s hydrocarbon situation today, beg incredulity and statistical probabilities. Observing all of these improbable facts (For a full list of more than 20, please see the article series in Midnight Call, Final Combustion: Oil, Islam and the Christian West — April to July 2006), a geopolitical analyst today would be alerted to a cosmic time plan that is indeed headed for a flash point.

Improbable? How is it improbable that a valuable resource winds up being discovered in a region that nothing else at all to offer -- thus making that region poor and backward. I would counter with the example of diamonds in South Africa. That region contains many resources other than diamonds, and yet it is still poor. The injection of diamond wealth still did not affect the overall population. And their predominant religion? Christianity. So Wilfred is just chasing a logical fallacy here, trying to equivocate two unrelated facts into one cause and effect.

And that "cosmic time plan"? Well it seems to be that nothing here on earth in terms of resources is infinite and will run out. It is up to humans to either conserve that resource or find alternatives to it when it runs out. Wilfred is an idiot.

7. Populations and Pensions

Can I just skip this with merely the observation that Wilfred is an idiot? No? Ok. I guess it is true that ad hominins do not suffice as logical argument. So the world's population is growing. I can only reiterate that all the world's resources are limited, not just oil. Food and land are limited as well. But increasing the world's population is solely within the religious doctrine of conservative Christianity. Abortion and contraception are bad things to them. They are the ones pushing for a larger population. The problem is of their making. But guess who has the solutions? That's right, the non-Christian heathens, the liberals, and science.

But the obvoius is not where Wilfred goes:

What kind of crisis is expected? Not a population explosion as has been feared in recent decades, but rather an implosion. Where it once was feared that the world would soon be overburdened by too many people, world population growth has since slowed dramatically from the peak rates of the 1960s. Demographic experts are already predicting that the world’s population may actually decline 25 to 50 years from now. Crucially, world population trends have moved from one extreme to another in less than one century — a relatively short span on the human timeline.

What?? I don't know what dope this guy is smoking but I want some. We have added almost a billion people since 2000. And what experts are predicting a decline? All I can find is that there are some who think that we have already overtaxed our resources and thus we cannot sustain our current population. But that is an unproven hypothesis. Other --equally as valid -- experts say that the earth can sustain a human population of 10 billion if our resources are properly managed. The problem with their estimate is that it requires liberal leaders willing to exploit new ideas and new resources instead of conservatives who want the same ol' same ol'.

As it stands today, all our problems are fixable, but only if a new, progressive, leadership is in place to push for it. The environment will not survive if tired old conservative ideals are continued. The oceans, our energy, our farmland all will collapse unless new ideas are used. So the conservatives that Christians push to lead us are the source of the problem facing us all as a population. This means Christianity is the problem, not the actual sustainability of our planet. (I realize I am oversimplifying here, it is religion in general, in other regions of the world the religion for the same attitudes is different, but the general attitudes proffered by religion is the same no matter what the religion or where it is.)

8. Geopolitics and Human Conflict

Ah yes, the war and complete nuclear annhilihation argument. We certainly have that power now in this point of human history. It would also be nice if we had cooler heads prevailing when it comes to war. But as always it is the ultra-conservatives who push for war. Liberals always are on the side of peace. Haven't we had this argument now here in the U.S. since 2003 when Bush and his hawks invaded Iraq? I can only guess that Wilfred was hibernating in his religious cavern during this time.

To some, it appears certain that it will be “religious fundamentalism” that brings the world to this state. Or, it could simply be the warlike characteristic of man in an age of advanced weaponry and geopolitics that must lead to such an outcome. Recently, comments about a possible World War III have been popularized in relation to Iran’s purported nuclear build-up. World wars are a modern invention, the first two of which have only occurred in the last 100 years. Whatever the case or the cause for a WW III, the secular analyst must conclude that it could soon hold dire implications for the world.

Well he has me there. I certainly think it will be religious extremism that ends us as a race. Be that religion Christianity or Islam it does not matter. Religion, as a whole, is the most likely source of our demise. That means religion is the evil among us. So how is this an argument for believing that religion is our savior?

Oh, and for what its worth, Wilfred is completely ignorant of actual world history. There have been a number of world wars before WWI and WWII. They just weren't labeled "world war". The Romans, the Huns, they were warring parties that engulfed the entire known world (at theor respective times) in war. Technology changed but that is about all.

9. Environmental Concerns

Haven't we already covered this many times? Does Wilfred not realize that these things are all intimately connected? Oh, that's right the "environment" to the right means nothing more than "glabal warming."

Is the earth wearing out? Despite the fact that there is a contested debate about global warming and various other environmental issues today, the Bible says that the world will run down. “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies.” (Isaiah 51:6) No matter that globalists might want to use such issues as global warming to further their humanist agenda, it is factual that the world is being indelibly changed in our day. Pollution has had an indisputable impact in many ways. Forests are disappearing at a rate that is not sustainable. Fish stocks in the world’s oceans are being gradually depleted. There are a large number of similar developments that are observable in the world, as the wearing out of a garment. Indeed, some effects can be reversed. But all the same, the logical analyst
would still be faced with this question: How long can such trends continue before deeper crises impact the world?

Whoa! What else if left for me to say. I could write something very similar to this to prove Wilfred wrong. "Humanist agenda." Yeah, that is the agenda where we humans want to protect and preserve our world and our environment so that it endures well beyond our own meager lifetimes. It is the religionist agenda that selfishly abuses every single resource we have with no thought for tomorrow or much less a century from now. It is the religionist agenda that craves war and conflict. It is the religionist agenda that sucks up all the wealth from every other sector of humanity. And in answer to Wilfred's question, those trends can only last until religion as a whole is dropped from the human collective. Then things can begin to improve. The end-times that Wilfred envisions is one solely and wholly created by religion. "Humanism" is the only rational and reasonable solution.
10. Technology Signs
One would expect that this would be a diatribe railing against all modern technology which has caused as much harm as good. But you would be wrong. In fact Wilfred goes in the exact opposite direction. His claim is that all our modern technology should be seen as showing even more proof that God created everything. How this fits in with his main thesis -- that these are the top ten things a heathen would recognize as being signs of the end-times is beyond me. This seems to prove the exact opposite..

But there is a paradox in all this. Consider that two thousand years ago Apostle Paul could write this: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
If Paul at that time — pre-technology and pre-modern-science — could deduce that God must exist based upon knowledge about the physical universe known then, why not more so today? That should be the logical conclusion. Yet, modern man has taken the opposite posture. He chooses to worship mankind itself rather that the original Creator of all this know-how in the first place.

I think that today's known human knowledge shows the exact opposite of what he claims. The size and nature of the universe is the exact opposite of what the bible teaches. The age of the universe contradicts what the bible claims. And these are simply facts, we are not even considering the theories which arise from these facts.

Oh and just what knowledge of the universe did Paul possess? That the sun revolved around the earth, that the earth was flat, that the stars could fall to the earth, that demons caused disease and prayer could cure said disease. There is no knowledge at all in that which could be said to be useful in understanding the universe, or even God, for it was all wrong. If the knowledge used at that time to create a god was wrong then there could have been no god at all, if the knowledge we have today shows there is no god then this is not somehow tristed proof that there really is a god, as Wilfred claims.

From there he has a few closing comments. Here is one:

Christians have even less excuse. There are 2500-year old Bible prophecies that can only take place in an advanced technological age such as today. For example, the statement about the two witness that “for three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial” (Revelation 11:9) has obvious implications. This could only occur as of this last half-century — the era of communications satellites. What nation, language or kindred people’s today would not have access to the internet or television over a 3 and ½ day period?

Could there possibly be any more of a ridiculuous statement? The inclusion of three and a half days proves that the Bible writers knew of satellites and the internet? How absurd is that? I guess the fact that the known world at that time was all contained within a small area, and the other areas, Africa and Asia were considered off-limits and not-essential. (consider this statement regarding Paul: "Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia." Here is the quote in context: Acts 16:5-7 [New King James Version]. ) Ignoring huge chunks of the world certainly makes it a smaller place don't you think?

But even more importantly, look at that passage again. What does it have to do at all with all tribes knowing about all other tribes at all? What does it saying about knowing anything at all about everything going on in the world at all? It takes a warped mind to read the internet and satellite communication into that passage.

But I have to say this, and I cannot stress this strongly enough. I have to thank our good friend Wilfred. For he has proven to me that without a doubt Christian thought and the foundations of current Christian thought are fully without any merit or validity at all. Wilfred has done more to strengthen my disbelief than all the atheist writers I have read, combined.

Democrats and Religion -- Obama Edition

2008-03-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, I want to apologize for drifting off on tangents in this post. But I think it will all tie together nicely in the end. That good ol' shuck and jive meister, Charles Krauthammer, has a column up concerning Barak Obama. (For the record, I think it is about time we had a president with a curiously foreign-sounding name...) Let see what Chuckles has to say:

Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented HIV "as a means of genocide against people of color"? Wright's claim that America was morally responsible for Sept. 11 -- "chickens coming home to roost" -- because of, among other crimes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Now first, we have this HIV myth. It has about all the merit of the rightwing myths of the banning of DDT or the fluoridation of our drinking water supply. In other words it is complete bunk so that can be written off by anyone with half a functioning brain (alas our poor Mr. Krauthammer does not measure up to this level of functionality.) But notice the second statement, that We, as Americans, deserved 9/11 becuase of our moral failings. Considering that Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell said exactly the same thing, I don't see how this guy can be singled out for this "crime" of anti-Americanism. If Wright is guilty then so is the entire Religious right -- There is not one single conservative/fundamentalist preacher in existence that hasn't blamed America for its lax moral attitudes towards gays, abortion, and sex in general. But we will see this is the very thing our good buddy Krauthead focuses on..

Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"
But that is not the question. The question is why didn't he leave that church? Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"? Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.

God Damn America is the point that really gets Chuckles' panties in a bunch. But what is the difference between saying that God damned America using 9/11 as the tool, which is what the Religious Right did, and saying "God Damn America" which is what Wright did? But the sinkhole of illogic does not stop there. For the Religious Right never stops once it goes too far. That bottomless pit of a hole it digs can certainly be dug deeper. They go on to say the same thing about Katrina and New Orleans -- God punished Americans because of moral failings. They protest funerals of American soldiers because these soldiers are defending America, and America deserves any punishment it gets because of its moral failings; so says Pastor Fred Phelps.

The "blame America first" crowd is certainly the entire collective Religious Right. Yet who gets spanked for taking their religion too seriously? Barak Obama. Not McCain, not Bush, not any Republican leaders in Congress, and not a single Republican politician across our great nation. No, it is Obama.

I can only find one distinguishing factor, that pesky 'D' after Barak's name. Apparently only Republicans can subscribe to fire-and-brimstone Christianity. No Democrats allowed.

Unfortunately, I am just a wee bit sympathetic to that sentiment. I am a believer in seperation of Church and State. I would like to think that my party, the Democratic party, also wants to adhere strongly to the Constitution, as well. Let the Republicans piss all over our founding document while simultaneously describing it as honoring the Constitution by "showering it with gold."

Democrats can be religious, I have no problem with that (yet I will still mock their religion, but they are free to believe anything they want.) I just wish that they would make their religion a personal and private thing; not incorporate it into their political character they play on TV.

Krauthammer is a vile human who has contorted reality to such an extent that if one is a conservative Christian who claims God damned America because of America's morality, that is ok, because it is the strong Christian morals speaking, not hatred of America. But if a liberal Christian utters "God Damn America" forget all about the underlying Christain morals, focus on the hatred of America.

I can only surmise that if you make your bed with Christian morality, then wherever that morality leads is fine, no matter what the consequences (America deserved it). but if you make your bed with the Constitution and holding dear the idealism that is America, then Christian morals lead you to violate your first, true calling, that is America.

Democrats need to remember this. Leave religion, like sex, at home in their personal lives. Let the Republicans force their religious views and sexual appetites into the public. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Republican's sword is sex and religion. Democrats sword is the U.S. Constitution.

Thanks to Sadly, No! for the heads up.

Time To Pick on Rapture Ready Again

2008-03-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is a post I'd been thinking about for a while. Rapture Ready has two articles up showing that even us heathens can recognize the signs of this imminent rapture by famed global economist/strategist, Wilfred J. Hahn. Here is part I and here is part II. In this series, he outlines ten points that even a heathen like me should be able to recognize as being the signs of Jesus' coming (I would have to agree with the Apostle Paul and say first coming -- but that is a different story).

This situation is really more incredible than it seems. Why? Because one doesn’t have to be a Bible-reading Christian to recognize that the world is heading for troubles and that many of today’s trends are simply not sustainable. If Christians stand accused of ignoring the Bible and obvious world trends and events today, would then a non-Christian have any excuse for ignorance? No.

At first I would have to say, "Well no duh!" Yes the world is headed for troubles. But I would ask the obvious question, who is causing those troubles? On the one hand it is conservative Christians causing all our problems here at home and our problems abroad. On the other hand it is conservative Muslims causing problems elsewhere. In any sense it is religion that is making this world a worse place. Even in the smaller sense of Hinduism and Islam in India and Pakistan, or the provokative message of peace of Buddhism. I would even say the philosophy of China, some sort of pseudo-religion of supremacy-of-state over the individual prefectly matches the message of all religions, albeit cloaked in some faux-atheism sheepskin.

Secondly, it seems patently obvious that these trends cannot be sustained. But again who is pushing to keep these trends going and who is trying to reverse them? Environmentalists want to reverse the unsustainable ewnvironmental damage we are doing to our planet. And guess who argues against global warming and other environmentally destructive things we are doing? If you said Christains you would be correct. Energy? Again it is the Christians who block the scientists efforts to move us forward towards a more responsible sustainable energy policy. War? Christians want it. Torture? Again Christians. And what about overpopulation? Oh, yeah, Christians say have more (white) babies, no abortions or same-sex marriages, no education for safe-sex, no contraception, no access to morning-after pills. No to Christians, more people and less food is good (it is also the christians who want this to be an "ownership society" where everyone owns their own home on a piece of land.. Just where is that land going to come from? Farms.. Farms.. Farmland.

Now I am not saying that we atheists and scientists are perfect and only provide the "right" answers, but one thing we always have done is to provide the solutions to the problems that have been created by distinctly religious sources.

This is only a thumbnail sketch of this "sustainability problem." To really look into it, we need to see what Wilfred identifies as the ten sustainability issues, and compare them to their sources, and the sources of their solutions. (oddly enough -- or should I say understandably enough -- he never identifies population and food supply as an issue. That is one I'd list as number one, religious wars being number two, and rich-centered energy supply as number three... But that's just me.)

He lists them in no particular order. While I find that particularly odd, I will run with it and respond one-by-one. His number one:

1. Skewing of Wealth Between Rich and Poor

That is certainly a valid concern. Oddly enough it seems to be a distinctly liberal issue. Liberals want to fight this skewing but conservatives want to broaden it. Again is it any shock that Christians who want to make this chasm wider are wildly conservative? Maybe we have an opening here to turn many Christians into bleeding-heart liberals so that this unsustainibility problem could be aleved.

Wilfred seems to concur:

Secular analysts would surely wonder where these trends are heading. At the present rate of this development, any one of two outcomes, or both, could occur — either a world controlled by small cabal of rich overlords or anarchy and societal breakdown. It would not be overstating the case to say that today’s wealth imbalances in the world exceed that during the late stages of the past Roman Empire. It is not a positive outlook.

That settles it, vote progressive and save the world from destruction!

2. Islam, Europe and the Catholic Church

Remove religion and things would improve. Funny how a fundie Christian and some lowly atheist like me are in total agreement. The money quote:

Some prophecy scholars in fact think that Islam will be part of a world-wide religious ecumenicism at some point in the future. This, however, seems unlikely. True Islam does not compromise and never has, other than for short-term advantage. In fact, Arabs (Islam, after all is an Arab religion) cannot even agree amongst themselves, a characteristic that the Bible itself documents.

Sound familiar? It you thought that the exact same thing could be said for Christianity then you get a point. Why are all Christians not Catholic?? Does not the Bible not also document that as well? Oh, and ask a fundamentalist Christian to compromise on same-sex marraige or abortion and see what answer you get. I think it is obvious at this point that ol' Wilfred has his head up his ass.

3. Materialism and Financial Pyramiding

Oh and I guess Christians, say all those who control gorvernment thanks to Bush and the Republicans, are not personally responsible for this? Isn't it liberals who want to spread the wealth (through "socialism") and conservatives who want an ownership society where each person keeps what they earn to detriment of all others (unless they default on their home loans, then those same conservatives want all other Americans no matter how poor to help them pay for their McMansions via a public bailout. The same goes for the bailout of Wall Street who made this happen.

But let's see what Wilfred has to say:

However, none of these factors are more vulnerable than the last two of the 5P list — Productivity and Pyramiding. These relate to the economic and financial explosion over this period, involving globalization, technology, the increasingly invasive role of money, and the unstable system of monetarism. It has created a lustrous, intoxicating apparition of wealth … albeit mostly false wealth. While the advance of technology itself likely will not be lost, the huge financial colossus that has emerged in recent years is extremely vulnerable to collapse. Even secular analysts can see this. One does not need the Bible to understand this, though the Scriptures surely are in line with this view. Given the greed, corruption and rapaciousness that are part of this trend, it is only a matter of time. In fact, this collapse may already have started. It can happen quickly and suddenly.

Again, tell me who is responsible for this? Ah, yes, conservative Republicans who are wholly supported by conservative Christians. Yes, they have created the very problems they now proclaim as proof of their vision. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy. The money:

Actually, of all the 10 Endtime Signs for Heathens, this one is the most imminent. While it is possible that the world monetary authorities and governments can buy some time by way of temporary manipulations, it remains very possible that the worldwide financial problems that began to unravel as of July 2007 are in fact, the start of the deteriorating conditions that will culminate in the final disasters in the Tribulation period. The sad truth, however, is that while many non-Christian analysts can see the writing on the wall, a large part of North American Christianity remains deluded, clinging on to their prosperity theology and the idea that God will not judge the materialism and greed that are the very underpinnings of our society.

Has Wilfred actually sat down and read about who and what caused all this? Bush and Co are the root. But even before that it was the Newt Revolution contained within the "Contract with America" that was the root. All us heathens look at this and shake our heads and say to ourselves you guys (conservative Christians) caused all these problems, but don't you worry, for we progressives (and atheists included) will come up with solutions to all the problems you caused. For we want to save the world and all you guys want is to bring about its end so that you can (in your wildest desires) bring about the presence of your mythical sky-god.

4. Diseases, Pandemics, Biodiversity

Again, Conservative Christianity despises science because it includes evolution and other evidences that require proof. All science has its root in fact and theory, theory is built upon fact. Science offers the possibility to cure diseases. But religion and Christianity in particular puts up a huge barricade: Do not teach evolution, do not do research on stem cells. Do not go in the directions that the facts lead, if those facts lead away from God. Who is it that limits research dollars for science and medicine that could lead to cures? Oh yeah, conservative Republicans based on the opposition of fundamentalist Christians.

There are some disturbing developments that suggest that the advances of medicine with respect to germs and microbes may only be temporary. One of these is the emergence of the superbug — bacterium that have mutated to become resistant to multiple types of antibiotics. Infectious disease physicians are becoming increasingly alarmed that the development of new antibiotics will lose pace with this threat. They have good reason for their concerns. For one, pharmaceutical companies are falling behind in the development of new antibiotics. Secondly, antibiotic resistance spreads fast.

Can anyone say evolution? And who fights evolution? Oh that's right, conservative Christians. Science can stay ahead of the curve as long as science is not hampered by Christian dogma stating that evolution is not to be taught and science can only proceed if it is God-supporting. Maybe if religion kept its perverse worldview out of the purview of science, then sciece could continue to cure disease. But that will not happen as long as there are fundamentalist Christians out there protesting evolution and science discovery, if it may disprove their limited views of "God."

Ouch! This may be the most painful point Wilfred brings up:

5. Israel & Jews in the World

His point is totally muddied, but it seemsto be:

For one, it would have been noticed that for the first time in over 2500 years, the world’s largest population of Jews now live in Israel. That is a recent bellwether. Up until 2006 or so, the US held this distinction. (See Midnight Call issues of November and December 2007 for a broader discussion of this condition.) An understanding of probabilities and world history would further highlight the significance of Jewish developments in the world today. What people has ever been restored to their homeland after 2500 years? In fact, what people has ever survived that long with their identity intact once they have lost their country? What probabilities are defied by the fact that Hebrew, a language that fell out of common usage, would again become a spoken language?.

So just a quick question, why does the concentration of Jews in any part of the world, not just Israel, matter to anyone? How is that a distinctly secular concern? The only possible explanation I can come up with is another religious excuse. More Jews in Israel means more reason for Muslims to attack. But that is not secular at all, it is religious. If religion went by the wayside, then there would be no problem at all with this "Jewish buildup". Again, it is religion that is the source of the problem. And speaking of Jews and persecution, who is it that have killed more Jews... Oh yeah, Christians; Christians hate the Jews for "killing their God." P.S. Can I mention the "dead" language of Latin which has survived in both science and the Religion of Catholicism. Does that count??

We have covered the first five points that are to be found in part I of Wilfred bizarre screed. In my next post I will cover the second five points.

Oh -- and they do not get any better. Our friend Wilfred seems to prove that what passes for Christian thought is not that at all

More on Smog -- Our President

2008-03-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

In my last post regarding smog and pollution, I referred to nameless "conservative Republicans" as being the source. Today we have a name.. And that name is Bush.

The Environmental Protection Agency agreed to weaken an important part of its new smog requirements after being told at the last minute that President Bush preferred a less stringent approach, according to government documents.

I guess this is consistent with the Bush Doctrine: Make you safer by making you less safe (so many of you die and then there's less of you to make safe, making it easier -- or something like that. Yeah, I don't understand it either). Here's how it works:

The memos and documents indicate that EPA officials had wanted to make the public welfare standard more stringent than the health standard, although still not as protective as some scientists had recommended.But the White House insisted on making both standards identical, according to the documents. When EPA officials balked, the issue went to Bush, who sided with his budget office.
The White House defended Bush's action.
"This is not a weakening of regs (regulations) or standards," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday. "But it was an effort to make the standards
consistent. There's no question we have an interest in how federal regs impact communities."
Fratto said the new standards are the "most stringent smog standards in history" and that communities will have a hard time meeting them. He described the area where Bush intervened as 'a technical matter' and said he acted on the advice of the Justice Department.

So I see, the Justice Department and the budget office are making final decisions about public health and science. I guess they all stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. ...Not.

Atheist Morality

2008-03-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

A while back I had an email conversation with a commenter (ok, it was Rhology) here who refused to accept that it was possible that a person who lacked any god-belief could be a moral person. I thought I had answered his questions completely in these posts I had written. (and later in this post.) He had a specific question posed:

Resolved: Any system of morality within an atheistic worldview can be based on nothing more than personal or at most societal preference for its value judgments.

Now when I had written in my posts that all morality actually has its root in society, and that morals which help any given society survive and thrive were considered useful and therefore kept, but those which were destructive either ultimately killed off the society, or those morals were discarded before the society died off. Virgin offerings to gods, cannibalism, incest are all things which had been practiced in the past and because they made the society as a whole unstable, they were subsequently considered "bad" moral guides. In that if they were continued to be practiced, the society would suffer and die off. Then those "bad" moral guides later became immoral.

In the same way "good" moral acts became morality. Such as not murdering, not stealing, etc.

But what about intermediate moral acts? For example having many wives, concubines. Those moral acts of millennia (or even centuries) ago are today now immoral. But just how much impact on society did those acts ever really have? Sure many other immoral acts occurred as a result (murder, for example), but their impact on society was not significant. For those civilizations continued to grow and thrive. It was only later when those intermediate moral acts became burdonsome in some way -- maybe financially, that they became, over time, immoral acts.

Even in today's society we have brand new issues which can go either way, they can be moral or immoral. Stem cell research, abortion, medical technology keeping a body alive long after the mind dies (Terri Schiavo), assisted suicide, same sex marriage. All these issues hang in the balance today.

So now we have a historical perspective with which to judge morality, specifically the morality of these types of issues. Let us take probably the easiest example, same-sex marriage. What is there that makes it appear to be immoral? Nothing. In no way does a man marrying another man harm anyone. It does not harm the children of that marriage in any way. It does not harm the marriages of the couples who live next door to that married couple, and it does not harm their children either. So if there is no harm caused to anyone, then how can it be construed at all to be immoral? If morality is defined to be that which strengthens society, then it is completely moral. If it neither harms nor hurts society, then it is intermediately moral, but still moral based on its effects on society. If it is immoral, then it harms society.

Marriage has changed drastically throughout history, we all know that is a fact. Plural marriage and concubines have been very common in history and have been accepted as moral. But that attitude has changed many times through history to where it is today, no multitudes of wives and the acceptance of concubines, just one woman and one man. But that is not the only way marraige has changed. Consider how just a few decades ago, even the one man-one woman structure had its limits as well. Both had to be of the same race, both white or both black. In many southern states (I refer you to Virginia v. Loving) there were laws against interracial marriage. This was only decades ago. Then the moral concept of marriage changed once again to allow for that new addition to the family of marriages -- interracial marraiges were now moral. So why can't the definition of marraige change once again? Why cannot men marry men and women marry women?

What is at the core of marriage after all? What makes marriage moral? Well love is the most obvious thing. But is it really the foundation of marriage after all? I think not, because even today there are many marriages that are "arranged" that is the parents of the couple decide that they should be united in marraige and the couple has no input in that decision -- they are essentially forced to marry. The foundation of marriage must be more basic than that. It must deal with providing a nuclear unit within a society that society can trust will act for its own best interests without intervention from the society. A family then is a marriage and offspring. The family acts as its own micro-society. Thus many of the duties and responsibilities of that larger society are offloaded onto the family and the marriage at its center. Thus the structure and scope of the marriage is irrelevant to its morality as long as it fulfills that duty and obligation: take responsibility of the offspring and the family unit from society and place it within the confines of the marriage. All marriages throughout history meet this requirement. MArriage types that do not are therefore immoral (i.e. the infamous Rick Santorum man-boxturtle marriage comment). So a same sex marriage would only be considered to be moral in this framework.

Now I am ready to respond to the thesis presented me and how I would respond. I think that all morality, no matter what its current source, is at its very core based on the framework I have just sketched out; that it is always, and always has been, based only on what works for society. Even in the most religious of mindsets, it has always only come down to society. The bible, and its moral code is the perfect example. No matter how a Christian wants to explain it, the fact is that the bible was the result of cultural moral ideals and was written as such, that a god was tacked onto it is not relevant. That biblical society in those biblical times found moral guides which worked for them and they encoded those morals in the bible. So even if one wanted to claim that all morality can only come from God, all their evidence is societal -- i.e. the biblical society surrounding the times of the bible. It is still society that determines what is moral and the way they do that is by sticking with what works and changing what does not. Clearly murder does not work, so it is immoral. But marriage works and it works in many different incarnations, so it is moral.

Therefore the real thesis in the original statement: "Resolved: Any system of morality within an atheistic worldview can be based on nothing more than personal or at most societal preference for its value judgments." is that atheism has nothing to do at all with morality. Atheism is simply a lack of god-belief (it is not a religion). But if lack of god-belief and God belief are not the actual root of morality then the thesis statement is a moot question. Atheism has no more to do with morality than does religion.

Now all of you must be stratching your heads at this point and saying to yourselves, "Hey wait a minute, both atheism and religion impact and influence what is considered morality." Yes that is true. They both do influence or impact morality. They can both even change morality. But the catch is that if either one changes morals in such a way that those morals now harm society, the morals must either therefore be altered again to protect society or the society dies. Which brings us full circle to the incontravertable fact that morals are the product of a healthy society, and not the other way around; a healthy society is the product of morals.

Thus my thesis is this: Both atheism and religion can influence morals in one direction or another; but society, by its long term health and stability, alone determines whether those moral changes are good or bad. Society is the key to morality, not religion or atheism.

Please note: In this essay I have used the words "good", "bad", good, and bad. I would attempt here to define them quickly and easily, but I do not think that is possible. Religion has a specific way of viewing "good" and "bad" through the lense of some magical sky daddy handing down what is good and bad. Ironically enough, for the most part they happen to coincide with the more common definitions of good and bad. I think theists getting them mixed up with holy and evil is the only real departure between the definitions. but that is another topic altogether.

Postscript: Maybe you noticed, but if you did not, this post had nothing to at all with the morality of an atheist. But I hope that it was understood that morality has nothing at all to do with religion or the lack thereof. I concede that both theists and atheists often attempt to change moral standards, but the standards themselves are neither based in a belief in a god or a lack of belief in a god.

Our Wonderful Environment

2008-03-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

Don't you just love waking up in the morning and stepping outside to the wonderful aroma of fresh air, flowers and --well-- nature? I sure do. But like so many others --and there are millions of us-- that is not what we actually experience in the morning, or daytime, or evening, for that matter. We get the wonderful smell of pollution. I live in Las Vegas. You may live in Los Angeles, Houston, the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, or wherever. But it is all the same.. A brown cloud that you can see when you move above or beyond it. It just looks disgusting from that distance. But is made even worse when you know that you actually live in and breathe it on a daily basis.

My hometown of Chattanooga, TN is a perfect example of turning the country's most polluted city into its cleanest. It can be done; it has been done. Most importantly, it has to be done, everywhere.

But what happens if conservatives are in charge and a state wants to clean itself up? You get this. Chattanooga is a perfect example of where progressive ideals lead to cleaner air, water, land and a stronger economy. But conservatives will have none of that. Its the status quo or no quo. Even the most casual look into the automotive industry shows just how screwed up the conservative mind is. Toyota turned an environmentally sound idea into a very successful and profitable product; the Toyota Prius. But the Big Three fought it. It was the same tired business model for them. And what happened? They got left behind and were faced with playing that most infamous of games, Catch-up. But it was easier for them to lobby the government to prevent any changes in their business practices than to make the changes that were inevitable (and that they are now doing to catch up with Toyota). Unfortunately for all of us, they had a willing ally: The conservative Republican machine.

So we see that things can change for the better if progressive ideas are used to help the environment, it can be good for people like we see in Chattanooga, it can be better in products like cars, and it can be better in other areas as well, like energy. In all areas of the environment and the economy, prosperity can occur if change and new ideas are allowed to reign. We see solid, concrete evidence all around us every day.

Only one thing stands in the way of real and massive economic growth, real and sustainable environmental protection, and a more widespread sense of health and prosperity. That is conservatism.

Just how many times have very prominent conservative writers or pundits publicly derided "global warming"? How many times have they fought against any sort of environmental stewardship at all?

All this makes me wonder why.. Why do conservatives fight against any sort of environmental responsibility even if it means better economic growth and better general populational health? Do they fear that what happened with Chattanooga and Toyota might just happen with all other cities and car companies? Do they fear that it may spread to all other industries as well?

I don't know. I could never pretend to understand the idea that things are best the way they are and could never ever be improved upon by using new ideas.

The question then becomes why is conservatism beholden to old ideas which cause such obvious problems? That question, I think, is easily answered. Those who hold the most to be gained by changing nothing are the ones who guide conservative principles. The best proof of this is the area of conservatism I discuss the most, conservative Christianity. But that is a tangent I won't go into here.

So, the moral of the story is simple, if you want cleaner air, vote against any and all conservatives, no matter what their political party.

Shameless Grovelling before all you Christians who want to convert me to Christ

2008-02-28T12:43:00.000-08:00

Well, my birthday recently passed (I share it with such luminaries as Lincoln and Darwin) and we are headed full speed into the Easter season.. So what better time than to ask all you Christians out there who visit my humble blog and debate with me the "facts" and "truths" of Christianity in order to prove that Christianity is true (or is it, True??) or bring me back to Christ or whatever. Now is the time to pony up for your cause.

There are a number of Christian apologetics resources that I have either read but do not own, or have not read and want to. If you believe in your mission to spread the message of Christ to everyone, then here is your chance to bring it to my front door, literally. Below is a list of some of the books and other materials I would like to read but cannot bring myself to spend my hard-earned money on:

First up is this tome from Coral Ridge Ministries. Who Is This Jesus; Is He Risen?- Book and DVD

Next is the book by Norman Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback)

Otherwise I would love to have copies of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ and C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Both of which I have read before but were not my copies and I had to give them back.

Please email me for my mailing address. If you have ideas for some other books in the apologetics vein which you think would be useful, please let me know in comments.

And let the love and evangelical power of Jesus flow through you to bring me around to Jesus...

Update: In comments I have been having a discussion with Rhology (again). He seems to be concerned with pigs and jewelry. This quote seems to be his focal point:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you [Matthew 7:6 KJV]

His message here seems to be that Christians everywhere should ignore and cast out anyone who is not a believer. Why? Because if you offer the non-believer the knowledge of Jesus, then they will use it against you to destroy you. This one simple quote completely destroys the entire evangelical movement and the need to spread the loving message of Jesus, if Christians are banned from spreading it to those who may be unwilling to accept it at face value.

But I really want to focus in on the imagery here. We have two elements here to work with, pigs and jewelry. Let us look and see what else the New Testament has to say about those:

30 Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. 31 So the demons begged Him, saying, “If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.” 32 And He said to them, “Go.” So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water. [Matthew 8:30-32]

Here we have Jesus taking orders from demons. But what really disturbs me is that this herd of pigs could have fed many hungry people. And Jesus, as God, had the power to simply cast the demons out into nothingness. So why allow hungry people to go hungry just to satisfy the desires of some demons? Wouldn't the magical depositing of those pigs upon the plates of the hungry have been a much greater and humane miracle than simply destroying them? But I guess thus is the message of Jesus: Let the hungry go hungry if it will increase the comfort of some demons. (After all, Jesus fed the multitudes with loaves and fishes, twice)

But what about jewelry? Paul tells us this:

8 I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; 9 in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, 10 but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. [1 Timothy 2:8-10 NKJV]

So good Christian women should not wear gold wedding bands in church, or pearls, or costly clothing. I have to wonder just how many goodly Christian women take off their wedding bands when they go to church, or even refuse to put them on at their wedding in church, in order to remain within the God/Jesus commands found in the New Testament?

Rhology has a problem with sending me any of the requested Christian texts on the grounds that I am not Christian. But I wonder just what his grounds really are if Christianity is as contradictory as I just sketched out? The bible has many flaws that make it unpalatable to people like me (rational beings), and the only way that Christianity can therefore be acceptable is if today's Christian apologists explain all those contradictions. But Rhology disagrees. He just wants to follow the lone swine/pearl doctrine and laugh at the entire evangelical movement simply to save himself from sending me Christian works. So all you other Christians out there, how does this strike you? What would you all rather do, follow Jesus' dictates and spread the gospel, or follow Rhology's personal worldview, and simply cast off all current non-Christians into the pit of fire for nothing more than entertainment's purpose?

The message I take away from Rhology is simple and clear: If you are not Christian, you don't deserve to become Christian; and if you refuse Christian teachings, then you should never receive them. Heh, Rhology and brotherly love go together like oil and water.. Or should I say like torture and Jesus? (Who knew that the answer to "would Jesus torture?" is a Rhology-approved "YES!!!1!!!1!1!!") Peace and torture all the same to Rhology. Only us Jesus-hating types would hate torture and love actual peace (no war) and freedom (the right and priveledge to believe what one wants and act upon it as long as it does not harm others).

Flash! Chaplain knows God's Mind

2008-02-27T19:07:00.001-08:00

Apparently, Pat Robertson is not the only conservative Christan who knows for a fact what God is thinking:

An evangelical chaplain who leads Bible studies for California lawmakers says God is disgusted with a rival fellowship group that includes people of all faiths.

My first thought is God is "disgusted" with people worshipping Him? My second thought is how can anyone know the mind of God and therefore know how to worship Him "properly"? MY third thought is the rather more esoteric question of using the bible as any sort of guide to worship, considering it is completely disjointed in its teachings; Jesus' compassion and forgiveness for sinners, and Paul's firey condemnation of the same classes of sinners, etc.

Drollinger said "progressive religious tolerance" is an offense against God and causes harm to its practitioners.
He said the other Bible study group was perpetrating a "deadly lie" by presenting Jesus as "a good moral teacher who loves everyone without distinction."

So then I take it that Jesus was not a good moral teacher? How stupid is this?? One can talk about the good moral teachings of Jesus completely seperate from his supposed divinity. I can only presume that stupidity is a prerequisite for being a conservative evangelical chaplain. I mean even the most casual glancing of the gospels shows that Jesus loved an adulterer, a prostitute (if Mary Magdaline was actually a prostitute) but He hates non-evangelical Christians? Where do you draw the line on who Jesus loves and hates. He himself said to love your enemies [Matthew 5:43-44 NKJV] and hate your family [Luke 14:26 NKJV]. Am I to take it then that if Jesus does not love this "other" bible study group, they are His family, and if he loves Drollinger, then he is Jesus' enemy? Again, the logic here has to be astounding (and not in the good way). Of course, only in fundamentalist Christianity could loving your enemy and hating your family make any sense at all to begin with. But then turn around and ignore that to simply condemn another Christian group is just as absurd.

But to be honest, I still cannot get past the notion that this chaplain, Drollinger, thinks he knows the mind of God. Because no matter how you rationalize it, as a Christian, to claim you know what God really thinks is to put yourself into the same knowledge category as God and that is elevating yourself to diety levels. And I do believe there is a commandment against that, if I'm not mistaken.

New Religion Survey Out

2008-02-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

The AP, via CNN, has an article out about a new survey of religious attitudes in the US. The survey was quite large for this type -- 35,000 Americans were interviewed. The main point:

While much of the study confirms earlier findings -- mainline Protestant churches are in decline, non-denominational churches are gaining and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing -- it also provides a deeper look behind those trends, and of smaller religious groups.

Some of the interesting numbers:

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates the United States is 78 percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority Protestant nation, at 51 percent and slipping.
More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey found. Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of Protestantism to another, the number rises to 44 percent.
One in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a religious institution.
[...]
The majority of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of the overall population -- describe their religion as "nothing in particular," and about half of those say faith is at least somewhat important to them.
Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.
Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from the "unchurched," the survey found most converts to evangelical churches were raised Protestant.

Obviously there is a lot of meat in this survey, and the story itself is rather dry, so here is my rather humble opinion.

First off, I really have to wonder just how many people are completely honest in a survey like this, and what is the methodology to check that... I mean only one in 25 Americans is an atheist? Whereas, the number of self-identified Christians certainly seems about right -- it is in line with most all previous surveys indicating about 80% of Americans are Christian. Secondly, the battle for the minds of those learning about their place in the world and universe, are turning away from religion, calling themselves unaffiliated with religion.

But my main thought on all this is rather simple. The numbers presented here does bode well for the future of atheism/agnosticism. The reason is that if more and more Americans are switching their religious affiliations within Christianity, and/or becoming one of those "nothing at all" people, then eventually religion will recede. This must necessarily happen because as people switch affiliations, things they once believed or were taught will then become "wrong" in the new religious doctrine. And as those people begin to wonder why they will realize that the source of all that confusion is the only source for their religion, the bible. And if the bible is such a muddled mess, maybe it could just be wrong.

And if it could be wrong, then those people would be much more likely to listen to the rationale behind atheism/agnosticism.

Update: Rob Boston has a different and interesting take on this survey. His background is roughly similar to mine -- Catholic family, siblings change religions -- and I think adds another dimension to why I wrote what I did in this post, and why I write what I do on this blog.

Saint Patty's Day Ruined this Year?

2008-02-20T19:00:00.000-08:00

In case you are unaware, St. Patrick's Day falls on Monday of Holy Week this year. Within the Catholic Church there is a moldy old rule that says that this holy day, therefore, cannot be celebrated; Holy Monday precedes in importance. See this CNN article for more. The money quote:

For the first time since 1940, St. Patrick's Day will fall during Holy Week, the sacred seven days preceding Easter.
Because of the overlap, liturgical rules dictate that no Mass in honor of the saint can be celebrated on Monday, March 17, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
But a few Roman Catholic leaders are asking for even more moderation in their dioceses: They want parades and other festivities kept out of Holy Week as well.

Maybe its just that cynical streak in me, but does this strike you as odd as well? I mean God, in all his perfection, couldn't come up with a way to honor a saint, a man who did His bidding, every year? Was God snoozing at the time He should have been guiding the paths of men who made up the rules for Holy Week and for when St. Patrick's Day would be celebrated? And could a slip-up in perpetual scheduling of the celebration of a man of God be considered a flaw in the character of God?

Simply food for thought..

Christian Morals Put into action -- Finally

2008-02-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

We have discussed the morality found in the bible -- specifically the New Testament -- many times here. When a person actually reads the New Testament specifically for the reason of learning the moral tenets of Christianity; many are found which are today cast aside by even fundamentalist Christians.

However, today we have one example of a group of Christians who actually adhere to one New Testament moral largely ignored by all others. Saint Mary's Academy in Kansas apparently read the epistles of Paul and decided to live by its dictates.

Kansas activities officials are investigating a religious school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.
The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.
The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.

The biblical reason for this is:

And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be
in silence. [1 Timothy 2:12 NKJV]

Here we clearly have a case where the morality espoused in the bible today is now considered immoral by all rational and moral people. The irony, it burns...

This only one small example of where the supposed perfect morality of the bible is actually exactly the opposite of the actual morals of civilization.

As a side issue, the group that is in charge of this school, the Society of St. Pius X, has been excommunicated from the Catholic church. The apostolic letter from Pope John Paul II is here. Reading this letter shows just how screwed up the entire Christian Church (not just Catholics) truly are. (But this is another topic for another time.)

Henry Rollins and Anger

2008-02-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

Atheists are almost always described as "angry" by Christians. In reality, that is about as true as atheists describing all Christians as "deluded" because of their magical sky-god beliefs. However, there is a grain of truth to both perceptions. I don't think I need to go into my reasons for accusing Christians of any form magical delusion; they are enumerated throughout my blog. But I will consider the Christian claim of angry atheists. Henry Rollins is angry:

Penn & Teller and their "Bullshit" series also shows flashes of "anger."

But what is atheist anger really?

Christians may desire to portray it as anger against God; thus "proving" that atheists actually do believe in God but simply want to deny him. What we see in reality is that atheists are angry because there is nothing to religion outside ritual and tradition. Atheists are angry because religion causes as much misery in the world as it does good (if not more). And atheists are angry because they (we) cannot fathom how religion still exists and is trumpeted as superior to human trial and knowledge. (The bible is after all nothing but ancient human trial and knowledge.)

Atheists are angry because we are told that we are inferior because we lack faith in magical sky-god beliefs.

God Delusion Index

2008-02-01T11:14:00.000-08:00

I saw this on PZ Myers' blog and thought it would be fun to show here... I should point out that this test is not aimed at any one religion, rather only the degree and type of belief in a god.

You probably already guessed that my score was a big fat zero.

Interesting Bible Trivia

2008-01-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick quiz for everyone: What is the one Commandment (out of the 'traditional' Ten Commentments) That Jesus Christ Himself did not break? Please consider the four gospels and the Acts in your answer.

If you guessed "graven image" then you are correct. Jesus lied, murdered, coveted, dishonored his parents, blasphemed, failed to keep holy the Sabbath, stole, held up other gods besides God, and committed adultery through lust.

So go check this post out by Ed Brayton. 'Relative' and 'Absolute'? I think someone needs to go to someone more logical than Christianity to define those terms.

I mean if both eating shellfish (like lobster, crab and shrimp) and homosexuality were both 'abominations' to God in Leviticus, but suddenly in the time of Jesus, eating anything was now acceptable but being gay was still wrong proves that 'relative' is in the eye of the religious beholder... as is slavery and a black man marrying a white woman.

I guess killing falls in the same category: It is morally acceptable to kill ala war and the death penalty, but wrong to kill otherwise is absolute, but killing due to only justifiable war, and no death penalty is relative. Who would have guessed?

Discuss the absurdities.

[Update: In comments, Rhology challenged me on my claim that Jesus violated 9 of the 10 Commandments. He wanted me to cite references. So the following addition to this post is my response to that request.]

Rhology, you are correct, I should have given references to all this, but I was feeling lazy and figured it was all known and simply accepted. I had been explained all this when I grew up in private Christian schools. It is all in the gospels clear to see, and required explanation. Of course the reasons given then make no sense to me now because I am older and more rational. In fact the only broken commandment that is not explicitly stated as such is the lust/adultery and that dealt with Jesus and Mary Magdaline. (This was well before Da Vinci Code, Last Temptation of Christ and even Holy Blood/Holy Grail). So let's look at them one at a time and I will mention the specific Gospel verses which show Jesus breaking the given rule.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
Jesus claimed that he was God as a man. But Jewish law (i.e. the Old Testament) said there was only one God, Yahweh; and Jesus was not claiming to be Yahweh, but rather another version or entity of him. See John 5:24-26
Jews at that time believed that there would be a messiah, but they did not believe it would be God Himself in human form, and they certainly did not believe in any such notion as a "trinity" They believed in One God, not Three Gods in One.

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth
Jesus did once stoop to write in the dirt, using symbols known to no one. If they were the "writing" of heavenly bodies, then that could be considered graven images, but since it also could have been doodles in the dirt, then it cannot be considered a violation. Jesus is free and clear on this commandment. Anyone else, however who has a picture of Jesus, or of angels, or devils, or fish or whales or sharks is currently breaking this commandment willfully. See: John 8:5-7

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain
Jesus was crucified for blasphemy. I thought this would be completely self-evident. A man calling himself God is blasphemy. And Remember Jesus' last words upon the Cross:"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" See Matthew 27:46
Does that sound like a person talking to himself? At best, Christianity can claim this should be in the context of the "trinity" but no such concept was ever spelled out in the Old Testament. Only One God. So blasphemy it is.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
This is another one that I thought would be blatantly obvious. It is a story told in all three synoptic Gospels. See It here in Mark 2:23-28.
Note the implications of blasphemy here as well.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee
Again, this is another famous story out of the gospels mentioned in the synoptics. Jesus comes across his family; mother and brothers and sisters. He shuns them (rebukes is a better word) Telling your own mother to 'shove off' is anything but honoring her. See: Matthew 12:46-50
Also see this tale of Jesus rebuking his mother. It is the famous story of turning water into wine in John 2:1-4
Then check out his speech about family: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" See Luke 14:26
Does this sound at all like "honoring your mother and father"?

6. Thou shalt not kill
Another really obvious one here. Jesus died on the cross. He had the power to save himself. He chose to die instead. That is known as suicide. And suicide is killing. I leave it to you to find the appropriate references here.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
As I said before this is the only murky one here. There are a number of heretical sources which reference Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene, or just sleeping with her. But what I really find interesting are the not-so-veiled references to Jesus' homosexual activities. Only in the Gospel of John do you find references to a disciple, "the one whom Jesus loved". Now how creepy is that? You would think, that as his disciples, he loved them all. And furthermore, as a godhead, he would love all humanity -- equally. Yet there are these specific references to a specific person that he loved in a specific way. And that can only mean in a carnal sense -- sex. (Oh, and it was not Peter, either). See: John 13:23, John 19:26, John 20:2 -- this one is particularly creepy, John 21:7, and John 21:20

8. Thou shalt not steal
Jesus stole an ass. Stealing is stealing. Again this is another famous story. See: Matthew 21:1-3

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
Again, very well known. How many times in the gospels did Jesus refuse to tell the truth to the public, but said it in private to his disciples? He even went so far as to "shut up" some pesky demons who wanted to tell the truth to the people. Lying is lying no matter how its done. See for one example:
John 8:14 "Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true"
and John 5:31 "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true"

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's
Clearly Jesus never coveted any material things (except possibly Mary Magdalene), but he did covet one thing and that is the one thing he knew he couldn't keep; his life. Jesus pleaded with his Father that the crucifixion would "pass him by." Now considering everything that was at stake, according to the gospels, that was probably the most selfish act ever in the entire bible. "He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me" Matthew 26:39
And, "Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.”" Matthew 26:42
That is the biggie, but I can also present here as evidence the desire to steal that donkey that Jesus stole as coveting as well, but that really is not as grievous a sin as this one. Desiring another's donkey is nowhere near as selfish as desiring one's own life over that of all of humanity's souls. Now I understand that this also points out the absurd flaw inherent in this commandment; that desiring something is not really bad at all, especially if you don't follow through with that desire, but it is still listed as a sin against God greater than rape (which is not adultery) and abortion (which is not killing) or homosexuality or stem cell research. Oh, and what else is "coveting"? Today coveting is called "Keeping up with the Joneses". In other words, Capitalism. That is correct, The American Way, is anti-Tenth-Commandment.

Sometimes I really am saddened that I am so far ahead in biblical knowledge than those who profess to believe in the bible. I honestly thought all this was common knowledge..

Rudy Guiliani. What I would ask him if I had the chance.

2008-01-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

This is not a political blog, per se. I often discuss conservative and liberal values, so in that sense I guess it is...

But today, I have to ask one question. While I direct it to Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! I suppose it should really be asked of all presidential candidates.

My question is simple: If you were president, would you desire that a microchip (if technology existed) be implanted in not just every American's head, but every person who entered America which not only gave the location of said person, but transmitted to the government the thoughts of that person, if, and only if, then there would be no chance of another September 11 ever happening again?

I think Rudy would say yes. His only campaign point is complete internal security. And to refuse this hypothetical 'Big Brother' society would make him look weak on terrorism.

Just a thought. And yours??

Post Christmas mockery of Rapture Ready

2008-01-06T23:58:00.000-08:00

I have written about RaptureReady.com before. ButI have to admit, that this particular article takes the cake. Britt Gillette writes how Jesus' birth was an actual fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy. He gives 10 examples. The obvious problem is that they are either wrong flat out, or refer to something totally unrelated to Jesus. This is the classic example of midrash, the retelling of an old story to remake it into something new. Use an out-of-context Bible verse to make it mean something it has no possibility of meaning. And this is done by biblical literalists? Irony, it seems, has no limit.

This is the list of Ten prophecies:
1. The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
2. The Messiah will be a descendant of Judah.
3. Great kings will pay homage and tribute to the Messiah.
4. The Messiah will be a descendant of David.
5. The Messiah will be born of a virgin.
6. Children will be killed in an effort to kill the Messiah.
7. The Messiah will be taken to Egypt.
8. The Messiah will be the Son of God.
9. The Messiah will be anointed by the Holy Spirit.
10. The Messiah will bring light to Galilee.

Just looking at this list, does anything jump out at you? Anything at all? If I only looked at this list, I would say that an ironclad picture of a very specific person was depicted. I mean, THE Son of God, will be born of a virgin, be the descendant of Judah and David (even though Judad is a place and David is a person) in Bethlehem, be honored by kings who travelled far, go to Egypt to escape the massacre of ALL male children, only to return and be consecrated by the holy spirit and be the light of Galilee. That certainly seems very specific, don't you think?

I would have to say that it only refers to exactly one person, and that person is described in the Gospels as Jesus of Nazareth; Jesus Christ.

Here is another narrative. What if I were a writer in the first century, trying to propagate my new religion. I had a wealth of knowledge and lore at my fingertips in the holy writings of the Hebrews, and I was myself a Hebrew fighting for the freedom of my own people. I could easily fabricate a hero that fit all that, and write about him in a manner that would inspire my fellow Hebrews.

So which is correct?

Well, so much has been written about these so-called prophesies, that it makes little sense to repeat it all here. Dan Barker has written about this is in concise way in his book "Losing Faith in Faith"

I have debated within my mind how best to show just how flawed this entire prophesy story really is. The truth is that the Bible itself proves this whole prophesy wrong, all ten points. But I ask you, I ask all believing Christians, just how many of these prophecies must be shown to be wrong, before the story of Jesus is demonstrated to be nothing more than a made-up retelling and recycling of old biblical passages? Britt seems to think that ten is enough to prove that the story of Jesus is real. So is refuting these ten enough?

I hope so:
1: Britt writes: "The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem". This seems like a clear enough prophesy. And clearly when you read the Gospels it is fulfilled. But look at Britt's citation. He uses the NLT (New Living Translation) a modern language translation (rather like the bible claiming Jesus actually said to his disciples, "hey, dudes, listen to your bra... I know what I'm talking about") Britt's quote:

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a
ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant
past.” Micah 5:2 (NLT) [actual link to NLT added by me]

Here it is in the KJV:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting [Micah 5:2 KJV]

Notice the difference? We went from thousands of Judah in the KJV to a "small village" in the NLT. Now do you really think that there were thousands of small villages in Judah? Certainly thousands of people makes more sense. And Bethlehem Ephratah was a person in the Old Testament, not a place. He is listed in the Chronology of Kings even. So how does a person in the Old Testament become a town after the time of Jesus, and this be considered prophesy?

2: "“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will obey.” Genesis 49:10 (NLT)" [Again I add the link to the NLT because Britt fails to do so]. So what about KJV?

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people [Gen 49:10 KJV]

Shiloh? Why is King James talking about a specific person, Shiloh, and not Jesus? Only by removing the specific reference to a very specific person, not Jesus, can this verse be made into a prophesy of Jesus. I guess here we have proof that lying for the benefit of Jesus is good and holy.

For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? [Rom 3:7 KJV]

Paul says that lying for the sake of God is good. Here we see that ignoring that this was a specific passage written about a specific person, Shiloh, is twisted and recast as a prophesy of Jesus. Maybe Jesus' middle name didn't start with the initial 'H' and was actually 'Shiloh'.

3. Even Britt's quote for this shows him to be wrong:

“The western kings of Tarshish and the islands will bring him tribute. The
eastern kings of Sheba and Seba will bring him gifts.” Psalm 72:10-11 (NLT)
[again, I added the link]

Does the Gospel mention anyone from the west bringing gifts? No. Only from the east.
Wrong is wrong, and if the west did not bring gifts then it is wrong. I don't even need to show why the quote is skewed and how it talks of something specific other than the Son of God. And I don't need to show the KJV quote either. This one speaks for itself as to its flaw. (Post Script: see Matthew 2:1-2) If east and west actually means east, then anything can mean anything: atheist means God-worshipper and Christian means Satanist. Sorry but making this fit the story is simply a lie, plain and simple.

4: “He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Luke 1:32-33 (NLT) [Again I add the missing link...]

Who knew that Israel calls Jesus Christ the king of Israel? (oh, and here is KJV of that passage)

5. The Messiah will be born of a virgin.

“All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel – ‘God is with us.’” Isaiah 7:14 (NLT)

And KJV:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Unfortunately, this was fulfilled in Isaiah's time, by Isaiah himself. At least according to him.

6. Children will be killed in an effort to kill the Messiah.

“This is what the Lord says: ‘A cry of anguish is heard in Ramah – mourning and weeping unrestrained. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted – for her children are dead.” Jeremiah 31:15 (NLT) [I added the link, surprised?]

This passage is a bit different. It clearly refers to something in its current time period. But more importantly, in the time of Jesus, nothing outside the Gospel is ever mentioned of any killing of Hebrew children, not in any historical source at all, be it Roman, Jewish, or Christian.

If even the early Christians ignore this as significant, then what value can it have as historical proof of prophecy? Especially given that the original Old Testament passage refers to a specific event that transpired.

7: “When Israel was a child, I loved him as a son, and I called my son out of Egypt.” Hosea 11:1 (NLT) [The obvious, I produced the link]

I guess the fact that this passage refers to Moses and the exodus means nothing. The fact that only Matthew mentions Jesus being in Egypt and all the other New Testament writers ignoring this seemingly important fact also means nothing. Funny how a reference to a specific thing can much later be picked up by a lone writer and reinterpreted to not be about what it was specifically written about, but actually be about something that no one else guessed it was about, and that makes it factual and real.

Amazing. Amazing how prophecy works. I guess Isaac Newton when he wrote about gravity, was actually prophesying about the current Iraq war. He was a great seer after all.

I don't even need to go to other translations to show how wrong this is.

8. The Messiah will be the Son of God.

The second psalm, recorded approximately 1,000 years before Jesus, prophesied that the Messiah would be the Son of God:
“The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: ‘The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today, I have become your Father. Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.” Psalm 2:7-8 (NLT) [surprise! I gave the link]

King James again makes it a bit clearer:

7I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Apparently, Jesus only became the inheritor at this point in time, and before this he wasnot in possession of all. But I guess then agian, it is entirely logical for a god to be all-powerful and the source of creation, but yet not actually possess that which he created. But as I am not a theologian, I guess that explains why I cannot understand how one can be perfect and all-powerful at the same time as not even possessing one's own creation.

9. The Messiah will be anointed by the Holy Spirit.

“And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 11:2 (NLT) [my link really]

Notice any changes?:

2And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; [KJV]

First I linked to the entire chapter of Isaiah. But more importantly notice how "spirit" is not capitalized? Isn't it odd that the third "person" of the Trinity is not even honored with having His (Its?) name capitalized? After all, the LORD is completely capitalized.

Secondly, the entire chapter speaks of something other than the life and times of Jesus. Since all those other things did not happen, then what can be said about this lone "prophecy" in verse 2? Not to mention that if I were one third of the Most Holy Trinity of The Godhead, the Holy Spirit, I would want at least the first letter of my name capitalized. Then again, the Holy Ghost was always the most unassuming member of the Trinity, not appearing in the story until the New Testament.

10. The Messiah will bring light to Galilee.

“Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will soon be humbled, but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light – a light that will shine on all who live in the land where death casts its shadow.” Isaiah 9:1-2 (NLT) [You guessed it]

This one is probably the most egregarious. The light of Galilee? What does Jesus himself say in the gospels?:

But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. [Mark 6:4 KJV]

Double negative aside, Jesus is saying that a prophet is shunned in his own countryside, Galilee. So what sense does it make to say that Jesus was the light of Galilee and was shunned by Galilee?

The two passages are congruent, they both speak of light. But they diverge critically. With Jesus, they see the light and reject it. But in Isaiah, they see the light and... multiply.

6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and
with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

I just wonder, is Israel a Christian Nation? If not, then Jesus is not promised ruler of Israel. But I suppose I am not looking at the bigger picture; that Jesus was not intended to be the ruler of Israel, but the ruler of the the world, and only in the sense that He was to be the Ruler of Christendom. I guess that puts me into the failed company of all the Old Testament Prophets who called for a new King of Israel.

No matter how you spin it. No matter what translation you claim. No matter how much you lie for Jesus. The truth always bears you out. And the truth is simple. There was nothing which prophesied Jesus before his time. Rewriting and midrash do not make a fictional story true after the fact.

Pat Robertson's 2008 Prophesies are out!

2008-01-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

As we all know, Pat was completely and utterly wrong about his 2007 prophesies. There was no major terrorist attack within the United States. But did that stop him from predicting the future of 2008? Of course not! He just announced his new God-given predictions last Wednesday on the 700 Club. See the OneNewsNow article here.

Quick quiz for you. What has been making major economic news for the last few months? You got it, if you said the housing bubble bursting. It is causing big problems for not just the credit and financial markets, but also for many American's wallets as well. We are headed for some tough times economically in this country. Anyone who pays even the least bit of attention to financial issues knows this.

So what is Pat's biggest prediction for 2008? Ding! Financial crisis. I guess only God can tell Pat's Christians what everyone (including all other Christians) have known for months now.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010.

So only by the divine secret sharing of info by God to Pat are we supposed to know that a recession is very possible? I again guess that the whole housing market gave no one any indicator at all? But then again, if you listen to, and believe George Bush, then maybe not. He thinks everything is hunky-dory.

The same goes for violence. Is there going to be more or less violence in 2008, and would either be considered, "a year of violence worldwide?" Just out of curiosity, what past years have not been considered "years of violence"??

Oh yeah, there were a number of peaceful years during the Clinton Presidency... So I guess that means peaceful years are bad things, and by this statement of prophecy, Pat is really saying things will be good for conservatives, and especially religious conservatives. Because we won't be living in as peaceful times as the Clinton years. As for the market crash? Well, just like last years catastrophic terrorist attack, it could happen (even though it didn't) , and it could be mild or avoided altogether (which no matter which way it goes, will be called a vindication for Pat -- Prayer via his peeps, I mean flock, and all that).

But I have to wonder.. If God and Pat has this yearly tete-a-tete, why talk about something that could happen in 2009 or 2010, if God is telling Pat 2008's predictions?

Robertson said, "We will see the presence of angels and we will see an intensification of miracles around the world."

That actually sounds like a more reasonable Godly prediction. Because it has absolutely no basis in fact whatsoever, and cannot be ascertained one way or the other. Angels will be hanging around? Ok. How do we establish that? And why haven't they been hanging around before? Intensification of miracles? You mean like I put a dozen pairs of socks in the dryer, and when I put them away in the sock drawer, there were a dozen complete pairs.. Its a miracle! Just what is a miracle? A sick person getting better?? I'll tell you what a real miracle is: Tomorrow George Bush says he had an epiphany from God, and is pulling out the troops from Iraq immediately. That would indeed be a miracle.

But what does "intensification" of miracles really mean? The miracles become even more intense?? I put a dozen pairs of socks in the dryer, and I come away with two dozen pairs of socks? The sick person not only becomes healthy, but takes on super-human powers?? I gotta tell ya.. Within the realm of Christianity, words have no meaning and stupid has virtually no limit. (I say virtually no limit, because to have limitless stupidity, Christianity as a whole would have to possibly pull a Jim-Jones in entirity. And I just don't see that ever happening.)

Finally:

Last year, Robertson predicted that a terrorist act, possibly involving a nuclear weapon, would result in mass killing in the United States. Noting that it hadn't come to pass, Robertson said, "All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us."

Somehow? Somehow?? You mean Pat has no idea if people prayed enough, and even if they did it had the noticed effect?

So if I understand Pat correctly here, if enough people prayed that no one ever died or got sick, or that everyone who got sick was cured, then those things would come true? Because apparently if enough people pray that we will not be attacked, then we won't be; seems to work. I also presume that no actual Christians ever pray to be rich either, since not all Christians are rich. The cop out here is completely self-evident.

You know, the only thing that really saddens me about all this, is that there are still people out there who buy into Pat Robertson's line of nonsense. They are the ultra-gullible ones. Because I am certain --certain I tell you-- that there were absolutely no faithful Christians on the eve of hurricane Katrina praying that the storm would pass. And it didn't. And we had meteorological predictions that Katrina was coming too. But nothing in the way of the eve of the Great Terrorist Action of 2007 for faithful Christians to pray against... Pat Robertson, your god-buddy in the sky was playing with you.

Separation of Church and State

2008-01-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I was bored, and looked this up on youtube. Here were two videos that I found (it was a part one and part two):

I am shocked. Really shocked. Apparently, being nonChristian means that one is not an American. Apparently, only by being Christian can one be honest and moral and a true American. Apparently, the first amendment was only meant to give equality among all Christians, but to place all non-Christians as not just second-tier citizens, but non-Americans because they are not Christians.

Well, I am not a vulgar person. But I have this to say: Fuck You. Fuck you for denying me my Americanism because I am not Christian.

Olde Time Christian Morals (and logic)

2008-01-03T15:53:00.000-08:00

I have to give thanks to the good folks at Sadly, No! for bringing this one up. It is truly a marvel to behold in its dishonesty and lack of logic. I am referring to this piece by Christian trial lawyer, Reed R. Heustis, Jr. Even Ray Comfort's banana debacle seems rational next to it. (Well that may be stretching a bit too far -- Ray, shall we say, has serious problems...) The pro-Jeezus, anti-gay and anti-freedom screed was written back in 2006, so it is not new. But as you read, you can see nothing has changed from then to now. The same innanity still exists, only today it is in the mouths of Republican presidential candidates.

It is ironic that those flaunting the rainbow flag view it as a "freedom flag" that somehow promotes liberty. According to the Word of God, there can only be liberty where the Spirit of the Lord is (2 Cor 3:17), and the Spirit of the Lord will never be found in partnership with sin.

Yes Liberty.. Everyone knows that actual liberty really means servitude. That the only true Americans to possess "liberty" were the slaves. Let's see what else the bible has to say about liberty and Christians..

casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ [2 Cor 10:5 NKJV]

Sounds like liberty to me, ignoring everything that comes from humanity, and making one's thoughts entirely captive to Christ. That certainly cannot be called slavery... Oh no. But being captive to Christ is considered "liberty". Didn't the slave owners say the same thing to, and about, their slaves? Why I do believe so.

But I want to be a bit broader here. If you were to read the Bible quote given by Mr. Heustis, it is this: "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" Notice that it does not say that the only source of liberty is Jesus.

But what is most interesting (and most detrimental to his argument) is what else Paul had to say in that very same passage:

12 Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— 13 unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. 15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. 16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. [2 Cor 3:12-16 NKJV]

Amazing! Paul is saying that the dictates of Moses are superceded by Jesus' teachings. But what does Jesus teach about homosexuality? Absolutely nothing! Leviticus teaches that eating shellfish is an abomination to God. Leviticus also teaches that homosexuality is an abomination to God. Yet Jesus teaches in the Gospels that no food is an abomination, and says nothing about homosexuality at all. In fact, when you read the epistles of Paul, he gives a laundry list of sins (homosexuality among them) that are wrong, but here he is saying that none of this matters.

This is what is known as a contradiction. Homosexuality as a sin is plainly found in Paul's epistles. It cannot be found anywhere in the Gospels of Jesus, because he never mentioned it. Yet here, in the very same passage Mr. Heustis is using to prove his pro-slavery-is-liberty point is the evidence that he is profoundly wrong.

Summarized, it is this: If one thing is found in the Old Testament to be an abomination to God (eating shellfish) as is another thing (homosexuality). Then later, Jesus says that nothing you eat is an abomination to God, but says nothing about homosexuality. And finally, even later Paul says that the entire works of Moses was just a veil and that only belief in Jesus is the way, but even later says, "oh, not so much, these things are still wrong...(including homosexuality)"

Furthermore, if Jesus himself even said that the only way to follow Him was to forsake your family, then how can the concept of family, that being man, woman, and children be held in high esteem?

Mr Heustis goes even farther though. His next paragraph is:

Contrary to a truly free people, unrepentant homosexuals live in a state of bondage and slavery. They act upon the deluded notion that their licentiousness is liberty and they foolishly wave their flag to communicate their folly. By promoting Gay Pride, homosexuals promote the antithesis of freedom.

Yes, because living your own life as you see fit is the "antithesis of freedom" whereas living your life as these conservative Christians want to force you into living it is "actual" freedom.

I have to wonder though, if this is what liberty and freedom are actually defined as: slavery and repression; then what about the actual dictates of Jesus? Jesus said that the rich will never enter heaven. Jesus said that his true followers would never own anything more than a pair of sandals, one cloak and one walking stick. He also specifically said that their purses were to be empty.

Poverty and Christianity were foretold by Jesus to be one and the same. Reconsidering the words of Mr Heustis, "the Spirit of the Lord will never be found in partnership with sin" and the sins recounted by the words of Christ; valuing your family above God, and possessing anything other than the clothes on your back, then in the words of Jesus when he said this are more appropriate today:

13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. [Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV]

Words more true were never spoken. When the Bible is taken as a guide, that few is weeded down to almost zero. (I think Ned Flanders is the only human going to heaven).

Year End Roundup

2007-12-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

Well we once again dodged the Pat Robertson alarmist straight-from-God's-mouth prophesy for 2007. Who knew George Bush would turn out to be more powerful than God?

I wonder what his predictions for 2008 will be? I predict that Pat will predict a strong Republican victory in Novermber 2008. If things go as they should, reality should turn out to be the opposite of what Pat predicts.

So what about you? What do you predict for 2008? I suppose I don't really have any predictions, excepting stating the obvious: anti-science creationists will still try to destroy science and poison our children's minds against reality and fact; Christians will claim persecution any time some non-Christian demands equality; the religious right will still fight to protect life and simultaneously be pro-war and pro-death penalty. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The new year offers all of us new potential and promise. But at the same time, we all know that some things will never change. Bill O'Reilly will still bloviate that there is a war on Christmas, Ann Coulter will prove once again that stupidity has no limit, and conservative Christianity will still be threatened by the fact that that their virus of belief has not affected every single human on the planet.

But on the bright side, every day that we retain our freedom and improve upon the equality of opportunity for all is a day that we win.

You Can't Take the Dumb Out of Dumbass

2007-12-20T10:22:00.000-08:00

CNN has put up a commentary by Roland Martin entitled, "Commentary: You can't take Christ out of Christmas." As you can probably guess it is yet another screed whining about some fictiticious War on Christmas.

Because of all the politically correct idiots, we are being encouraged to stop saying "Merry Christmas" for the more palatable "Happy Holidays." What the heck are "Seasons Greetings"? Can someone tell me what season we are greeting folks about? A Christmas tree? Oh, no! It's now a holiday tree. Any Christmas song that even remotely mentions Christ or has a religious undertone is being axed for being overtly religious. [emphasis mine]

I'll tell you what season we are greeting. You see, Mr. Martin, before Christmas became a Christian holiday, it was first a pagan holiday, celebrating the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year and the turning point towards spring). Before the calander was corrected to include leap years, the solstice used to fall on December 25. Odd coincidence, no? What Martin does not realize is that Christmas was chosen as December 25 is to ease the shock of forcibly converting pagans into the Christian religion. It was made easier by turning pagan ritualistic days into Christian holidays. Christmas, Easter and Halloween are all perfect examples of this.

So we can see that he has no idea of the history involved -- What is it the young people say, Ignorance is bliss?? Ah yes, I believe I heard that in the movie, The Matrix.

But the real point here is not Mr Martin's dumbassery, it is perception that there is a war on Christmas. He even says that we --Christians-- need to be more aware of other religions and their holidays:

Don't get me wrong; I'm very respectful of other religions. I don't want anyone to be afraid of discussing the Jewish faith when we address Hanukkah. And we shouldn't dismiss Muslims when the annual pilgrimage to Mecca is held during December. In fact, Americans are so ignorant of other faiths that we can all learn from one another.

Just so I get this straight, Mr Martin says that we should only use Christian terms for this holiday season, but we should respect other religions and their concurrent holidays. So why then is "happy holidays" so evil and non-respective of Christianity and other religions, but "Merry Christmas" shows all due respect to other religions?

Again, this is an interesting observation, that Mr Martin has dumbass-poor logic skills, but is not the real point.

The real point is simple. There is no movement at all to destroy the Christian's Christmas. In fact there is a large majority of of even us evil atheists who celebrate Christmas. I certainly do. I even will say Merry Christmas to the Christians I know. (I do say happy holidays to everyone else). But I guess respecting the fact that I do not know everyone's religious preferences, and thus use the more "generic" phrase as a sign of respect really means that I am not "very respectful of other religions".. I should show real respect by assuming that everyone is Christian.

But this seeming backlash against Christianity is bordering on the absurd, and we should continue to remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.

Jesus..reason..season.. Yeah right. We're back to this? Didn't I already explain this??

So anyway, here is a good link to other atheist views on Christmas:
Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Coming Soon! This year's picture of our Christmas Village.

Anyway, Happy Holidays to everyone, and a big Merry Christmas to you Christians out there!

Why the Republican Establishment Hates Mike Huckabee

2007-12-14T16:06:00.000-08:00

I should have added (And I Love Him) to the title. The core of the Republican party is only concerned with tax cuts and anti-government sentiment. This is the establishment of Republicanism. As a very liberal libertarian, I can almost --ALMOST-- understand that core sentiment. The real problem is that in reality it does not work. Just like people need laws to keep them from freely murdering, raping and stealing, big businesses, politicians and leaders of all stripes need regulation to keep them in line. The same goes for taxes. Taxes are needed for everything from roads to national defense to health and protecting everyone from tyranny. There is a balance in everything.

But at the core of republicanism is this need to destroy all that, no person should be abbiden to laws just as no corporation should be regulated. And taxes are evil because all they do is redistribute hard-earned wealth to lazy do-nothings who earned nothing. (A person should only have the priveledge to drive on a paved street if they are personally wealthy enough to pay for the entire paving of said street..) etc.

These core republicans find that because only about 1% of America can afford to carry those views, they need to fool many more Americans into voting for them and their views. As we all know this is accomplished by the whole "family values" platform. Get as many people as possible to vote for you because you will support their moralistic views (abortion, gays, anti-secularism, racism, and all other pro-Christianity stances).

But what happens when a politician comes around who is genuinely pro-values, and consequently weak on the true Republican positions?

You get a Republican candidate for president who is popular with the majority of Republicans but is hated by all the Republican elitists...

Welcome Mike Huckabee, to the real world (of the Republican Party). Surprising? Not to those of us who are capable of thinking. But to the Republican faithful, they cannot bring themselves to grasp the meaning of this perceived paradox.

Inspired by this post from the regular cast of characters of Sadly, No!.

P.S. I love Mike Huckabee not because I agree with him, or would even vote for him, but because he truly represents all that is wrong with Republicans; that and he could become their nominee. [Update: Wingnut Rich Lowry agrees with my premise... Thus we have to support the huckster!!]

I Haven't Beat Up On Ray Comfort In A while, So...

2007-12-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

Poor Ray, for someone who claims to be absolutely guided by an infinitely powerful and all-knowing force; his scribblings are amazingly amateurish. Simply comparing one to the other makes him out to be a cartoon. And if his knowledge/intelligence is that of the model Christian, then he proves Christianity is doomed to extinction, with no help from us "evil" atheists...

First check out this post from his new blog.

On December 8, 2008, the Omaha Police Department released a three-page suicide note left by Robert A. Hawkins, the 19-year-old who fatally shot eight people at an Omaha shopping mall before turning the gun on himself. In the telling note, it’s clear that Hawkins wasn’t the “loner” he was first made out to be. He didn’t lack friends. He said, “You guys are the best friends anyone could ever ask for.” Rather, the note says exactly why he “snapped.” It said, “I've just snapped I can't take this meaningless existence anymore . . . ” If the secular world insists on saying that there is no God and that we are the products of evolutionary chance, they are saying that they have no idea where we came from, what we are doing here, or where we are going after death. Robert A. Hawkins is the tragic result of that meaningless existence. [Emphasis mine]

Then peruse this post....

There was another “senseless” mass killing this week. This one was in Colorado. I’m hesitant to talk about it because I may sound simplistic and repetitive. I don’t think the killings were senseless at all. Something is not senseless when there’s a predictable pattern. Here was another disillusioned and bitter ‘backslider” (a false convert), who no doubt gave his heart to Jesus because of a promise of a wonderful new life in Christ, and when the promises didn’t deliver the goods, he was angry enough to kill.

It seems Ray has placed himself in the "nothing can touch me, no matter how silly I sound" category. If someone random shoots up some people, it is the secularists who are to blame. If it is a Christian who kills, then they were not a real Christian at all. Heads I win, Tails you lose.

Ray Comfort seems to live in a world where no Christian does anything wrong. They must somehow be flawed or otherwise "seperated from God." The problem is that this is Comfort's Achilles' heel. If no Christian can do any wrong, then what can be said about a non-Christian, even ((gasp!)) an atheist, who lives their entire life fully within the confines of Comfort's definition of morality?

Is that decidedly non-Christian who manages to live up to all Comfort's moral standards actually a Christian?

I don't know. Ray Comfort can never lay claim to being a strong logician, but he can at least come up with something which makes sense to those who would be willing to believe in God. But to give good ol' Ray the benefit of the doubt here, he does have a solid point about not being a Christian. Just look to all the hub-bub about Mike Huckabee's slam against Mitt Romney and his Mormon beliefs. Who really is a Christian? Are Catholics Christians? If their beliefs and rituals contradict those of Baptists, are Baptists really Christians? ...And so on. If merely accepting Jesus and some interpretation of the bible makes one Christian, then the field is opened up wide to gays being both gay and Christian, women who have abortions (and think it is acceptable in the eyes of God and Jesus) being Christian, Christians who oppose the death penalty, and Christians who support gun control. If all these are considered Christians, then how can a person who believes in Christianity suddenly be called a "backslider" because they sinned? The point here is that some many who consider themselves Christian sin in ways that other Christians call sin, but they, themselves do not think is a sin.

Ray has no answer for that. All he has is his own personal ideas as to what makes up sin and what makes up a Christian.

But then outside of "Christianity" it is the effects of "secularism" according to our intellectual mentor, Ray Comfort. Now, in line with this is this horrible article by Pat Boone at WorldNetDaily. (But I will examine this in more detail in a later post.)

I am reminded of the words of Jesus regarding sins:

And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. [Matthew 19:24 NKJV]

Jesus certainly seems to be railing against the rich here. But how much do you hear about Ray Comfort condemning the rich Christians as "backsliders" and sinners? And what about Ray Comfort (and Pat Boone for this matter) condemning women for wearing gold and fancy clothes into Church? Or women talking and singing in Church? Or women teaching men? All of these things are condemned in the bible and all Christian women who sin in this way are "backsliders". But Ray does not write any articles about the evils of women in church choirs, or women wearing their gold wedding bands into church. These are sins according to God. See the writings of Paul:

"Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says." I Cor 14:34,35
"in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing" I Tim 2:9
"But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors herhead, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved" I Cor 11:5 (see also I cor 11:13 or I Cor 11:15 for why long hair can be considered a"covering")
"And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to bein silence." I Tim 2:12
All verses are the NKJV.

If all these are "backsliders" then who is left of the actual Christians? I guess only Ray Comfort (as his trusty sidekick, Kirk Cameron, is guilty of being rich)..

War On Christmas; The Secret Inside Job

2007-12-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

You know for some reason I just realized that there are some from the inside who are working to undermine Christmas and, via secularization, eliminate Christmas. Just consider the "pro-"Christmas song, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas".

But then there is this line following:
"...And a Happy New Year"

Get that? This song that is supposedly pro-Christmas, because it actually mentions Christmas (and mentioning Christmas is what the war-on-Christmas fighters like Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson want most) slides in through the back door a very secular message, "and a happy new year" Since there is nothing about Jesus wrapped up in this whole New Year thing, then secularism has been snuck into a Christmas song!

Maybe someone should warn Bill O' and let him know that there are some Christmas songs which should not be sung, or even listened to, if he wants to win his war on Christmas...

hehe

Here is another great Christmas ditty (warning, it is Monty Python's Eric Idle, thus replete with the f-bomb)

Politics, Religion and Mitt Romney

2007-12-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

By now I am sure you've read something about Mitt Romney's big speech on his religion, and religious views. There have been many commentaries on it; e.g. The Rude Pundit's take (warning, he uses profanity), and Kevin Drum's thoughts. Even David Brooks has something to say in his NYT column. Most of the discussion leans towards what Romney said versus what JFK said in his religion speech. Everyone, though, was bothered by the fact that Romney basically threw anyone who was nonreligious under the bus, saying:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom....Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
....Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.
....Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. [Thanks to Kevin Drum for this quote]

And this Mitt Romney jewel:

It’s as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

Secularism can in no way be called a religion; it is exactly the freedom of religion. That is each and every individual is free to practice their own religion, but no governing body (be it the American government or the Vatican, or the U.N.) can force one set of religious beliefs onto an individual. How that can be considered in and of itself a religion is beyond me. But I have to give Mitt a pass here, he is not thinking on his own, he is parroting the false views and assertions of such Christian organizations as James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins and the American Family Association, and "traditional" religious establishments such as Coral Ridge Ministries.

So much has already been written about secularism, and how the conservative Christians use it as a dirty word that I really need not go into it here. Simply pointing out how absurd it is serves my purpose nicely. But it is important to point out because of what I do want to focus on in regards to Romney's speech; and that is the idea of freedom and religion being not just related, but intertwined: Without one you cannot have the other, says Romney.

I guess being the atheist, makes me the only one capable of actually reading and knowing the bible, as it is clear that being Christian, especially a conservative Christian prevents one from actually knowing anything about the bible. Unless, of course, it is reinterpreted (in a literal way naturally) by a minister and re-explained to the sheep, er.. flock, in mystical terms. "God is love", "For Jesus so loved the world..", "I am the light, the truth.." etc. All this love and hope and beauty explaining all the horror and blood and gore and murder found in the actual pages of the bible, once read for oneself. So let us look at Mitt Romney's ministerial sermon on religion and compare it to the bible.

Mitt claims religion and freedom are virtually synomynous. He says, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom....Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." Let us see what the Bible has to say.

4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. [2 Corinthians 10:4-6 NKJV]

Hmm.... That deos not sound too much like freedom to me. And how can one like Romney allow for the freedom of other religions or those of the nonreligious if he is duty-bound to bring into captivity his every thought to God? I mean isn't it the mission of Christians to go out and convert nations to Jesus??

15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. [Mark 16:15-16 NKJV]

Does this sound like freedom to you? I cannot think of anything more antithical to freedom than making it your mission in life to convert those of other religions to yours.

But irony lives on, and the Christians out there who buy into this notion of freedom and religion being even compatible, let alone synomynous will read what Jesus and Paul say and still think that is freedom. Freedom to them is accepting God and capitulating to "His" every whim. They do it freely, and thus that is what freedom means. They do not see freedom to mean anything else. There is no freedom in being allowed to reject Christianity. And those that do are not free. I am not making this up. This is what they believe. Its root is found within the pages of the Bible. The only way to be free is to be a slave of God.

But it goes even further. Mitt claimed that, "Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people." He may be right about this, for it was Christians who fought against freeing the slaves, it was the same Christians who fought against civil rights and it was the Christians who now say that a woman no longer has the freedom to determine the status and condition of her own body, rather (conservative) Christianity has that right to her body. If it had not been for Christians wanting and fighting to prevent all those freedoms, then they would have never been earned, they simply would have existed. So in that sense, Mitt is correct, those freedoms would not have come into being, if it had not been for religion fighting against them.

But what really strikes me is that in spite of everything, Mitt is just flat out wrong. He seems to think that secularism is a new religion that is taking over America. But the reality is that it is Christianity that is the "new religion".. The natives to this land we all now live on are the keepers of the "old religion", theirs was one of nature and respect for nature. The European interlopers came over, killed them by the thousands, and forced Christianity upon them. Christianity is the only real new religion which is a pox upon society and humanity. (In this part of the world at least; I would claim the exact same for Islam in the middle east as well.)

But freedom (and liberty, for that matter) mean different things to Christians and the nonreligious. Just look at Jesus' words in the Gospel of John:

Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed [John 8:36 NKJV]

Here we have come full circle. Freedom is what you have in Jesus, and freedom is defined by Paul as bringing every thought into captivity for God. So I guess the apt analogy would be that animals caged in a zoo are actually free, but their brothers and sisters out in the wild are not free.

At least this is what Romney is selling you.

I Just Came Across This On YouTube...

2007-12-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

I laughed, I cried, I remembered my childhood at Catholic school...

The New new Buddy Jesus, for today's "Halo III" youth...

The War On Christmas and a Sudanese Teacher

2007-11-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

You may wonder what the two have in common, but in reality it is very clear. Both exihibit an --unnatural-- sensitivity to things which may be perceived as insulting or attacking one's religion. In this country, Christians consider themselves to be persecuted (i.e. the equivalent of being thrown to the lions) if they are told 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas', and then those very same Christians turn around and scoff at Muslims who take offense to naming a teddy bear 'Mohammad.' This AP story, already well known by now, gives the details..

Pictures of Jesus and Mary used in innappropriate ways is highly offensive to Christians, just as images and use of the name Mohammad is to Muslims. But the brain-damaging irony only comes into play when Christians call Muslims 'sensitive' for being offended when their religion is mocked. And yet Christians the country over, all get in a hissy fit if some 16 year old says happy holidays instead of merry Christmas, because as everyone knows, "Jesus is the reason for the Season.." I mean it certainly has nothing at all to do with the pagans who celebrated the winter solstice (shortest day of the year) as the turning point of winter towards the rebirth of spring. Nope, that certainly has nothing to do with it.

In this country, aside from the vaunted War On Christmas, Christians are year-'round peeved that they are not allowed to foist their peculiar beliefs upon all other Americans who are not Christian. 'Christian Nation' is their war call. But what happens when the topic turns to, say, Iran. There is no mutual respect for Iran being an 'Islamic Nation'. In its place you hear and read terms expressed by leading Christians such as 'Islamo-fascism' 'Islamic terrorists' and 'islamic extremism.' If Iranians treat Christians as second-class citizens, then that is bad, it is repression of other religions. But in America, it is perfectly acceptable to treat non-Christians as second-class citizens. Can you imagine James Dobson of Focus on the Family arguing that it is ok for atheists to place anti-Jesus displays next to nativity scenes in public areas? Neither can I.

I guess there is one true common link between all religions. Every religion's one true god is named hypocrisy.

Literature: Conservative and Liberal

2007-11-23T14:58:00.000-08:00

PZ Myers has a great post up which should make anyone with an I.Q. greater than two digits stand up and take notice. In it he is humorously (well, not so much, as it is serious) commenting on the recent debate over over the books written by an atheist, Philip Pullman. The first of the trilogy, has now been made into a movie, "The Golden Compass."

Anyway, it seems that conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, want to simply ban books that they don't want anyone to read. Their current attack is preventing children to read books which may challenge the conservative's viewpoints. But we all know they also want to prevent adults from the same -- They want to prevent adults from viewing pornography, for example.

Is this really effective? Simply eliminating from public access books and material which they do not want be publicly known... But more importantly, how does the left handle books and material they do not want on the shelves, for public consumption?? The liberals of this world all have one thing in common, they will allow public access to all information, books, materials, etc. Their limit has to deal with only one thing: Delivering factual accuraccy to our children. Liberals only want to limit the direct teaching of anti-factual ideas, or at best, fact-less ideas. However, liberals do not support restricting access to books which support those same ideas. The perfect example is Intelligent Design. No liberal has suggested that the book, "Of Pandas and People" be eliminated from libraries despite it being full of factual inaccuracies. But teaching that same dreck to students should be completely eliminated from school science curricula.

I guess the simplest way to put the difference is this: Conservatives, especially conservative Christians, think that removing access to all books they don't like and preventing individual choice is the best route whereas liberals think that teaching only fact based classes and allowing access to non-factual hogwash for everyone is best.

And oddly enough this again boils down to whether or not one lives in a reality-based community, like liberals; or some fantasy land, like conservatives.

Things I am Tired Of, But Appreciate Anyway

2007-11-16T14:30:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest traffic attractions to my blog is... Pat Robertson and his prophecies for this year. I have to admit that I hate that the topic which brings the most people to my blog is also the most absurd. I have yet to find one single Christian who thinks Pat is in any way a messenger of God or even simply sane. But that stands in stark contradiction to the fact that he remains a very popular and influential televangelist.

However, my rather silly insights into the whole Pat Robertson annual tete-a-tete with God is exactly what brings the most traffic to my blog. People want to know what he says and and what others (like me) think about it. That is fine. I think he is nuts, as do many Christians. But that is not what I want to be as my main message to the world. I intend to show how Christianity is a damaging worldview (much like Christopher Hitchens in his book) along with all other diety-based religions/worldviews. I continually show how those very religions who claim to 'save' humanity are the very same groups who harm it most. I also use morality as a tool for this end. Morality is something which is common to all peoples. But it is not the same for all peoples and is continually changing throughout time. The 'absolute morality' of Christians is no different. The only thing which can be said when it comes to morality is that it is merely a set of guidelines for a civilization to survive. And the more effective those guidelines are, the longer that civilization exists. In other words, it is purely human-based. Even in religious circles, their morality is only valid as long as it propagates their community. No God involved -- Only human survival.

This has been the goal of my blog since its inception. But I guess I'll have to live with the fact that this is no longer relevant, only what Pat Robertson has to say as far as what he 'hears' from God. As that seems to be the only attractor to my blog.

Some Heavy Philosophical Thought on Christian Morals

2007-11-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

Christianity Today has up an article discussing racial slurs, character questions and the issue of morality. Obviously all those issues are related. But can you guess how they are related from a distinctly Christian perspective?

Surprise! They are not related in the way any normal --sane-- person would say. A person who lies, cheats and steals cannot be described as a liar, cheater or thief by anyone and they be moral for making that accusation according to Christian theology; so says Mark Galli. Whereas, it is moral to call a dark-skinned person of recent-times African descent (we are all of African descent if we go back to the origins of humanity) a 'nigger', 'darkie', 'colored', etc. The reason why, according to Mark, will surprise you.

Mark opens with this (try and spot the obvious error(s)):

A thought experiment: Is it worse to call former secretary of state Colin Powell a racial slur, or to call him a liar?

Let's see, being born black or choosing to mislead a nation into an unnecessary war which has caused the deaths of more Americans than 9-11...

Hmm. Woooo Boy. That is a tough one. Calling Powell a 'nigger' for being born black, or calling him a liar for causing the deaths of thousands of Americans. I think I'll have to go with door number one here. That is certainly more immoral. He can no more change his heritage than the moon can change its composition to swiss cheese. But lying?? He did that, and the blood of thousands of Americans is on his head (along with many others, of course). Powell committed a huge immoral act, and calling it such is in no way itself immoral.

But racial slurs, that is entirely different in nature. It does not become a slur if it is simply a description. 'Black' is still acceptable as it is merely a differentiation between 'White'. 'Black' is only a slur if it is used in place of 'nigger'. So why then, is it a slur? Because it suggests more than simply heritage. It suggests many negative general qualities. Intelligence, untrustworthyness, conniving are but some of the other attributes that accompany 'nigger' outside of skin color. If 'nigger' only meant 'black' then it would be as harmless as calling someone tall or short or fat or skinny, or Asian, or African or European. But 'nigger' has nothing to do with inherant traits such as these. It has everything to do with characteristics. And those characteristics are not ones that are earned --i.e. the individual may never have stolen or killed-- but are generalities unrightly bestowed upon an entire group because of prejudice. Undeserved characteristics are the bedrock of racial slurs. This is the the most glaring distinction between slurs and labelling Colin Powell a 'liar'. He lied. He has admitted he lied.

But Mark does not see it that way. He thinks it is worse to identify a person by what they are according to their actions than to misidentify an entire race according to qualities for which they are innocent of.

Let us see how he puts it:

Most people would agree that to call Colin Powell a racial slur reflects nothing on Colin Powell as much as it says something about the person using the word. But if one calls Colin Powell a liar, (as some are now doing regarding his role leading up to the Iraq war) then that is a direct attack on his very character. While many would not believe for a second that Powell is a liar, it raises in other minds the possibility that maybe he is—and thus his character is smirched.

Ok, Colin Powell isn't a liar. He was given false information and turned around and spread it around the entire planet even though he personally had strong reservations about the authenticity of the information. But he went ahead and told the world Iraq had WMDs when reality said they didn't -- i.e. He told a lie. But he is not a liar.

It is really simple. He told the world Iraq had WMDs. They did not. He lied. It does not require any sort of logical gymnastics to call him a liar. He lied, that makes him a liar. He could have done something about it at the time, like refusing to tell the lie. But he didn't. What about the other side of the coin? Can he do something about the color of his skin? So if someone demonizes him with generalized characteristics based solely on the color of his skin, that is more moral? According to Mark it is.

If that wasn't enough, then read this:

Many were aghast recently when they learned that reality show star Dog the Bounty Hunter used the n-word to describe some blacks, and earlier we were disturbed that shock jock Don Imus implied that certain black athletes were prostitutes—both comments manifestly silly that reflected nothing about the character of the people they were talking about. Yet when bloggers and pundits—and even leading Christians who describe themselves as "social prophets"—call their current political leaders "liars" and "murderers"—well, we hardly blink.

Maybe because the direct and specific accusation fits their willful crimes. Why is it wrong, in Mark's view, to call a person who lies a liar? And please correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Christians call abortion doctors 'murderers'? So are those Christians less moral than white supremicists who call blacks 'niggers'?

If a person is guilty of the willful committal of the crime, be it lying or murdering, then calling by that title seems appropriate. We now know Powell told the world something he knew to be untrue. He admits that now. That makes him a liar.

But then, the very next paragraph goes off the rails, he completely changes subject. It almost is as if he accidentally spliced two seperate posts together...

We are appalled when men treat women like sex objects, when they use sexually demeaning terms to talk about and to them. But we as a society wink and smile when we hear jokes on sitcoms that imply that a sexually healthy person will—of course! —look at pornography now and then. If there were ever a world where women are really demeaned and abused, it would be pornography. While we've
created workplace laws to prevent verbally demeaning talk, we have no political
will to create laws that will stop the pornographic degradation of women.

I get it, this isn't about calling a black person a 'nigger' at all... It is about pornography! Because women the world over are all demeaned when some women make money off their bodies. Of course the men making money off their bodies in the same movies is not demeaning to men everywhere. And sex... Whoa! No one should ever admit to liking or even having sex because it is just too dirty. That peeping tom sky fairy is watching all of us even in the shower when we may possibly be --gasp-- masturbating. So sex and porn is worse than racial degradation and racial slander. As is calling a liar a liar.

Then he jumps into probably the only coherent statement he makes in the entire post:

In the church, examples abound. Take just one: I've noted how some members are shocked, just shocked, if their minister uses an occasional swear word in conversation, yet they don't seem to worry much if he rarely preaches about bringing justice to the poor.

He is completely correct here. If you actually read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you will find that social justice and caring for the poor is the primary teaching of Jesus. Yet only the liberal pro-gay Christian churches teach this aspect of Jesus. All other more conservative churches teach hellfire and forced dominionism on the masses. If all Christian churches focused on justice for the poor instead of electing conservative politicians who lie rape and murder, then not only would this be a strongly Democratic nation, the poor would not be so poor. Why is the occasional swear word more important than starving children? You would have to ask a Christian to get that answer.

He draws all this together in his final point:

Jesus talked about the nature of our spoken words in a larger context. He told a story about a father with two sons. One son says the socially correct thing to a command of his father: "Yes, Father, I will go work in the fields." The other son says the socially scandalous thing: "No, Father, I will not go work in the fields." Yet later, the socially incorrect son actually went into the field to work, and the socially correct son did not.
Jesus said the socially incorrect son was the righteous one. The words we use to talk about others, and the promises we make to others—that is, how we use language—seems secondary to Jesus. It's what we do with our lives that counts. Not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" (or avoids swearing or slurs), will enter the kingdom of
heaven.

So the 'socially correct' son lied. The "socially incorrect" son did not lie. The socially incorrect son made no promise that he didn't think he could keep. And he in fact went against his statement because he was concerned with more important things, namely doing the right thing -- helping his father in the fields. The other son, the 'socially correct' son, lied. He said he would help and then did not. This story proves that Mark is completely 'talking out of his ass'. For he admits that lying and thus being labeled a liar is less moral than being called something that has no relation to who you really are. For in this analogy, the 'socially incorrect' son is innocent of his label. But the 'socially correct' son is properly labeled a liar. Calling a liar a liar is more moral than calling someone who is innocent of the accusation, a 'nigger', things he is innocent of. Thus Mark disproves his entire thesis here.. Ironically enough with the very words of the God he believes in.

My personal observation is this: Lying is one of the Ten Commandments no no's... But forget about all that according to Mark. Calling someone a liar because they lie is wrong. Throw those commandments out the window. From now on, the new laws of Christians is to be racial, commit whatever crime you feel like, but never ever expose wrongdoing, for that is the one true immoral act.

The War on Christmas Has Begun, This Time by An Irish Catholic

2007-11-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

Sean Hannity, of Fox News Channel, has fired the first shot in the war against Christmas. If you read this Media Matters post about how he describes Halloween, it is equally as applicable to Christmas -- Children learning to be liberals by asking for free handouts. Who knew that an Irish Catholic conservative was really secretly a part of the "great atheist conspiracy" to destroy Christmas.....

Children asking Santa Claus for free toys that they didn't earn the money to buy. What could be more liberal than that? Free handouts from a magical man paid for by nothing more than blind faith that that magical man, God, errr... Santa Claus exists. Well, maybe I'm wrong after all. What could be more Christian than asking for free handouts from a God paid for by nothing more than blind faith in that God. That is most certainly more noble and worthy than asking for a free handout from a flesh and blood person, paid for by dressing up in a costume and having to walk from door to door.

Wait, what is the difference again??

Why The Religious Right Is So Warm and Fuzzy and Lovable

2007-11-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Over at Crooks and Liars, they have a video clip and transcript of an interview with the Rev. Fred Phelps. He comes off like a raving loonie. If this is the best the gay-hating anti-constitution Christians have to offer, then rejoice, civil rights and equality will be scoring a major victory soon.

My take on it was the whole "persecution" angle. In the early centuries of Christianity persecution meant torture and death. But today's most vile of Christians all claim persecution simply because they are prevented from abusing, murdering and denying equal rights to groups they hate. The funny thing is, they are all free to spew their harted within the confines of their churches, in their homes, to their impressionable children, even on public streecorners. Yet because they are not able to codify their disgusting views into law, forcing their views upon everyone else, that is persecution.

The Genius of Talking Out One's Ass

2007-10-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

Literally talking out one's ass requires a genius most of us mere mortals do not possess. That is controlling one's sphincter to "shape" the flow of air past the spincter into reconizable sounds, more commonly known as "words." Learning that talent can only be called genius. (Yet we see so many on the right who have perfected the art of talking out your ass, maybe the genius of it is today greatly diminished... If people like Malkin, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Townhall.com, The Corner, LGF, Powerline, etc. can do it, then it can't be all that intellectual.)

But there is one unique form of talking out your ass that dominates. I see that you're way ahead of me here; yes its Christianity. The concept of Christianity is based on the principle of talking out your ass. So here we move from the literal (which requires genius) to the metaphorical (which requires nothing more than the ability to string a couple of words together into some meaningless sentences).

So here's the meat; the reason for writing this post:

Over at RaptureReady, Jack Kelley has an article up which defies all logic, and, coincidentally steps into an area in which I have spent years studying: the logic and structure of the New Testament. (For the record, I am not one of the emailers he discusses.)

The general thrust of his post is that there appears to be a disconnect between the gospels of Paul and the Jerusalem Apostles. (I wrote my book on this very subject.) But what interests me about his article is not that we have different interpretations of the texts of the Bible, but that he fails to see the glaring disconnect in what he does write. I will not critique his entire article, for I have already done that in my book, as his arguments are nothing new. He even admits as much.

So let us examine two excerpts and consider what they really are saying in terms of the value of Christianity as a "path to heaven."

First:

Was the doctrine of Grace unknown in Old Testament times? Over 1000 years before Paul began preaching, King David had this to say after sinning with
Bathsheba.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:1-2 & 16-17)
See how David makes no attempt to restore himself to righteousness through his own works. According to the Law both he and Bathsheba should have immediately been put to death. David humbled himself before God, confessed his sin, asked to be forgiven, and was. (2 Samuel 12:13)

So from this passage we see how Jack is arguing that a person can get into God's good graces by being repentent before God Almighty. Now if being forgiven by God is a good thing, and can be done by human piousness, then what does the Christian have to say about the status of David's eternal soul? Is David in heaven for being "right" with God?

I don't know. But let's see what Jack has to say about Jesus:

When the people asked Jesus, “What must we do to do the work that God requires?” they gave Him the clearest opportunity of His ministry to hand them a list. Here He was, a Jewish rabbi, standing in Israel speaking primarily to Jewish people who wanted to know what God required of them. He could have referred them to the 10 Commandments, or the Sermon on the Mount, or the 613 laws of the Torah. But how did He respond? “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.” (John 6:28-29)
Then He said that it was God's will that everyone who looked to the Son and believed in Him would have Eternal life. (John 6:40) Their salvation was based on their belief that He had come to save them, not on their behavior. Just like ours.

Much of His teaching from the Sermon on the Mount had been aimed at convincing them that they could never attain the necessary righteousness by keeping the Law. He even commanded them to “be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48) This can only be achieved when God's righteousness is imputed to us by faith. Those who advocate the different Gospel hypothesis would have us mix some combination of grace, faith, and works to arrive at the Jewish formula for perfection. But it can't be done. Grace is defined as an unmerited favor. As soon as you add work, it's no longer unmerited. The two don't mix.

He is correct, the two don't mix. How can one be a good person before Jesus by being repentent and getting into God's good graces (and therefore presumably getting into Heaven -- unless David is in Hell for being born before Jesus...) and then suddenly after Jesus, the only way into heaven is by believing that the man, Jesus, is God?

Given the two differing systems of entry into heaven (if I were a religious person), it certainly seems like the moral high road would be to be a good person, follow the rules and when they are broken, be repentant. The second almost seems like a cop-out in comparison: believe in the man-god and ignore the rules, yet still gain entry into heaven.

Of course, that isn't true either. Jesus and by extension, Christianity, still require a strict adherence to rules, only they seem to be new rules. Now the only things that Christians are concerned about is homosexuality, abortion, and the evils of science. So a gay believer in Jesus would still not gain entry into heaven, according to many Christians. Rules still matter.

This is the fatal flaw in Christian theology. Somehow, before Jesus, Jews were able to gain entry into heaven via their actions: repentence and good deeds aimed at the glory of God. But after Jesus, the rules changed. That was no longer enough; belief in Jesus as God was the primary (only) way to gain entry into heaven. The rules changed in mid-stream. And this rule change was due to a God-head who does not change, and whose rules are never changing (ala the whole silly concept of "traditional marriage.") But then, even Jesus has rules. Paul has even more rules.

Jack gives this simple statement regarding rules:

I can't tell you how many times folks who believe differently than I do have advised me to just read the Bible carefully and I'll embrace their position, but that's another story.

Sorry, Jack, but a careful reading of the bible is not necessary here. Only a casual reading will expose the reality of the bible. It may be another story from the one you present here. But it is the story. Either rules matter or they don't. If they matter, then anyone who follows them is good. If they don't then only in believing in Jesus matters. Considering the sheer animosity towards homosexuality of most fundamentalist Christians, I would have to say rules matter. If rules matter, then Jesus is not relevant.

...And Jack Kelley is talking out his ass.

Pity Us Poor Atheists.. So Says Baylor U. Prof

2007-10-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

Brent Rasmussen over at Unscrewing the Inscrutable has a post up that I found interesting. Brent takes a look at this article written by Dr. Roger Olson for their University newspaper. His reaction is certainly worth reading. I thought I'd take a look at the original article written and make some additional comments based on a different approach.

Dr. Olsen opens his article with this:

I feel sorry for atheists. They are so much in the minority in American society and they are bound to feel some marginalization if not persecution.

Do not feel sorry for us. We have broken through all the silliness that is religion and found the actual source of happiness, living our lives in truth, rationality, and free from ancient superstitions created to explain the observable natural phenomena around them. As for the marginalization and persecution stuff, we are only marginalized by Christians and Muslims who want to force us into their religious views.

Persecution is a different matter. I seriously doubt that any of today's atheists have been burned at the stake or "thrown to the lions" There is no persecution of atheists. Persecution is uniquely religious, either Christians being persecuted, Jews being persecuted by Christians or Moslims persecuting other Moslims. Of course, there is also the persecution of Buddhists and Hindus as well. Atheists are typically not persecuted, we are converted..

The good doc then goes on to express this cesspool of untruth:

We have to recognize atheists' full freedom to believe God does not exist, but we don't have to embrace atheism as a social good. In fact, I would argue that atheism has no redeeming social value.
Atheism undermines values. How? Let's look at care for others. Yes, an individual atheist might care for other people. But when have you heard of an entire atheist organization serving the poor, the sick or the hungry?
So far, at least, atheists haven't demonstrated their concern for others in any organized way.

Just out of curiosity, who supported SCHIP and who blasted it out of the water? I believe liberals (which most atheists are considered) wanted, fought for, and supported providing health care for our children. It was the non-liberals who shot that program down. How's denying health care for children proof that Christians care for others? Atheist organizations provide all sorts of care for others. For example atheists are members of groups that feed the poor. Atheists are members of groups that attempt to stamp out war and genocide. Surely a living person is better than a dead one? But Dr. Olsen begs to differ.

Dr. Olsen clearly does not understand what atheism is. He seems to think it is a united front or collective beliefs and thus should as a front all support specific goals. This is entirely wrong. Atheism is the lack of beliefs in anything specific. (except that there is no God). Christopher Hitchens is the perfect example of this. His personal views are entirely the opposite of what many atheists believe. This is of course also true of Christianity, but that fact seems to have escaped Olsen entirely.

Dr. Olsen then goes on to answer his own question with something resembling the truth, but which he fails to grasp the importance of:

But more importantly, atheism undermines values such as care for others because it cannot explain why anyone should care for others. If there is no God or anything at all above nature, then nature is all there is. The law of nature is survival of the fittest. Why help the less fit survive unless there is a God who loves them because they are created in his image?

He answers with the correct answer, but does not understand its importance. Nature is "all there is." Nature is our guide. And "survival of the fittest" is one of (certainly not the primary one) the laws that guides biological nature. What he fails to see is that caring, or more precisely, the need to protect the group, is a very powerful survival tool. Imagine a bunch of individuals independantly protecting themselves from a pack of wild animals. They would get eaten one at a time because each, as an individual, is not strong or fast enough to defend themselves. But working together as a group, they can. This leads to many "higher functions": complex communication, the need to protect the community so that the community can protect you, and a rigid set of laws that provide fairness to all so that the community can function as both a group and a set of individuals. Nature provides for all of this, atheists accept that. Dr. Olsen cannot. He only thinks that can come about by some mythical sky god telling us what we can and cannot do. For the record, I cover all this in much more detail in a series of posts on morality here, here, and here.

He continues with some other comments:

And atheism has no answer to social Darwinism -- the idea that society should not help the weak because it's nature's way to weed out the less fit.
Helping the weak goes against nature and if nature is all there is, well, why should we fight it? A person might choose to, but not because of any transcendent, objective obligation (such as that all persons are created in God's image).

Obviously, that is a flawed statement. Helping the weak actually can provide many advantages. Once language has been developed, the weak (let's assume they're the elderly for example) can actually be a great source of knowledge in spite of the fact that they can do nothing physically to help their community. The elders are the sources of experience and wisdom. Thus, they may be weak, but they have great value. And the value has nothing to do with any transcendent god.

Next comes the whole argument about "meaning".. How can atheists have any meaning in life without a god? Dr. Olsen writes:

But most atheists demonstrate their basic trust in the meaningfulness of reality by being outraged at evil and injustice, thereby demonstrating that atheism cannot be lived out consistently.

What has consistency to do with anything? Christopher Hitchens proves that atheism is anything but consistent. He is all about killing people and torture just like all the Christians who support the war in Iraq and the the more esoteric war on terrorism (Islam). Atheists can be deceived into thinking that evil things are good just like the masses of fundamentalist Christians who support killing and torture. If Christians can think evil things are good as well as can atheists, then what point is Dr. Olsen really making here?? I think he can -- at best -- say that atheists are just as human and mistake-prone as Christians. But then again, where is the surprise there?

Finally, he writes:

Baylor and universities like it exist to promote objective values and meaningful existence.
For them atheism is not benign, but the enemy -- even if atheists themselves are not.
Finally, let me repeat that I have nothing against atheists as persons and neither does Baylor University.
But in my opinion, they are people of character and virtue in spite of their philosophy of life -- not because of it.

Again, why is it that only religions can have objective values? Isn't preservation of the species an objective value? Aren't happiness and progeny objective values?

I can only conclude that religious people like Dr. Olsen are people of character and (sometimes) virtue in spite of their religion, Christianity, not because of it. I guess we have something in common after all.

Ron Paul, Libertarianism, and the Christian Right

2007-10-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Ed Brayton has written an insightful post at his blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars regarding Ron Paul. One group he did not mention, and one I have written about occasionally before is Christian Exodus. They are supporting Ron Paul.

First let us see a glimpse of what CE's president officially says about politics and the upcoming presidential election:

OK, that's enough ranting for now. I'll end this column on a positive note. Praise God that Congressmen Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo will be in tonight's debate. I encourage every one of you to contact your family and friends and watch [the thurs. May 3, 2007 Rep debate -- jeffperado] in the hope that some truth from these statesmen might squeeze into the debate between the load of manure from Romney and the brainless ramblings of Giuliani. You can watch the debate on MSNBC or online at http://www.politico.com/ at 8:00pm Eastern. [my emphasis]

So we see here that there are two Republican candidates appealing to CE, Tancredo and Paul. In the paragraph immediately proceeding this, we get this jewel:

I provide the above rant to once again demonstrate that Christian Constitutionalists (paleo-conservatives) in America live among a very apathetic, ignorant and stupid people incapable of any more complex political thought than "strengthen America." Therefore, because the American people are the problem the only solution at our disposal is to change the makeup of the electorate, and hence Christian Exodus to the rescue. [my emphasis]

So, the American people are the problem, the American people are the reason why America is so ungodly. (Well, to be perfectly trite here, I have to agree, America did vote for and allow Bush and other Republican cronies to come into office -- they are to blame for that...) But what really strikes me here is that this guy is blaming the majority of Americans for not agreeing with him. It's their fault that his views are not the controlling views of this country. So much for Americans having independent thought. Maybe he should focus on his own statement and ponder why it is Americans think he is wrong. I am thinking that most Americans simply think he is wrong and want something else for America. But that is just me.

Let's tie these two things together. CE likes Paul and Tancredo, and America's views are divergent with CE's views. Paul and Tancredo seem to be agreeable with CE's views and disagreeable with America's views. All I can make of this is that what they really want to turn America into a land where one (and only one -- extreme Christianianity) minority rules all. That means all other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and us atheists have no input into our government and how we are allowed to run our lives.

My view is that libertarianism is about being allowed to live our own lives and have government protect that right. That aspect of libertarianism appeals to me, I have to say. But the other aspect of it, that we are all left out to twist in the wind, with no universal source of help in terms of food or health or protection of our rights from the tyranny of others who disagree with that. Protecting individuals from the potential for huge profits by corporations at the expense of safety is another anti-libertarian goal that appeals to me. Thus there is a balance between all these things. Collectively protecting entire classes of people from the desires of others is indeniably a good thing. Giving everyone the freedom to run their own lives is another. The balance of the two is what made this country great, and will return it to greatness once the desires of Libertarians like Paul and the goals of groups like CE are seen to be what they really are: and that is antithetical to all of the above.

This is to say nothing of the other truly scary views of CE; creationism, biblical law, secularism denial for its citizens, and making Jesus central to government. Roam around the CE website, make notes as to their plan for the elections in 2008. Also please go see what happened during the 2006 elections which I elaborated on here.

AiG Goes Mental

2007-10-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

Answers in Genesis has to be the best resource for atheists everywhere in showing just why Christianity is nonsensical claptrap. Read this article they present attempting to refute atheism. It couldn't be a better propaganda piece for atheism if it had been written by the Freedom from Religion Foundation as a caracature piece. It is circular reasoning (and therefore not reasoning at all) at its best. Even a devout Christian who reads this would have to say that if their belief system were based on this argument, then they would have to reject it. Let's take a look at it:

Many atheists believe that their worldview is rational—and scientific. However, by embracing materialism, the atheist has destroyed the possibility of knowledge, as well as science and technology. In other words, if atheism were true, it would be impossible to prove anything!
Here’s why:
Reasoning involves using the laws of logic. These include the law of non-contradiction which says that you can’t have A and not-A at the same time and in the same relationship. For example, the statement “My car is in the parking lot, and it is not the case that my car is in the parking lot” is necessarily false by the law of non-contradiction. Any rational person would accept this law. But why is this law true? Why should there be a law of non-contradiction, or for that matter, any laws of reasoning? The Christian can answer this question. For the Christian there is an absolute standard for reasoning; we are to pattern our thoughts after God’s. The laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks. The law of non-contradiction is not simply one person’s opinion of how we ought to think, rather it stems from God’s self-consistent nature. God cannot deny Himself ( 2 Timothy 2:13), and so, the way God upholds the universe will necessarily be non-contradictory. [Links are from the original article]

For an article that is trying to show all logic comes only from God, they sure violate many laws of logic. Let us work at this backwards. Here we are introduced to their basic premise: God is the source of logic, denying God denies logic therefore no atheist can use logic without proving God. Genius!! The small problem with this, is of course it follows no law of logic at all. The two things are independent. The existence/non-existence of God is one issue, the existence of logic is another. The two are independent. AiG tries to make them interdependent. In the above quote we see that clearly. Logic exists and is known to all. Christians know God exists and is the source of all. Therefore, according to them, logic must come from God. It would be like me saying People exist, and chickens exist. Thus since we have fried chicken, then humans must have made chickens. Fried chicken is the product of humans, as is domesticating chickens. But chickens themselves are not. The two are related but not independent.

Likewise, it is true that many people believe in God. But that does make God real. People use logic to ascertain the existence of God. But that is not relevant. People possess the ability to determine and use the rules of logic. So just because all those things are true, does not mean that the obvious and only conclusion is that God created logic. All it means is that logic created God. Because all we have is that humans created God, and humans possess logic. Any other conclusion is flawed and not based on those very rules of logic they claim to prove God.

But it only gets better:

Laws of logic are God’s standard for thinking. Since God is an unchanging, sovereign, immaterial Being, the laws of logic are abstract, universal, invariant entities. In other words, they are not made of matter—they apply everywhere and at all times. Laws of logic are contingent upon God’s unchanging nature. And they are necessary for logical reasoning. Thus, rational reasoning would be impossible without the biblical God.

Here we slip into two more logical fallicies. First the change from some abstract god to the "biblical God." I mean we all knew it was coming, but what is the logical foundation of it? Going from the idea of some all-powerful creative being to the God of the Bible is certainly a leap. Why are they one and the same? Couldn't it just as easily be some other god who created the laws of logic? That is the first mistake in this quote. It is probably the worst, but also the most forgivable, as the biblical God is the only God those at AiG are interested in, so we knew that that would be the "obvious" solution.. Second is the "nature" or concept of the laws of logic. They are unchanging. But does that have anything to do with the bible's depiction of God as unchanging? What if the Bible says that God does change? If God does change, then by those very same laws of logic, then the unchanging laws of logic cannot possibly come from God.

So let us turn to the Bible and see if God changes: Exodus 32:14, "And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people." So God changed his mind. His thought process was reversed according to this passage. Then by the "logic" of the AiG, the laws of logic can also be reversed as well. If logic only comes from the mind of God.

[Update:] Exodus 32:14 (KJV) should be directly compared to the AiG's citation of 2 Timothy 2:13. (Note: the NKJV of the exodus quote is equally as revealing, as it uses the word "relented" instead of "repented"; and relenting is more clearly showing of the "changing of God's mind") Thus we have even more proof that the AiG argument is flawed, if God changes, then how can his laws be unequivically called unchanging.. according to the bible no less.

Here is a shocker: Scientists, logicians, mathematicians, rationalists, freethought itself, all agree that logic is based on unchanging rules. So here we have our basic problem. According to the AiG, the "biblical God" is the source of logic, using the human idea that God is unchanging, yet the bible states that its God is changing. So the god of the bible cannot be the source of logic as presented by the logic of the AiG. Maybe some other god can, but not the God of the Bible. I just wonder if those at the AiG will now abandon their "biblical God" now that it is proven that HE cannot be the source of logic, based upon their very own views on the laws of logic.

If you want more fun, continue reading the AiG article. It is certainly good for a laugh and an excercise in logical fallacies.

SCHIP and "Family Values"

2007-10-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

At first glance any reasonable person would think the two are synomynous.. After all caring for and protecting children is the very basis of "Family values," isn't it?

No. We find out. All conservatives and fundamentalist Christians really mean by family values is that gays and abortions are not allowed. Everything else is not considered. Multiple marriages? OK. Wife beating? That woman deserved it. Sick Kids? Sorry, you should make more money; your failure to do so means death or severe pain to your children.

The party of "family values" has decided that making our very own children healthy and safe is not a True family value. Because a True family value is making money and paying for it yourself. Consider how the conservatives/republicans think on this:

Writing into the federal budget (which is the sum of our taxes) protecting children from sickness, disease and tragedy via paying for their medical expenses is bad: Republicans don't think we should be forced via taxes to pay for the health of children. Whereas they profess that charity; the free giving of money to churches is the only proper method for helping children. So what they are saying is that only those who are wealthy enough to give of themselves should be the ones who "donate" to charity to help all those poor unfortunate children. According to President Bush, lowering taxes puts money into the pockets of families who need it. But whose taxes are lowered? BINGO! the taxes of those who have the most money. So are they now turning around and donating more money to charity to help others? Sorry, the answer is no. But there are those who do: Ted Turner, Bill Gates, George Soros, etc. The funny thing being they are all liberal Democrats. Conservative Republicans who benefitted from tax cuts are not doing anything to protect our very own children. It is solely the field of the liberal Democrats. Have you heard about Ann Coulter donating a percentage of the proceeds of her new book to providing health care to the poor children? Neither have I.

So what we have is that everyone paying taxes to help make children healthier is bad, but allowing wealthy liberals to pay for children's health is acceptable (as long as it is voluntary). That way conservatives can spend their wealth demonizing liberals for making children healthy.

Family values are an anachronism to conservatives and fundamentalist Christians. They have nothing to do with protecting or strenghtening actual families. They only have to do with eliminating abortions and ostracising gays. Divorces, single parents, all that is irrelevant. If you are a single parent then you deserve to have to work twice as hard and find a third job to pay for health insurance. There is no value at all in conservative family values except for destroying gays and abortion. All else is expected to be provided either by the family itself of through the charity of wealthy liberals.

Wealthy conservatives are expected to provide "charity" to perpetrating the standard line: Only those who don't need or require any help, be it medical or food are deserving of charity: and that charity is making them more Christian. It is up to the liberals to be the ones to give them medical help and food.

Family values are a funny thing; making families stronger and healthier is not a "value" but demonizing gays and eliminating abortion is a value. Go figure.

The Best Line Evah!

2007-10-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

I hate to simply cut and paste... But this has to be:

Besides, if Hillary Clinton becomes president she'll sign an Executive Order forcing K-Lo to marry a lesbian, get impregnated by Bill, and then they'll abort the baby on a podcast which Ann Althouse will drunkblog.

All glory goes to TBogg.

ENDA and the Conservative Christians

2007-10-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

It seems that just about every conservative Christian group has come out against the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA). The reason is simple, it gives gays the same protections everyone else already enjoys; Christians, race, gender, etc. This "special right" already granted to Christians is to be denied to gays at any cost.

Here is the funny part though. If they push for its defeat and it goes down (let's say because of a veto by Bush) the reason will have to be the "special rights" canard. What I want to know is if they will then finish the job and remove those very same rights from the groups that already have them, like say Christians?

The thing that amazes me is this is just one more piece of the puzzle that makes up the Religious Right. We just recently saw that they hate children -- or more precisely -- they hate children to be healthy (Bush just vetoed SCHIP). So I am left wondering, what do they really want this country to look like? For it is becoming more apparent that it is to be made up of only rich white Christians with a small underclass of sickly brown people (here legally) to tend the fields and do all the dirty work...

13 Months

2007-10-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

We are exactly 13 months away from the general elections which will determine our next president, senators and congresspersons. It need not be said how I feel about those elections, I want Dems in, Reps out. But this is not a political blog, it is a blog of principles. So I will refrain from the political. I want to stress the values, the important issues, which make this great country strong. Clearly I believe that democrats are the true harbinger of those values. But that is, again, not the point. It is, after all, the values themselves which are important. For a briefest of explanations, I will simply state that Constitutional values and the values found in the Bill of Rights are what is important. (For the record, I even support the rights of the second amendment, the right to bear arms, but I think that with any right granted, it requires certain limits.)

So here we are a mere 13 months away from turning our great country back unto the right path (dare I say the "righteous path"?). And where are we?

We have an economic problem resulting from the "ownership society" philosophy of Bush and others. We have a major problem of "Bushism" in that we are embroiled in an untenable war in Iraq, and those supporters want to broaden it to include Iran. We have a values problem in that common Americans want liberty, but also want safety from terrorism. (I believe personally, that by maximizing liberty, we minimize terrorist acts against this country -- I merely offer this piece of wisdom: "By offering all groups in this country equal protection under the law, then outside groups cannot fault/hate us for belittliing/"demonizing" their groups.")

Who, in this country really offers this? The Republicans want to demonize so many groups that they almost cannot be counted; brown people, black people, red people, atheists, jews, hindus, buddhists, gays, "liberals", "foreigners", the poor, the sick, the elderly, the French, anyone deserving of Constitutional protections. They even mix up their protected groups at times; its ok for a Christian to own highly explosive weapons (even if they make threats towards other Americans) but it is imperative that brown "foreigners" who are legal citizens, cannot own those same weapons, because they might attend a Muslim mosque. They afford First Amendment rights to Christians, but deny them to Hindus or Buddhists (Christians can pray before our Congress, but they cannot).

Selectivity seems to be the hallmark of Republicans. Further evidence is the Craig/Vittner shakeup. It seems to be ok to search for sex outside marriage if it is with a member of the opposite sex, but it is completely wrong if it is gay sex.

Americans are fastly approaching the time when a real decision needs to be made. What do we want to be self-identified as? Do we want to be a country of liberty and freedom or the country of torture and world domination? Liberty and freedom requires, at a minimum, that all are granted those rights, not just Americans.

I do have good news though, the power of the religious right on the one hand, and the power of the industrial complex on the other, have both grown so enormous that they are now at loggerheads within the one party that embraces them both -- The Republican Party. Now the power of lower taxes and deregulation is butting up against the power of regulating people and the revenue necessary to do that. The Republicans are splitting apart now. James Dobson is railing against the leading candidates, yet the business establishment is rallying around those very same candidates.

All we really need to do at this point is not screw up. Stick to message, attack their weak points and we win. Here's the beauty of that. When we win, everyone wins. Liberty and freedom come back to this country en force.

I think America is starting to realize that.

Some Final Thoughts on Noah's Ark

2007-09-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Much of the response to this post I made has been geared towards the most obvious defense.. "God did it". I have to say that that is the only possible explanation left for the "apparent" success of the original ark (as recorded in that history factbook we now call the bible) and the probable failure of any duplicated experiment.

I agree, that would be the only possible reason given by anyone who claims the bible is factually true and inerrant in God's Word. But my response would this:

Is "God did it" a scientific answer? I mean there are so many things we today do not understand in a scientific sense. Should we just ignore them and say instead God did it? Any garden variety creationist would necessarily have to say yes. Becuse if they didn't they would be admitting to a lacking in the answer, "God did it". Take medicine for instance. How many creationists would rather die from a disease and cling to "God did it" than accept that science which searches for connections could find a cure. The problem is simple. There can be no disconnect between the science that proves the absurdity of noah's ark and the science that develops new cures. Science works via one method. If that method fails to prove the possibility of Noah's ark, and the explanation given by AiG is "God did it" then it by default has to be incapable of curing disease, because once again the only true reason could possibly be "God did it."

So by invoking the excuse "God did it" when the Noah's ark experiment duplication fails, then there can be no way for any science at all to proceed because at any point Christians can claim God did it and if God did it, than who are we to alter God's will? Under the "God did it" explanation, all of science is effectively invalidated. Because nothing can be confirmed without proof that it wasn't the work of God and nothing can be invalidated for the same reason. Thus under the "God did it" explanation, no further science is possible, and all past science is invalidated.

By invoking the "God did it" excuse, any Christian immediately says nothing that humans can do is anymore effective because it can be overridden by God. Giving a cure to a disease to both an atheist and a Christian should only provide a cure to the Christian unless God wants the Christian to die and the atheist to live so that by living that atheist will give other Christians reasons to believe. IT IS the ultimate meaning for the old faith-canard "In God all things are possible."

But it completely invalidates all reason to live if we happen to be human and not God. For nothing we do matters anymore. If we cannot conduct science, then we cannot achieve anything that we have achieved, because science has touched all areas of human achievement.

If any Christian chooses to use the "God did it" argument, then they immediately reduce all human endeavor to useless and pointless tripe which could just as easily be replaced by sleeping on a couch all day, peeing on oneself, and dying of hunger for lack of getting up off the couch. For there can be no point to doing anything, if anything one does is utterly pointless in the face of well God does all.

The Latest Push for "Thought Crimes"

2007-09-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Family Research Council's (FRC) own president Tony Perkins has been leading a crusade against what he terms "thought crimes". Those he is fighting are amendments to federal hate crimes laws to homosexuality and other gender-identification crimes to the already existing law. You see, according to him, and other conservative Christians, they have a right to hate and abuse gays. If a gay man is murdered by a gay-basher because he is gay, then that should not be a hate crime (according to these haters).

But now we have the venerable Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League saying this in regards to Kathy Griffin:

The comedian's remarks were condemned Monday by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who called them a "vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech."

So what was it Kathy said? "Suck it, Jesus"

I have to admit, I'm confused... It is a hate crime to say "suck it, Jesus" but it should not be a hate crime to abuse gays? Isn't this the equivalent of a "special right" given to Christians??

Heh... Can I go on record as saying, "suck it, Bill and Tony!"?

Popular Pat Robertson and his Prophesy

2007-09-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

Lest everyone forget (and I know you haven't) it is September. That can only mean one thing -- well it means many things; football, 9-11, and of course the beginning of the "red zone" according to Pat Robertson. Earlier this year I wrote a post on Pat's prophecy which has turned out to be my most popular commentary of the year. It accounts for something like 90% of all my hits.

Obviously, most people who google Pat's prophecy and read my comments are greatly dissappointed, because all I really do is poke fun at who really has God's ear, and who God really speaks to. We have God's appointed leader Bush on the one hand and God's appointed Christian mouthpiece, Robertson, on the other. Both cannot have heard God's true words and be right. That was my point then and now. But today, I have to say that I lean (and fear) that good ol' Pat may just be the correct one. For the death and destruction Bush's dirty little war has been enormous, and the billions of people he has offended just might decide to strike back makes it really hard to defend against.

Yet I don't see anything as catastrophic as what Pat envisioned coming to pass. Now since I don't have the advantage of some all-knowing divine being whispering the correct answer in my ear, I cannot say what the future holds. All I can do is look at the facts on the ground and make an educated guess. So please do not call this a prediction or prophesy, for it is certainly not.

It is just what it is, a warning based on the dangers created by people who call themselves "warriors of God" -- and they are both Christian is Muslim.

Rapture Index of Rapture Ready

2007-09-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

One thing I religiously (pun intended) check on is the Rapture Index from Rapture Ready. It occurred to me that I should 'correct' it to reflect reality, and then find out where we really stand on the rapture index. So below is my correction to the index. The first number is the one I assign based on the facts of the world. The second +/- number is the difference between my number and that of Rapture Ready. Following that is my brief explanation of why I assigned the number I did. Any thoughts or adjustments you think I should make to this revised index, please leave in comments.

False Christs 0 -3 All there have ever been are wackos claiming to be christ (ala David Korresh)
Occult 0 -2 The only occult action has been Christian women killing their children in the name of God (and being declared incompetent)
Satanism 0 -3 Nothing in this category makes it a zero
Unemployment 3 +1 Even in the world's current economy, most of the world is employed.
Inflation 2 -1 Most of the world's inflation is contained
Interest Rates 4 +1 The US credit crunch is causing major problems in financial markets
The Economy 3 -1 The economy is stalling based on the housing market and credit problems, but the overall world economy is stable
Oil Supply/Price 3 -2 Oil remails at a stable price, and the world's economy has seemed to absorb its new higher priced stability
Debt and Trade 3 +0 This category will always remain at a 3 because what's good for one country is bad for another
Financial unrest 4 +0 The credit crunch has world markets jittery
Leadership 3 -1 Bush is the de facto world leader and his ability to lead is questionable based on his intellectual capibilities.
Drug abuse 1 -1 Drug abuse had declined over the last decade while liberals were running the US, but now that conservatives are in control, Afghanistan is producing record poppy crops
Apostasy 0 -4 No action in this category (because no Christian can define what apostasy is without other Christians denying it)
Supernatural 0 -1 Nothing that has a cause outside of nature has occurred
Moral Standards 2 -1 Hypocrasy runs rampant within the Republican party regarding sex.
Anti-Christian 0 -3 No action in this category which wasn't originally initiated by Christians causes this category to be zero
Crime Rate 1 -4 Crime fluctuates year-over-year, but remains largely unchanged.
Ecumenism 0 -4 Papal decrees chastizing Protestants needs to be watched, but again, who's the correct Christians and who are wrong?
Globalism 0 -4 There is no movement towards globalism which hasn't been the norm for millennia
Tribulation Temple 0 -2 No Temple exists and none is planned
Anti-Semitism 1 -3 Only Christians are anti-Semitic these days, and since they "must be right" then this isn't an issue. Muslims are neutral at this point.
Israel 2 -3 Calm pervades the land of Israel as the Palistinians are having internal strife
Gog (Russia) 2 -3 Impotent as they have been for over a decade
Persia (Iran) 1 -4 Much talk, no action. About as dangerous as Iraq shortly before we invaded.
The False Prophet 0 -3 No false prophets leading the faithful astray
Nuclear Nations 2 -2 Nuclear weapons still exist and pose a threat as long as they do
Global Turmoil 2 -3 War in Iraq and Afghanistan, turmoil in Africa
Arms Proliferation 0 -4 Stable
Liberalism 0 -4 no liberalism detected anywhere in power
The Peace Process 0 -2 slow, but outside of the wars, stable
Kings of the East 0 -4 No threat
Mark of the Beast 0 -3 Nonexistent
Beast Government 0 -3 Nonexistant
The Antichrist 0 -2 None found
Date Settings 0 -2 Only the doomsday-mongers are setting any dates
Volcanoes 0 -4 Nothing unusual
Earthquakes 0 -5 Nothing unusual
Wild Weather 2 -3 Global warming is creeping into our "normal" weather
Civil Rights 3 +0 Still many groups denied rights that everyone else enjoys
Famine 2 -2 Stable, there is always someplace where famine exists
Drought 0 -4 Nothing critical as of yet
Plagues 0 -3 No activity
Climate 5 +2 Global warming is being denied by many anti-scientists and those in power
Food Supply 2 -2 Tight but controllable for the moment
Floods 2 -3 Areas prone to flooding are being flooded. The severity is getting worse due to global warming

Index total 55

Noah's Ark Challenge

2007-08-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

You know what I would like to see? I would like to see some creationists/biblical fundamentalists do some actual research for once. Conduct a scientific experiment which is designed to test their theory that the world is only 6,000 years old and that the bible is literally true. One such test would not be hard to set up, would not be overly expensive, would not be difficult to conduct, and its results would go a long way to proving the literal truth of the bible. It would be unique in this way, as it is one of the few instances found in the bible of something required for a young earth, and that we can test today. I am of course, referring to the great flood and Noah's Ark. The Bible gave specifics as to the design of the ark, its purpose, its precise contents, and its length of use. This little experiment would be something right up the alley of "scientific" creationist groups such as Answers in Genesis. (read their current article.)

The experiment I refer to is this: build a ark, sail it for a year, and come out with all occupants alive and ready to breed. It is simple enough, the bible gives precise details as to the shape, size and construction of the ark. So it can be reproduced. Simple, neat, and evidenciary.

I call it a challenge, because of the obvious: No bible literalist would ever actually do it. Take AiG for example, they would much rather talk about what could have happened and never test it so that if it were, God Forbid, to fail then they would not have to explain how the bible could be wrong.

But let us set up this experiment and see what we have. First let us look at the construction of the ark: (Genesis 6:13-22 NKJV)

13 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. 15 And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21 And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.” 22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.

Thus we have the basic plan. Build an ark of dimensions 300x50x30 cubits, with only one window and one door. The outside and inside shall be pitched and its occupants will consist of 8 humans and pairs of every animal type ("kind"). First, the dimensions of the ark, in more modern terms is 438 feet long by 73 feet wide by 46 feet high. That gives us a specific volume, 1,470,804 cubic feet. Certainly plenty of room to work with, but not so big that it cannot be built using modest funds. As for the gopherwood, well, I think it would be allowable to use another type of wood as a substitute; just not the treated wood we use to build houses, etc. Treating wood to be resistant to water, fungi, barnicles, etc. is expressly forbidden.

So now we have the basics of our experiment, a boat made of some natural wood, with pre-specified dimensions and only one window and one door. The next step is to fill it. We already have the need for 8 humans, and that will easily be supplied by some God-fearing Christians the AiG supplies. The animals that will populate the ark seems to be the next logical step. Since we no longer have dinosaurs or many of the other species ("kinds" as AiG prefers) due to extinction, it would only be fair to allow a generous substitution of of "kinds". I certainly would be agreeable to that easing on the restraints.

[Update:] One issue I neglected to address was the nature of the great flood itself. From a purely mechanical physics point of view, the flood waters would have to have been very violent, much more so than today's harshest hurricanes. In addition, the temperature of the floodwaters due only to the kinetic energy released from the deluge would raise the temperature of the water to boiling. The ark was, according to the bible, covered in pitch. Pitch in boiling water becomes very gooey and much more likely to bead up. This would have the effect of greatly reducing its ability to make the ark watertight.

I think that given the nature of today's animal kingdom, endangered and threatened species and all that, that we could further limit the varying "kinds" put on this neo-ark. We will allow only non-threatened species on board. The only real concern is that there be a fair representation of both carnivores and herbivores on board as well as parasitic species. Providing adequate food and water for everyone will be up to the decisions of the AiG and the 8 volunteers. AiG as well as many other Creationist organizations have written extensively on how this could have been done, so I will allow them their expertise on that matter. My only constraint is that the ark be fully self-contained, and only have one window and one door.

Since it is spelled out in the Bible, that this ark was completely self-sustaining for one year, this experiment must also be completely self-sustaining for one year. Here are some other issues which I think need be addressed and are vital for the success (or failure) of this experiment.

1. Since the Bible does not specify the number of "kinds" of animals, and is unclear as to whether there were just pairs of all animals, of pairs of all unclean animals except birds, and the clean animals and birds went in pairs of 7 males and females, then the best estimates of the Aig and other creationist sources be used for this number. Some estimates range from over 6,000 "kinds" to under 3,000 "kinds". I will happily accept the lower number for this experiment, as long as a representative number of carnivore and herbivores are present (along with parasitic species). For example, only two earthworms are allowed on board (unless they are also stored solely as food and not as a preservatory "kind").

2. Creationists speculate that that many, if not all, of the "kinds" brought on board were young and not adult animals. This is allowable.

3. Since many species are now extinct, substitute species are clearly acceptable.

4. Since many species alive still today are endangered or threatened, substitute species are again acceptable.

5. Again, since we do not know exactly how many, or exactly what 'kinds' of species were on board the ark, it is acceptable for the AiG to make their best guess, and use surrigate species in their places. This does mean that carnivore be replaced by carnivore, and herbivore be replaced by herbivore. This seems more than fair and adequately scientific for the purposes of this experiment, since the inhabitants of this neo-ark will not need to repopulate the planet after their fantastic voyage.

[Update II:] 6. Regarding aquatic animals, the conditions of the flood would cause all aquatic animals to die as well (also as God intended, since He did say all living things on earth), since both the PH and the saline content would be radically altered, then it seems that aquatic animals would need to be placed on the ark as well. This includes the bottom dwellers too.

As for technology and the internal workings of this neo-ark; again it will be left to the AiG to set up. I think the rules for this should be both simple and honest:
1. No modern technology be used in regards to the care and feeding of the animals, only technology available to Noah during his time is allowable. However, the AiG can determine what this technology is, given that they state it before the experiment begins.

2. Because the experiment is to last a year (as according to the Bible, Noah's voyage lasted) and due to modern nautical regulations, some emergency equipment should be placed on this neo-ark: An emergency radio.

3. If the occupants get sick or need emergency attention the experiment shall be deemed a failure. If there is a massive problem with their precious cargo, then the experiment should be called off, and deemed a failure.

4. This experiment can be repeated as many times as needed until AiG is convinced that Noah's ark is a myth.

I look forward to learning the results of this scientific experiment to prove the validity of Noah's ark and the vindication of AiG soon, as I know, as do you all, that AiG is really a science outfit and not simply a Christian apologetics evangelical operation.

Please allow me to put this in my own terms. I, as a scientist, see just how difficult it would be to design and build a spaceship to keep just 8 humans alive for the journey to mars and back. That craft would certainly have to be self sustaining, providing not just its own food, but oxygen and water as well. This type of endeavor is beyond our capabilities even today. Yet somehow, I'm supposed to believe that not only was this done thousands of years ago, it was done including the precursors ('kinds') of every single species on earth, living and long since extinct. And yet AiG would have all you believe that I'm the one who is unscientific and wrong. It just boggles the mind. All you fundamentalist Christians out there: put your beliefs where your mouth is, build the thing and prove yourselves right. It is not my responsibility to accept your outrageous claims without one shred of proof. Science provides proof for its claims on a regular, everyday, basis. Isn't it about time you did the same?

[Update Sept 13]: I found this interesting web site. Apparently they are building an "exact" replica of Noah's ark as a building. Unfortunately though, it requires concrete and steel. Not exactly materials you'd find thousands of years ago. P.S. I have no idea if this is real or a hoax, but it is funny nontheless.

The absolute last update: I make a few closing comments here.

Is Jonah Goldberg Too Stupid to Vote?

2007-08-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

Already, so much has been written about Jonah's latest LA Times column regarding testing voters, ala Jim Crow, that I don't have much new insight to add to that. It was perfectly clear from his column that he lacks basic knowledge of civics, social studies and American History. So why focus on the obvious?

The underlying issue which he fails to breach is the real point of interest. That is, why are so many Americans (blissfully?) unaware of the details of our government and our history? The second point is, given this lack of knowledge, does this mean that Americans have no vested interest in electing politicians?

The answer to the first question is fairly obvious, not enough education in those subjects in school. Private schools tend to emphacize those subjects more than public schools, but by the same token, private schools also cater to wealthier students who are more likely to go into public life, be it doctors, lawyers, politicians or scientists. So then isn't what Jonah is really saying is that public schools have failed the public? Whose fault is that? Democrats and liberals have traditionally wanted to strengthen public schools, whereas Republicans and conservatives (like Jonah) have wanted to destroy public schools. So therefore, Jonah is really saying that policies that he himself endorses regarding public schools are the very reason for a lack of knowledge of adult voters of American politics and government. If Jonah had taken his obsewrvation to its logical conclusion, then he would have concluded that public education is failing to properly educate, and thus more emphasis on that problem be addressed. But no. He suggests that Jim Crow-like tests are the solution. It is once again an issue of "It's not my fault for my faulty policies, but the fault of others for ignoring what I believe."

The second question is more poignant. While given the fact that there are many Americans who lack knowledge in civics and history, does that mean that they have no vested interest in how this country is run? Especially since its operation directly effects their daily lives? Take something as "mundane" as wages. Voting Republican means that the poorest of the poor, those most likely to be uneducated (and most likely to fail Jonah's civics test) are those who are most affected by laws governing minimun wage. So they have the largest vested interest in voting Democratic rather than Republican. The ability to feed their families and provide healthcare are the greatest effects on the general well-being of their families; yet if they do nothing, or are prevented from voting (ala Jonah's proposal) then they suffer the most. So they have exactly the most to gain from opposing anything similar to what Jonah proposes. This also means that they are most likely to vote Democrat/liberal.

And that, I believe, is the real motivation behind Jonah's idiotic proposal. Those who most need liberal and demoratic policies are the very ones who would be discredited via Jonah's "new" policy. This would tip the balance of power towards those whom Jonah really wants running this country, Republicans/conservatives who could not give a crap about helping Americans, but only desire to enrich themselves.

Preventing people from voting in their own self-interests is the most Un-American of ideals. And it seems that this is precisely what Jonah wants: An Un-American America. I can only hope that so many people laugh at him that no one, including the LA Times will ever publish him again, excepting the wacky conservative rags whose only reach is like-minded idiots also know as Conservatives.