How about this Proposition?

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?

Evolution, Expelled, Christianity, and Hitler

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.

God's Real Plan Revealed

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.