After a number of years of posting on Blogspot, I’ve decided to move my blog over to Wordpress, as soon as I can figure out how Wordpress works!
My intent is to print all the posts I have on Blogspot in book form. That way if Blogspot craps, I have a hard copy of everything. Plus it’s nice to have the book to show family and friends.
So. so long from Blogspot. The address for the new blog is bornokforthefirsttime.wordpress.com. See you over on Wordpress in the next month or so.
I’m getting a little ticked-off by all the bitching the religious right is doing about their supposed loss of religious freedoms by Obama and others. We had the Catholic bishops (yeah, a real standard of morality) complaining that “Obamacare” was violating their religious freedoms by having contraceptives made available to their employees through the health care law. They seemed to forget that their employees are the ones who decide whether or not to abide by the Vatican’s edict against contraceptives and not the health care provider. Polls indicate that over 90% of Catholics practice birth control.
Then of course is the on going complaint about taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance or removing God from our currency or our motto. You just have to feel sorry for these folks who in a country where the majority claim to be Christian are now complaining their rights are impinged by those godless heathens, who ever they are.
Don Baker has a good article over at Atheist Experience web site. Writing about the recently vetoed bill in Arizona he says -
“The bill reminds me of other Christian initiatives in recent years. Christians have pushed for the “right” of pharmacists to not fill prescriptions for which they have a religious objection. Trans-vaginal probes lie in store for women seeking abortion in many states, thanks to the efforts of Christians. Gays in schools are more likely to be the victims of bullies, thanks again to Christianity. Of course, Christians have bullied gays for money for decades. These modern initiatives echo past Christian efforts to murder Jews, Muslims, Cathars, and infidels, the Inquisitions, the justification of slavery, and the subjugation of women.”
This whole thing boils down to the fact that the religious want to push their desire to discriminate if it somehow offends their beliefs. If they have a customer come into their shop that they suspect as being gay, they want to right to throw them out of their store. Or if a pharmacist has a religious issue with dispensing birth control meds, they want to not pass the package across the counter.
And then there are the issues this time of the year about nativity scenes on town and city property. The Bill O’Reillys’ scream that those atheists are denying them their right to have Jesus in front of the town hall. They conveniently forget that governments can’t promote any religion over another and that’s what the nativity scene is really doing. It’s promoting Christianity over all other religions.
It’s apparent that religion has too much influence in government and politics and no politician has the balls to stand up to religion. And they don’t seem to realize that entrenching religion into government will only hurt religion in the long run.
OK the elections are over and much to no one’s surprise, the Republicans now control Congress. For the GOP here’s where the rubber meets the road. After years of saying No to everything Obama proposed and generally being a pain in the ass to the country, now if the time for them to show what they are made of. Not much I would suspect.
I’m going on record, right now, and say that this might just be a good thing for Democrats. If, and it’s a big if, they show some balls. Now they can be the pain in the ass that the GOP has been since 2009. And if the GOP wants to do anything meaningful, they might (perish the thought) have to work with Democrats.
Over at www.addictinginfo.org they had this article that indicates it’s not as bad as we might think.
“You see, for the last 6 years, the only thing Republicans have had to do is say “No!” to anything and everything President Obama and the Democrats put forth. That’s easy when your base hates the president so much they would happily light themselves on fire if he said “Third degree burns are bad for you.”
This rage keeps the right wing voting for Republicans as long as Republicans tell them what they want to hear: Obama is a Kenyan Muslim socialist Commie Nazi that stole the elections, government is the problem and we’re here to stop Big Gub’mint blablabla…
But now Republicans have to do something they no longer know how to do: Lead.”
We will see how well they can lead. We have to remember that the Republicans, like the Democrats, are not a monolith. It’s been said that herding Democrats is like herding cats. Well with Republicans it’s like herding Tasmanian devils. Remember you got the likes of Ted Cruz who just likes to be the class idiot when he opens his mouth. The in fighting will be a sight to see.
“Here’s the next two years:
Now that they have the Senate, conservatives will demand that the GOP repeal/defund Obamacare but the ACA is too deeply entrenched now. Attacking people’s healthcare is a sure path to electoral suicide but the base won’t care because they hate Obama with a blind rage. If Republicans don’t try, the base will turn on them and here come the primaries from the far right.
Impeachment!!!! The base and Fox News want impeachment proceedings so badly they can taste it. The base is dumb enough to think it will work, Fox simply wants the massive ratings the doomed-to-fail impeachment hearings will bring. Republicans in the Senate still remember how much damage their last attempt to impeach a Democratic president did and won’t want to even try. And then here come the primaries from the far right again.
The House will pass insane bills and the Senate will try to smooth out the extremism to attract even a handful of Democrats. The House GOP will froth at the mouth and here come those primary challenges.
Ted Cruz will be running for president and will take every opportunity to undermine Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader. Cruz already has a track record of sabotaging the GOP for his own personal gain. Expect that to get worse.
Several other Republicans will be running for president as well and they will be loudly demagoging to the farthest of the far right. Expect normal humans to be nauseated.
Mitch McConnell has already said he will be trying to blackmail President Obama at every opportunity with threatened shutdowns. How do you think that’s going to go over with the public?
Sure, the press will mindlessly repeat Republican claims that Obama is responsible for the continued gridlock but the thing about being the one writing the bills to put in front of the president is that your name actually has to be on it. Now Democrats can sit back and point out the GOP’s extremism and even the “liberal” media will have a hard time blaming Democrats for it.
So, really, not much will change in terms of policy making. Republicans will face President Obama’s veto and they are FAR from the votes necessary to override it. Harry Reid has ZERO incentive to work with Mitch McConnell after his scumbag behavior for the last 6 years and despite what the Fat Smug Bastard says, I don’t see Obama rolling over to accommodate Republicans who have been savagely attacking him since the before he was even elected.
And finally, there’s 2016. Remember that awesome Republican wave in 2010? Well that wave crashed in two years. Republicans will have about 24 seats up for and the Democrats will only have about 10. And it’s a presidential election where the turnout is always higher. On top of that, Hillary Clinton will most likely be running and that will bring out an even higher turnout.”
If I was Obama, I would be the biggest pain in the ass they’ve ever seen. He’s got nothing to loose and maybe he can get the GOP running around like the Keystone Kops. I’m not saying the next two years will be fun, but they will be interesting.
On this election day, keep in mind a major theme of the Party of No. Scare the crap out of everyone! You’ve seen it with the right wing dumbo’s going bananas over ISIS, ebola, immigrants, and God knows what else. But they don’t seem to be concerned about climate change. Well they say “I’m not a scientist.” Well talk to some of them!
From the web site Crooks and Liars -
“The right wing needs to keep their base worked up into a frenzy and in a constant state of panic leading up to the midterm elections to be sure they're animated and afraid enough to come out and vote against the evil Democrats who supposedly don't care if you're killed by the Ebola virus, or by the ISIS terrorists they claim are crossing our southern border.”
Of course our sane commentator, Bill O’Reilly, over at Faux News said this -
“Bill O’Reilly tonight called for the resignation of CDC Director Tom Frieden, who he said is not being forthcoming about the threat of Ebola.
“The Factor” host said it’s “very worrisome” that Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, has been diagnosed with Ebola even though she was wearing protective gear.
O’Reilly reiterated that “there is no compelling reason why West Africans should be admitted to the USA” amid this epidemic, calling it a national security issue. He said that a new NBC News poll found that 58 percent also believe there should be a ban on flights from West African countries into the U.S.”
Of course O’Reilly and his minions don’t want to listen to the experts (scientists) because they know exactly what to do. Health experts have said over and over that banning travel to West Africa will only make matters worse. The outbreak needs to be stopped there and the only way to do that is to get doctors and health professionals there to control it. Of course O’Reilly iS not a scientist but he knows what to do.
From the web site The Contributor comes this about ebola -
“By now, you could probably use some comic relief. Enter Rick Wiles, a radio evangelist who last week engineered a gymnastic flip-flop.
First he said that Obama would exploit Ebola by tyrannically mandating "that every human being in the United States be vaccinated...and nobody knows what is in the vaccine." Then, a day later, he conjured the notion that Obama bringing Ebola statewide was actually a good thing, because it would clean God's slate: "It may be the great attitude adjustment...Ebola could solve America's problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and abortion."
It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming,” he said. “Ebola could solve America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion.” - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rick-wiles-ebola-could-solve-americas-problems-atheism-and-homosexuality#sthash.IENLsjuj.dpuf “
So according to this Rick Wiles, the way we solve this problem with homosexuality and pornography, is to let ebola take care of it. I’m sure that’s what Obama was thinking.
Finally from Raw Story comes this story of this Baptist preacher in North Carolina who warns his flock about how God will take care of the gay marriage thing. You guessed it – ebola!
“A Baptist preacher says the biblical "End Times" are upon us thanks to a federal judge striking down a ban on gay marriage in North Carolina.
According to Ron Baity of the Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., God is so angry over the decision that He's about to send something even worse than Ebola.
"You think Ebola is bad now, just wait," Baity warned during his sermon on Sunday.
Baity spoke of hearing an official bless a gay marriage, something he claimed was a direct violation of the Bible.
“If you think for one skinny minute, God is going to stand idly by and allow this to go forward without repercussions, you better back up and rethink this situation,” Baity said in remarks transcribed by Raw Story. “I want you to understand, that is raw, pure blasphemy.”
Baity also drew comparisons between gay marriage and Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities destroyed by God in biblical stories.
"My friend, we are meriting, we are bringing the judgment of God on this nation as sure as Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, don’t be surprised at the plagues. Don’t be surprised at the judgment of God," Baity said. “You think Ebola is bad now, just wait. If it’s not that, it’s going to be something else. My friends, I want you to understand, you can’t thumb your nose at God, and God turn his head away without God getting your attention.””
But don’t worry folks, when the GOP is in control they will fix every problem!
I just had to comment on this posting I saw in Facebook. This one little piece of paper says a lot about what Christians really believe and how they have to constantly convince themselves and others that they got it right when in fact, deep down, they know it’s not true.
If you’ve read C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” you’ll see that he admits that you can reason out of Christianity. His solution? Just keep saying over and over that Christianity is true. And of course, pray. It’s like the person that doesn’t want to hear that climate change is manmade so he sticks his fingers in his ears and keeps saying “NO NO NO” over and over hoping the truth will magically go away.
The person who wrote these answers got it right. Logic, reason, atheism and God’s non-existence are just some of the things that shoot down Christianity. I would only add skepticism and critical thinking.
The sentences at the bottom are attempts to put the guilt on the believer. Basically it’s saying that the believer is screwed up and shouldn’t trust this reason crap. The believer has to buy what we spoon feed them in church and in class, despite what this logic and reason stuff might say.
Reminds me of a quote I saw about Joyce Meyer who wrote a book to help parent deal with teenagers who, perish the thought, are questioning their belief. Here’s what she said, “I once asked the Lord why so many people are confused and He said to me, ‘Tell them to stop trying to figure everything out, and they will stop being confused.’ I have found it absolutely true. Reasoning and confusion go together.” Joyce Meyer - Battlefield of the Minds of Teens
Notice how Mrs Meyer is pals with the Lord. Money talks I guess!
So according to Mrs. Meyer and the school or church where this paper came from, forget all that logic and reason bullshit. Go with the batshit you learn in church. Doesn’t this make you feel good about where our country is headed?
It’s been sometime since I wrote so hopefully in the future the gap between my blog postings will be shorter.
I’m intrigued with the discussion from the religious folks about gay marriage. Seems like they frequently bring up the sex that gays engage in and how sex is supposed to be only between a man and a woman. And that any other type of sex isn’t right. Their argument is something like “If you allow gay marriage, the next thing you know, men will marry dogs or pigs,” or something along those lines. The issue of gay marriage doesn’t center on the two people who want to take care of each other in the minds of the evangelicals but inevitably goes towards the type of sex they have.
I’ve long held that marriage, at its core, is simply a societal contract between two people. Period. It’s two people who commit that they live as a unit in the eyes of the law and society and with that comes certain duties, obligations and rights that each of them share. It’s simply not about having sex or the type of sex they have or when they start to have sex or if they choose to have children. Through out history young people have never waited for a piece of paper before they had sex. Biological urges trump any legal or social bans on sex.
The religious right think that if they continue to harp of the sex aspect of homosexuality, the public will turn towards their view. That hasn’t happened and there are no signs that it will. The reason, I think, that the religious focus so much on the sex aspect of gay marriage is that, deep down, they know they are loosing the public on the issue of marriage equality. The keep bringing up the old canards of “it’s a choice” or “it’s unnatural” forgetting that humans are complex creatures and we all have different ways we live our lives.
Good old Mike Huckabee said recently speaking of the Supreme Courts refusal to hear lower courts over turns of gay marriage bans, “Now, this is not just about same-sex marriage, with which I frankly disagree with. I, by the way, hold the same view that President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden held until just 2 years ago - that it was inconsistent with nature and nature's law.” Where is nature’s law with regard to marriage? Marriage is a man made construct. In times past it was more or less a business deal between two families. And check your Bible, Mike, regarding marriage between one man and ONE woman. Plenty of biblical icons had many wives and many mistresses in marriage.
The bottom line is that the religious loonies are going to loose this battle. The younger generation has more concerns than who beds with who. Gay sex is here, has been and will be.
In his debates William Lane Craig often uses the argument that without God, there is no objective moral standard. He says that only God can provide the moral standard by which we must live. Where do we get that moral standard? From the Bible according to Craig.
Anyone who has read the Bible with any sort of open mind can see that the Bible is a mish-mash of killings, slavery, murder, child abuse, global destruction, and so on. As an exercise I wanted to take one particular verse in the Bible and see what it really said about morals. I also wanted to see if the “inerrant” word of God changes with various translations and versions. So I started with a goodie – Numbers 31 verses 17 and 18. If you haven’t read it, Moses gives instructions to his people about what to do as they annihilate Midianites.
As an example of God’s moral standards, these two verses are pretty horrific. Not only does Moses want his folks to kill boys and women (girls?) who had sex, but as a war prize his folks can keep, for themselves, the young virgin girls.
I looked at various versions of these verses, starting with the 1599 Geneva Bible up to the Revised Standard Version, that I believe is widely use in many churches. All these verses can be seen below. I will admit that the crux of the sentiment stayed the same throughout the versions. I guess as each version was done, no one recognized the horror of the verses. Blinded by God?
I found it interesting that Moses specifically wanted to kill young boys. Where was the cut off age - 16, 18, 21? And why kill young boys? If you want to ensure that the Midianites wouldn’t be able to fight, why not kill the adult men? And what was gained by killing women who had sex. That implies that they were mothers and what would happen to the mothers’ children?
Of course the kicker is that Moses wanted young virgin girls as war spoils. Even today capturing young women, virgin or not, is not condoned and is universally condemned. So William Lane Craig’s God has a very warped sense of moral standards. Thanks Bill, but if stuff like this is your example of the moral standard that we can only get by God, then no thanks. I know society as a whole has done better than your book written by Middle eastern goat herders.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers 31:17,18
American Standard Version
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women-children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
21st King James
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who hath known a man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Common English Bible
17 Now kill every male child and every female who has known a man intimately by sleeping with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known a man intimately by sleeping with him, spare for yourselves.
Contemporary English Version
17 You must put to death every boy and all the women who have ever had sex. 18 But do not kill the young women who have never had sex. You may keep them for yourselves.”
1599 Geneva Bible
17 Now therefore, slay all the males among the [h]children, and kill all the women that have known man by carnal copulation.
18 But all the women-children that have not known carnal copulation, keep alive for yourselves.
Good News Translation
17 So now kill every boy and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse, 18 but keep alive for yourselves all the girls and all the women who are virgins.
1604 King James
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
The Living Bible
17 Now kill all the boys and all the women who have had sexual intercourse. 18 Only the little girls may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
Revised Standard Version
17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
I’ve seen in blogs and in print that we continue to refer to atheism as some sort of philosophy or world view. As Sam Harris points out, in the picture at left, it isn’t so. I agree with him saying that “atheism is a term that should not exist.”
I, as an atheist, am simply saying that I don’t believe in a god, any god. It does not say anything about my views on politics, my views on the economy, my views on capitalism or anything else. If I was to say I was a “a-unicornist”, that simply means I don’t believe that unicorns exists. There is no such thing as “a-unicornism”, in other words a world view or a philosophy about the lack of belief in unicorns.
Christians love to attack atheists and atheism because they think that being an atheist spills into a philosophy that, to them, entails hedonism, paganism, liberalism, and anything else they want to dump into that pot. Again an atheist is simply a person that has no belief in a god and that’s it!
I’ve heard it said elsewhere that we should refrain from using the word atheist because of the seemingly bad connotation it has to believers and to use words like “humanist” or “non-believer” or “non-religious.” The last is my preference. There are religious people and they comprise various faiths and religions. Non-religious people are those outside of that camp. Nothing more.
One of the things that believers like to do is attach a lot of suppositions to the word atheist. From their prospective, atheists are the scum of the earth because they have been taught since birth that religious people, particularly Christians, are on a higher plane when it comes to morals. They can not conceive that other people that don’t share their belief can be moral.
An example of how twisted people can be in their interpretation of the word “atheism”, getting themselves wrapped up in words like belief and rational, while confusing the issue even more can be seen in this article from an Indian web site called Boldsky.
“Atheism in its essence, pertains to a system wherein belief in deities is non-existential belief. This implies that atheism completely rejects the worship of any form of religious idol or religious entity. So coming now to the question- are atheists rational? Is atheism rational? Is it irrational?”
I’m sorry but I don’t understand what a “non-existential belief” is. To call yourself an atheist is simple saying that you don’t believe a god exists. Period! There is no implication that this non-belief in gods is a belief in of itself. The last point from above - “is it irrational?” To say that it’s rational when you say you don’t believe in a god until there is evidence is completely rational. What is more rational than that?
“At this point, a very important facet of this discussion- what is atheism in the philosophical dimension ? A recent study revealed that a staggering 65 percent of all philosophers are atheists. Now there has to be some logical rationale behind this. Philosophy in the current age has overtaken religion in terms of envisioning a society that would work towards absolute human happiness. So if most philosophers are atheists, doesn't it imply that atheism is actually a logical belief system?”
Again atheism is not a philosophical thing. It’s just a statement of non-belief. And just because 65% of philosophers are atheists doesn’t mean anything. What if 65% of philosophers believed little green men visited Earth, would that mean Martians were here?
“To answer this very question, let us address a very important aspect. While atheists claim that there is a lack of evidence in validating theism, they do not support their views with evidence. So basically, there isn't plausible coherence in what atheists declare or state.”
Basically what this is saying is, “prove there is no God!” It misses the point that those who espouse theism must provide a clear foundation for that belief. Until that happens the default position is “no proof, no belief.”
“To elaborate the previous point, if an atheist asserts that the number of stars in the milky way is an odd number, then he needs convincing evidence to espouse his claim. But, quite unfortunately, it is in the nature of atheists to discard claims of others on the one ludicrous claim that there doesn't exist any evidence.”
Comparing apples to figs.
“So if an atheist is rational, then what would he believe in? Theism? Then that wouldn't make him an atheist, would it? And if he is irrational, does he continue to be an atheist?
It is hard to address the question gratifyingly, for to answer the question "are atheists irrational", you might end up, after getting entangled in a web of intricate thoughts, that theism can be irrational in many a way too.”
Finally the author gets himself wrapped up in terminology. Is it rational to be irrational? If you don’t believe, then you can’t believe in anything. How about just the natural world that we can sense, measure and experience? Stop all the woo-woo talk and get on with the one life you have.
By now many have heard the debate between Sye Ten Bruggencate and Matt Dillahunty in Memphis. I never heard of Sye before but after watching the debate, it was clear that Sye’s views the existence of God much like William Lane Craig does. No matter what evidence you present, if it’s in the Bible, then they believe it. Nothing will convince them otherwise.
The photo at left is about one of the gems that Sye said. I’ll return to that in a minute. I want to first address how he started the debate, if you could call it that. He starts by laying out his argument as follows -
1. It’s reasonable to believe something if it’s true.
2. It’s true that God exists
3. Therefore it’s reasonable to believe that God exists.
And he said it with a straight face! Of course if something is true, it’s reasonable to believe it. The question is is something true? I would believe in dragons if they were shown to be true, in other words, existing. Since there is no evidence that dragons exists, it’s not necessary to believe they exist. The same could be said of fairies, unicorns, aliens, etc. I believe there is a basketball size diamond buried in my backyard. Does my belief that it’s there make it exist? If it really existed, I would be digging up my backyard.
Just like most fundamentalist Christians, Sye assumes God exists, not because there is evidence of God’s existence or non-existence, but because he was probably taught as a young child that God is real, like most kids are taught today. The belief is now so entrenched in him, that Sye, like Craig, can not not believe. No amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.
The other skill that Sye and Craig have is that they are great at linguistic gymnastics around the God question. For example, is what we perceive as real really real? How do we know what is knowledge and not some false perception that we take as knowledge? It makes my head hurt when I hear them bamboozle everyone with a string of words that sound OK by themselves till you spend a second to try to unpack it and make sense of what they just said.
Reasoning is not something that Christians want to do and to some extent, debating with Christians is futile. Take the photo at left. Basically Sye is saying the Bible is true, and that’s it! Don’t try to show me something, like the Koran, that contradicts my belief. I won’t hear it.
Finally in another part of the debate Sye said he doesn’t do Bible studies with Atheists or non-believers. I wonder why. Is it because that the challenge to his beliefs is something he is uncomfortable with? Like many that spout the Bible, all they want is to say their BS to a willing flock that keeps saying “Amen” at the correct time. It’s been said elsewhere, if you could reason with Christians, there would be no Christians. Hopefully someone who is fence sitter when it comes to the God question will be persuaded to examine their belief more closely. One can only hope.
You don’t have to search far to find some insane and tortuous creationist logic when creationists are trying to harmonize their bible with science. Two recent examples are Eric Hovind and Bryan Fischer. Go to the Friendly Atheist blog on Pathos.com and you’ll see these two yo-yo’s in all their glory.
First up, Bryan Fischer. He’s always good for some head-spinning explanations on how the Bible is always correct and how science is always wrong. His latest BS is how evolution is SO wrong and it’s because he has the proof in the Bible. His point is that, according to Scripture, death didn’t enter the world until good ole Adam ate the damn fruit. Then death, he claims, was everywhere - wow. Bryan says this “No sin, no death. Prior to Adam, there was no death. So evolution cannot possibly be true. It’s just a matter of theological fact”. It’s that simple, huh Bryan? So tell me, what about all the animals before Adam chomped on the apple? Did they live forever and then once Adam did his thing, they also suffered the death deal? What did they do? When did lions and sharks and the like developed a taste for fresh flesh? Another point, according to your precious Bible, Adam didn’t die in THAT DAY. He lived till he was 900 plus years old. So much for instant death.
But anyway the BS cake goes to Eric Hovind and his failed attempt to prove that the Noachian Flood carved out the Grand Canyon in about a year or so, not the millions and millions of years those stupid geologist keep claiming. He traveled to Pensacola, Florida after some heavy rain washed out some streets. He goes around with video camera in hand asking people, “What caused this, water or time.” Talk about priming people for the response you want! His point was that if this particular washout could occur quickly, then, of course, a massive amount of water COULD carve out the Grand Canyon in a short amount of time! Case closed he thinks. Except there is a big difference between washing out an area that is mainly sand and carving a canyon made of rock. Check any river that flows constantly with a large amount of water. Over a year or two you don’t see much change but come back in a couple of hundred years or a thousand years and you might see the river carving another course. If you try to fit the carving of the Grand canyon into a time frame of a year or two, you’ll have major problems. But that doesn’t faze Eric as long as his minions in the pews nod their heads in agreement. Science to Eric? Bah!
The good part in all this is as these idiots put up stuff like this, the more they demonstrate their ignorance about science. Keep up the good work guys!
What if, just what if, this whole God thing was just a creation of our minds? Assume for the moment that God doesn’t exist and never existed. Dispel for the moment all the arguments that you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. Start from the premise that God never did exist and this whole notion of God is just made up by humans. How does this idea square with what we know of religion today?
Many evolutionists are on the side of the idea that in our early days on the savanna in Africa, we came to believe in outside agents because we really didn’t understand how the world worked. The rustle in the grass may just be the wind or it may be a lion that might eat you if you thought it was just the wind. Those that thought it was the wind survived and stayed behind, reproduced, overall, more that those who ended up as lunch for the lion herd. So evolution allowed the idea of believing in outside agents, whether real or not, to propagate through our species. Storms came at good times and bad. They were good if they provided the rain that allowed plants that we could eat to grow and flourish. Others times storms were bad when they caused floods and or the winds that destroyed things. We tried to make a connection between the good stuff and the bad stuff that happened by assigning those things to outside agents. We wanted the good rains so we imagined some agent that was on our side that made it happen. We didn’t know it was just the weather and circumstance.
Fast forward thousands of years. We’ve learned more about the world but these beliefs in outside agents got more entrenched in our minds and the associated beliefs got more complex. Soon many outside agents, now we called gods, were involved in all kinds of things. There again these beliefs evolved and over time it was pared down to just one god, with a capital G. Thus evolved our religions of today.
So the belief in God is part of who we are but it doesn’t go away just because we are smarter about how the world works. We, in this technologically advanced age, are still trying to make sense of our God notion. You see apologists and others go to great lengths to convince others that God does in fact exists. But more and more, especially among the young, people are not buying it. They know more about the workings of the world (we hope!) and other pressing issues like wars, jobs, the economy and the environment are, to them, more important than believing in a guy in the sky or that you, or some part of you, will experience torture for eternity if you don’t buy into the God thing. In addition they see the hypocrisy of religions that preach love at the same time condemn those that aren’t in sync with their particular religion. Every time a Pat Robertson spouts stupidity, he digs the hole in which religion will be buried a little deeper.
I feel that the more religion screams and hollers about gay marriage, abortion, the environment, sex, etc., the more they push the younger generation away. Religion no longer has a monopoly on information about these things. All it takes is a quick Google search to find out the real skinny. As much as it seems that the younger generation is disconnected from the real world, all one has to do is search for “atheism” or “atheist” on YouTube and you’ll find young people speaking out and writing their feelings. The God meme is entrenched with the older folks but the youngsters are learning pretty quickly what bullshit religion really is.
There are several videos out on YouTube where people talk about intelligent design and there are some specific videos which address the question - "Is the brain Intelligently designed?" I think there are several ways to respond to this question. But first I will choose to look specifically at the phrase “intelligently designed.”
The word intelligence implies that some sort of agent has, what we would call, some thinking ability. This agent would have the ability to observe things and then gather that information and process it in such a way as to come to a conclusion about what is taking place.This agent would also have the ability to put in place it's own action to affect something external to itself. This agent would then need the ability to determine what design, if any, that would be required to effect some result and that design would hopefully be optimal for the task at hand.
Further the question "Is the brain intelligently designed?" is a begging question in that it is designed to elicit the response that yes the brain is intelligently designed and therefore some external agent is responsible for its design and that agent, to creationists, is God.
The second part of the question about design needs closer examination also. The implication from creationists is that design of something can't happen by itself, that some agent external to it must have caused design. However if one looks at our world we can see many examples of design in nature that are caused, not an intelligent agent, but by natural forces. The formation of river deltas by flowing water, the creation of various sand dunes by various winds, the design of shorelines interacting with rocks and sand, are examples of natural forces at work creating something that appears to have a design.
Our brain and the brains of animals, is the result of millions of years of evolutionary work that, through adaptation, came about to fulfill a task. Was it the best? No but it was good enough to accomplish what was needed to survive. If one looks at the human body as a whole it is not certainly the ideal creation, what with redundant and useless parts, with limitations in what the body can do and not do and so on. But it met the goal of surviving long enough to produce off springs that can tune the process for the next generation. And that's the goal of evolution. Live long enough to reproduce and then die.
It’s not what creationists want to hear but that’s the cold hard truth. We are not the end all of a supernatural being’s action for his/her/its benefit. We are here because events were such that we survived long enough to get to this state. Why weren’t we like this millions of years ago? Who knows? Maybe circumstances were such that some evolutionary process did not advance to the point that a particular creature could survive long enough to reproduce and continue the process. But then again maybe another creature did adapt in some small way and lived long enough to produce progeny. In the process these creatures improved in some evolutionary aspect and survived long enough to pass on those traits to more progeny. In time creatures changed, adapted and reproduced. Some made it, some didn’t. There are millions of dead ends in the course of evolution on the Earth and we are lucky, at this time, to have made it this far.
Think about it.
You hear this so often these days. “I have this belief and even though it sounds crazy you must respect my belief.” Bull shit! It’s OK for someone to believe in Unicorns or Fairies or Aliens. I don’t care. But when that belief is brought into the public square, like what’s happening with abortions, gay marriage, Christian prayer in schools or that insanity called Intelligent Design, then I care.
I came across an interesting article by Anthony Furey a columnist for the Toronto Sun saying - “If you think your god is the one and only god, well then you certainly don’t think the other guy’s is. Which means you likely don’t respect him for joining the wrong team. Nor should you. You wouldn’t be a very good believer if you did.
And guess what? That’s OK. The multi-faith crowd don’t want you to know this, but we were never meant to “respect” each others’ religions. We’re simply meant to tolerate them. Two starkly different approaches.”
I can’t respect a belief that wants to denigrate one half of the human population (women), who wants to control their sex lives and if they get pregnant, they have no choice but to carry to term. I can’t respect a belief that is OK with denying a certain segment of the population basic rights as to how to live and who to spend their lives with solely because their holy book says their sex acts are evil and they need to be killed. I can’t respect a belief that says that all Americans must adhere to their particular religious view because their god wants them to.
I’m getting tired of politicians spouting religious dogma to citizens just to satiate a minority of people that want these beliefs promulgated through out the land. And I so tired of these religious people trying to dumb everyone down to first century, stone age thinking about the world. The Earth is NOT 6,000 years old. A world wide flood NEVER happened. Get over it!
I’m astounded that some countries are now passing laws to make it a crime to blaspheme someone’s religion. What they want is everyone to stop thinking for themselves and become drones who follow some idiot who may sound good but who is only interested in what’s good for themselves. Ask any of the hundreds of mega church pastors if they are willing to give up all their wealth to help the poor. I’ll bet you won’t find any raising their hand.
Religious belief needs to be challenged. People need to speak up when people like Pat Robertson says dumb things like the gays have a ring that will help transmit AIDS. When Ken Ham promotes his “Creation Museum” which teaches kids that Noah “did” build an Ark and that he saved all those animals, including dinosaurs, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we need to speak up. Or when one Republican politician after another says that Intelligent Design needs to be taught in public school science classes along with evolution, which they claim hasn’t be proven, then we need to say something.
Respect your religion? No way!
I came across a letter to Billy Graham in an Alexandria Louisiana paper, thetowntalk.com, in which a lady asks if there are more atheists today. She mentions that her cousin has been reading some books and “decided to become one” - an atheist. Is that like when you decide to be a homosexual and then you sign up some where?
Anyway, Billy said this, “An atheist is a person who believes that God doesn’t exist (in contrast to an agnostic, who says he doesn’t know whether or not God exists). But look carefully at that definition: An atheist believes God doesn’t exist. He can’t prove it; he can’t verify it; he can’t demonstrate it. He lives only by faith -- faith that he is right, and everyone else is wrong.” Notice how Billy works in the faith thing. I guess he hasn’t talked to many atheists as faith doesn’t enter into how atheists look at the God question.
I don’t have “faith” that there is no God. I just haven’t seen evidence FOR the existence of God. Show me something and maybe I’ll give it more thought. I don’t accept anything on faith and most atheists are the same way. I look for evidence. This is an old ploy by Billy to plant the seed in Mrs.. J. Q.s’ mind that atheism is just another religion relying on faith. Those atheists must have faith in their belief of no God, Billy contends. Maybe she needs to read the same books that her cousin has read.
Billy also thinks that atheists have examined ALL the evidence and concluded there is no God. Not true. You can’t prove a negative. The issue is that there is a lack of evidence FOR God. As soon as there is credible evidence FOR the existence for a God, that might change my and other atheists’ mind. Then the Reverend has to put in one final jab about atheism that has been debunked many, many times in the past. Billy says, “But it’s also no accident that some of the worst atrocities in human history were committed by regimes that were based on atheism.” The good Rev. Graham needs to read more closely about Hitler and the fact that he wrote often how he was doing the work of the Lord by eliminating the Jews. Billy conveniently forgets about all the other atrocities that were committed in the name of religion. Remember the Crusades and the Inquisition, Rev. Graham?
But I’m glad that Billy, at the end, told her to pray for her cousin. I’m sure that will help her cousin see the light!