Atheism isn’t an “ism”

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.

If I believe it, then it’s true!

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.

Insane Creationist logic

 

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!

God – just a thought

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.

The Intelligently Designed Brain

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.

Respect my Beliefs? – Bullshit!

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!

Dear Rev. Graham -

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!

Just ducky!

I’m not surprised to hear what Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson said of gays -

"They're full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, God haters. They are heartless. They are faithless. They are senseless. They are ruthless. They invent ways of doing evil. That's what you have, 235 years, roughly, after your fore fathers founded the country. So what are you going to do Pennsylvania? Just run with them? You're going to die!"

Hyperbole at it’s finest! According to Phil gays are heartless and that’s why they want to marry each other – does that make sense?  They invent ways of doing evil, Phil says. Gays must be getting lessons from some Christians. Homosexuals are not God haters, they just don’t think about the God thing for the most part. A minority of gays can be ruthless like many hardcore evangelicals like those fine folks at the Westboro Baptist Church. Talk about ruthless.

Phil has the right to say what he wants. But others have an equal right to say what they want. And if someone disagrees with the inanities that Phil spouts, then so be it. 

How is the word Atheist defined?

You may have heard about Diana Nyad, the 64 year old swimmer who swam for 53 hours going from Cuba to Florida. She was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey recently and in the interview Nyad said, “I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line, and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity — all the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt.” To which Oprah responded, “Well I don’t call you an atheist then.”

Winfrey went on, “I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery then that is what God is… It’s not a bearded guy in the sky.”  I think what Oprah was pushing on Nyad was that she may claim to be an atheist but if she has awe about the universe she lives in, then she must have some religiosity in her belief. Oprah missed the point that Nyad made and that is you can don’t need a belief in a God but still have awe and appreciation for the world we live in. You can be that way and still not be a religious person.

This all points out, to me, is the misunderstanding that people have about someone who calls themselves atheist. If you ask most devout Christians, they would tell you that an atheist is the worst person in the world, out to destroy everything, or at least atheists have no morals and just want to party until they drop. Or ask Pat Robertson and he will tell his sheep, excuse me followers, that atheists are a miserable bunch and they want everyone else to be miserable with them.

I think the word atheist has multiple meanings to many people just as the word God can have multiple meanings. Here's how I define atheist. If one is called an atheist it simply means that one does not believe in the existence of God or gods or a supernatural being because there is no evidence for its existence. You could say the same thing for someone who says they are a "a-unicorn-ist", who is a person who does not believe in the existence of unicorns because there is no evidence for unicorns. Once sufficient evidence is presented for the unicorns' existence, then one could accept that they do in fact exist.

When I claim that I am an atheist, I am simply saying that I don't have any reason to believe in the existence of a God or gods or any supernatural being because there isn't any evidence and that's all it is! It doesn't say anything about whether or not I'm liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, capitalist or communist, Mets fan or a Yankees fan.

Along the lines how Matt Dillahunty at Atheist Experience describes himself, I consider myself a skeptic first and from that I've arrived at being an atheist when you get around to the God question. But first and foremost I am a skeptic. That means I do not dismiss any assertion out of hand but withhold belief until I hear all sides, ask questions, investigate and gather evidence for or against the claim. Then I'll have provisional belief as evidence builds for the belief or counter evidence tears it down.

Also the word Atheism is bandied around a lot like it's some sort of world philosophy which, to me, it isn't. This is where I think we get into trouble because when you attach "ism" to a word it seems like it becomes something much more than it really is. This is when you hear from Christians who will say the atheism is a religion like Christianity. They say it's a "belief" and therefore it is no different than any other religion.

We need to go back and just assert that being an Atheist is just expressing no belief in a supernatural being. Period. Don’t read anything more into it.

Dear GOP, What did you accomplish?

For the moment we’ve averted another man-made crisis. Congress passed a bill to fund the government until January 15 and stave off default until February 7. Woopee! They now get to screw things up again next year.

The GOP failed to get the main things they wanted, like defunding the Affordable Care Act or not raising the debt ceiling, etc. But in the process they did piss off a bunch of Americans. The thing to be seen will be if any of those angry Americans will do anything about it at the polls next year. Will the Republicans loose control of the House? Dare I dream?

Rachel Maddow did a piece on her show last Wednesday night listing all the things the GOP demanded. Out of all the things they wanted from the Democrats, they got nothing! Yet despite this failure, many on the loony right claimed a victory. Huh? Not only did they not get anything out of this, they cost the American tax payers 24 billion dollars while the shut down was going on, countless government programs shut down like clinical trials for drugs to save lives and whole agencies like NASA  and the EPA shuttered. Even simple things like an operator of an Air Taxi business shut down and loosing money because the FAA can’t conduct a safety check so he could fly because they are furloughed. I thought the Republicans were looking out for small businesses? Oh that’s right, their only concern is their pockets lined by big business.

Even more than all this John Boehner still, for the moment, has his job. Presiding over a House that has NOT passed any major legislation since he took over. Nothing, repeat, nothing got done by Congress since he’s been Speaker. Way to go John! Yet these same idiots are complaining about folks getting Social Security disability checks from the government while not really disabled. To be fair, the GOP is disabled and they still get paid. Don’t you just love our system?

A life without God

A life without God is a good life.

A life that is filled with wonder and awe for the world we are privileged to exist in.

A life of seeking answers no matter where they lead.

A life of caring for our fellow humans.

A life of cherishing the time we have with each and every one of us.

A life that accepts that we are the same but different and that’s OK.

A life that is precious in every aspect and each of us has a role to play.

A life that cares for the planet Earth as it is our only home.

A life that explores for all the wonder we may find.

A life that at the end we can say we did our best.

No reward or punishment is needed for a good life without God.

Is God Allah or Yahweh?

Sometime ago I saw a video of two folks talking about their belief in God. At one point one person (a non-believer) said to the other (a Christian), “you don’t believe in Zeus?” and the Christian said, “That’s right”. Then the non-believer asked, “Do you believe in Allah?” and the Christian said something to the effect that Allah is God so yes he believed in Him.

That exchange intrigued me because from my understanding of Islam (which isn’t much), the Muslims see Allah as just one god and not the Trinity that Christians do. When you ask a Christian about God they immediately talk about Jesus and God the Father with a smattering of the Holy Spirit thrown in every once and awhile. So it’s my understanding that Allah is very different from the Christian God so therefore Christians are Atheistic when it comes to their belief in Allah. They simply don’t believe in Him, Her or It.

Also the Jews see God (Yahweh) differently than the Christians. The Jews see Yahweh as just one God and of course don’t recognize Jesus as the Son of God or a “god”. You can get into a debate about how the Jews don’t see Jesus as the Messiah unlike the Christians who claim that he fulfilled ALL of the prophesies in the Old Testament for the Messiah. Two differing conclusions on essentially the same book.

What I’m getting at is that Jews, Christians and Muslims are all Atheists when it comes to the other group’s god. Jews and Christians don’t believe in Allah and Muslims don’t believe in the god(s) of either the Christians or Jews.

The point of all this if the three largest and most influential religions in the world have fundamentally differing views on the very foundation (belief in God), how can any of them be close to right? Of course “rightness” doesn’t matter as long as you can get enough folks to agree with you and have influence in the halls of power.

Sex, sex, sex and Religion.

So here’s my question: Why is religion so hung up on sex? For example this whole gay marriage thing seems to revolve around the fact that religion doesn’t like the fact that two guys or two girls get together and have sex. They say it’s disgusting and unnatural that gays and lesbians have oral and anal sex forgetting that many straight couples do the same thing. Check your nearest porn site.

Are there certain “approved” sex activities that only straight couples can engage in? If daddy wants mommy to give him a blow job, do they have to check with their pastor to find out if it’s OK? What if mommy really likes to have her man jam it into her rear, is that on the forbidden list of sex activities?

What it comes down to is the fact that religion uses sex as a way to control people. If the local pastor can convince people that God only approves of sex between a man and a woman and that all other sex is a ticket to Hell, then they have control over people. If they can get you to not have the sex you want, then the next step is to have you fork over more cash to the church so they can spread the word that only a certain type of sex is “Godly”. Of course that doesn’t stop the good reverend from “horsing around” with the Sunday School kids. (Wink, wink!)

What is happening is that religion is realizing that they are loosing control over people and loosing control fast. Most Catholics have ignored the Popes’ orders on using contraceptives. And of course the Churches want all the young, horny kids to keep it in their pants until the parish priest or minister says it OK at their church wedding. Ever wonder how that is working out? So if the Pope and ministers can’t control what you do in bed, then what good are they? They are becoming irrelevant. And they know it!

A black cat in a dark cellar at midnight.

I’m sure most free thinkers have heard or read the quote attributed to Robert A. Heinlein, an awarding winning Science Fiction writer who, in one of his novels, said that theology is like looking for a black cat in a cellar at midnight where there is none.

As an aside, I never did understand how someone could get a university degree in Theology. That, to me, is like getting a degree in the study of unicorns. What is there to study?

Anyway I was curious about the quote and wanted to find the book that it came from. The quote is from Heinlein’s “JOB: A Comedy of Justice” written in 1984. Here is the entire paragraph containing that famous quote.

A character named “Jerry” is talking….

“Alec, I wish I could go along with you. It would be comforting, the world being what it is today. But I can’t see proof in the dreams of long-dead prophets; you can read anything into them. Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. Oh, my church too – but at least mine is honestly pantheistic. Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything – just give him time to rationalize it. Forgive me for being blunt.”

In addition to the quote most often cited another part of this particular paragraph that caught my attention. It was the part about the Trinity. Heinlein nailed it when saying that believing in a monotheism doesn’t make sense in light of the Trinity. No matter how you slice it it makes no sense or nonsense. But when does religion make sense?

Later in the book one other paragraph caught my eye.

Satan/Lucifer is talking….

“You never played marbles with Him (God). Alec, ‘justice’ is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and ‘dying for your sins.’ Someone should tell all of Yahweh’s followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

“How can justice be served by loading your sins on another?” That is the crux of the Atonement (scapegoat) explanation that Christians try so hard to explain to non-believers. They themselves don’t understand that justice just doesn’t work that way. Only the guilty must pay the price for their sin or crime and not someone else. But again Christians don’t get it. They are too busy taking a bath in the blood of the crucified Jesus. Hallelujah!

Religious logic or lack thereof.

I have a relative who is very, very religious. This relative has been religious all her life. I get religious emails from her frequently and generally trash them. A recent email got my attention.

Here is part of her email –

“I have been sick and the problem comes from my back.  My back did not hurt, just a pain down my leg.  I had every symptom but the back.  It took a year to finally figure out just what was happening, but God is good and does heal.  Hope everyone is doing good.  God's Blessings, …..”

I’m not a doctor but it seems to me that from her description of the problem, I would suspect she had a sciatica nerve issue. My wife had similar symptoms with a pain down her leg and the doctors suspected a vertebrae pinching the sciatica nerve. This is pretty common. I’m not saying that this is exactly what my relative had but that’s what I suspect. Again, I’m no doctor nor do I play one on TV.

But the second part of her email is what peaked my interest. It took a year to figure out what was going on (she and or the doctors?) but God is good and does heal. Huh?

I’ve had back issues most of my life. When it acts up I generally take it easy and over time it resolves itself. What if during one of these events, I prayed to God to heal my back and over time it did get better? Did God heal me or did it resolve itself without God’s help?

I imagined my relative saw doctors during this time and since it seems from the email that the problem was “figured out” by, I’m assuming, doctors, who then had the most impact on fixing her issue? God or the doctors?

The issue with evangelicals and those who fervently believe in prayer, is that no amount of reasoning will convince them that God and prayers had nothing to do with solving the problem. If the issue didn’t get resolved, then they didn’t pray enough, or the right way, or loud enough. If the problem got resolved then, of course, God, not the doctors, get the credit. Either way God comes out smelling like winner.

From the TV show “House” this quote sums it up – “If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.” Can I have an “Amen!”

Too low, too slow!

I’m going to put on my Flight Instructor hat for a few moments and talk about the Asiana crash at San Francisco Saturday. We don’t know EXACTLY what went wrong so any comments by me are speculation although I will let you know that I know a few things about landing an airplane, having taught many pilots over 15 years. What applies to small single engine airplanes also applies to large Boeing 777’s.

I saw a news report that bothered me because it quoted someone apparently from the FAA talking about “stabilized approaches” as being a problem. I’m not sure the news service got this right as the FAA has instructors such as myself teach and emphasize “stabilized  approaches.” What this means is that the pilot sets up the plane on final approach to fly towards the runway at a constant descent rate, at a constant airspeed and a constant power setting. This is what I did when I taught brand new pilots from the first lesson.

For example on a Cessna 152 I would set the power to 1500 RPM, the airspeed to 70 knots and get a descent rate of 500 FPM. What this meant was that as you flew towards the runway, you would see the plane descending constantly and the airspeed would not fluctuate.

It was apparent from the crash at SFO that the plane’s tail hit the end of the runway just as the pilot was apparently applying full power. By then it was too late. Why he came in so low and so slow we don’t know. That, I’m sure, will be looked at closely by the FAA and NTSB.

What is lost somewhat in all this, is that only 2 people died and although there were over a 180 people injured, many others survived without injury. Watching the few clips of the crash, I was amazed that the 777 stayed intact after hitting the runway so violently. I think we should commend Boeing for making such a tough airplane. Also we should praise the cabin crew for getting everyone out as quickly as they did. With all the hype about the miraculous nature of people surviving, remember the two things, the strength of the airplane and the training of the crew. That’s really what made this survivable.

Flying is still safe!

Freedom of and from religion

Ever since President Regan, the religious right has made a more and more of an impact on our lives. At first it was just '”those religious nuts” wanting some crazy thing but now it’s becoming more and more overt with more religious intrusion. It’s not out of the ordinary anymore for politicians to promote and proclaim their particular religious view on things. From abortion to contraception to Creation Science intruding into school science classes, the religious right is in many cases succeeding in moving the country to more of a theocracy than a democracy.

As an example of the in roads religion is making, Texas Governor Rick Perry recently signed a “Merry Christmas” law, which allows teachers and students in public schools to say Merry Christmas… something that was already perfectly legal.

At the signing, Perry added: “Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion”. In other words, we are going to shove our religion onto you whether you like it or not. Perry doesn’t know that religious freedom really means freedom to practice your religion or not to practice ANY religion. Just because a majority of Americans claim Christianity does not mean that everyone else must kowtow to every little religious thing that Christians want everyone to do.

Another example is how Christians are wanting the plaques or stone monuments of the Ten Commandments put up at court houses claiming that we get our laws from them. They conveniently forget about the other 603 commandments in the Bible like how you are supposed to treat women who are menstruating.

Then in Mississippi there is the “Mississippi Student Religious Liberties Act of 2013” which just went into effect.

This law makes student-led, administration-supported proselytizing perfectly legal in the state’s public schools. The state’s House passed it on a 109-6 vote, while the Senate supported it 50-1 (the lone “Nay” vote was cast by the aptly-named Democrat Deborah Jeanne Dawkins). Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed it into law.

What does the law say? While much of it just reinforces laws that are already in place (e.g. Students can pray without punishment, Students can form after-school religious clubs), it also allows for Christians to push their faith onto other students in ways non-believers have fought against. Once again, Christianity is being shoved down your throat whether you want it or not.

Despite all this, the younger generation is becoming more and more “unreligious.” They see religion playing a lesser role in their lives. They see other issues that demand their attention, like the economy, climate change, income gap and health care. For example when the Catholic Church got their feathers ruffled about contraception being offered under Obama’s health care, it was pointed out that over 95% of Catholic women use contraceptives. Spout all you want from the pulpit, dear Bishop, your flock will do what it wants.

Meanwhile we all need to speak up against this attempt to make America “a Christian nation.” By the way, Happy Fourth of July America!

DOMA deep sixed.

It was somewhat surprising that Supreme Court struck down the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) much to the shock of those good Christian family groups. Considering how conservative the court is, it was somewhat encouraging that five justices saw DOMA as discriminatory and ruled it unconstitutional. Good for them.

Of course it didn’t take long for the far right loonies to come up with the “America going to hell in a hand basket” argument. With same sex marriages becoming more and more common, the flakies like Michelle Bachmann and Pat Robertson were warning that next we will let people marry animals and other assorted creatures like Texans….oooops.

Old “foot in his mouth” Pat Robertson spoke up right away. From crooksandliars.com -

Robertson later complained that what had been "called a an abomination in the Bible has been given the status of a constitutionally-protected class."

"Unfortunately it's been cast as a civil rights struggle, and once you say civil rights, you look back to Martin Luther King and the others and say we've got to stand for the oppressed," he shrugged. "So ladies and gentlemen, your liberties are in danger because read the Bible about Sodom and Gomorrah. That's where the term comes from, Sodom."

"Look what happened to Sodom. After a while, there wasn't any other way, and God did something pretty drastic."

Last year, Robertson told his viewers that homosexuality "is somehow related to demonic possession."

And Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars said quoting Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel -

“Today, the United States Supreme Court has lost its legitimacy as an arbiter of the Constitution and the rule of law. Today is the death of the Court’s legacy, because the decision in the Federal Defense of Marriage Act case defies logic and is a pure invention of a handful of Justices.”

Again? That’s the same thing they say after any ruling they disagree with. Whenever they disagree with a ruling, that ruling “delegitimizes” the court. Except, of course, it doesn’t. The Supreme Court gets some cases right and some cases wrong. That is inevitable.

The far right is upset at those “unelected activist judges” that have ruled the way they did, except when they rule to the liking of the evangelicals. Then they are OK.

The far right keeps harping on the sex aspect. Citing over and over again that the Bible says that gay sex is an “abomination”. To my mind marriage is not primarily about sex. Most people these days don’t wait for a marriage license to have sex. Marriage is, at the core, a social contract between two people. In this contract they will share property, earnings and debt. They speak for each other in end of life decisions as well as many, many other things. If they have sex fine. People don’t go to city hall after getting married and declare that they’ve had sex and therefore the marriage is now legit. If sex was the deciding factor in marriage then what about those folk, many older people, who get married and really don’t have sex? Is their marriage not legit?

The Bible thumpers seem to be hung up on sex all the time. My advise is to have some. Maybe it will calm them down. Get off and chill out!

Prayer works. Well……………

The photo at left is from “The Onion”, a satire web site. But it says what others are not saying, namely that prayer just doesn’t work.

I’ve always knew that praying is a waste of time. The recent tornadoes in Oklahoma are a perfect example. Right after the tornadoes, you heard people saying that “they’ll pray for the survivors.” What exactly are you expecting to have your prayers do for these folks? Maybe their home will suddenly reassemble to what it was before the tornado. Maybe a more effective thing to do would be to send money to help those who lost their home, or to volunteer your services in someway. As it is said, praying is something that looks like you are doing something but in fact you are doing nothing!

I’m amused whenever I see the faithful pray. Like Pat Robinson for example, who needs to close his eyes real tight when he prays. He must think that that increases the force field of the pray so that God picks it up easier. Or the folks who close their eyes and raise their hands when praying. Maybe they think that raising their hand changes the frequency to closely match God’s frequency.

All the time you hear that the Pope or other religious figures say that the faithful needs to pray more and harder. I agree. I would like to see Christians not protest at abortion clinics or funerals for veterans or be involved with the right wing agenda. I think they should just stay in their church or at home and pray their little hearts out. If prayer is so powerful, then it should do something. Right? Not holding my breath.

Republicans–what good are you?

I’ve been thinking over these past few years about all the good that the Republicans have done for our country. I’m having a hard time coming up with anything!

Seriously, what have the Republicans done to help our country since they’ve gained control of the House in Washington? Well, 37 or 38 or 39 times (I lost count) they’ve voted to repeal “Obamacare.” Each time they’ve taken this nonsense vote, they’ve wasted time and tax payer money but who cares when your whole purpose for being in Congress is to oppose anything that Obama wants or does.

Well I guess over at www.politicalirony.com, they were thinking the same thing. Here’s what they came up with.

“The Republican National Committee has a newly-redesigned website on which party leaders have highlighted the party’s accomplishments dating back 150 years. For the past 20 years, the page lists the following: a D.C. school voucher scheme (which didn’t work), invading Iraq (which didn’t turn out well), tax cuts for the wealthy (which isn’t exactly an “accomplishment”), invading Afghanistan (which Republicans didn’t handle well), welfare reform (which Clinton signed into law), and the Contract with America (which, again, isn’t an “accomplishment” in any meaningful sense of the word).

The Republican Party kept us safe, except for 9/11 (well, and Anthrax, the shoe bomber, etc.)

The Bush administration captured and brought to justice the top terrorists who threatened America, except for Osama bin Laden

No US cities were destroyed under the last Republican presidency, other than New Orleans

Bush has a perfect record on military invasions of other countries, except for Afghanistan and Iraq

Republicans protected our constitution, except for habeas corpus and the bill of rights.”

Gee guys, thanks a bunch.