I saw this cartoon today on Saturday Morning Breakfast and it made me think about religion and how it poisons people. This is why I am so opposed to religion it moves slowly (mostly) and takes over and destroys. It is like the cartoon says just a parasite.
Militant atheism is really not such a bad thing when you consider we are fighting against a parasite. Also militant atheists are not going out and blowing people up or infringing on others rights that do not agree with me. I must however say I don’t like the term militant atheism, it sounds too aggressive. after all we call evangelicals just that and not militant Christians, which is what they are according to the militant atheist definition.
lol some ignorance is just too good to be true. I was not going to post this. But I thought just for the laughs it would be worth it.
This is from our theist friend Gideon, who has a serious lack of accepting they are wrong. After I have shown that life could originate from chemicals he basically stated something cannot come from nothing. However I was trying to get him admit defeat in the chemical question before I answered that.
Eventually after a tirade by this fool claiming victory, I dealt this. Enjoy :)
BTW I am not responding anymore. There is no point, but it was fun while it lasted.
Christian
Ok
Something can come from nothing. Its called the Casmir effect. If you
can now accept that you are wrong on this, we can move on to the next
point.
If you cant there is no point in continuing this avoidance conversation.
Gideon
If you can explain this effect in English, I'm ready to hear how something can come from nothing, without God's power.
Christian
So because you dont understand it. Its not true.
That is called an argument from ignorance. Just because you dont understand the science, it does not mean it is not true.
I
claim no god, because I have yet to see any evidence for a god. You
claim the Casmir effect is not true because you dont understand it.
Gideon
Just
as I thought. I gave you the go-ahead to explain your science and you
balk. Nothing new, I've seen this many times before. It's because you
have nothing that you can offer nothing... nothing comes from nothing.
You
claim you have no evidence for a God, yet, the evidence is all around
you. You, yourself, do not understand it, so there is no evidence. I,
however, see it and I accept it.
Just because you don't understand it...
My final post was as follows.
Ok I gather you wont post this. But here we go.
In a vacuum which is nothing. It has been experimentally shown that particles can come into existence. This means that in nothing that something can occur.
Please refer to the following links if you need more information. But as I explained above is simple English just like u asked. So you can continue been dishonest and say I don’t understand, or accept you are wrong.
A lot of my favourite blogs that I read have a weekly segment. Like Cephus's Bitchspot Horror Show Sunday. So I have decided to create my own weekly section called "dear god" I use a small "g" so as not to confuse a god with the God of Christianity. The point of this weekly segment is to thank god for all the awesome stuff he/she/it gives to us in the form of a prayer. Not to be taken seriously by atheists, but to be taken seriously by theists.
Dear god
You are such an awesome creator of all the amazing forms of life. I love the way that you designed everything from the cute little baby elephants to the enormous whales in the wide ocean. Every time I look around me I am enthralled with wonder and amazed by the foresight that you had to create everything.
It want to thank you for the water that you created for me and all the children that you love so dearly. I want to thank you for giving us our food that we can eat on a daily basis. Thank you for the shelter that you give us so that we can sleep safely at night. Thank you for my parents that showed me the way to your amazing grace. Thank you for all the babies all over the world that have been blessed by your gift thank you god..........
Its back with what surely just from the title will prove to be the most easily falsifiable article on godandscience.org. In this post we will look at something that theists clearly hide well away and that is the aptly titled article Out of Africa or Out of Eden: Does Science Contradict the Bible?
The article starts off with this gem of information: "Numerous genetic studies over the last few decades have shown
that human genetic diversity is greatest within African populations,
leading scientists to proclaim that modern human populations originated
in Africa"
Sure, DNA evidence and all the fossil evidence that shows humans evolved from distant ancestors in Africa. However they then are very honest about something they say at the end of the paragraph that is: "Can we stretch the
biblical creation narrative to place Eden in Africa or is it possible
that the science is wrong? Alternatively, is the Bible just wrong about
where humans originated?"
There you have it, if we can prove that Eden is not in Africa then the bible is wrong. Or if we can show that Eden is in Africa which matches with the evolutionary science then evolution is right and the bible is wrong about the creation story. Or am I reading this the wrong way? Or do we have to prove every bit of science for evolution to be wrong for the bible to be right? But evolution is not wrong so the bible must be wrong.
The author then considers the question "Is Eden in Africa?' And the author come to the conclusion that there is no possible way from biblical texts that Eden could be anywhere else than in the Mesopotamian Region. So lets assume that Eden exists and that it is not in Africa for a moment, this then means the bible is incorrect as humans clearly evolved out of Africa. Well if you are not a science denier that is. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070509161829.htm http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/clocking-the-human-exodus-out-of.html
So what scientific aerobics will the authors attempt to explain that the Eden hypothesis is correct.
They then go on to explain why the genetic diversity is not as common in people originating in Mesopotamia compared to Africa. They say the reason for this is that in Mesopotamia there is no geographic isolation and as such the DNA diversity is less. Whereas in Africa there is geographic isolation and so genetic diversity is diverse. I see a problem with this, as this theory is based on DNA data which is getting very badly scientific explanations. If there is a biologist reading this please help me out, but what I learnt was that the more diversity the better for a group of people. That means if there is more genetic diversity then there are more different groups interbreeding. This makes sense if humans originated in Africa as there would have been separate pockets of development before the final exodus out of Africa by certain groups (not all). Then these smaller groups would have been able to have a smaller diversity outside of Africa.
The authors then go on to say that Mesopotamia has the second highest diversity after Africans which makes sense when you look at the out of Africa human evolution. The authors counter this by saying that: "it is entirely possible that
modern humans originated in the Middle East, but lost much of their
genetic diversity through subsequent migrations and replacement."
But this argument makes no sense as explained above.
Below I give you the full conclusion to the article, because I cannot make this stuff up. "New genetic analysis of human population groups shows that
peoples of the Middle East represent the second most genetically
diverse group among world-wide populations. A hypothesis is proposed
that modern humans originated in the garden of Eden, in or near
Mesopotamia, through the direct creation of God, and subsequently
migrated world-wide, first into Africa, then Asia and Europe, and
eventually the Americas and Polynesia. Subsequent back migrations
diluted the genetic diversity of this founder population, making them
appear to be less ancient than the Africans. The hypothesis can
potentially be tested by carefully examining more Middle Eastern
populations in more detail to attempt to reconstruct the original
founder population." If this author actually read what he wrote, he would realise from the conclusion that he has drawn that the genetic diversity should be more in the Middle East due to back migration of Africans. However this is not the case, so we can say the creation story is rubbish.
This means according to the authors premise. The Bible is wrong about where humans (Gods chosen creatures) originated.
I am irritated by the fact that so many theist believe that morality is proof of a god, as there is no possible way it can be proof of a god. So much so that this is my second attempt to explain this. I could point out all the problems with morality and different gods, but I have done thisbefore.....and I am sure I will have to do it again.
The term “morality” can be used either
1) descriptively to refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a
society or,some other group, such as a religion,
or accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2) normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified
conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour:
a) a particular system of values and principles of conduct:
b) the extent to which an action is right or wrong:
As we can see morality can be defined in multiple ways, particularly as a set of rules. So whose set of rules are right or whose are wrong. Are the theists rules better than the rational person? Are the rules imposed by Hitler better than those imposed by Pol Pot?
The problem is that theists are basing their morality (set of rules) on a book. With this I have no problem. It does not mean I agree with all your morals, I just agree that you can base them on a book if you want. However all you are doing is basing your morals on a book. This book then you say is guided by god. Now this is where we have to stop the argument that morality proves god.
Now you need to prove to me that the book on which you are basing your morality is actually from god. How are you going to do that? You cannot use your own text and say that it proves itself this is circular reasoning. So what you have to do is prove to me that a god exists. So their is your challenge, prove that a god exists.
Oh before I forget......One more thing once you have proven a god exists. You still need to prove to me that this god actually directed the writing of the book you believe so adamantly about.
Some more evidence for evolution that will surely make the discovery institute reanalyze their thoughts......OOPS Silly me thinking that a think tank will be rational.
This is a very exciting find. Its important as we often hear ID/creationists say please explain the Cambrian explosion. Which actually does not need explaining as I think creationists like word games, and explosion means fast. However the actual explosion actually took between 70 and 80 million years.
But I digress, getting back to the news. In this study the authors have shown that 2 mutations in our DNA history brought about the use of important hormones. These hormones are some of the really important ones like estrogen and testosterone. Those little hormones that have a lot to do with the difference between the sexes. According to one of the authors: "If those two mutations had not happened, our bodies today would have to
use different mechanisms to regulate pregnancy, libido, the response to
stress, kidney function, inflammation, and the development of male and
female characteristics at puberty," Thornton said.
Remember this was way before humans ever roamed the planet. So these gentic mutations were happening in ancesterol DNA, that was not human. Which means that we inherited this DNA by an evolutionary process.
By synthesizing (making) this ancesterol DNA in the lab, the scientists then showed that by making only TWO mutations that the differing sensitivity to these hormones happened. This is fascinating as its only takes two mutations. I stress this because people often seem to think that mutations have to be dramatic, but this is not the case. As the corresponding author of the manuscript said. "Our findings show that new molecular functions can evolve by sudden
large leaps due to a few tiny changes in the genetic code," Thornton
said.
Here is an example of two mutations using an alphabet.
abcdefghijklomnopqrstuvwxyz (normal)
abbdefghijklomncpqrstuvwxyz (mutations)
But please relaize DNA doe not only have 24 parts (like an alphabet), it has thousands.In the picture of the DNA below one letter in the alphabet represents one pyrimidine or purine base A,T,G or C.
Unfortunately for creationists, these mutations happened around 500 million years ago and the Cambrian explosion was happening around the same time. So this could be a possible explanation for the Cambrian explosion. After all if these small mutations have had such dramatic effect on us humans in the future, why is it impossible to not think at least that this could also have had an effect on the evolutionary "explosion" happening around the same time.
Intelligent Design is defined as follows by our friends at the Discovery Institute.
"The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the
universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent
cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
So next question who or what is the intelligent cause?
Funnily enough the discovery institute is very vague what this so called "intelligent cause" is. But if its intelligent and it is creating life then surely it is a creator and hence a deity or god. And before the ID babies start crying. No, you cannot debate that without been a very dishonest creationist.
My guess as to why they ID"iots" are so adamant about not naming the intelligent cause, is that if they did they would never have a chance of forcing it down children's throats in the future. As any court would dismiss it as pure creationism then. Also they seem vague about church affiliations for their members, I wonder why that is unless they are all atheists, who somehow believe in an intelligent cause. Which brings me to the reason behind this post.
Recently I was debating a theist and he said to me that Bradely Morton is a self proclaimed atheist who advocates ID. I should also note that he is a philosopher and not a biologist. http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/
The guy who has published a book (which I have not read) titled "Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design"So I guess the intelligent cause is god according to our atheist friend.
And to that I say bullshit! Bradley Morton is as much an atheist as I am a female. How any atheist can proclaim to be an ID advocate, is a nice way of saying I am not an atheist. After all ID requires a god, and atheism denies the existence of gods. How people still fail to see this is beyond me.
I just want to say this to all theists out there that happening to be reading this.....I AM HAPPY. I do not need God/god/Allah/Buddha/KrishnaXenu/Zeus/etc etc etc to make me happy.
I know its hard for you to believe. I know you think I am living in denial. But if this is denial give it to me everyday in large amounts. If anything believing in God was making me unhappy. It was making my depression worse, because it was giving me false belief that I was getting well. For those of you that go to church you will know that you can get euphoric through prayer, meditation, singing etc. But its a bit like getting drunk, when you stop drinking alchol and go home the effects wear off. Does prozac make me happy, no it just makes me stable. It is this stability that makes me appreciate life more and allows me to be happy. All this with no god!
God does not make me happy.
Allah does not make me happy.
Krishna does not make me happy.
And Scientology would not make me happy either. Go South Park! (Video may take a while to buffer)
I was watching some House M.D. reruns recently and season 2 episode 20 got me thinking.Why do people dislike/fear knowledge so much?
Below is a great quote from this House M.D. episode where he is trying to work out whether a bullet is magnetic. They need to do an MRI on a patient and the patient unfortunately has been shot and has bullet fragments stuck in his head. This is the exchange that occurs when House is debating whether to do an MRI.
Foreman: "Police issued Kevlar vests don't have the ceramic plate
insert that would shatter a bullet, they would just catch it. So the
bullet shattered on its own, meaning Babyshoes was using .38 caliber
hollow points. Which, unfortunately, are ferromagnetic."
House: "It's just so cool that you know that!"
So what do you do when you are presented with new information
a) Do you dismiss the information. As it does not fit with your existing knowledge and scares you.
b) Do you dismiss the information. As you are inferring something bad about a person and so you shut the knowledge out.
c) Do you use this information. Realizing it is making your life easier and dont question it.
d) Do you use this information. But still question the validity and take further steps to find out the truth.
Of these 4 options listed. The only correct option is d). Question what you hear and work out the truth for yourself. There is no reason to fear knowledge. There is no reason to feel you should not question your beliefs. There is no reason to fear questioning figures of authority.
Knowledge is power. Remember what the fictional character said, " Its just so cool that you know that."
I hate creationists! There I said it, they are dishonest and believe in something that has no scientific backing.
Here is my general understanding of how everything came to be. Again, this is my understanding as it makes sense to me and I don’t see gaps.
1) Casmir effect (Something can come from nothing)
Funny when you point this out to theists when they say something cant come from nothing, they then say but how does one event accumulate. Hang on first accept defeat and then we can talk further.
2) Matter starts to coalesce into atoms.
This is a atomic theory and quantum physics. I don’t understand everything but I know it can happen.I.e. proton plus electron equals hydrogen. To get a proton you need quarks and that's where it gets dark for a chemist.
3) Atoms get together to form basic molecules.
Uhmm have you ever collected hydrogen in the presence of oxygen and lit a match. DON'T!!But water forms and that is a very basic substance that is needed for life on our planet.
4) Basic molecules transform into more complex molecules.
A very recent (computational) example just to irritate creationists shows HCN (highly toxic to humans) can form basic purine nucleobases (i.e. DNA parts) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201303246/abstract
4) Cells (Bacteria)
If you can have self assembly of a cell membrane and have self replicating molecules within this membrane. Why can this not be classified as a simple cell?
6) Cell colonies become self sustaining multicellular organisms.
Why not? If single cells can assimilate other cells (mitochondria) why is it so far fetched to think that colonies could not become a multicellular organism.
7) Evolution of multicellular organisms. (Humans/apes/platypus/chicken)
So evolution is a fact. We are not direct descendants from monkeys that are alive today, we are apes. That means a monkey cannot turn into a human and vice versa as we diverged along different evolutionary paths a very long time ago. There is DNA/fossil/bacterium/mitochondrial and other hard scientific evidence for evolution it is proven, it is not just a theory. See the links below if you don't believe. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ http://www.newscientist.com/topic/evolution
Okay this is extremely simplified, but hey it makes more sense that the creationist (intelligent design) viewpoint.
1) God
Reference : The Bible/Koran/Dianetics/etc etc
2) Human/Earth/Dinosaur/chemical/Universe/etc etc etc.
Reference : The Bible/Koran/Dianetics/etc etc
When I look at these 2 schemes, the evolution way makes more sense than the creationists view. Its true we do not know everything, but we know a lot more than those pesky creationists.
A very long time ago (2007) I used to be a member on Myspace and I had a blog. This was a post I posted there in November 2007. This is when I started realizing that agnosticism was just not worth it any more. I post it here to encourage others to see that it is not really worth calling yourself agnostic. I guess I have become a militant atheist in a way.
Theism, Atheism or
Agnostic
Definitions.
Agnostic: An agnostic
does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one
cannot know for certain whether or not they exist.
Atheism: One who
disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.
Theism: One
who believes in the existence of a God; especially, one who believes
in a personal God.
I have been
facing a dilemma recently as to whether I should let go of my
agnosticism and rather become a fully fledged atheist instead. This
may seem strange to many and all that this is such an issue, but
there is pure and simple logic behind this all, scientific evidence
in a big way shows that theist belief is a load of rubbish, so hence
if there is no god why be agnostic. So this would then in principle
lead me to an atheistic viewpoint, but in principle could I give up
my agnostic beliefs.
Okay the
reason I am bringing this to light of day, is plainly because I have
reached a decision on organized religion, and that is that plain and
simple they suck big time. So still been agnostic, gives credence
then to the possible belief in a god or gods, to which the theist
groups can grasp onto and cling for dear life. Why may you ask that I
feel is religion such a bane on society and life on the whole planet,
well look around you, and if you can’t see it then maybe its time
to really look into yourself as a person (likely you will be a theist
who believes in their personal god) or into the social systems that
surround us. What really surprises me about religion, is that been
agnostic I have trawled the religious texts and holy books, is where
does all this intolerance and hatred come from, have I really
misinterpreted these texts so badly?
At times I like infographics and now is one of these times.
The reason I so like this is that it shows that the Bible and the Koran can be interchanged and that one is exactly the same as the other. Often Christians and Mulsims like to say their holy book is the only true way to get to God/Allah. But look at the 10 commandments in the bible compared to the koran and you see that these laws are contained in both. So which way is the real way to go to your invisible guy in the sky?
What does this mean for two religions. Not much really as they both are Abramic religions and so clearly they will be sharing from each other as they come from the same geographical region. All it means is that they are the same and believe the same fundamentalist rubbish which leaves society in a worse state than it would be without religion. I would put a challenge out to any Christian or Muslim to go and read the other holy book cover to cover and then compare it to your holy book cover to cover. Then please explain to me why your holy book is better than the other one.
The benefit of doing this exercise will show you 2 things.
1) You will realize they are the same.
2) For once you will read your whole holy book and then more than likely you will run as fast as possible away from the church/mosque.
I am posting an infographic again at the bottom of this post for Christians that do not understand marriage according to the bible.I feel this is a necessity as its a stupid word game these Christians are playing by not allowing gay marriage.
What is marriage?
According to Wikipedia: A nonethnocentric definition of marriage
is a culturally sanctioned union between two or more people that
establishes certain rights and obligations between the people, between
them and their children, and between them and their in-laws.
According to Mirriam Webster:
a (1):
the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or
wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage>
b: the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock
c: the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
So you Christians reading this next time you oppose gay marriage remember that you have no idea what marriage is anyway according to societal norms. After all you take your societal norms from the bible and the bible has no idea what marriage is meant to be.
So if you support all the above types of marriage mentioned in the bible then please discriminate and don’t allow gay marriage. However, if you still oppose gay marriage realize you are a rapist/slave owner/murderer/polygamist. So congratulations on being a bloody idiot.
The article is in reference to a study published in the Southern Medical Journal entitled "Study
of the Therapeutic Effects of Proximal Intercessory Prayer (STEPP) on
Auditory and Visual Impairments in Rural Mozambique". Which is a horrible study to say the least and has been shown to be flawed by others. Before I point out a few simple flaws in the actual publication, let us take a look at what the author has to say about it.
In the introduction the author points out that skeptics have never said that healings from prayer are made up as we would get laughed at. So lets just say bullshit! Where has this guy been hiding? Skeptics are pointing out all the time that prayer does not work. But it gets worse the author then goes on to say that these healing are said by skeptics to be "Instead, they
attributed the healings to the power of Satan."Does this author even know what a skeptic is?
If a skeptic does not believe prayer attributed to the Christian god is going to work, then why would a skeptic believe that Satan is doing the miracles. Why Why Why, as I smash my head against the wall pleading for reason with this fool.
The author then points out that he was healed from an incurable disease when he was not a Christian. Please realise that the author is a "scientist" and so surely he should know that this is not verifiable when it is just what you say. Personal experience is not scientific proof. But I digress lets get to the publication.
So who are the authors of this study and what are their affiliations. This is always important as we want to make sure that there is no bias.
The list of Authors is as follows:
The lead author is Candy Gunther Brown who is an associate professor of religious studies.
So I am just going to go out on a limb here and say maybe this paper is going to be biased as every organisation and author is heavily involved in the Church. The participants in this study were actual members or attendees at the church meeting where they were recruited. So again they could have bias or experience a placebo effect. Additionally the hearing tests where done with time constraints and so were probably not accurate. "Due to time constraints, hearing thresholds were measured for all subjects only at 3 kHz in each ear separately instead of across the whole frequency spectrum; we took additional measurements as time allowed." Interestingly, the authors found a greater improvement in hearing improvement than visual improvement. Makes you wonder if the method was time constrained and not accurate........
Lastly, the authors use the dreaded p factor. And show us readers that there is a 1 in 333 chance (p = 0.003) that the hearing improvement could have been up to chance. Maybe the authors should realise this value makes no sense statistically especially when the subset you are using is 18 ears of 11 subjects..... What? 18 ears of 11 subjects? Why does that not make any sense, maybe the data gets skewed the other way when all 22 ears are present. For the full manuscript see the link below.
What is it with Christianity and the old testament and the new testament? When an atheist brings up the fact that god said that it is OK to have sex with your dead brothers wife even if you are married, but its not OK to have sex with your mother in law then you should burn to death. Also if you participate in bestiality then both you and the animal must get killed.... what did the poor animal do?
I bring up these specific laws here for one reason, these are laws that most certainly most Christians will say come from the OT and as such are not relevant today because Jesus came and took our sins away and now we live by the new covenant. There are ways to prove this is not true and that the NT endorses the OT but I want to look at in a simpler way. In a way that makes it so obvious that Christians are full of shit.
Its called the holy trinity i.e the father(god), the son (Jesus) and the holy spirit (bob ;)). Now these three are all one as that is what the trinity means. So if god and Jesus and the holy spirit are interchangeable where does this leave Christians?
Its simple everything in the bible can no longer be left out according to what you are trying to defend. It means that the entirety of the bible has to be brought into account when you are trying to make a point. You cannot say Jesus said turn the other cheek and dismissed an eye for an eye. As it was Jesus who also made the rule an eye for an eye after all Jesus is the same as the holy spirit and it was the holy spirit that guides the authors of the bible.
If one reads the OT, you quickly come to the conclusion that god had a big blood lust, so that means then that Jesus also had a blood lust as Jesus and god are the same. But this trinity also brings numerous other problems with it for Christianity. If the father sent the son to die on the cross to forgive our sins then actually the father sent himself to go and die on the cross. So god has effectively committed suicide, so this then tells us that god approves of suicide. Which is not surprising when you consider his murder rate in the OT, never mind the NT where he got a whole bunch of kids murdered besides himself.
So how does one escape this situation, the only possible way is to dismiss the trinity. But what happens when we dismiss the trinity? It brings the problem of who has more authority god, Jesus or holy spirit? Surely it must be god as Jesus was the son, and the holy spirit is just inspiration. This then means the OT laws are more important as they come from the big boss.
Whichever way you look at it. Christianity has serious issues when it comes to biblical laws. Laws that cannot be dismissed in your arguments, the bible has to be taken in totality or not at all. I prefer the latter.
Often you hear arguments form theist that x must be true because it is in the bible/koran etc. So here are my list of things that must be true due to illogical jumps of faith.
As atheists the one thing we should be very adamant about promoting is thinking. This post you don't necessarily have to agree with everything I say, but I want you to think about any comments or reasons why you disagree or agree.
Is Piracy stealing?
It depends which reasoning you use to determine whether piracy is stealing. As in effect it is stealing, but by definition it is not as someone has paid for the property you are taking a copy of and so you are not even stealing the copy from them as they are offering it to you for free.
Is Marijuana bad for your health? Pic link
Possibly, but maybe not so bad as alcohol or tobacco. So if we consider it in terms of that then it is not bad for your health. On the other hand if we consider it in terms of harm to your body and illegality of the product then we have to say yes.
So if you are able to rationalize everything you thought about and read in the last few examples.
The next question is simple. Pic link
I must say I think I am a fan of this show. For one it highlights how little of the bible theists actually know. The players on the show, sure they know the answers, but the average guy watching at home has no idea.
Also it is awesome that they have a Jewish team on the show. I mean imagine if they could win it.
Maybe an atheist team compromised of ex-ministers could take up the challenge, that would be even better. Do you think that would put to the "you don't know anything about the bible" question to sleep.
Here is a great clip form the show. Well in my opinion it highlights the integrity and the funny.
I am writing this post because I am irritated with the lack of honesty I see displayed by moderators of comments. Actually for that matter moderation in general and it all started off with a debate (or so I thought with a theist on the blog "The Eponymous Flower" and a commercial that was critical of Christianity. http://eponymousflower.blogspot.kr/2013/06/ad-features-blasphemous-dipping-host.html
Here is the commercial for you viewing pleasure.
The author of the blog had said in that " The sacrilegious tastelessness makes clear the general acceptance in
secular circles, that in contrast to other religions like Judaism and
Islam, Christianity can be insulted with impunity."
So I left a comment that said "I think you will find that is not true. Most people see Christianity
getting criticized more because more atheists have had to grow up in
Christian oppressive households and live in Christian countries. Trust
me as an atheists I don't hold back on any religion, I actually like to
criticize all of them with the broad stroke of theism, except when it is
addressing a particular religion and something they have done."
To which I got a response: "That's nice Christian, bully for you. Do you happen to administer some part of education, industry or the media? It
has more to do with the prolonged adolescence and preciousness of
Western youth, I think. Any excuse to avoid the looming realities of
duty, justice or even something as essential as reality." To which I responded as I do not see myself as a bully. "Oh, I am not a bully I am just a
rational person who criticizes ideas that hurt others as religion has a
tendency to do. As for what I do I am a scientist, a chemist to be more
precise. I don't avoid reality as I am sure most atheists don't
as that would fly straight in the face of using logic to come to a
rational outcome.:"
Thats when it all started to get weird every time after that when I commented my comments got removed. See below for a perfect example of when I invited the author of the blog to a debate. Let it be noted I have also invited said author to a debate via e-mail as I wanted to make sure it was not an error in deleting the comment. So stay tuned we could still have a debate on this blog.
I feel it extremely rude when people are attacking me that I am not able to defend myself. Especially if you then attack the persons credibility and call them a narcissist but you are not prepared to listen to how they respond to your comments. So I would say don't visit this site unless you want to get criticised and then not be left the option to defend yourself.
I have responded to other anonymous comments and guess what they were also removed.
For the full text of the comment thread I include it below. You never know they may get deleted.
xxxxxxx My comments in red, blog administrator is in blue, anonymous is in green. My first comment
•I think you will find
that is not true. Most people see Christianity getting criticized more because
more atheists have had to grow up in Christian oppressive households and live
in Christian countries. Trust me as an atheists I don't hold back on any religion,
I actually like to criticize all of them with the broad stroke of theism,
except when it is addressing a particular religion and something they have
done.
•TancredJune
6, 2013 at 11:56 PM
•That's nice
Christian, bully for you. Do you happen to administer some part of education,
industry or the media?
It has more to do with the prolonged adolescence and preciousness of Western
youth, I think. Any excuse to avoid the looming realities of duty, justice or
even something as essential as reality.
•ChristianJune
7, 2013 at 1:08 AM
•Oh, I am not a bully
I am just a rational person who criticizes ideas that hurt others as religion
has a tendency to do. As for what I do I am a scientist, a chemist to be more
precise.
I don't avoid reality as I am sure most atheists don't as that would fly
straight in the face of using logic to come to a rational outcome.
•AnonymousJune
7, 2013 at 3:55 AM
•I was raised in a
Catholic home. Taught to live clean, do no unjust harm, honor my parents, hate
perversion against nature, love even the pervert, be faithful to marriage vows
and above all to know, love and serve God. Yes, I was oppressed too. Poor me.
BTW, reality and logic teach that those who claim there is no God yet spend all
their time trying to make trouble for the God they say they don't believe in.
ROFL My upbringing taught me not to harass those who do not agree with me. That
would be hateful. Too bad your religion doesn't teach the same.
Atheists my ass. LOLOL
•AnonymousJune
7, 2013 at 9:13 PM
•to Christian, You are
sure that most atheists don't
avoid reality thus use logic to reach rational outcomes. Mr. Christian, that is
a very unscientific
conclusion. The larger fact is that there are many
unscientific conclusions in science.
•AnonymousJune
7, 2013 at 9:38 PM
Bravo! Very well said.
We will soldier on.
Deleted Response Here.
•TancredJune
7, 2013 at 1:12 AM
•Considering that your
post had nothing to do with the content of the article, I'll take your word for
it. Thanks for coming by.
•ChristianJune
7, 2013 at 1:39 AM (This response was also deleted before I reposted it)
•You said in your
article
"The sacrilegious tastelessness makes clear the general acceptance in
secular circles, that in contrast to other religions like Judaism and Islam,
Christianity can be insulted with impunity."
I was pointing out why this is so and why it is not true. So I think my point
was very relevant.
•AnonymousJune
7, 2013 at 9:32 PM
•Mr. Christian, If you
proved that Christianity
in contrast to exs. Judaism and Islam
can be insulted with impunity is so..in
fact you did no such thing. And why it is not true.
You were wrong again. I could be wrong but I think I am not in saying this
logic and scientific method is
flawed. Mr. Christian, you said, "I was pointing out
why this is so and why it is not true".
•TancredJune
8, 2013 at 10:32 PM
•I don't mind people
responding to him, but I just cut bait after I deleted the response before this
one. I might be a little trigger happy, but when I see the obvious petty narcicisism, I'm not moved much
to spend a lot of time or to want to waste anyone else's time.
He says HE doesn't discriminate between Christians, Jews and Muslims, well
that's nice, but I don't care what some eccentric says about Islamists and
Jews. The point is that there are consequences for being critical as far as the
cultural Marxism which rules the media is concerned.
•ChristianJune
9, 2013 at 5:11 PM
•This comment has been
removed by a blog administrator. (Deleted response here)
So if you have ever done yourself the honour and visited Ray Comfort of Living Waters fame blogspot. You would have surely run across his section that he posts frequently called Words of Comfort. Which is a quirky and fun title and most probably the most original thing on his blog. So anyway I am linking here to his blog and its to show you what an idiot he is when it comes to evolution.
Thats right I called Ray Comfort an idiot. I don’t do this because I want to be rude, but when someone has been shown so much evidence for evolution and they still deny it they have to be an idiot.
"You want to see transitional evidence--look at the
skeleton of a whale you will see bones of vestigial legs these were once
real legs when the mammal lived on land before retiring to the sea to
live and over time the outside legs have disappeared but the now tiny
leg bones still exist! So yes evolution is happening before our eyes."
Jordan Evans
This is the quote by Jordan Evans so we don’t need to get into this. After all its right! I am not sure if it can be attributed to Jordan Evans as I could not find a source to the quote, but that is irrelevant as like I said it is right.
Whether or not you believe in evolution comes down to
whether you "believe" the evidence. You see bones and drawings and
ideas, and read about how old they are believed to be, and you trust
what is being told to you is true. The entire belief of evolution rests
on trust (faith). You believe. We don’t. You have great faith in what
they tell you. Am I right?
Here Ray is right it depends if you believe the evidence for evolution you will believe it is happening. But this is where it all goes horribly wrong he equates trust to faith. But they are not the same as the fact of evolution have been proven over and over again using multiple scientific methods like fossils, DNA, radioactive dating etc. So how can this trust be the same as faith? Our trust of the data of evolution is based on hard cold scientifically verifiable facts published in peer reviewed journals. Your faith is based on what a book which is divinely inspired by an entity for which their is NO hard cold scientifically verifiable facts published in peer reviewed journals. So is trust the same as faith? No, it is not.
So Ray you are not right. The only time you will be right is when you can bring some evidence for your god to the table. Evolution is presenting evidence all the time, you just need to look at the journals Nature and Science in the last month to see evidence of evolution. We are not even looking at Evolutionary based journals, these are multidisciplinary journals with a very high reputation among scientists. So where is the evidence for god published in the last month?
For a link to some evolution facts that Ray hates so much click below. This one deals with the whale and its feet. evolution.berkeley.edu Just in case you are wondering I take into consideration more the professors science at Berkley than Ray's blind unproven faith.
I was reading a great post the other day on the bitchspot about faith and it got me to thinking what is wrong with faith. Especially more so when recently I have received comments from theists like: "I am not trying to prove anything. I am only telling you that if you
arrogantly demand proof you will never believe and you will die in your
sins."
"The world itself is evidence of a creator to those whose eyes are not blinded by their bias. Some humans don't want there to be a G-d because
they don't want to be accountable to G-d. Nevertheless, there is a G-d
and we all will be held accountable for what we did in life." May I add these comments all came in response to me asking for evidence for the existence of a god.
So it got me thinking about how to show that faith is not a good thing to have when you are making a decision about a god. After all the existence and belief in a god is a major aspect of a persons life, it allows you to discriminate for example. So if faith/god condones something like discrimination then surely it warrants evidence and not faith. So before the theists start crying let me give you an example.
You go to a used car lot and the salesman comes out and this is what he tells you. "I have just the car for you, it comes from a famous Italian sport car manufacturer. It has only ever had one owner who only drove it on weekends. It is red in colour, 5 speed manual shift and has air conditioning. Its engine is in perfect working condition." So hearing this maybe you are conjuring up an image of a sports car which the owner took out for a weekend cruise, something from a famous designer like Ferrari.
But lets look at what was said by the salesman and why you would require proof. He said it was made by a famous Italian sport car manufacturer, Fiat owns Ferrari. It was only driven on weekends, to the shop as the owner used public transport during the week. It is red, it has a/c, it has gear shift. And its engine is in perfect working condition, well for a week until the fan belt breaks again. So what is it?
Its a red Fiat Uno. So did the salesman lie to you? No he was honest, but more than likely you would require proof like....., what does the car look like. Just in case it looks like this.
You would also likely take it to a local service centre and get it checked out before you bought the car.
So if this is the kind of evidence you require when buying a car. Why would you not expect the same when you are asked to believe in a god. Why not have faith in the car salesman? Or should I ask why do you not have faith in the car salesman? Is it possibly due to the fact that people hold the wrong impression that car salesman have a tendency to inflate the truth? Does this remind you of what your minister/rabbi/mullah does?
Recently I have been seeing a lot of anti-life style choice rhetoric from theists. It is something I cannot comprehend, especially now that some churches are changing their stance on things like gay marriage. Luckily for me I stumbled across this link from the BBC which talks about how religions change their minds on certain issues. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22250412
What you quickly see when reading through this article is that the reason that religion often changes its mind is due to external influence. This was the case with the Mormons and polygamy, which funnily enough got banned by the church when the government decided to start seizing all their assets. Or that Muslim men are more likely to pee standing up in the west, as in the west we have more urinals for men to make the process more speedy I suppose. (OK, I will admit something I am now going to Google why we have urinals.)
Now as we see in this few examples above churches evolve as public perception and laws change. This makes me wonder how anyone can still believe in the existence of a god, after all if your religion is evolving to accommodate then surely it cannot be divinely inspired. How would a god that is all knowing make a mistake in a sacred text?
The last line of the article is a quote from the author Karen Armstrong where she says:
"People often think religion is easy," says Armstrong. "In fact it
requires a great deal of intellectual, spiritual and imaginative effort.
It's a struggle that never ceases." I think this is an apt way to end the article as it says to us you really have to work at staying in religion. It requires intellectual effort to come up with reasons why you cannot face the truths that science gives you. It takes a lot of imagination to fool your rational brain into believing that a god exists. It takes spiritual effort because this requires you to take part in meaningless tasks like prayer which reaffirm your superstitions that your imagination and intellect have fooled themselves with.
It will always be a struggle, because religion will always be wrong!
xxxxx BTW urinals are made for efficiency. My guess was right.
I am writing this post to try explain the concept of cognitive dissonance and how it applies to religions in a simple way. The reason behind this is that often we hear the term cognitive dissonance thrown around, but do we really understand it.
They best way to understand cognitive dissonance is by placing yourself in a situation.
So here is the situation: Let assume you pack bananas onto a truck for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Now this may not seem a fruitful job to many people, however the truck into which you pack the bananas has a logo which reads "Bananas feeding the poor and needy". Seeing this logo everyday eventually starts making you feel important in your work as you are helping the poor and the needy. You stay at this job for 10 years and on the first day of the 11th year as you are going to work a guy stops you and says "you know those bananas in that truck with the logo, "Bananas feeding the poor and needy", get dumped at a waste dump everyday."
Will you believe this person. Simple answer is no. If the person then shows you video evidence you will most probably start doubting your jobs worth, but may still not be convinced. This is cognitive dissonance. What is happening is that your brain refuses to believe evidence that is getting presented to it as for the last 10 years it has been told differently.
So in a nutshell, you have been told something that nullifies everything you have done up to that point. Your brain is now in a state of not been able to handle what information it has been told. So the brain, being the wonderful organ it is, refuses to accept this new fact. This makes it feel that everything it has invested so far still has worth. After all a basic human desire is to feel important! You can see this just by saying thank you to someone for something simple and seeing how their face lights up.
So how does this apply to religion?
When a theist gets exposed to new truths that contradict what they believe. They will shut down and make up excuses as to why they do not agree with you. The simple reason for this is that they have invested so much time in religion at that point that it is impossible for their brain to discard religion.
What makes it even worse in religion is that if a theist then goes back to a church the ministers/rabbis/mullahs there will tell them that this new information is a lie. This makes the brain feel good again and it denies the new truths even more.
The website godandscience tries its best to show that god can be proven using science. But they also have other ridiculous arguments to show that atheists are not interpreting the bible correctly and this is when I stumbled across this brilliant line on my favourite pseudo-science website: "According to Richard Dawkins, the God of the Bible (Yahweh) is "jealous and proud of it; a
petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty
ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal,
genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic,
capriciously malevolent bully." Are these claims a true
representation of God's character or have Dawkins and other skeptics
misinterpreted what the Bible says?" http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/criticisms_gods_character.html
So me actually having read the bible thought hang on this cant be a misrepresentation. So I decided to scroll as far as the first link simply titled "Did God Commit Atrocities by Ordering the Killing of Entire Cities of People?" to find out if I was horribly wrong in my assumption about our loving god of Christianity. http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/killergod.html
The author then tries to justify god's actions in an opening paragraph where he uses fantastic phrases like "There are,
however, two major areas which we humans have a difficult time reconciling -
God's love vs. God's righteousness. God is loving, but God's love requires God's
justice. As I discipline my three children when they disobey, God disciplines us
if we don't meet His requirements." I was just wondering if he still has 3 children left? After all........wait luckily he saves himself with the next comment "The problem for us is that we cannot keep all
of God's laws because of our selfishness and self-centeredness.
God would have been completely just and loving in destroying all of us for our
disobedience to Him. It is only through His extraordinary love and grace that we
are allowed into His presence." So what the author has done here is use the god escape clause, which a lot of theists do not seem to understand. So let me explain here again. The God escape clause is as follows: When you don't want to make a decision based on your doctrine, you don't make any decision. Then regardless of you outcome, be it either murder, death, discrimination, you simply say "its OK after all its gods will". This is the cowards view as well as the view of anyone that wants to discriminate. This view has been used by great murderous minds like Jim Jones, David Koresh, Paul Jennings Hill etc
So how does our author then justify mass killing in the name of god? He uses the argument that god is justified in killing these people as they were evil. It is important to note here that the only text that we have that tells us these people were evil is the bible itself. Also our author tells us that no innocents were killed that every single person in these cities was a sinner. Again the reference we have is the bible. The author even goes on to point out that god was doing a favour by killing the children and babies. "However, the Bible also indicates that children are incapable of making
moral choices, so that they are automatically rewarded with heaven.
So, in having babies killed, God is actually doing them a favor, since, if
they had grown up opposed to God, they would have gone to hell." I am staring to wonder if the author of this text has all his marbles? But then I remember he is using the "god escape clause" so basically he is just not prepared to face the reality of what he is saying. But this then begs the question, why does the author still have 3 children, surely he could just use the "god escape clause" when they do something horrible like disrespect him?
The article then concludes that god is just and has to judge everyone. Showing us that heaven would not be a good place if everyone went there etc etc.
Oh hang on I forgot to point something out in the beginning of this article, the author has never shown the existence of god. So what this article is showing you is how to do anything and just say "hey its god will so it is OK to kill, murder and maim".
So was Dawkins right in his assessment of god? YES, NO CONTEST! But, I would go further and say maybe he should be saying Christians are jealous and proud of it; they are petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freaks; they are vindictive, bloodthirsty
ethnic cleansers; they are misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal,
genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic,
capriciously malevolent bullies. After all if you cant prove god and you are using god to justify your actions then this is what you are becoming.
If you cant there is no point in continuing this avoidance conversation.