DangerousTalk

A lot of times I see my fellow freethinkers arguing against Fred Phelps and his wacky Westboro Baptist Church. All I can do is laugh. I mean really, no one even takes that crazy bunch seriously so why bother arguing against them? Oh no, they picket funerals and yell, “God hates fags.” So what? People just laugh at them. They have become a parody of Fundamental Christianity. They are the joke!

The thing is that I like Phelps and the gang. While the mainstream media sees them as “too religious,” I see them as not religious enough. They remind me that as wacky as these guys are, they still don’t follow the worst of the Bible. While they may picket funerals, they aren’t out there stoning people to death for working on the Sabbath. Nor are they stoning gay people, adulterers, and heretics. In fact, the Westboro clan doesn’t stone anyone. What kind of extremist of the extreme are they if they don’t stone a single person or even advocate that kind of thing. The fact is these guys are wusses.

If we can’t even count on Fred Phelps to take the Bible absolutely literally, who can we count on? Could you imagine if Phelps and friends really did take the Bible as literally as the mainstream media made it out that they do? Wow, they would be in prison by now. The thing is that the Religious Right don’t hate Phelps for distorting the Bible, they hate him because he points out that they are distorting the Bible too. The more the Phelps family are out there protesting funerals and getting news coverage the more it makes the Religious Right look stupid. Liberals and moderates don’t see a difference between Phelps and Dobson while the Religious Right sees Phelps as how they might be if they really took things to the next level. So Phelps and friends are a win/win as far as I am concerned.

The way I see it, The Westboro Baptist Church are harmless and yet at the same time they also are great to have around because as wacky as they are, they are no wackier than the Religious Right or even the mainstream Christians. If Christians are going to insist that no one be critical of their wacky beliefs, than how can they also be so critical of the Westboro Baptists? Don’t they have the right to believe whatever they like too? Of course they do, but having the right to believe something doesn’t mean that someone ought to believe that thing. And the fact is that the Westboro Baptists have just as much, if not more Biblical backing as the mainstream and Religious Right. So as long as the Westboro Baptist Church don’t get much bigger than the Phelps family, they don’t start stoning people, and aren’t in a position to change any laws I say keep them around for a bit just as an example of some still wussy but harder core Christianity than the Fundamentalists.

Filed under: Religion | 21 Comments »

Apparently, there is a movement to make this Friday (tomorrow) “Atheist Day.” I am not entirely sure if this is to be an annual atheist day or just a one time event. Nor am I sure I really want an “Atheist Day.” To me everyday is an atheist day. It isn’t as if I believe in deities for 364 days and than take a day to doubt.

In any case, part of the “Atheist Day” celebration calls for the greater atheist community to make our presence known online by displaying the Scarlet A as a profile picture on all social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. This I think is a good thing and something worthy of mass participation.

It is not that I think people will choose to reject belief in God because they see large numbers of atheists out of the metaphorical pew, but I do think that there are many Christians out there who quietly doubt or even outright disbelieve in their deity of choice but are afraid to make such doubts and disbeliefs public. This is understandable because atheism is still a minority and still faces major discrimination. But the more people make it know that they do indeed have doubts or disbeliefs about ridiculous bronze aged deities, the more others will be willing to reveal themselves as fellow freethinkers, skeptics, doubters, and disbelievers.

So tomorrow, please take part in this “Atheist Day” by making this image or images like this your profile image on all your favorite social networking websites. Let people know that you lack belief in ridiculous deities. Come out, come out, come out, and be free.

Filed under: Religion | 14 Comments »

An argument that I hear a lot from Fundamentalist Christians is that atheists reject God because we love sin and don’t want the responsibility of living a “Godly Life.” Of course this is a ridiculous argument because it assumes that atheists really do believe in the Christian God, but just don’t want to admit it because admitting it means that we have to live by the Biblical moral code which is so strict that no human could ever live up to it.

But the ridiculousness doesn’t end there. As it turns out, living the “Godly Life” doesn’t mean responsibility at all. It avoids responsibility. In other words, the very thing that these Christians are accusing atheists of avoiding is the very thing they themselves are avoiding. The thing about the “Godly Life” is that all is forgiven by virtue of belief. The idea is the notorious John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It doesn’t matter how much a Christian sins or acts immorally because Jesus died for them. They have the golden ticket to Heaven and while the Bible says that they should live for God, there is no punishment for slip ups because by grace they are saved.

No responsibility! Once one has accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, they could do anything they want without having to worry about responsibilities. Although, like I said, Christians aren’t supposed to run around doing anything they want, they are supposed to try to be “Christ-like.” The key word though is “try.” As a mere human, a Christian is filled with sin and is saved… “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” – Titus 3:5

And then there is that little matter of figuring out what “Christ” is like. The Bible is so filled with differing examples of what Jesus was like that one could do almost any behavior and justify it with scripture.

Some Christians will claim to be responsible to a “higher authority,” but this excuse is usually used to justify a Christian being irresponsible to the authorities here on Earth. The law is “Man’s Law” and a Christian could justify ignoring man’s flawed law if he or she chooses. This claim of holy responsibility is simply a way of avoiding real Earthly responsibilities.

Filed under: morality, Religion, responsibility | 12 Comments »

“I just can’t believe this kind of thing. If I throw a ball up in the air, it falls down to the Earth. So how can you expect me to believe that something that weighs tons can just fly around with people in it? The law of gravity says that whatever comes up must come down, so by your own science, airplanes can’t fly.”

This is a kind of argument I often get from some Christians with regard to Evolution or the Big Bang. How could I explain to my mythical person about aerodynamics and propulsion when they have no grasp of basic science? The same is true with regard to Evolution and the Big Bang. Christians tell me all the time that they never saw a monkey give birth to a human before and so therefore evolution doesn’t make sense. I also hear that something can’t come from nothing and so therefore the Big Bang doesn’t make sense.

I could spend time explaining to them about Natural Selection or the Doppler Shift, but really what would be the point? If they are in their twenties or thirties or even older and they still think that evolution is monkeys giving birth to humans or that the Big Bang is something from nothing they really aren’t going to care what I tell them. For these people I just recommend that they go out and buy a 9^th grade science text book and hope for the best.

Without knowing the basics of the scientific process or of the very theories they are arguing against there is little to no point in getting into higher level discussions. This is why we really need to step up our science education in this Nation. Many of these Christians have no interest in science despite the fact they use the fruits of science every day without even realizing it. We might want to point that out to them next time they are getting ready to take a trip on an airplane.

Filed under: Religion | 13 Comments »

As many of you may know, Saturday was March 14th or 3.14 or Pi Day. This is a day in which we should all celebrate math and science and make learning fun. Many in the greater atheistic community have wanted to create atheistic holidays to celebrate since we don’t really celebrate religious holidays. I don’t have a problem with that, but it should be emphasized that atheism is not a religion and so we don’t need holidays. Humanism can be considered a religion to some degree and so a humanistic holiday would make more sense. In any case, Pi Day should be such a holiday. I was a little surprised however to hear Congress discussing the holiday in open session. In fact, Tennessee Congressman Bart Gordon sponsored a House Resolution honoring Pi Day. Here Tennessee Congressman Lincoln Davis addresses the Congress:

Link

The really surprising thing about this House Resolution is that 10 Republicans actually voted against it!!! It seems the love of math and science is something they felt they needed to vote against. No money was appropriated with this resolution. No laws were created or changed with this resolution. All this resolution did was honor Pi Day and encourage scientific education through a simple acknowledgement. Yet 10 Congressman made the conscious decision to vote against this acknowledgement. So I am going to “out” these anti-science Congressmen:

Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz
Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake
Nevada Congressman Dean Heller
Illinois Congressman Tim Johnson
Florida Congressman Jeff Miller
Texas Congressman Randy Neugebauer
Texas Congressman Ron Paul
Indiana Congressman Mike Pence
Texas Congressman Ted Poe
Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Politics, Religion, science | 31 Comments »

Christians are so into the Jesus miracles. I can’t tell you how many times a Christian of some denomination tells me that Jesus must have been God because he was able to turn water into wine and all the other miraculous crap. Personally, I think it would say more about a deity in the flesh if he didn’t do the magic tricks and instead convinced people with nothing more than his humanity (actions and words).

Besides, turning water into wine is a pretty lame stunt when you think about it. Do you know what would be really impressive? What if Jesus had turned urine into water? Think about that for a moment. We can drink water and we can drink wine. No big deal. In fact water is better for you than wine. It would be like turning a really healthy salad into Taco Bell. Sure that would be a nice party trick, but not really good for anyone on a practical level (unless you are high on pot or something). But turning urine into water definitely is much more impressive. Urine is our waste product and water is a pretty life sustaining fluid. That would have truly been impressive.

Not to worry though, because Michigan Technological University scientist David Hand doesn’t claim to be the son of God, nor does he claim to be God incarnate. Instead, he just claims to have been able to turn urine into clean drinking water. One main difference between Hand’s claim and the claim of Jesus is that David Hand can prove it. In fact, now his Urine to Water Recovery System is on board the International Space Station where it is being put to use on a daily basis. People actually rely on this miraculous new technology. Jesus is going to have to really step up his game. Science and human ingenuity are really making the stories in the Bible look childish and stupid.

Filed under: Religion | 22 Comments »

We all know that there are a wide range of people who believe very different things and yet all call themselves Christians. Some Christians are the Good Cop Christians, some are the Bad Cop Christians, and some are somewhere in between.

The thing with atheists is that atheism is a term that describes a lack of belief. So all atheists are different and the only thing we all have in common is that we all lack the belief in a deity. There is no atheist doctrine. Lately however, some atheists have started to form communities and groups. Some atheists have started to organize not only around our lack of belief but also around some common values like reason, education, science, and compassion for our fellow human beings. Despite our newly found organizational skills, we still are a rather disorganized group of people who have very different ideas on how to deal with our common problem (i.e. religion). In fact, we can’t even seem to agree on a term to call ourselves.

The point here is that some in the greater atheistic community think that we shouldn’t be openly critical of religions and should just educate ourselves and hope that those of the Abrahamic faiths reject their mythologies on their own before they destroy the entire planet and us with it. I guess we can call these the Good Cop atheists since they are the ones telling the Christians, Muslims, and Jews whatever they want to hear except of course that they now believe in God. I have nothing against these Good Cop atheists and sometimes I even use that strategy when talking about religion one on one with particular Christians.

But I must confess that I am probably more in what has been called the Bad Cop atheist camp. That is the view that we should let “People of Faith” know that we think their beliefs are ridiculous and dangerous. I think more often than not we should call them out and be critical of what they believe and how they behave because of those beliefs. I think that if someone doesn’t want to be ridiculed for their beliefs, that they shouldn’t have such ridiculous beliefs and then I wouldn’t laugh so hard at them for those beliefs. If someone told me that they believed that Elvis was God and that they saw Elvis last night in a 7-11 Convenience Store, I am going to tell that person that they are nuts. I don’t think I need to treat that person seriously and pretend that he has a valid claim on reality which should be treated on par with the claims of respected scientists who have evidence to back up their ideas.

Ultimately though we have to realize that whether someone is a Good Cop atheist or a Bad Cop atheist, there is a time and a place for both. In fact, I think sometimes we may need both at the same time and at the same place. Could you imagine if on one of those police shows, only the Good Cop came in to question the suspect? Or what if only the Bad Cop questioned the suspect? The way the game works is for both cops to question the suspect. So here in reality, we need the good atheist cops to tell the religious that they might be right (even though we are almost certain that they are wrong) and then we need the bad cops like me to lay out just how ridiculous their divine claims actually are.

Filed under: good cop-bad cop, Religion | 10 Comments »

I remember watching those old police movies in which two police officers are interrogating a suspect and one police officer pretends to be this over the top, loud, angry, and erratic cop threatening the guy with the worst treatment possible if he doesn’t cooperate while the other cop pretends to care about the guy and his rights. This cop tells him that if he cooperates the cop will push to get him a lower sentence and some roses or something. This is called playing “Good Cop/Bad Cop.”

I have found that whenever I get into conversations about Christianity I find myself smack in the middle of that game. On one hand, I am talking about the Bible and what it says and how cruel so much of it is and then along comes the Good Cop Christians (sometimes even a fellow atheist) who tell me that none of that really matters and all Jesus is saying is give peace a chance (despite the fact that the character of Jesus actually said that he did not come to “give peace a chance” but rather he came with a sword). Then I’ll talk about the horrible, immoral, and downright dangerous thing that a the Religious Right are doing right now and how they must be stopped and then the next thing I know along comes the Good Cop again telling me that those Christians are just extremists who have it wrong (despite the very large number of these Christians [45%] and the fact that their view of the Bible is actually fairly liberal considering what the Bible actually says).

These Good Cop Christians will quote one of the small handful of verses that are about compassion and ignore the tons and tons of really shitty verses calling for violence and hate. They will tell me that I can’t blame Christianity for the actions of the Religious Right (the Bad Cop). Yet if you look at the Bible, it is clear that the Religious Right have the Biblical High Ground when it comes to so many of these issues. People forget that back in the day when more people took the Bible seriously, there were all kinds of really horrible things going on (like the torture and murder of blasphemers). The only reason why Christianity has gotten rid of some of those horrible things isn’t because it was discovered that the Bible didn’t say those things, but rather because modernity has made those things silly and immoral.

Awhile back, I read a book by Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners. He is one of the leaders of the “Good Cop” crowd and I have to tell you that even his brand of Good Cop seemed pretty damn bad to me. But there are other “Good Cop” Christians who are surely better than Reverend Wallis. My point is that I am growing tired of being stuck in the Good Cop/Bad Cop game. I don’t criticize Christians as people, but I do criticize what most if not all Christians believe. Even the Good Cop Christians believe some pretty wacky stuff when you get right down to it. One problem is that they don’t really hold to their own doctrine and I can’t say I blame them. But they have no religious grounding for rejecting the parts of the Bible that they reject (which is about 95% of it by my guess).

If people want to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they wish to follow, that is fine with me. I do that with most of the books that I read. But I am also not claiming that the books that I read were divinely inspired. Once you add that into the mix, all bets are off and Christianity becomes open to criticism. In this sense, atheism is like the Internal Affairs of this Good Cop/Bad Cop game.

Filed under: good cop-bad cop, Religion | 3 Comments »

Yesterday the results of the American Religious Identification Survey were released and it has become the topic of conversation on just about every news network. The big reveal is that religion is on the decline in America. This is of course in line with the Harris Poll which was released last year. Not only is religion on the decline in America as a whole, but the number of people who answered “No Religion” is on the rise in EVERY State.

One interesting statistic which might have gotten missed in the reporting is that Evangelical/Born Again Christianity is on the rise as is the “Non-Denominational” Christian label. Islam is also slightly on the rise (from .3% in 2001 to .6% today). Judaism on the other hand is on the decline… That is religious Judaism, not cultural Judaism.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, roughly 45% of all Christians consider themselves Born Again/Evangelical/Non-Denominational. While this is certainly not to say that 45% of Christians are Fundamentalists since Christians like former President Jimmy Carter considers himself an Evangelical, it certainly is a good indicator. In other words, I don’t think it could be accurate to claim that Fundamentalists or the Religious Right are just a small minority of Christian Extremists. It is clear from this survey and that of the Harris Poll from last year that the Religious Right (i.e. fundamentalists) makes up a significant number of the American Christian population. That is almost 34% of all adult Americans! Think about it that is one in every three adults is a fundamentalist.

The upside of the survey is obvious and should not only give us encouragement, but also help us plan for the future. While atheism is up in every state the important part is that we now know how much atheism is up in each state. For instance, we know that you are least likely to find a fellow person of reason in Mississippi and North Dakota than you are in Texas or Alabama. It would be much better to put some of our resources in Louisiana instead of Wisconsin. But we also need to make sure to continue educating people about religion and science on a national level. It does seem that the more outspoken we are becoming the more people are leaving their respective faiths. So I think it is important to continue being “out” as an atheist and to continue to be critical of ridiculous religious ideas.

Filed under: Decline of Religion, Religion | 18 Comments »

Often times a Christian will demand that I explain why something is the world is the way it is or how come people behave a certain way. Their view is that God made it that way. But their demand takes it a step further, if I can’t explain exactly how science explains something with 100% certainty, than God must have done it.

How come we look at a painting and see beauty in it? How come we feel guilty when we lie or steal? How can science explain love? The fact is that science does have answers for all these questions. But are we 100% certain of those answers? No. Is there one answer which can easily explain the entire universe? Aside from 42, I don’t think there is. We can say that “God did it,” but that doesn’t make it true. We can say that we are 100% certain that “God did it,” but that doesn’t make it true. Instead, all that really does is to cut short our search for the real answers.

Some people want a quick and easy answer to all the questions they can think of. They want that all-in-one answer so badly that they are willing to make it up and be satisfied with that. Personally, I think that is pretty boring and not very satisfying. Not to mention, it wouldn’t be true. We live in an uncertain world and we are just beginning to understand how some aspects of this universe work. Through science, we are learning more and more each day and while I cannot answer all of the questions of the universe with 100% certainty, I think the scientific method is doing a pretty good job so far.

If you want a quick and easy answer, go to Church. That doesn’t mean that their answer is true, jus that it is an answer. If you want to really learn about the Universe and the people in it, than start by taking a few science classes and learn how we know what we know and to what certainty we know it.

Filed under: Religion | 12 Comments »

While there is no religion of atheism nor is there a doctrine of atheism to which all atheists need to subscribe to, many atheists have united together and formed freethought and humanistic communities which promote rational thinking, education, and reason over superstition.

Because of the emphasis on rational thought and education it is not a surprise that most of the People of Reason in these groups support gay marriage and equal rights for our friends in the gay, lesbian, and transgender communities. In fact, the only reason people seem to give against equal rights for gays seem to be religious in nature. While some religious people will try to give non-religious reasons, it quickly becomes clear from the poorness of those reasons that the real reason really is religious.

The Religious Right has made this issue one of the top issues in their Culture War, but that is not the only reason why this issue has become so important to the larger atheistic community. Our community values equality and fairness and in general we see no valid reason for restricting the rights of our homosexual friends. Such an attack on their rights and the rights of others is irrational and based solely on bronze aged mythology, fear, and ignorance.

So when I hear the Religious Right or anyone else for that matter attacking gay rights or trying to ban gays from marrying, I feel like I have to step up to the plate and defend them. So I would defend gay rights even if it weren’t part of the Culture Wars simply because it is the rational and humane thing to do. But since it is part of the Culture Wars, I am even more motivated to fight side by side with my gay friends against the attacks from the Religious Right and others.

The greater atheistic community has a lot to learn from the activism of our friends in the gay community. As our rights are constantly under attack from the Religious Right, we walk in similar paths and have to fight for our rights in much the same way. Their fight is our fight and we must stand with them and hope that when the time comes, they will return the favor.

It is also important to note that many gay people are also People of Reason. Because the Religious Right and other religious people have such big issues with homosexuality, many gay people end up leaving their religion for more secular company. Gay people are more than just friends of the greater atheistic community; many of them a part of it.

Filed under: Gay Issues, Politics, Religion | 10 Comments »

Today, the California Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments in the Proposition 8 case with a decision set to come in 90 days.

Back when I was in college, a gay friend of mine was putting on an educational program called “Homosexuality and Spirituality.” This was the second time that she was putting on the program. The previous year, her program attracted massive amounts of fundamentalist Christians who were mostly acting as the Fred Phelps of the time. They seemed to have the goal of disrupting the program and calling everyone evil sinners. So when my friend decided to run the program again the following year, she called in the big guns.

I attended the program at her request for the specific purpose of distracting the entire fundamentalist Christian group from bothering the people who actually wanted to take part in the program. Basically, I was to get a small group discussion going on why they felt that homosexuality was bad. Many Christians were honest with me and pointed out that the one and only reason why they thought homosexuality was bad was because the Bible said so. While these Christians were honest with me, they were easy to argue with. The Bible of course says a lot of things that people today do not follow and of course would not follow. Slavery would be the first that would come to mind.

Some Christians would tell me that it isn’t about the Bible at all and that they would be against homosexuality simply because it is “unnatural.” How so, I would ask? Isn’t anything in the natural world, by definition, “natural?” Apparently not, since they make a distinction between God made (natural) and human made (unnatural). So of course I couldn’t resist following this line of thinking to its logical conclusion. If everything man made is unnatural and unnatural is bad, than we do a whole lot of unnatural things all the time and homosexuality would be the least of our problems.

Some Christians would be forced to say that it is all about the sex. They would tell me that the purpose of sex is to procreate and so therefore any sex, which makes procreation not possible or not the focus would be immoral and wrong. I would immediately ask this person how they feel about birth control and if they think that people who are infertile or sterile should be allowed to marry or have sex? While some Christians do have issue with birth control, they are not usually as animated on the subject as they are about homosexuality. And few if any people seem to think that heterosexual couples who can’t have children should be banned from marriage or even sexual activity. Maybe we should have a fertility test given before the State grants a couple a marriage license. And what if a couple can have children but simply choose not to have children? Is that morally wrong? Such a position is laughably ridiculous. Besides, why does sex have to have only one divine purpose? Maybe sex has different purposes for different people at different times in their lives. But all this is beside the point.

The fact is that homosexuality has very little to do with sex and more to do with attraction, love, and relationships. To claim that homosexuality is purely about sex is really inaccurate. Just as it is inaccurate to claim marriage is all about sex and not about sharing ones life with another. Sex is of course part of a relationship but anyone who marries someone purely out of sex will probably find themselves divorced very quickly. So maybe it is a Public Relations (PR) issue, which has helped the Religious Right to demonize homosexual and to get Californians to ban same sex marriage. Maybe we shouldn’t refer to homosexuals as homosexuals. Instead we should refer to gay people as being in a same gender relationship. Christians get way too hung up on sex and so maybe if we reframe the issue in the form of a loving relationship we can help to take this issue out of the Culture War and help to get our friends in the Same Gender Relationship Community some much needed equal rights to marry.

Filed under: Gay Issues, Politics, Religion, sex | 35 Comments »

I have noticed that in modern society, people seem to be all about the “All Natural” label. If a food is “all natural” people seem to think that is analogous to it been healthy or good in some way. This claim however is an irrational one probably brought about through good marketing. I also think that religious belief may be somewhat responsible for this fallacy. The idea is that God created everything for a reason and therefore the natural world is of God. Everything in it must be good by definition. On the flip side of this is the idea that humans are “fallen” creatures. We are all sinners who are imperfect and those fallible. Anything human made must therefore be faulty as well. The argument goes that a flawed being cannot make something, which is not flawed and a perfect being cannot make something, which is imperfect. So is one were to subscribe to this world view, the logic would dictate that anything from God (i.e. natural) would have to be better than anything that is from man (i.e. artificial).

This is of course a bunch of horseshit and if you don’t believe me, try ingesting arsenic (a very natural poison) and next time you need have a headache, don’t you dare take anything unnatural to make you feel better. Oh, and while you are at it you might as well strip naked (clothes don’t grow on trees you know) and start running around in the sun and see how long it takes you to get skin cancer. By the way, what the fuck are you doing on a computer?

Now that we have established that natural doesn’t always mean good and synthetic or artificial doesn’t always mean bad, why is it that Christians go around calling certain behaviors “unnatural” as if that means anything? I’ll get into that question more in tomorrow’s Daily Blog.

Filed under: Religion | 24 Comments »

Since the “Four Horsemen” of atheism have had their books on the top of the charts, Christians and even some atheists claim that any atheist who criticizes Christianity or calls Christianity out for the evil that it preaches are themselves intolerant bigots. To this, I always say the same thing. I hate Christianity, not Christians. We don’t choose what we believe. We have reasons to believe what we believe (even if those reasons are not reasonable). There are many reasons why Christians believe what they believe. Some are indoctrinated at a young age, some were manipulated out of fear, guilt, despair, etc., and some are brought to Christianity through some other sort of emotional experience. It isn’t their fault that they don’t question their beliefs or that they believe in a ridiculous bronze aged mythology. So I have nothing against Christians as people. In fact, I think most Christians are very good people, who believe very ridiculous things which sometimes cause them to do very evil things all in the name of their deity of choice.

Christianity, on the other hand is not a person, it is the religious system of belief (relationship with God) and the beliefs based on the Bible which has continued to refine themselves for over 2000 years for the express purpose of converting people and spreading itself like a virus. This system has discovered which buttons to push on whom and exactly how and when to push those buttons. The sad part is that even the people pushing those buttons don’t see it as doing anything dishonest or immoral. So I can’t even blame Pat Robertson or James Dobson. They have been tricked by the system of Christianity (i.e. other Christians who have also been tricked by the system). They really have no malice in their heart. Even Fred Phelps doesn’t hate “fags” because he is a hateful person, he hates “fags” because he believes that his God punishes him because he allows “fags” to sin. If you truly believed that the fate of your eternal life rests in the hands of pleasing your deity, you would do whatever hateful thing you thought your deity would want you to do. That doesn’t make you a bad person, just and dangerous person.

All we have to do is get these Christians to start wondering how the trick is done. Get them to ask questions and to question what they have been taught and indoctrinated into believing. But the point here is that I don’t blame Christians, I blame Christianity. My view on this is similar (ironically enough) to the Christian view of loving the sinner and hating the sin. In this case, the sin is Christianity as a belief system. So you won’t hear me (or read me in this case) say that Christians in general are stupid or dumb (some particular Christians maybe, but more often than not they are just lazy and ignorant) or that they have no rights to believe in stupid or dumb belief systems. They have every right to believe whatever ridiculous thing they wish to believe. But I think it is important to point out to them just how ridiculous those beliefs are and to point out that their beliefs are dangerous to others. If they have the right to force their beliefs on everyone else than I have the right to fight back though education. If they have the right to preach their system of belief, than I have the right to criticize their system of belief. That doesn’t make me hateful of them as people nor does it make me intolerant of their beliefs. I fully support their right to preach, but they don’t seem to respect my right to criticize their ridiculous bronze aged fiction.

Filed under: Religion, sin | 12 Comments »

Recently, I watched a few youtube videos from Brother Sam Singleton, Atheist Evangelist. In his latest video, Brother Sam talked about the Rules of Engagement that he employs when discussing religion with Christians. While I disagree with many of Brother Sam’s rules, I do think he is right to have rules. And while his rules certainly don’t work for me, my philosophy is to each their own when in comes to other peoples rules of engagement with respect to religious discussions.

So for me, my time is valuable and so while I try to discuss religion with anyone who chooses to discuss the subject with me, I simply don’t have that much time to waste. So being inspired by Brother Sam, I think I will develop my own rules of engagement.

Law 1: The other party must be open to thinking critically about their own religion in an objective fashion.

Law 2: The other party should be knowledgeable about their own religion and other religions as well.

Law 3: The other party must have some idea of the reasoning why they believe what they believe other than an appeal to emotion.

Law 4: The other party should not be insulted by the term “ignorance” as we are all ignorant of some things and ignorance on particular subjects can often be corrected through education. Stupidity on the other hand cannot be corrected.

Law 5: The other party should know at least some of the basic arguments against God before attempting to argue with me. If they don’t, that is what google is for.

Law 6: The other party should have a basic understanding of science and the scientific process before attempting to argue with me. If they don’t, that is what 9th grade science class is for. In lieu of that, google might be helpful.

Law 7: The other party ought to come to the discussion with a willingness to learn and not to insult when backed into a corner (again, the term “ignorant” is not an insult). In other words, keep your emotions in check.

Law 8: The other party must realize that they do not have the monopoly on divine knowledge. They must be able to justify their interpretation of divine knowledge and realize that it is just that, “their interpretation.”

Law 9: Mr. Garrisons Law, There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.

Law 10: All lists of laws must be no greater or lesser than 10. That shit is biblical!

While I will certainly entertain discussions with some people who don’t respect my laws, doing so is purely at my discretion and should be considered generous on my part. I also encourage everyone to check out Brother Sam Singleton because he as fucking funny as a B on Easter Sunday.

Filed under: Religion | 8 Comments »

Guest Blog from ShaunPhilly:

Two examples of reasons why people believe in some sort of god don’t seem to jive with each other so well. Let me put it this way; have you heard someone say that the world is so beautiful and awe-inspiring, so how could you not see their god’s presence? Later on someone else says that the ways of this world are so ugly and ungodly that they cannot wait to get to heaven?

OK,  well,  in any case I have. One runs into comments like these when you throw yourself into the asylums we call religious culture. In some ways I’m a masochist, but what really drives me to seek out such views in a genuine desire to understand what is going on inside the minds of believers. The two examples don’t seem to have much in common on the surface, but they are often derived from the same communities.

I,  an agnostic-atheist metaphysical naturalist,  do see beauty in the world.  I do feel the awe that comes in the form of colorful sunsets, the stars at night,  and the simple playfulness and curiosity of children.  But I do not see a deity behind these things;  rather,  I see that our emotional states have been formed over millions of years of evolutionary forces and, for various reasons,  some things cause emotions that we like to feel. That is, I see natural explanations for the existence and experience of beauty.  Some will say, upon reading this, that to explain away the beauty of the world takes the mystery and miracle out of such things, but I disagree. To understand how things work does not make them less beautiful, it makes them more beautiful because there is natural beauty behind things as well.

And I also see the ugly—what some would call ungodly—in the world as well. But I don’t understand how it could be ungodly. After all, if god, the supposed creator of all things, is omniscient and omnipotent then all that exists is ultimately the responsibility of god, right? God would have had to know what would come to be and made it so anyway. And no matter what apologists will say about free will, there are still the ‘evil’ things in the world that are not the result of human decisions as well as the fact that god would have made us the way we are, knowing we would fall from grace.

Behind this is often an unwillingness to face the unpleasant in the world and to turn away and hope for a magical place where we will go when we die. That is, rather than actually work to make the world better (beginning with oneself, of course), many would rather pray that they be taken away now and not have to face the world. Don’t believe me? Check this out.

This is not to say that all religious persons react this way, but they will often attribute the beautiful to god’s while abhorring his creation. This especially Christian (but not exclusively so) concept of humanity being inherently sinful, which explains the ugly state of the world transfers the responsibility to humanity. The actual case is that some of the problems are our fault and others are simply blind nature at work (not for or against us). In any case, we need to stop hiding from the world and begin to re-create ourselves into something better. We need to transcend humanity as it exists and become better, starting with the stripping of old superstitious myths from our minds and replacing them with stories of hope for one-another, understanding based in reality, and towards actions that encourage beauty that starts from ourselves.

We must take a responsibility for the beauty and unpleasant in the world. We must start with ourselves, to identify our own insecurities, fears, and biases, in order to recognize how we can make improvements upon what we have the power to influence. Stop attributing beauty to something magic, and stop hiding from the unpleasant in hopes that this same magic will help you.

ShaunPhilly has his own blog at ShaunPhilly.wordpress.com

Filed under: Religion | 12 Comments »

Guest Blog from Michael Rosch of The A-Team:

“Don’t give up the fight!!!!! We know the vaccines cause, or are one of the causes of Autism. Never let them win. Keep spreading the word. No matter what they say or decide, they will NEVER change my mind.”

This is an excerpt from an actual Myspace bulletin I received from a very passionate individual expressing their outrage that the judges in the first 3 Autism Omnibus court cases would have the audacity of disagreeing with his sacred beliefs.

Here, this individual comes right out and admits that “they will NEVER change my mind.” [his emphasis on “NEVER”, not mine] This is dogmatism, the inability to change one’s conclusions to fit the evidence. What this individual is saying is that he’s simply put his nickel down on a conclusion and no matter how much evidence is against him, he will never accept that he’s wrong. If that isn’t the height of arrogance, I don’t know what is. It’s also a sure sign of fanaticism.

Rational people take positions but ultimately accept the agnostic view that because they don’t have all the evidence, they could still be wrong. Likewise, science is always subject to revision upon the arrival of new evidence. Science deals in likelihoods, not absolutes. Of course there are certain beliefs we hold that we’re very confident about and consider it pretty much crazy to question, like the non-existence of leprechauns. But we feel comfortable simply saying there are no leprechauns because we have GOOD REASON to believe there are no leprechauns. But who among us would dare confess that they’d never, ever accept that leprechauns exist EVEN IF presented with extraordinary evidence to the contrary?

Same goes for the Abrahamic God, Yahweh. I’m frequently asked by Christians, what would it take to get me to accept that Jesus really was the son of God? It’s one of the rare examples of Christians actually asking a good question. My answer is usually some variation of, “If Jesus showed up at my door, magically healed an amputee right in front of me without the aid of any scientific technology and resurrected someone who was medically declared dead and buried weeks prior, I’d begin to accept the possibility that he was indeed Jesus and the son of God, but I still would not follow him.”

The point is that I know more or less what would be required to convince me that I’m wrong. And when someone tells me that they believe in a rather dubious, extraordinary claim with little or no good evidence to back up that belief and that “nothing” will change their mind, that’s a major red flag that they’re not thinking critically enough about their beliefs. There are many red flags we can look for. And because nobody is an expert on everything, it is in our best interests to learn what those red flags are in order to best determine whether a particular claim is indeed persuasive or if it’s just a belief that they’re emotionally attached to and unwilling to let go of despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

As Judge Vowell said a few weeks ago, the evidence for a link between vaccines and autism “is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive.” I agree. To date, none of the evidence presented I’ve heard of convinces me that vaccines cause autism. Though, as always I remain open to any good scientific evidence that might change my mind.

Filed under: Religion | 14 Comments »

I have been known to start up debates and discussions with Christians on more than a few occasions. Some might even call it picking a fight or even a form of intellectual or spiritual bullying of those less knowledgeable about religion than I am. In any case, one drawback to doing this is that I hear the same claims and arguments a million times over from Christians who just don’t know the facts and history of their own religion. Today, I would like to focus on one of the more bizarre things that I hear over and over again from so many Christians. Many times when I have these discussions with Christians, they will tell me at one point in the conversation that Christianity is the majority religion in the world and that all those people can’t be wrong. This claim of truth by popularity isn’t new, nor is it bizarre in and of itself. However, later in the conversation, these same Christians talk about how Christians are always being persecuted for their beliefs because they are in such a minority not only here in America but also in the world in general.

Now, for an atheist like me who relies on logic and reason, these two statements seem on the surface to be completely and totally contradictory. How is it logically possible for Christianity to be both the majority religion and, at the same time, for Christians to be the persecuted minority? Such statements are enough to short-circuit the logic chips of the HAL 9000. While it is to no surprise to me that many Christians often have a logic of their own, which by most standards would be considered illogical, this is surprisingly not one of those times.

After exploring these statements further with many Christians, I have solved this paradox, which unfortunately for Christians, leads to a Pandora’s Box of problems for them. But first, let’s decipher this paradox. When Christians say that they are the majority religion, they are factually correct. More than half the world identify themselves as Christians. And here in the United States, that number reaches roughly 80 percent. However, every Christian I have met, without fail, has made a claim resembling the idea that they are a “real” Christian, while some other person claiming to be Christian is not a real Christian. For instance, if you were to ask a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian who they would consider to be fake Christians, they would quickly point a finger at people claiming to be Christians who just go to church on Sundays and then live their lives. They might also point to people who claim to be Christians but don’t hate gays or protest abortion clinics and claim that those Christians aren’t living the full or true “word of God.”

On the flip side of the spiritual spectrum, if you were to ask more politically liberal Christian the same question, they would very quickly point fingers at those Christians previously mentioned and claim that these false Christians don’t love thy neighbor as thyself, nor do they follow the “turn the other cheek” philosophy, which they claim Jesus was all about. These Christians think that the other Christians give Christianity a bad name and that they don’t represent the true beliefs of Jesus or God.

And then there are the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Almost no one outside of their ranks believes they are “True” Christians, and not surprisingly, almost no one in their ranks believes that anyone outside of their denominations are “real” or “True” Christians. In fact, for every Christian claiming to be a “real” or “True” Christian, there are a ton of other Christians claiming that that Christian isn’t a Christian at all or is a “Christian In Name Only.” In other words, they are fake Christians.

It is in this way that most Christians see themselves as being in the minority. One Christian explained it this way. Even though over 80 percent of people call themselves Christians, only half go to church. And of that half, only a third can “rightly” be called evangelical. So, in actuality, instead of 80 percent, this Christian wanted to claim 13.2 percent of Americans to be Christian. Of course, this number only came up when it was advantageous to be a minority.

This reasoning, however, creates some problems for Christians. If, for example, we were to ask all of these different Christians who the “real” Christians were, they would all have different answers. Many would actually have diametrically opposed answers. But surely there must be some sort of independent analysis we could do to figure out who the “real” Christians actually are, right? Wrong. You see, the Bible is the common source document for all Christians, so in order for us to prove someone’s “Christianhood,” we would have to square their beliefs and actions with the Bible. The problem is that there are passages in the Bible that do indeed justify the claims of all of these different Christians. And while there are also passages that contradict the claims and actions of any one of these Christian claimers, it would be hard to make the argument that because a particular Christian doesn’t follow a particular passage that they could not be a Christian. The reason? There is no shortage of passages in the Bible that no Christian follows. All you have to do is go to any atheist website to find them. Plus, many passages in the Bible contradict other passages in the Bible. In fact, whole sections contradict other whole sections. I don’t want to go into too much detail about this here, you can do your own homework. Needless to say, that the message of Jesus is sometimes a message of peace and other times a message of “the sword.”

This being the case, the Bible can actually be all things for all people. That is the real “Truth” about Christianity and as a result, anyone claiming to be a Christian has equal validity to the title. Of course, one could easily argue the other way, too, that in fact, no one is a real Christian at all and that Christianhood is actually impossible. I mean who could really smite thy enemies and turn the other cheek. In the end, I prefer to accept everyone’s claim of Christianhood… it gives me people to debate with.

Filed under: Real Christians, Religion | 27 Comments »

– Atheist: Lack of belief in a deity. This is derived from the prefix “a” meaning “lack of” or “no” and the word “theist” meaning belief in a deity.

– Agnostic: Lack of knowledge in a deity. Again, this is derived from the prefix “a” meaning “lack of” or “no” and the word “gnostic” meaning “knowledge.” The context provided the deity aspect but it is certainly possible to be agnostic about the weather or any number of other things.

There seems to be some question about the terms “atheism” and “agnostism” so I have decided that it is time to discuss it. The definitions are listed above, but they are mutually exclusive terms as many people (particularly Christians), seem to think. Atheism concerns belief while being agnostic is a claim about knowledge. I don’t know if there is a red house on Oak Street, so I lack the belief that there is. That doesn’t mean that I disbelieve that there is a red house on Oak Street necessarily, but it could mean that too. However, if someone showed me a picture of a red house on Oak Street, then I would have knowledge and would certainly believe it that there is a red house on Oak Street. By that same reasoning, if I said that I don’t have any reason to believe that there is a red house on Oak Street, that doesn’t mean that I believe that there is no red house on Oak Street. It also doesn’t mean that I believe there must be a blue house on Oak. In other words, atheism is a lack of belief in a deity, but it is not a disbelief in a deity necessarily and it is not necessarily a belief in something else either. It can be, but that is not a requirement of the set of people who lack the belief.

There are atheist religions however such as Secular Humanists, The Brights, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, etc. Believe it or not, I have even met an atheist Christian (I don’t understand it either so don’t ask) and there are also a number atheist Jews that I have met. But that has to do in part with the Hebrew heritage and traditions and less to do with the Jewish religion. But when someone claims to be an atheist, they are not talking about a belief that they hold, but rather a belief that they don’t hold. Unless it is modified or married to some other belief, the term “atheist” is not about the person’s beliefs but rather the person’s lack of belief in a particular being or beings.

If someone were to tell me that there was a man named David living in Israel, I would say that I lack the knowledge of such a person, but I still believe it to be true. David after all is a pretty common Jewish name and it is pretty likely that there is a man named David living in a country full of Jews. This is an example of belief without knowledge. And if I were at a magic show and the Magician sawed a girl in half right in front of me, I could say that I have knowledge (in that I saw it happen right in front of my eyes) but I still don’t believe that it happened. One could argue that I know it was a trick and that additional knowledge but I can’t really say that I “know” it as much as I can say that I don’t believe it was real based on other factors.

My point here is that knowledge and belief are two separate things and so it is entirely logical to be both an agnostic and an atheist at the same time. I also want to again clarify that atheist does not necessarily mean an active disbelief in a god just a rejection of a belief in a god. Personally, I will make the claim that particular Gods do not exist. I am reasonably certain that Thor, Zeus, and Yahweh are made up fictional characters. But that isn’t to say that I am not open to the idea of some vague higher power entity. But currently, I see no evidence to suggest such a vague higher power entity, so I lack that belief. Show me evidence for the red house on Oak Street and I’ll consider it, but I am reasonably certain that there isn’t an Igloo on Oak Street (especially not during these summer months if we are both talking about the same Oak Street in Pennsylvania). I have no knowledge of that Igloo and I also don’t believe.

Filed under: Agnostism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Religion | 15 Comments »

And the nominees are… The Economy, Homosexuality, Racism, Politics, Religion. And the winner is…

Religion!

Hugh Jackman discussed the economy first by putting on the seemingly low budget intro, which was much funnier than I thought it would be. And of course Slumdog Millionaire cleaned up a lot of Oscars including Best Picture. Clearly the economy was not a taboo subject for the people wearing million dollar outfits and accessories.

Of course with a film like Milk nominated for many awards and Sean Penn the obvious winner for Best Actor, the Academy Awards had no problem fighting back against the Prop 8 crowd. I was very happy to see this and actually thought that Milk was going to beat the odds and win Best Picture. Even though it didn’t, Penn gave a great acceptance speech, which made this a topic that Hollywood was definitely not afraid to tackle.

Cuba Gooding Jr. broke the racial tension by discussing Robert Downey Jr.’s role as an Australian actor playing a black character in Tropic Thunder. Hugh Jackman also commented on the range of Downey’s acting. Even the blackface joke got big laughs.

Frost/Nixon was nominated for quite a few awards, was talked about quite a bit throughout the night, and even though it didn’t win any of those awards, Oscar was still a very political night in large part to this film. While Sean Penn kept the political talk to a minimum, he still talked about equal rights and how ashamed Republicans will be when they realize that they were on the wrong side of history on the gay rights issue (among other issues of course). Hollywood is always happy to support liberals. I don’t mind that because I am a liberal. So politics is rarely ever a taboo subject at the Academy Awards.

Religion on the other hand… well, let’s just say that it wasn’t very smart of the Academy to let Bill Maher present the Oscar for Best Documentary when his own documentary was snubbed in this very category. Bill Maher did a fantastic job calling the Academy out on this. I don’t think he did it for personal reasons, but because he knows that the topic of his documentary was too taboo for the Academy to touch. Maher actually bitch-slapped religion right there on stage and it was fantastic.

But I wish that I could blame the Academy for not having the courage to nominate Religulous for Best Documentary. The fact is that we are really to blame here. This topic is controversial and we have not done our jobs in making it a less taboo subject. The more religion is called out for being the variety of ridiculous myths that religion is, the less taboo this subject will become. Many of the award winners still thank God for winning while the losers don’t blame God for losing. Even the screenwriter for Milk who spoke up against the churches who pushed for Prop 8 made a point to let gay people know that God loves them. Not according to the Bible and the Koran his doesn’t, but that isn’t the point. When someone thanks God for winning an award, we should all laugh at him or her because it is ridiculous to believe that the Creator of the Universe had anything to do with the award. We have to be more outspoken in our criticism of religion and treat ridiculous myths as ridiculous. A good example of this was when Tina Fey and Steve Martin made a mockery of Scientology during their presentation. Why was that acceptable and Bill Maher’s documentary not acceptable?

On a final note concerning the Academy Awards this year, I was a little annoyed that during the part of the show where the Academy remembered those in the business who have died during 2008, they left off the very obvious Health Ledger (January 22, 2008) and the less mainstream actress, Majel Barret-Roddenberry (December 18, 2008). Shame on Oscar for that!

Filed under: Politics, Religion | 7 Comments »

I am not trying to defend Scientology in today’s blog, but I do think that Scientology performs a valuable service to  our society for the moment. Now, I know what you are thinking, “what the hell can Scientology offer the rational world?” Well, I think it helps us to compare it to Christianity. In my view Christianity is far more unbelievable and far more dangerous than Scientology and it helps to bring people of the Christian faith to reason when you can compare the beliefs of the Christian religion to a religion which most people (especially Christians) view as clearly wacky and show very simply which is actually wackier.

Let’s look at Scientology a little bit. One of the more wacky aspects of Scientology is that of Xenu who is an evil alien dictator of the Galactic Confederacy who threw humans into a volcano and then nuked it 75 millions of years ago. Here is the funny thing about this story. As bizarre as it is, every part of it is possible. What I mean by that is that nothing about this story violates any of the laws of physics as we know them nor does this story contain magic of any kind or anything necessarily supernatural. This story as unlikely as it is and as fanciful as it is, is entirely contained within the natural world and our laws of physics. Even the Scientology idea that humans can learn how to use superpowers isn’t necessarily supernatural. In fact, the only thing in the Scientology story, which MAY even come close to supernatural, would be the idea of Thetans and even that idea really makes more sense than the Christian concept of the soul.

Speaking of which, let’s look at the bizarre story of Christianity. The basic Story of Christianity (because all Christians are different of course) is the story of the God Yahweh and his son Jesus. Right from the start, this story is already wackier than Scientology. A deity is much more unbelievable than an alien dictator. We live in a vast universe in which it is probable that other life could certainly exist and so it is possible for that life to be intelligent and to form Confederations and such. But a deity isn’t an alien life form, it is a supernatural being capable of violating the laws of physics. The Christian deity in particular is said to do exactly that in the form of miracles, which are impossible under the natural laws of physics.

But the Christian story gets crazier when we bring Jesus into it. To the vast majority of Christians, Jesus is not just a half man/half god, but he is 100 percent man and 100 percent god. This of course makes Jesus 200%. Now I’m no math genius, but that doesn’t exactly make logical sense, but it does make supernatural sense and that is the point. This man/god died and bodily came back to life so that everyone on earth could somehow be forgiven for all the sins against the deity (Enter the concept of blood sacrifice). This story is dripping with supernatural events and the bending and even the breaking of the laws of physics not just in small ways, but in really, really large ways. This story simply put, is just impossible (as in not possible by the laws of physics which make up this Universe). This story is not just impossible, but it is also illogical and quite frankly beyond reason. So which of these stories is really the wackier story? Scientology, which reads like bad science fiction, is still completely possible given what we know about the natural world or Christianity, which reads like bronze aged fiction full of supernatural events and characters which defy the laws of nature, logic, and even reason itself?

Filed under: Religion, scientology | 22 Comments »

“People say that I hate chocolate. That’s not true, I love chocolate. It tastes sweet.”

If someone were to claim that I said, “I hate chocolate,” Then they are clearly taking my words out of context. If someone said that, “I love chocolate” they are also taking my words out of context. However in the second instance, they have accurately summed up my opinion, while in the first instance, they are misrepresenting my opinion but in both cases they have taken my words out of context.

Many times Christians will make the claim that I am quoting a Bible verse out of context. Of course that is true, but I am not misrepresenting what was said, but rather summarizing it. For example, one of my favorite verse is Numbers 31: 17-18 which states:

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

The context of this verse is that God ordered Moses to rape and murder the entire Midianite village because the villagers worshiped Ba’al Zebul instead of Yahweh. Some Christians will claim that God didn’t use the words “rape” and “murder” but it is fairly clear from the context of the verse that was the meaning. Some Christians have even pointed out that the villagers were engaging in sexual rituals that were quite cruel. This is true according to the Bible, but that wasn’t the reason why God gave the order to Moses. According to the context, the Midianites broke the first commandment.

Now I am sure some Christians are going to respond and try to rationalize this away and that is fine, but that isn’t the point of this blog. The point of this blog is to discuss context. Context does matter, but it doesn’t matter all the time. Sometimes, one can quote a verse and the context is obvious. Sometimes people put in their own context to misinterpret what was said to suit their needs. Sometimes, that is fine (like when talking about poetry or music). Sometimes it isn’t fine. One has to look at the context to know if context is important or not.

Filed under: context, Religion, the bible | 15 Comments »

It seems that every few months I have to remind people of the evils of Christianity. I guess I could always just recount the long and bloody history of torture, wars, and miscellaneous cruelty, which has taken place specifically because Christians believed that was what the God of the Bible wanted them to do. I could talk about the Inquisition, the Crusades, the convert or die mentality which only in the last few hundred years have Christians abandoned in large part due to the brave contributions made by people of reason.

But most Christians would be quick to point out that none of those atrocities are current. And for the most part that is true. Although it could be argued that our current “War on Terror” is religiously motivated on all sides and that torture is still going on today by the US Government. However, in many cases that torture has become less of a physical torture and more mental torture, but both are still being used. Let’s for the sake of argument, give Christianity a pass on all those things (which is quite a considerable pass, I must say). How is Christianity evil today? Well, I could talk about the Religious Right and how they are actively pushing to take away women’s right to choose what happens to their own body, the prop 8 situation and similar legal attacks on gays around the nation, or how the Religious Right are trying to restrict scientific and medical research dealing with stem cells, evolution, and global climate change, or I could talk about how they are trying to restrict condoms and sexual education in AIDS infested Africa. But that is just the actions and attitudes of 54% of Christians and not necessarily Christianity as a system (despite the fact that these positions have been taken specifically due to what is written in the Christian Bible).

But where is the evils caused by Christianity as a system of belief? Surely the system which preys on the weak and uses indoctrination, ignorance, fear, grief, guilt, and a number of other emotions to convert more followers and swindle their money couldn’t possibly be dishonest or evil in any way, shape, or form, right? Any read of the Old Testament would not be complete without the mention of the jealous, wrathful, war-mongering deity calling for blood. In some cases like in Numbers, Yahweh even gives his reason (worshipping another deity) for the mass murder and rape he orders. But at least the Old Testament God ended his divine tyranny of people with death.

Enter the God of the New Testament who not only brings about eternal damnation in a lake of fire and brimstone for all disbelievers and sinners (talk about intolerance), but also steps up his blood lust for sacrifice. In the Old Testament, the way to be forgiven for sin was to murder an INNOCENT lamb as a blood sacrifice. Let me repeat that because it bears repeating: the way to be forgiven for sin was to murder an INNOCENT lamb as a blood sacrifice. Now, in the New Testament, God wants more blood! Now God wants the blood of a human or in the case of the character of Jesus, God himself in human form. Humans are apparently so evil, that sacrificing innocent lambs just won’t cut it any more. Jesus represents the ultimate innocent lamb to be sacrificed for all humanities evils.

I think I have a bit of a problem with that. First, sure human beings aren’t perfect and sure we make mistakes, but I don’t think of humanity is evil nor do I think that people as individuals are evil. In fact, most people try to do the right thing given the right choices. Most people see themselves as the hero in their own story but get sidetracked by other factors. And I don’t appreciate a religion, which calls every one evil and then has the audacity to call anyone who disagrees, mean and intolerant. Second, how does murdering an INNOCENT lamb as a sacrifice absolve someone from the responsibilities of the wrongs that they have done? And if it doesn’t, and two wrongs don’t make a right, than what the fuck was the point of Jesus? I will also point out that according to the Bible, Jesus didn’t even die. According to the Bible he came back to life and he knew that he would. So where was the sacrifice? There is no heaven for lambs, so when they were slaughtered for sin, they were actually dead. But the Bible says that Jesus lives forever in paradise. So what kind of sacrifice was that?

But getting back to the point, any religion that sets up a problem and then claims to offer the only solution is quite frankly extortion. Not only does Christianity extort money, but it extorts lives and livelihoods. Like a virus, Christianity preaches that all must be converted and that the “good news” as they say must be shouted from the rooftops.

And I haven’t even covered the evils which Christianity perpetrates on parenting and on young people nor did I talk about all the really horrible morals, laws, rules, and directives from the God of the Old and New Testaments or how Jesus came to bring violence (by his own admission) or how he wanted you to hate your family or how he supported tribalism. Nor did I talk about the horrible guilt and End of the World hysteria that the Bible propagates. But all that is another blog all together. The fact is that as long as this blog is, it barely scratches the surface of the evils of the Christians system. And I didn’t even really talk about how faith dumbs down society and is an attack on critical thinking and curiosity either.

Filed under: Evils of Christianity, Religion | 32 Comments »

Recently, someone asked me why I am so angry with so many Christians and with Christianity as a system of belief. They wanted to know what negative experiences I have had personally which have caused my anger. The fact is that no such personal ultra-negative experiences have occurred; yet I am still angry with a large number of Christians and even more angry with Christianity as a whole system of belief. Why?

I have reasoned that this world is all we have and that this life is the only life we have… that we know of. I have no reason to think otherwise. I also think human beings are great creatures and that people more often than not try to be moral, good, and just. I believe in human progress and scientific exploration. I want humankind to return to space and explore the Universe like in Star Trek. I want scientific research to find cures for diseases and to embrace new technologies, which will make life easier and better. I believe that all people should be treated equal regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. And most importantly, I believe in the future.

Quite frankly, I think Christianity is the biggest threat to all that. I think that it is a threat to Human dignity, Human freedom, Human exploration, Human education, Human scientific advances, Human tolerance, Human progress, and even Human survival. Why wouldn’t I be angry?

Actually, I’m not sure if anger is even the right word for my emotion, but it is the word that atheists get labeled with by Christians so that is the word I have used here. Personally, I think it is more like frustration than anger. Frustration with watching large numbers of people actively working against those things that I value and against the future of humanity because of some ancient book which scientists, historians, and almost anyone who can think critically can easily disprove. It’s just embarrassing.

To think that society is stuck and on egg shells because some people have a hard time giving up their belief in a 2000 year old myth. Admittedly, no Christian today believes the same things that Christians believed 2000 years ago. But this is because in the modern world those beliefs would be extra ridiculous. But almost every ideological change Christianity has made which makes it more conducive to actual human progress has been made kicking and screaming at those who embraced science and reason. Modernity has made Christianity more reasonable, but Christianity as a system of belief is still kicking and screaming.

Now in the age of nuclear weapons and global climate change, the kicking and screaming of those who wish to hold to ancient myths has become much more dangerous to us all. I’m frustrated and I think you should be too.

Filed under: Religion | 13 Comments »

I think it really says something about our society that most towns have about 3 maybe 4 schools and yet they also have a church on almost every street corner. People are more willing to donate almost unlimited funds to churches, but they bitch and complain about paying school taxes. Schools educate children and help to make them productive and intelligent members of our society while churches attempt to get children and adults to stop thinking and chant mindlessly through indoctrination.

Where are our priorities as a society? How long will our society continue to value ignorance over education? How long will we allow our society to continue with this value system? What should we do to make a difference?

Those are some important questions and I think they need answers. Personally, I think we need to continue to fight back in the war of ideas. We need to be outspoken about our criticism of religion and we must start to win over those who play lip-service to religion, claim to believe, but don’t really do anything to support their claim. Perhaps we just need to point out to people that there are probably more churches than gas stations and that we as a nation just realized how addicted to oil we are. What does that tell us? We should also point out the difference between education and indocrination. You would be surprised at how many Americans don’t understand the difference. Do you know so many Americans don’t understand the difference? Because there are more Churches than Schools in America!

Filed under: Religion | 17 Comments »

Well, Valentines Day is approaching and I am starting to get a lot of e-mails claiming that love is magical and some how proof of God, so I thought I would talk a little about love and attraction. Love and attraction are actually more like a science and so I thought that the best way to help demonstrate that is to talk about how to make ourselves more appealing to others romantically… it being Valentines Day and all. Both men and women are generally attracted to the same traits. Men are also generally more stimulated by physical looks than women are, but personality traits still play the major role. Women generally have more partners seeking their attention than men do, so in general women are able to sit back more and allow prospective partners to compete for their attention.

Most men and women will agree that the personality traits they find most attractive in a partner are Confidence, Humor, and a little Mystery. The real trick is learning how to balance these traits and to demonstrate them to prospective partners. Some people try to act overly confident, overly funny, and overly mysterious and end up just looking like an asshole, a clown, and/or a paranoid wacko. Sometimes these traits seem too forced or too fake. I don’t think people should pretend to be confident, funny, or mysterious but rather that they should learn how to be more confident, funny, and a little mysterious people. Also, when I say mysterious, I mean someone who can surprise their partner every now and then, not someone who hides their life away. That person would just be a paranoid wacko.

There is that old saying that says to just be yourself. But what does that really mean? For a long time I tried to figure that out and the best way I can explain it now is to say that you should act like the person you are interested in is already a good friend and think about how you would act with someone you have known for a long time.

If you are already in a relationship or already married like me, you may think that this advice is wasted on you, but it isn’t. We should always try to improve ourselves and to continue to make ourselves more attractive to our partner. Good relationships and good marriages last when the people involved continue to be attracted to each other and fall in love with each other every day.

Filed under: sex | 7 Comments »

Evidence for Common Descent

Christian Creationists tell me all the time, “I didn’t come from a dirty ape!” It is usually at this point that I laugh at them. These are usually the same Creationists Christians who tell me that they have studied evolution. It is at this point that I laugh even louder because if they have really studied evolution from a reputable science book and not just “From Pandas to People” or at least paid some semblance of attention in 10th grade science class, they would know that the theory of evolution doesn’t claims that humans “came” from monkeys or apes. The claim is that humans and apes share a common ancestry.

Mountains of evidence support this claim of “common descent.” Dr. Alan Mann of Princeton University brought one of the most convincing pieces of evidence to my attention. Dr. Mann gave a talk on the subject at a Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia meeting awhile back. In his lecture, Dr. Mann pointed out the oddity of the 2nd Chromosome. Humans and Chimpanzees have almost identical DNA. The main difference is that our second chromosome looks a lot like two separate ape chromosomes. Every chromosome has two vestigial telomeres. These are normally found only at the ends of a chromosome, but in chromosome 2 we see additional telomere sequences in the middle. This is evidence of an ancient telomere-telomere fusion that marks the point at which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome number two.

This is a pretty clear-cut piece of evidence even the most idiotic Creationist can comprehend it just by looking at the picture above. So next time you talk to a Creationist (I’d say wacky Creationist, but that would be redundant) be sure to tell them about the telomere-telemere fusion and the second chromosome.

Filed under: evolution, Religion, science | 13 Comments »

I know right now there are a lot of problems that need to be solved. The economy is still plummeting, terrorists are still looking for an opportunity to attack, Israel and the Palestinians are still at each other’s throats, and then there is global climate change and all the other important problems that need solving. There is no time or money left to use toward space exploration. Yet I think that is something we should invest time and money in… especially now.

It is easy to be caught up in the problems of the day and to focus on the immediate monetary challenges that we have to deal with. But we also need to look ahead to the future. We also need to fire up our imaginations and explore the space. The scientific research that we fund today may help the world tomorrow.

I “hope” that President Obama has the “audacity” to reach for the stars and put more funding and effort into the space program… particularly now in the middle of this economic crisis. It would be an unpopular move, but it would get people thinking on a more global level and it would give people something to dream about and hope for. Obama said during the campaign that being President means that you need to handle multiple crises at the same time and America certainly has a lot of those right now. And that is why I think he should look to the future and focus our attention off of the problems and on to something more constructive. This is the 21st Century and I want my moon base and starships!

Filed under: Politics | 29 Comments »

Probably since the concept of billboards came about to advertise products, Tax exempt Christians organizations and Churches have paid to advertise God… as if an all powerful creator of the universe needed advertising. Isn’t he God, can’t he stop the sun from moving across the sky or something? In any case, while some of those Christian billboards have been along the lines of “come to our church and pay us money” type advertising, most are of the vain of “You are going to be tortured for all eternity unless you give us money,” type.

Over the last few years, atheist organizations have been trying to raise money to put up some billboards of our own which are designed to make people think critically about religion and to reach out to atheists who don’t know that atheist organizations actually exist. Our billboards have had such messages as, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone,” “Beware of Dogma,” “Imagine no religion,” “Is belief in God necessary? Let’s be good for goodness sake,” and “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy life.” And every time one of our less than eternally damning billboards goes up there is always controversy. In fact, now Christian organizations have been using this competitive billboard war as a way of suckering more money from their faithful believers.

The thing is that we have toned our billboards down because we want to be defensible to the public. But many of these Christian groups don’t care about defensibility. So now we need to work together. I need your help. I would like to compile photos of the worst Christian billboards you can find. So if you are in a more religiously brainwashed area of the country or the world and you see a Christian billboard, snap a photo and e-mail it to me at DangerousTalk@gmail.com. Let me know where this billboard was found (city and state) and so next time one of our billboards is challenged by Bill O’Reily or Father Morris, we will be able to give them a little comparison… not that it will matter to them. But it will matter to the general public who we are trying to reach.

Filed under: Religion | 26 Comments »

I am getting really tired of Fundamentalist Christianity constantly trying to put Creationism into science classes. I am getting tired of Fundamentalist Christianity constantly trying to put their prayers into public schools. And I am getting tired of Christianity inserting “faith” into our secular government. So why don’t we start playing their game for a change?

I think it is time we start putting science text books into the Church pews! I think we need to start invading their territory for a change. Maybe we should picket Churches and complain that they took reason out of our communities.

Not long ago, Fundamentalist Christians tried to put a disclaimer on Science text books warning students about evolution. Maybe we should start putting disclaimers on the Bible. One Scientist even created the disclaimer that he thought would be most appropriate. Here is that disclaimer:

Feel free to save this image to your computer, print it out, and paste/tape  it on copies of the Bible that you find lying around… somewhere… I don’t know where…

Filed under: Religion, science | 7 Comments »