Religulous

Thanks to Atheist Blogger.

Is anything too ridiculous?

Do you think there is ever a point where a devout Christian says to him or herself, "Now wait a minute...this is too weird even for me. WTF?"

Having said that, I give you this post from "Debunking Christianity", with this most wonderful of all possible phrases:

In the end, it was Charroux who “won” the battle of the foreskins...

But seriously. At any point, over these hundreds of years, did anyone say "Oh hang on, this is fucking silly. Christ's leftover penis skin?" Hell, I can't even get my kids' ultrasound photos into their (blank) baby books...I'm having a hard time believing Mary preserved her son's foreskin and passed it on to others.

That aside, I go back to the main point. You're trying to discover the one true FORESKIN? What kind of blessing do you think would be conferred on you if you were to visit the shrine of such a relic and kneel there? (Sorry, kneeling at a foreskin, way too easy....)

I wonder if we could find the one true lock of Jesus' hair from his first haircut. I have snippets from my daughter and son...I bet Mary slipped a few hairs into a baggie. Or maybe a little vial of blood, like that actor (was that Billy Bob Thorton that did that?) Or a jar of toenail clippings like the kid on American Idol. It would really benefit the Christian (especially Catholic) world most if Jesus was some kind of creepy obsessive-compulsive bio-packrat, with stone jars filled with tears, sweat, ballhairs, whatever...

Christ, guys, get a grip. His FORESKIN?

AOTD: Chris Hitchens to Cream in Pants

This is the stuff upon which Pulitzer-winning media is based. No, no, but I did love the title, and article: Hitchens: "I Might Orgasm In My Trousers" Over Fall Of Bill Clinton

I don't necessarily have anything against Clinton - I haven't looked into it - and I rather like Obama. But anyway, there you have it.

Book Review: Why Darwin Matters (Shermer)

So I read "Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design" by Micheal Shermer, as part of the Atheist Blogger book club. I thought it was a wonderful book and a good read. Nicely laid out arguments, clear and to the point.

Chapter rundown:

Prologue: Why Evolution Matters - Starts with an interesting insight into Darwin's travels around the Galapago Islands, and goes on to answer the book's premise question.

1. The Facts of Evolution - Clearly the facts that support evolution. Addresses "Where are all the fossils?"

2. Why People Do Not Accept Evolution - Simply speaking, because people thing that evolution is a direct attack on Christianity. Discusses the 1925 Scopes trial, in which a TN law forbidding the teaching of evolution was challenged.

3. In Search of the Designer - Discusses why people have a belief in God. I LOVED this chapter. Also Clarke's Third Law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indisctinguishable from magic."

4. Debating Intelligent Design - How and why and where and by whom ID is debated. This is by far the longest chapter (44 pages).

5. Science under Attack - Defines and defends science. Discuses the Kitzmiller case of 2005...simply wonderful.

6. The Real Agenda - Shows that the ID movement isn't science, but religious propaganda.

7. Why Science Cannot Contradict Religion - Science deals with nature, religion with the supernatural.

8. Why Christians and Conservatives Should Accept Evolution - As it says.

9. The Real Unsolved Problems in Evolution - This I really like. There are unsolved problems with evolution, and scientists are more than willing to cop to them...partly because of what Shermer says earlier in the book: science builds on past mistakes, works on filling in the gaps in understanding.

Epilogue: Why Science Matters - A good closing note.

Coda: Genesis Revisited - This is a wonderful "scientific revision" of Genesis. "In the beginning--specifically on October 23, 4004 BC, at noon--out of quantum foam fluctuation God created the Big Bang, followed by cosmological inflation and an expanding universe..."

And FSM bless Richard Dawkins, but Shermer's 153 page "Why Darwin Matters" was an awful lot easier to get through than the 374 page "God Delusion" (which I adore, and am still working on).

Scientific American's Take on "Exposed"

Ben Stein's Expelled Exposed. Nice.

Forever Untitled

I'm not even sure what to title this post because it just makes me tired to even think about it.

So I was talking to my mom this morning and she told me that she had talked to her pastor about the problems I have with Noah's ark. You know, the fact that there was no vegetation for the hervivores to eat and no meat for the carnivores to eat when they all got off the boat. So she talked to pastor James about this, and here's basically what he said:

God handled it. Humans aren't meant to understand how these things get done. He promised he would take care of everything and he did.

So you're telling me that's an acceptable excuse? People are just too fucking stupid to understand it? And you're also telling me in the same breath that religion doesn't turn off your brain? I asked her 3 distinct and completely different questions and the answer to each of them was "that's the way god wanted it." OK, so god did it all. There's never any reason for us to ever consider anything ever again because the answer will always be 'god'.

Then of course she goes off onto this diatribe about how I wouldn't say those things if I could just know His true power. And she starts telling me a story about when I was growing up. Now I've heard this story before and it usually changes in the details. However, it goes something like this.

Story:
When you were growing up and your dad and I split up, we didn't have much money. I sat at the table one night and did the math and we didn't have enough money to pay our bills. I just didn't make enough. So I pushed the bills to the middle of the table and told god I was going to put it all in his hands. I wasn't going to worry about it one bit. I would trust him to get us through this. And you know what? He did. Every month all of our bills got paid and to this day I still have no idea how. That's the power of the Lord.
End Story... believe me.

Ok, so after hearing that story, I usually quiz her about the specifics. So that conversation goes something like this...

So you didn't have enough money to pay the bills? You actually did the math and you made say $1,000/mo and our bills were like $1200/mo... is that the basic proposition we're dealing with here?

Yes, I didn't actually make enough money.

Ok, so where did the extra money come from then?

See, that's the thing... I have no idea. God just gave it to us.

Now, god didn't just put an extra $200 in your account. It had to come from somewhere. Where did the money come from?

I don't know. It just appeared.

No it didn't. Money doesn't just appear. Where did it come from? Did you get another job to bring in more money?

Yes. I went out and got another job.

So the money didn't just appear. You got off your ass and made more money. And you still have no idea where that money came from? Are you serious?

Well, he gave me the job and I have no idea where it came from. He gave it to me.

How did you hear about it?

I answered an ad.

Let me guess... an ad that god put there just for you. And there's no way that ads go up all the time and you just happened to catch this one. How long had you been looking?

Oh, probably for a couple months. But I kept after it and he gave it to me.

So it's not possible in the least that the ad was going up anyway and you caught it because you were looking every day?

Nope. It's too much coincidence.


And of course all of this leads to the question of how you know when god is helping you and when you're doing something on your own. The answer is:
well, when something good happens, it's god helping.

So what about evil... doesn't the devil do good things for you too... to lure you in?

Yes, absolutely. And you have to watch out for that.

But you just said the good stuff was god. Now the good stuff can also be the devil too?

Yes.

So the original question stands with a small alteration. How do you know when it's god or you, or the devil making something happen?

Because god won't ever do anything bad to you.

Ok, that doesn't answer the question at all, but we can go down that road if you like. God allows bad things to happen, right?

Yes. He does it to test you.

Ok. I'll accept that. But does god actually DO anything bad to you?

No. God doesn't actually cause anything bad to happen.

And do you believe that god controls everything or does he just sit back and see how things play out?

He controls everything you do. He has that power.

OK, I'll accept that too. And do you believe that a lie of omission is the same as a spoken lie?

Yeah. If you know something and you don't tell it, then yeah, you're lying about it.

Ok. Good. We agree on that. Now, if you're sitting there watching someone carry a big box and you can see something on the floor in front of them and you can see that there on the same path and they're going to trip and hurt themselves, yet you say nothing and you just let them fall and get really really hurt. But you could've stopped it by just saying, hey dude, look out for that skate. Are you guilty of hurting him through your omission of knowledge you had that could've prevented it?

Well, yeah, I suppose. Because I had the ability to stop him and I didn't.

So the same same as a lie of omission. You're guilty of tripping because you could've easily prevented it and didn't, right? Just like you're guilty if you let your kid play in the middle of the freeway, right?

Yeah, I suppose.

OK, then why is that not true when god just sits back and lets something happen? Isn't he also guilty of tripping you up because he could easily have prevented it? And since he controls everything, didn't he put the skate in your path to begin with? So he's definitely guilty of doing you harm in more ways than just one. Both passively and actively. Because he put the skate there, and then failed to tell you about it.

No, I don't see it that way.

How can you not see it that way? Tell me what's the difference in what you've already agreed to and what god's doing? He kills kids all the time. Innocent kids who never did anything.

He's taking them back to his house where they can be safe. Most of the time it's kids that are in pain for one reason or another and he's relieving that pain.

Pain that he gave them to begin with. He controls everything, and he gave them abusive parents, or burned them, or gave them a disease that's causing their pain. Wouldn't it be more prudent to just not fuck them up to begin with? I mean, ultimately, he's fucked them up and then killed them for it.

Well, for one thing there are far too many people on this planet and it's god's way of population control. He needs to do that somehow.

Like with hurricanes, earthquakes, etc, right?

Yeah, those are all ways god's chosen to provide population control.

But I thought it was a punishment for sinners. Isn't that what you said last time?

Well, it is a punishment for sinners because the wicked shall be punished.

So which is it... population control or a punishment for sinners? And because some asshole across the globe does something horrible like sucking some other guys dick, god's gonna kill a 5yr old girl with leukemia? What the fuck is that about? Do you want to be put to death for someone else's killings?

No, of course not.

OK, then how is it that god punished innocent children for sins they haven't even been around.

Well, that's just god's way and we're not meant to understand it.


OK guys I'm done. I'd like to say, see how hard it is to talk to my mom about all this, but it's no different then talking to any other xtian about this shit. They talk in circles and there's no one ounce of logic to any of it.

Kill me.

Jesus In Everything You Do

I've been too busy with work lately to ponder much about atheism and religion, but while working on a PC at someone else's desk I noticed one of the inspirational notes many people leave for themselves. This one said something to the affect of including Jesus on everything you do or doing everything through Jesus. Weird. Does every nose-blow and email sent really need consideration to Jesus? I'm not sure what they who wrote that are aiming for here, and I'm not sure what the person who posted it to herself expects it to do for her, but I'm curious.

I also find it interesting that in Christianity Jesus is the conduit to and from God, or in some cases part of a holy trinity that is--what--a ternary deity? God is omniscient but needs a human press agent with super powers?


I've been traveling a lot and have not noticed the in-your-face religion that I see around my hometown a lot. Maybe I'm just not paying attention, but I don't see people reading bibles in a manner that others will be sure to see or having big crucifixes bobbing around on their chests. It reminds me that I had the idea to bet an atheist icon to wear such as a FSM necklace. I really should do that.