tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44602032475151923572024-02-20T04:44:46.123-08:00Atheism and politicsWe cover stuff we're not supposed to be covering at all.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-84035679108116904462010-05-12T09:16:00.000-07:002010-05-12T09:16:49.725-07:00Oh, the blessings of Islam!<a href= "<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JdyKmzEdHws&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JdyKmzEdHws&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>"></a><br />
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The parties of God can always be counted on for a steady stream of aggression, force, and violence against undeserving people (usually the weaker victim the becomes their target of choice) but I think that Islam has become the new front-runner in terms of reliability and stupidity. Christians have had their murderous and immoral tendencies chilled by secular/enlightenment values, but Islam isn't having any of the "growing up" crap: they childishly hold that their vile brand of magic men and wish thinking is really true. And if you don't believe it, they'll kill you. <br />
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Luckily that wasn't the case for 64 year old Lars Vilks, a brave and wise Danish artist. Lars exercised his right to free expression and cartooned the image of the Islamic prophet, and in return he was met with the predictable violent reaction we've come to expect from those who believe in gods. They didn't manage to get the kill though, Lars survived the attack thanks to the intervention of the authorities. Yet another example of how religion poisons 'everything'. Can we not have simple cartoons? They want to ruin cartoons as well? Grow a backbone, are you really this delicate? <br />
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These kinds of religiously inspired attacks are commonplace, and I mention it not because it's a new occurrence, or even because it's incredibly noteworthy. I mention it for two reasons: firstly to call attention to the courage and fortitude of this 64 year old bro, and secondly so I can call more attention to this illogical notion that if you speak against Islam you're speaking racism. <br />
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The fallacious assertion that insulting Islam means you're also insulting a group of people based on their race is nothing more than another dishonest tactic employed by the faithful to give additional cover to their lethal doctrines and dogmas. This illogical and shifty insistence that criticizing Islam is equatable to the bigoted and practice of racism is something that must be rejected and denounced for every time it rears it's ugly head. When I insult christianity by calling it what it is -- as I frequently and dutifully do -- I don't insult the people based on their race, the same goes for insulting christians themselves. The ridicule is not aimed at them because they're white or any other color, it's aimed at them because they believe things my five year old nephew knows are idiotic, it has nothing to do with their race. At all. Not even kinda. <br />
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Islam plays by the same rules: when I condemn their illiterate and pedophilic prophet as a disgusting pig (yeah I said it) that shamefully married and raped a defenseless nine year old girl I'm insulting the faith, not the race of those who believe this garbage. To say otherwise is simply illogical, and I have zero tolerance for irrational people wasting my time with trumped up charges. I no more insult the ethnicity of the believers than I insult their preferences between cake or pie -- the two subjects are unrelated. I hope we resist this meme, and expose it for the dishonest rubbish that it is.<br />
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Thanks for reading! Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-71548895516965259792010-05-03T07:57:00.000-07:002010-05-03T07:57:37.765-07:00Talent SpottedThis guy is pretty incredible. <br />
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<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EieFdXy_HwM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EieFdXy_HwM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-79224166586504501632010-04-28T09:50:00.000-07:002010-04-28T09:58:49.669-07:00Don't read this post, I'm going megaton.I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood today, so I'm going to tee off on theism/religion and some of the laughable things that come out of the mouths of their participants. This is going to get bumpy, you've been warned.<br />
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<b>“We can agree to disagree.”</b> <br />
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It's true, we can agree to not see eye-to-eye on this subject, but don't think for one minute that this puts both of our arguments on equal footing; one argument is clearly not as logical or reasonable as the other. Don't get it twisted, the theist world view is founded on myths that shouldn't survive elementary school, so if we agree to disagree don't mistake it as a nod of respect for your views or argument. The idea of gods is idiotic at best, and destructive to humanity at worst. I'll respect the person, but I steadfastly refuse to respect their cult, or their creepy beliefs. They get only a cold tolerance based on my respect for the freedom of religion, don't count on conversational tolerance if you start yammering about magic men in the sky and how real they are. <br />
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<b>“God X is immaterial, and outside space and time.”</b> <br />
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I don't have to waste time pointing out how silly this belief is, the theist does all that work for me. But as soon as they assert their god is undetectable, the opposition wins. Removing all the criteria we use to validate a claim doesn't somehow magically make it true, since we now have no way to determine it's existence we have to disregard its possibility of being true. The theist will literally argue their god into non-existence all the while thinking they're pulling a fast one – I don't think so scooter, try again. <br />
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<b>“But it's true for me!”</b> <br />
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If the god exists only inside your head – only inside your consciousness – then fine, have at it. But when you say it exists outside of your imagination, if you say it's actually true, that becomes a whole new ball game. If you want to say your god is real, that it exists in the outside world, you adopt a burden of proof to demonstrate your claim as being true, just like everyone else. Can't muster the proof? Tough shit, try again when you can. It's arrogant and childish to think the world outside your mind has any obligation to fit your demands – reality has zero responsibility to change itself to fit your idea of what it should be. If the burden of proof is too much for theists to handle, then they need to go stand in the back of the room with the rest of the cultists.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-36366742423922691112010-04-27T08:47:00.000-07:002010-04-27T09:04:36.638-07:00Jon StewartAfter a break I'm back, and I bring Jon Stewart and the daily show... <br />
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*NOT WORK FRIENDLY* since it ends up with Jon Stewart telling Muslim Extremists to go fuck themselves. Nice. <br />
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<embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:mvideo:comedycentral.com:308295" width="425" height="354" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="window" allowScriptAccess="always" flashVars="autoPlay=false&orig=dailymotion" allowFullScreen="true" ></embed>Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-31237226856827425792010-04-22T11:51:00.000-07:002010-04-22T11:51:48.099-07:00Sarah Palin shows her ability to reason<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5j5ncmZizJ0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5j5ncmZizJ0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
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I never fail to laugh at Sarah Palin's latest antics. It seems like every time I see her in the news for something it's because she's lying or misleading people; which is par for the course in terms of christianity, but I was hoping that since she thinks herself worthy of leadership roles she would be just a cut above average in things like honesty, knowledge, wisdom, or virtue -- no such luck. She's a walking disaster, a talking train wreck. <br />
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This time she's lying through her teeth about the religious beliefs of our founders (as if that is relevant in some way...) and pushing more of this "Christian Nation" myth. I really don't understand the illogical nature of those who buy into this myth; but I'm not surprised to see someone of Palin's quality throwing in with them. She's a sort of perfect storm for the modern conservative: hopelessly under-informed about important things, thinks her opinion is synonymous with fact or reality, feels entitlement as if she's accomplished something significant on the national level, and feels it's her job to force her religion on others -- unconstitutionally -- through the power of the state. <br />
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Sarah, thanks for the laughs doll!Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-29292643639319180792010-04-21T11:11:00.000-07:002010-04-21T11:42:36.315-07:00James Randi rocks!<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c0Z7KeNCi7g&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c0Z7KeNCi7g&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object> <br />
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Here's a video that was shot at TED in 2007, and has just now surfaced. In it, James Randi takes an overdose of homeopathy sleeping pills -- don't worry he's fine since he took an overdose of fake medicine, not stuff that actually could hurt or help him. He makes some pretty good points though; it really is depraved to sell your claimed "psychic" powers to the grieving and heartbroken who are still coping with the loss of a loved one. Even to a heartless Atheist that seems just a little too predatory and disingenuous.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-27478162264952952482010-04-20T10:52:00.000-07:002010-04-20T11:29:57.905-07:00Rightists and double standards about religionThere seems to be a few logical errors in the ideology and message work of the religious right, the same folks that want to force their views of God into your home and into your life. The topic of church/state separation illustrates one of their more revealing double standards, and sources of embarrassment. There's a forehead slapping contradiction in their ideologies and their propaganda of how Washington is supposed to interact with their lives: when it comes to their health-care, they say 'hell no' but when it comes to their personal beliefs about religion they resound with an approving 'hell yes'! So on one hand they tell us government is not the solution, but then they turn around and say how it most certainly and emphatically is the solution – to forcing their religion on others.<br />
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They want the gubment out of our homes, unless that gubment is pushing a goal that falls in line with the personal beliefs of the conservative movement – then they want the state in <b>everyone's</b> house. This is leftist thinking, isn't it? Are they not doing the very same thing they decry progressives and democrats for doing? If you're paying attention the answer is obvious. <br />
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They actually mean to say they welcome that bumbling, idiotic, wasteful government (they remind us of those qualities daily in their media don't they?) into their highly personal beliefs about God? They trust those 'crooks' in government with their God, but not their wallets, or their health-care? What does this observation say about their capriciousness in deciding what the state is allowed, or not allowed, to participate in? What can they offer against the argument that conservatives have a private agenda for the direction of government, just the same as progressives do, and are criticized by the right for having? <br />
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So, when these hypocritical and ideologically misguided rightists beg for help and handouts from those of us they routinely patronize and denigrate as “enemies of freedom in Washington” – why should those (now insulted) people in Washington not reply by first addressing their insulter's rude and contradictory behaviour? What kind of nonsense are religious conservatives trying to sell by pushing these shameful double standards on the rest of us? Are we supposed to accept that they should be the only ones to have access to the powers of the state? And thereby, would they not be usurping democracy as all of history has know it? What an embarrassingly stinky aroma to have to wear in public; a stench that warns of the deeper corruption that's reliably found in those people (authoritarians) who foolishly maintain double standards, and those that are also guilty of basic hypocrisy and special pleading. <br />
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I'd instead suggest that those in favor of using the state to spread their personal religious views correct these positions and messages before demanding by force and violence (read: using the powers of the state) that others should have to follow their rules, or accept those conservative views as reality. I submit that if you're a small government conservative that also believes in establishing an official religion for our secular state, you have an ideological tenant that isn't paying its logical rent.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-42785373905611662552010-04-19T09:33:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:33:43.837-07:00Count the fallacies with Christopher Hitchens!Watch Hitchens meet head-on with one of those "christian nation" living-in-my-fantasy types. (they're the worst since when you get some of them on your shoe, it takes <i>forever</i> to wash it off.) <br />
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I gave up counting at five fallacies; watch and be amazed at how many miles the christian got out of that presidential non-sequitur!<br />
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<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/a0Vqd6N9sOk&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/a0Vqd6N9sOk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-80564629145105308532010-04-16T08:45:00.000-07:002010-04-16T08:54:17.599-07:00National Prayer Day<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3l7VJCp3JvY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3l7VJCp3JvY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> <br />
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So even after all the work has been put in, after we've wrestled time and time again, the parties of God (or those working on their behalf) will still use the levers of the state to advance their religious ideas. Obama doesn't care about the Lemon Test? I can't say I'm surprised to see this coming from him. <br />
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What happened to the beautiful liberal spirit of freedom we were founded on? You could worship your divine dictator and I could go undisturbed; is that too much freedom for the faithful to handle? Of course we know the answer; spreading their religion is required and encouraged at the cost of your freedom from it -- though if you confront one of them on their infraction they may very well retreat behind the "it's a personal belief" card, thus negating criticism or further debate about it. <br />
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Not anymore, at least not with me.<br />
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If our government is doing things like a national prayer day, I think I'm entitled to return conversational fire; to mercilessly grill anyone who's trespassing on my/your freedoms. Want to tell me the good news? Then I want to tell you about the shocking and revolting immorality of your God and religion -- sounds reasonable to me. If the parties of God don't want a verbal water-boarding session about their disgusting beliefs, then they'd do well to stop knocking on other people's doors.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-64675017539662286362010-04-15T10:03:00.000-07:002010-04-15T10:06:56.370-07:00Mexico has Catholic pedophilia problems too?!Child rape inside the catholic church is spinning madly past the zone of WTF and straight into the twilight zone of "can this really be happening?" <br />
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Another predatory preacher in the land that tries to sell itself as something like a constitutional republic has come forward and admitted to molesting over 200 kids, <b>including two of his own children!</b> <br />
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Words don't describe the depth of this kind of crime. Maybe if these child raping pigs had a faith that actually held them accountable for their own actions, they'd act like civilized people. <br />
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Just sayin' <br />
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<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/InaT3JK6pVI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/InaT3JK6pVI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-26567918921969369682010-04-14T09:51:00.000-07:002010-04-14T14:57:52.897-07:00David Cross<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CWOqHHE4upY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CWOqHHE4upY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object> <br />
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I don't know who this is, but I like his style. <br />
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Also, the game.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-49803238895060184602010-04-13T09:44:00.000-07:002010-04-13T10:13:03.416-07:00Spring cleaningI want to touch on a few misconceptions that are floating around. Since we know that progress relies on knowledge, and knowledge relies on clarity, I think it'd be beneficial to strip away some of the false notions that have attached themselves to ideas we trade in religious debate. By scrubbing these ideas under warm soapy water we can clear away the muck that has been allowed to gather on them, and by doing so we help move the conversation along since we'll all be armed with a higher grade of ideas. So here we go! <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>“It takes more faith to be an Atheist.”</b></div><br />
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This idea is both wrong and strange, I'll start with showing why it's wrong. Atheism is not a faith position. At all. Not even kinda. It's simply the disbelief in one or more deities, or the supernatural. And since we don't have any evidence for believing in any of the near 10,000 Gods that humans have put forward over the years, the act of not believing in any one of them doesn't require any faith at all. Gods have never met their burden of proof and so they can be safely dismissed as a non-truth. (as one man puts it: that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.) <br />
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If I told you that there was a square-circle on your head right now, and you didn't believe me, would you say that it requires faith to disbelieve? Of course not, since you know that a square-circle can't exist, it requires no faith at all to dismiss my assertion. Now If I would've said something rational, like: “broseph, you have some hair on your head” – that would've been a different story since you know hair can exist on heads. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>“Atheism can't tell me how we got here, so I'm sticking with God.”<br />
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This is like your boss telling you that since you can't breath acidic fluids, he's going to replace you with a square-circle that claims it can. The first problem with your boss's thinking is pretty obvious: humans aren't meant to breathe acidic fluids, so to criticize them for not being able to is really illogical. Atheism isn't a scientific discipline, it isn't an answer factory – it's a reply to claims of the supernatural. If you don't require Atheism to bake you a delicious cake, then why would you expect it to do any other task it's not meant to do? Should we not believe in Judaism simply because it can't explain what's occupying the galactic center?<br />
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The second problem with this scenario is the choice of “replacement”. Again, a square-circle cannot exist; so when a person comes to any conclusion that requires the existence of one, we know the conclusion will fail since it relies on an impossibility. Think of it like this: if you submit a mathematical proof that starts off by stating “this proof assumes that 1+1=Bacon”, we don't have to continue past the start since we know the proof will fail. Saying that God explains how we got here is not much different than saying 1+1=Bacon – they're both wrong. As a side-note, at least Bacon can deliver eternal life and unending bliss, can your God do that? <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>“Well, Hitler and Stalin were Atheists, so belief is better than unbelief!”</b></div><br />
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Wow, really? First I'd point out that Atheism was not the cause for what those two did. Stop the internal dialogue, that wasn't the reason. Hitler and Stalin are great examples of authoritarian style of rule, and what it produces. Secondly, to say Hitler was an Atheist is to be pretty dishonest, he never once denounced his catholicism, as a matter of fact he said he was doing “the lord's work” in his book. He rallied against secular schools demanding religion be taught, and the first deal he cut as the new leader was with the catholic church, a church that liked him enough to celebrate his birthday every year! He talked about not only God, but about Jesus, in his speeches and in private; and he went so far as to have “God with us” put on the belts of his soldiers. I think the religious right is trying to pull a fast one on us, trying to pin the mess of their creation on other people like Atheists and socialists. <br />
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Lastly, this argument really fails and here's why: if we grant the dishonest tweaking of causation to make Atheism the cause of what those two did, the religious really screw themselves – their body count can then be measured not in millions, or tens of millions, not even in hundreds of millions – but we soar all the way up to the one billion mark (<a href="http://teapotatheism.blogspot.com/2008/06/anonymous-wanted-body-count-total-so-he.html">some say more</a>). So it seems that after some really... creative... tactics the arguer only manages to present a rod for his own back. If I had the evils of religion weighing heavily on my shoulders I'd be very humble with any talk about force and violence; but in the highly compartmentalized mind of the average monotheist no such need exists, since their religion is only the one in their head, and things outside of their construct, like reason and evidence, often fail to penetrate.First breathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15695090903850764922noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-50912794511861442172010-04-12T11:37:00.000-07:002010-04-12T12:02:24.985-07:00Proofs for the existence of God part 3The third proof we'll look at is presented by William Lane Craig, a leading Christian apologist and philosopher. Craig is known for being as well thought out in his philosophy as he is well rehearsed in his debates. Given some of his great performances against some of the better thinkers in the Atheist movement, he has painted a bit of a target on his back – he's wrecked Hitchens, put Stenger on the ropes, and has been dodged by Dawkins. Here is a syllogism of the argument: <br />
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p1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause <br />
p2. The universe began to exist <br />
c1. Therefore the universe had a cause<br />
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The argument is similar to Aquinas' proof that we looked at in a previous post, except this version goes a bit further by putting the Christian God (CG) outside of Space and Time (S/T). In putting the CG way out there, it makes the proof a bit more believable when it states that the CG was the creator of everything in the universe. After all, it's crazy to assume a being that exists inside of S/T created that S/T – everyone knows you can't exist in something you haven't built yet. <br />
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Craig start running aground because even if we granted the claim of the CG transcending our S/T, it doesn't mean that it necessarily exists outside all space and time, that's an assumption on his part, not a claim backed by our knowledge. It may be plausible that since the CG exists outside our S/T, it could have its own S/T, but William Lane Craig doesn't roll with a God that has it's own S/T, he maintains that the CG transcends every S/T – the CG is space-less and time-less – and he does so by simply asserting it as true. We have zero empirical evidence to believe this, it's another faith position. <br />
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This argument seems to have some special pleading as well, that's a common problem with these kinds of arguments, if a believer can't make the argument work, they'll just change the rules to help it along. The problem with this proof is that it grants the CG an immunity to the infinite regression while at the same time stating that nothing can be immune to the regression. Well, how logical is that? <br />
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I don't normally hear a lot of talk about this next problem, but I think it's worth considering at least; there seems to be an equivocation fallacy relating to one of the terms being used. It's not so clear in the syllogism, but if you ever hear brother Craig talk about this proof it becomes much more clear. In the early part of the proof, the word “cause” is used in the sense of coming from preexisting materials, in the same way my nephew builds his playthings from a preexisting pile of Legos. But as the argument continues, the definition of the word “cause” changes to reflect something that doesn't come from pieces preexisting. One minute we have a pile of Legos which we use to build something, and the next minute, we act as if the Lego pile never existed – I think there's something wrong there. <br />
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But that's not all, this argument has another problem: if the CG has a mind – which it must if it's making choices, taking conscious action, or otherwise exercising its own volition – then its mind must exist outside of S/T, with the rest of the God. If that's the case, it follows that we could characterize the CG's mind as being non-temporal (having no time) and non-spatial (having no space, or matter). But that's a big problem since a mind that's non-temporal (read: non-changing) is by definition non-functioning: a mind has to be allowed to change, since it has to be able to reason, will, and feel to be considered a mind, and the only way a mind can do those things is if it has time to do so. A timeless mind would get nothing done since it couldn't take in new information, it can't think about that new information, or form thoughts about what to do with it, since it doesn't have the time to do any of that. By putting the creator outside of S/T, Craig has only accomplished making a self-contradicting entity – one having a changeless mind – and entities of that variety cannot exist. <br />
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Thanks again for sticking with these longer posts, I hope some of you found it worthwhile. If you think this subject is worth hearing about, subscribe or digg it please!Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-2612098915262503302010-04-11T11:01:00.000-07:002010-04-11T15:11:13.249-07:00Proof for the existence of God part 2I'm a fan of Thomas Aquinas, he contributed a fair share to philosophy. Among his better known contributions is the first mover argument, or the argument from first cause. This one goes waaaaay back to around 1250. Though Aquinas was a great thinker, he was a bit odd when it came to the supernatural: I heard he claimed to have flown around the towers of Notre Dame. This proof for God is as follows: <br />
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p1. Everything must have a cause. <br />
p2. Nothing can cause itself. <br />
p3. A casual chain cannot be infinite.<br />
c1. Therefore, a first cause has to exist. <br />
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This seems like a fairly good argument to some people, but overall this is another argument of wanting, it only convinces those who are friendly to the conclusion to begin with. The first problem we see with this proof is familiar: it's illogical to simply plug your favorite god into the argument as the first cause, or the unmoved mover. This isn't 'Nam man, we have rules. If it can be the Christian God (CG), it can just as easily be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's another one of those arguments that starts with a canvas of logic, then quickly spirals into a work that resembles a confused watercolor from yours truly after half a day on the whiskey. <br />
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Putting that aside, another obvious problem is presented, a pretty bad self-contradiction haunts this proof. It's not kosher to say everything has to have a cause, then turn around and say that one special cause itself doesn't need any cause at all. This has the familiar stench of special pleading, which is reflective of the time Aquinas did his philosophy; back then, if your work didn't include the CG you may have found yourself out of the evolutionary contest. <br />
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Also, this argument calls for the question of where does the God come from? Does the God have a cause? If it does -- or could -- then all we've done is stalled the proof at the insertion of God with no empirical way to move forward. It may be said that adding the CG to this argument only muddles the infinite casual chain even more, since we can't determine if the CG has a cause or not. <br />
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On the subject of infinity, it's worth noting that our minds are not fond of dealing with it, but that doesn't mean the rest of reality shares our baggage with the concept. This solipsism is obviously not supported when we look at how little the universe seems to care about our comforts and welfare; are we supposed to believe that the universe with an age of about 14,000,000,000 years cares about the mental constraints of a young (200,000 years tops?) upstart race on a remote planet that itself is hostile to their very existence? Clearly, the universe doesn't have a care for us: one day it will give you beautiful child that fills your life with a purpose far beyond driven, and the next morning: a fatal brain aneurysm. It's clear to see that our kind isn't meant to stand as the primary benefactor of all creation, and it stands to reason that reality doesn't care about our uneasiness with infinity. <br />
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In relation to infinite casual chains, there have been more than a few scientists armed with information unknown to Aquinas, that have come forward to say that the big bang was the beginning of everything, <i>in all dimensions</i>, so asking what came before the big bang is like asking what's farther north than the north pole. <br />
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Overall, this argument isn't going to convince that many thinkers (anymore), but considering what Aquinas had to work with, and the conditions he had to work under, he made some real pieces of work that have lasted quite a long time. <br />
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Thanks for sticking through the longish article, I hope you found it worth the effort. <br />
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5EH7DKN7WAEAParabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-58458321090349266402010-04-10T10:50:00.000-07:002010-04-10T15:58:32.201-07:00BeautyEvery atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics.<br />
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You're all stardust. <br />
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You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter, for evolution, weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode. <br />
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So forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be here today. <br />
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- Lawrence Krauss<br />
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I'm sure we've all seen this before, but it really is mind-blowing.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-76338801983670698812010-04-09T10:10:00.000-07:002010-04-09T10:30:58.471-07:00Freedom of ExpressionGiven the recent climate of political and religious debate, I thought I would dig up an old essay about one of our most important freedoms: the right to speak as we see fit. As a free-thinker I believe the FoS is extremely important to all of us, and I feel incredible gratitude toward anyone who has helped us along our way of instituting and preserving this freedom. <br />
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I'm going to try the embed feature on Scribd rather than copy/paste the whole thing, hopefully it works well. <br />
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<a title="View Freedom of Speech on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/29666088/Freedom-of-Speech" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">Freedom of Speech</a> <object id="doc_20977872880250" name="doc_20977872880250" height="500" width="100%" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" style="outline:none;" rel="media:document" resource="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=29666088&access_key=key-brz6eoznzin3b3br8as&page=1&viewMode=list" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/media/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" > <param name="movie" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf"><param name="wmode" value="opaque"><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="FlashVars" value="document_id=29666088&access_key=key-brz6eoznzin3b3br8as&page=1&viewMode=list"><embed id="doc_20977872880250" name="doc_20977872880250" src="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=29666088&access_key=key-brz6eoznzin3b3br8as&page=1&viewMode=list" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="500" width="100%" wmode="opaque" bgcolor="#ffffff"></embed> </object> <br />
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Also, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETiXXf0ZqRQ">this video</a> absolutely rocks. Thanks again for reading.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-14514008577827388292010-04-08T11:10:00.000-07:002010-04-08T11:10:53.510-07:00Violence is the tool of the immoralWith the increasing violence from the political right we're faced with more examples of why we need philosophy / critical thinking taught to our young people. I would argue that if people had a better grasp on clear thinking we wouldn't see so much of this American political violence, we would begin to find ways of enacting change without having to drop our morals and pick up guns. Anytime someone calls for thug violence (I'm looking <i>directly at you</i> tea-party brothers) in response to non-violent issues they tip their hand, and reveal to all of us that they're clearly not serious about freedom or solutions. When you reduce your political methods to threats and violence, you excuse yourself from normal and healthy debate; you literally move yourself to the margin – in the same fashion an angry child moves himself (with the teacher's help) to the corner when he destructively acts on his emotions. <br />
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If you think that real political change can come from threatening our politicians like a bunch of gangsters or Ku Klux Klan members, you're wrong. If you think that your guns will somehow help us maintain freedom and liberty, you're wrong. If you think that force and violence can bring about peace and liberty, you have only to look around the world and see the failure of your beliefs. Let's see how well force and violence are helping those in Africa, or the Middle East, or Palestine. No luck there? Okay, let's look at Ireland, Burma, and Columbia. Still having problems in finding a working example? <br />
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The verdict is in: violence only begets violence. If you still cling to fantasies of a Red Dawn style attack, or a repeat of the Revolutionary War you need to wake up and look around. Let go of your childish wishes and realize what the rest of us already know: this isn't the 18th century anymore, we have other solutions. These pro-violence types seem to think pointing a gun is somehow going to fix our problems, what they don't see is that every time we use the gun, we invalidate our own morality and message by using force to enact change we failed to produce through rational means – the gun signifies failure and should be a point of embarrassment by all those involved.First breathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15695090903850764922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-48286792476627489842010-04-06T13:52:00.000-07:002010-04-06T13:53:33.167-07:00Proof for the existence of the Christian God part 1Proper thanks to anyone who reads the blog today, it's going to be just a little longer than normal – but if you like to think about proof for the existence of God, you may find this informative, or at least thought provoking. So, here's one version of the argument from design, or the teleological argument: <br />
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p1. We appear to observe features in nature too complex to have happened by chance <br />
p2. These features exhibit the hallmark appearance of design <br />
p3. Design implies that there must be a designer <br />
c1. Therefore nature must be the result of an intelligent designer <br />
c2. This designer is the Christian God <br />
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This argument has quite a few holes, even at a glance. The first premise has some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading">special pleading</a> (applying or removing standards without proper justification in this case) which invalidates it. The assertion that some life is “too complex” to have been produced by evolution is not valid unless we have some evidence for thinking it's true. We can't take an option off the table without presenting good reasons for doing so, and we all know that simply asserting something is possible or impossible doesn't make it so. On top of special pleading it contains a nice straw man fallacy: it states that evolution is a theory of chance, which is inaccurate, and I may even argue is dishonest. When stronger and faster humans are competing with weaker and fatter humans in a game of survival, you can hardly call it chance when the better specimen wins the contest time and time – one type is more adequately suited to compete, and thus live on to pass their genes down. Another problem with premise one is that it's a mere argument from ignorance, basically it says: “I can't understand it, so no one can!” We know this kind of thinking to be silly and invalid; most of us don't understand the operations of our car engines, but it doesn't follow that no one can understand those inner workings. <br />
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Moving down to premise two, we see more problems. What is design exactly, and how do we see evidence of it in the nature world? It seems to me to be a little ambiguous, at the very least. I admit the complexity we observe in nature is jaw-dropping, so is nature's beauty, and its appearance of order – as a whole nature is just overwhelming! But simply stating that these qualities cannot occur naturally doesn't fly. Again, we have to demonstrate why our claims are true. This is another instance of special pleading, we can't simply state things as fact and expect it to pass through the logic filter. Certainly, no theologian would let me assert that a large purple dragon is responsible for all the “design” we see in the world, they would certainly pin me down on this stupid assertion – and they would be right to do so since I don't have any proper evidence to backup my dragon claim. This standard must be applied equally to any position within the discussion, if we want to be honest anyways. <br />
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Now, since we've established one or more bad premises, we are not required to continue entertaining this argument. The rules are simple: if we run into a bad premise, we can stop reading and put the argument aside since it's a non-starter, it failed due to a bad premise. If we choose to continue, we do so out of curiosity, or some other interest, not because the argument is sound, or intellectual honesty demands it. But, I'd like to continue looking at the design argument, even if it's belly up. <br />
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The conclusion(s), like the premises, are less than acceptable. Though there are a few problems with the conclusion(s), I'll just stick to the one I think is the most interesting and run with it: why does it have to be God A, B, or C? What empirically valid evidence do we have to conclude that the complexity we see is the handiwork of the God of Abraham, or Baal, or any of the deities of the Canaanites? It seems like a waste of time to go this far into the argument just to fall back on wish thinking. Since one party can insert the Christian God (CG) into this hole that's been fallaciously manufactured, what stops another party from inserting their God? What if the ever popular Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) wants a turn being injected into the argument? Can we put forward good reasons to deny him and his complex carbohydrates? I don't think so. Our inability to deny the FSM is one of the reasons this argument doesn't work for the CG: inability to support the claim that any particular God is the cause of the perceived “design”. There is so much more to say about the teleological argument, but this is a blog post, not an essay, so we'll end here.<br />
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<i>BONUS!<b></b></i> As a reward for those of you who are still reading, here's a real treat... Bertrand Russell had the following to say about the subject of design in our universe: <br />
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<i>"Really I am not much impressed with the people who say: "Look at me: I am such a splendid product that there must have been design in the universe." I am not very much impressed by the splendor of those people. Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is merely a flash in the pan; it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions and temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending -- something dead, cold, and lifeless". <br />
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Thanks for reading!Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-59971761878004434102010-04-05T17:12:00.000-07:002010-04-05T17:42:25.012-07:00Islamic Extremism<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ne7z-_RXWeA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ne7z-_RXWeA&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
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(you can fast forward to 2:30 if you're impatient)<br />
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Islam's war on freedom continues, I guess they're tired of dominating the females and free-thinkers already in their clutches and feel they need more subjects to abuse. While some of Europe has allowed this cancerous faith to take root in their territories and begin to corrupt their societies, I'm glad that America hasn't. Islam will find that America does not capitulate to the kind of violence and bigotry other countries have; we value the freedom of expression and religion, as well as equal civil rights for all of our citizens. <br />
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Should Islam continue to attack us, or our values, they will not find a silent victim. If they wish to use the gun to spread their ideas, they will find us to be the wall in their path. We learned from great enlightenment thinkers like John Locke that freedom and liberty should not be subject to religious approval, and we embraced this as a core belief in the American experiment. I'm proud to live in a country that will hold the line against religious domination and theocracy, and put the freedom of the masses above the prejudices of a few.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-57825130907017379232010-04-04T17:43:00.000-07:002010-04-04T20:56:57.397-07:00Really Bill? Really?What else can the Catholic church do to demonstrate their complete moral failure? I mean, after <i>raping children</i> where do you go? I'm sure that other psychopaths are standing in wide-eyed amazement at the staggering power of the christian media machine; these perverted old virgins rape children they've been charged with overseeing, and somehow...<br />
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The gays are to blame.<br />
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http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/31/catholic-league-pope/<br />
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Head = asploded <br />
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P.S. Happy Pagan holiday! <br />
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<a class="DiggThisButton DiggMedium"></a>Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-36106232151382296972010-04-03T09:50:00.000-07:002010-04-04T17:51:53.947-07:00Meat rampage!This is just too strange to let pass without comment. Some bro in Indiana goes on an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgzCdD7sjfs">anti-meat rampage at a local super-market</a>, in the name of protecting young girls from getting fat, and also because -- you guessed it -- God wanted him to. <br />
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Isn't it strange how people's Gods share the same views they do? Anti-choice people have Gods that are also anti-choice, advocates of state violence have Gods that favor murder and violence, peaceful and open-minded people have peaceful and open-minded Gods -- you see what I'm saying.<br />
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Have the faithful not noticed this pattern? Have they noticed, but try not to think about it? Most of us heard about the study that reveals when we think about what God would want, we actually use the same parts of the brain that we'd use to think about what we want, this further supports the view that Gods are a projection, and some of the content projected is our own world view or opinions about certain topics. This is the same process by which we project our consciousness onto inanimate objects: we think that hammer <i>meant</i> to hit our thumb, we stub our toe and think "stupid end-table!" and we believe there's a magic man in the sky that just coincidently happens to share our personal views on hot topics. <br />
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I don't really believe that the faithful have failed to notice that their Gods hate the same people they do; I think they have observed that when they kill, rape, or torture people, God is just fine with it, or has commanded it. It would be really hard to not see this phenomena, and I wonder what the faithful think about it. I'll ask around and see what explanations I get.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-16964124203875252742010-04-01T11:44:00.000-07:002010-04-01T14:46:02.565-07:00More commandments!Alright, time to get back to commenting on the ten commandments, and their foundations, as found in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2020&version=NIV">Exodus 20</a>. <br />
After God instructs us about his (third) holy day, we finally arrive at a commandment that instructs us in a useful way: <br />
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<i>"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you."</i> <br />
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First, the good part: showing respect for your mother and father is important, just as important as showing respect to others in your family, and in society at large. After so much ranting and raving from a hyper-possessive God it's refreshing to hear something worthwhile, and you can't go wrong by showing people respect. While it isn't really deep moral teaching as much as it's another order to embrace authority and sing it's praises, this commandment is leaps and bounds better than the previous bunch. <br />
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Secondly, the bad part: the assertion that the land you live on was somehow given to you by God is a pretty silly one; I've never found a rational explanation for how or when this gift was given, and so that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Having your beliefs is one thing, since what goes on inside your mind is your business, but when that belief starts to make objective truth claims about reality, it must accept being examined or tested for validity -- seems fair enough to me at any rate. <br />
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One swipe from Occam's Razor seems to settle this matter for me: the most simplistic answer to the question of how I came to live on this land is certainly one that doesn't involve a super-complex and self-contradicting deity -- which people seem to struggle in defining in the first place -- and for who's existence we have zero empirical evidence. Natural explanations are not only simpler, but <i>have evidence to back them up</i>, and even better is the fact that they contain the humility to not claim to know things they do not, or can not, know. Honesty and evidence are important to establishing claims as being fact or fiction, and it's in that area that Gods have a habit of not meeting their burden of proof.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-3476369020426486812010-03-31T18:02:00.000-07:002010-04-01T14:58:48.176-07:00Christian militia violence<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZaaA0Bl4TIc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZaaA0Bl4TIc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
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Though I share some of their views on the government and the current state of freedoms in America, I have to denounce the Hutaree for their choice to enact violence (or planing to use violence) against others to achieve goals that are ideological, political, or religious in nature (the army field manual definition of terrorism). No matter what your views are, picking up a rifle to drive the point home is flat-out immoral. More over, If you keep force and violence in your toolbox, you can't decry others for having those same tools in theirs – unless you want to dismissed as a run of the mill hypocrite and not be taken seriously by anyone with a pulse.<br />
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The willingness to evaluate information and come to a judgement on political topics is important, but looking at only slanted information and coming to false conclusions is just the opposite; and I'm afraid our body politic lacks honesty in a big way, we've replaced it with hyper-partisanship, fallacious arguments, smear tactics, and other destructive practices. What's even worse is when a group of extremists like this get together and decide to use lethal force to push their ideas onto others – those clowns must have learned better. If not, they really should have by now, and so they get condemned as just another thug with a gun. If they can't handle democracy and freedom of ideas, they should spend some time in a dictatorship to see the differences. <br />
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But, they make another mistake by using their God to justify your gang violence, since every time they do they validate what detractors of religion have been saying for so long: God is a gun.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-58295353163517068492010-03-29T13:46:00.001-07:002010-03-31T18:29:14.667-07:00More Catholic crimeMore Catholic priests raping and torturing children and covering it up? Of course you expect this kind of stuff from that crowd, who have time and time again shown not only to be capable of destroying children's mental health, but to be people who institutionalize the practice of supporting those who do this terrible act. When a father is found to be raping kids, they simply move the predator pedophile around and work hard to make sure justice cannot be served, and that the depraved man can find a new batch of children to break. Maybe they think they are above the law, or above even morality. <br />
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When you're this close to the point of no return, when you've shown the world that you're morally bankrupt and hopelessly hypocritical, you should have brushed past a moment of clarity; a sudden jolt should have rocked you and shaken you free from your corrupted ways – there should have been realization that you cannot stop the madness, and so you have to resign, unless you want to see this pattern of destructive behavior continue. If our pedophile priests ever had this moment of clarity, they have chosen to ignore it in favor of continuing the sexual conquest of young boys that trusted them to do what's right. The parents made the mistake of trusting religious leaders, and their children suffered the consequences. These young children pay too high a price for being forced by their parents to meet with rapists and sadists.<br />
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What will happen? Something must be done here, right? Surely the parties of God will do the right thing and do what they can to set the wrong things right! Surely parents across the world will learn from the mistakes of other heart broken guardians and keep their children away from this organization that has embraces and protects child rape... <br />
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Don't count on it. <br />
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The Vatican will continue to kill, rape, lie, and steal as it sees fit, and no country will arrest them -- like the common criminals they are -- when they land on foreign soil. They will continue to be called a benchmark of morality, justice, and ethics, even as they commit the most disgusting crime of all, and fight tooth and nail to avoid bringing the guilty to justice. <br />
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It's been said before, and it's worth repeating: the Vatican is a rogue state that harbors the most vile kind of criminals and legitimizes the practice of child rape. I think we could all agree that this kind of habit within the ranks of the Catholics is something that needs to end, unless we want to see more of our young people violated by those that are beyond the law.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4460203247515192357.post-58961303007361325982010-03-24T13:44:00.000-07:002010-03-24T13:58:47.294-07:00Religion's smoking gunI've noticed that theists often say their religion is backed up by faith, but then they contradict this by using logic to explain their beliefs in conversation. Here's an example: <br />
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"Do you believe in hell?" <br />
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"Yes I do." <br />
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"Why?" <br />
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"It makes sense that since there is heaven, there should be a hell. Sort of like a ying-yang line of thinking -- since there is light, there has to be dark." <br />
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This is really interesting. It presents us with some really good material for conversation, or in this case, writing. The first thing that comes to my mind is fairly simple: if you assume heaven exists solely based on faith, why would you do a 180 degree turn and use reason to explain hell? Seems a bit strange right? You start building the case using faith, then switch to using reason, and hope the listener doesn't see this? If you are rolling with faith, why not keep going with it? It seems as though the speaker wants to be seen as using reason, or logic, but can't use those tools to start the argument off, since this argument is a non-starter. <br />
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Another provocative thought on the "starting point" of heaven is really obvious: you start by asserting the existence of heaven, without valid justification, then use this assertion to build the case for the existence of hell. It's a really interesting move, and if it were a valid way to justify something we would have a much easier time building arguments. Here's an example of this kind of method: <br />
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"Since there is a Flying <i>Spaghetti</i> Monster (FSM), it stands to reason that there must be a Flying <i>Alfredo</i> Monster, to establish a sort of balance between pasta toppings" <br />
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See? I just assert the existence of the FSM out of nowhere, and build off the baseless assertion in a manner that seems logical; all the while hoping no one asks for a logical explanation of the FSM. (since if they did, my trick would be exposed.) The idea of balance is one that people really react openly to, since we see plenty of examples in our day to day lives: how a woman's beauty counters her man's ugliness, or how a mother's caring nature offsets a father's heavy-handedness. Appealing to this kind of common observation is a really good idea, and it's sure to be ate up by those that are already hungry for it, but to those of us that don't start with our minds already made up, it's unlikely to do much convincing. <br />
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Another funny thought is: if you're using faith (which is simply wish-thinking) to backup claims, why would you wish for hell? Heaven is understandable -- it sounds, to most people at least, to be a pretty chill place. But why wish a terrible place like hell existed? I mean, since we're just wishing here, why not just wish for heaven and call it quits? The idea seems a bit mean right? If you're going to wish for things, at least do it without shitting on other people. <br />
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And that brings me to my conclusion. This insane wishing for other people to suffer unimaginable agonies and torture for the rest of eternity -- unjustly -- simply for not sharing your faith. Can you think of something more childish and petty? Murdering someone is one thing, since their suffering does come to an end; but wishing something like hell's eternal punishments on someone is nothing short of psychotic. <br />
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This isn't something that can be dodged by Christians either, as maturity demands that you have to wear the yolk of your faith, even if it sucks at times. If you hold a belief, and that belief is the reason for suffering, you're guilty by association. If you believe in, say, gang activity, we will hold you responsible for actions resulting from its practice. Same goes for fascism, stalinism, or any other ideology. So it seems to me that a theist should do a good bit of thinking on their beliefs, and do an accurate and responsible accounting of their faith's effect on other people. You aren't just killing people all over the world, you're wishing the worst possible divine punishment on them as well -- I think we can all agree this has to stop.Parabolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13883113637257270981noreply@blogger.com0