Those who are truly enlightened, who see religion as neither a prison nor a sword, but a home to encourage rather than impede freedom of thought, need to unite as much as possible to take a stand together against those who have the opposite view, who make religion destructive.
Category Archives: religion
Lying About History for the Bible
The “Four Spiritual Laws” are worthless
Campus Crusade for Christ made a pamplet decades ago titled “The Four Spiritual Laws” to teach people their particular brand of Christianity. Here’s one version, in the form of a YouTube video:
VenomFangX, the biggest liar on YouTube!
VenomFangX, aka Shawn, is a teenager (or at least appears to be one) and self-styled Christian evangelist who has made a total @$$ of himself on YouTube for at least a couple of years. He has gained quite a following among his fellow Christians there, as well as redicule and scorn from skeptics who have had the misfortune of dealing with him. And in a battle with one user in particular named ThunderfOOt, he got totally clobbered for engaging in violations of the YouTube terms of service and for legal reasons was forced to admit his wrongdoings on a video for all to see.
Now, if this “Christian” had any sense of honor or humility whatsoever, you would expect him to never bother with Thunderf00t again. But instead, he has just pulled this stunt:
Shawn, Shawn, SHAWN! Ray Comfort is no match for Thunderfoot, and that’s obvious. For you to call Thunderfoot wrong when YOU are the one who engaged in dishonorable behavior against him is totally bogus!
You are a FRAUD and so is your religion, period! If you cannot learn from your mistakes and just GROW UP and live like a man and not like a little boy, you can GO FUCK YOURSELF!
In the description of his video, VenomFangX says:
“Thunderf00t displayed all the weaknesses in the naturalistic philosophy. It robs people of a basic appreciation and value of human life over that of animals, and ultimately all life is seen as nothing more than complex machinery with our consciousness being little else than a spark of electricity. When morality and ethics are brought up, it is impossible for Thunderf00t to articulate a coherent answer, after all, speaking of right and wrong according to an electrical current is pretty silly, don’t you think, Thunderf00t?”
No, what is silly is you engaging in such a lame strawman. The notion that life is merely glorified chemistry is exactly what modern science has revealed over the past few centuries, and if you are too much of a coward to deal honesty with that, that’s your problem. It need not be anyone else’s.
Who are you to assume that because we are an assembly of extremely complex molecules, we have been robbed of anything? That is entirely an unfounded assumption on your part. If you need your delusional religion to feel that you have some dignity in your life, then YOU are the one that is robbed……of rational thinking! People are valuable because we as a species are unique, just as every species is unique and adapted to their environments and lifestyles. You don’t need religion at all to live in harmony with your fellow men or with other species. You just don’t! And how can you imply that putting man on the same level of value with animals somehow makes man worthless? Do you need us all to be as arrogant as you to feel better about yourself? What a terrible weakness!
No wonder your religion is dying, hypocrite!
UPDATE (Jan 7, 2010): After another round of dishonorable behavior, VenomfangX has been called out by another YouTube user, dprjones:
Think he will listen this time? I think not.
The Planets Won’t Cooperate, with CREATIONISM!
If you want more damning proof that Creationist overlords are willing to tell the most absurd lies to their own children, read on. Continue reading
It’s not just evolution that discredits Genesis!
It’s modern astronomy as well, as this one verse makes painfully clear:
Genesis 1:16 – “God made two great lights – the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.”
Of course, one looking at the night sky with no knowledge of modern astronomy would assume that the stars are nothing more than a decoration to add to the light provided by the Sun and the Moon. But in fact, many stars are far bigger and brighter than the Sun and ALL stars are also suns, greater lights in their own star systems.
Had that Bible verse been inspired by the true Creator of the universe, it might have been written: “God made billions of great lights, one of which we call the Sun that rules our days, and also made a lesser light to rule the night.”
Ironically, in another part of the Bible, we read:
Psalms 19:1-2: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.”
If that is true, then clearly we need to toss out the references to the Sun, the Moon, and the stars in Genesis, since they fail to “declare the glory of God” and also fail to “display knowledge” like the heavens are supposed to do according to the 19th Psalm.
Baha’i government would be totally tyrannical
The Baha’i Administrative Order, developed by Shoghi Effendi, and derived from the writings of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha, is a badly flawed and ineffective mode of government, which would naturally take over an area if the Baha’is ever became the majority of any place on Earth. Here’s why that must NEVER happen:
First, Baha’i elections are run in such a way that there are no nominations, campaigning is forbidden, and the top nine members that get the most votes are elected. As a result, incumbents are virtually guaranteed to win, turnover is extremely low, and the policies of adminstrative bodies cannot be challenged by outsiders at elections. There is no freedom in such elections.
The Bible CANNOT be the Word of God
This blog is a direct sequel to these earlier ones:
Religious fundamentalism is blasphemy!
The chain of Abrahamic religions is too rusty and weak
One of the great tragedies of the Protestant Reformation, in addition to destroying forever the unity of the Christians in western Europe, was that it enshrined the Bible as the sole source of dogma among Protestants. Now, I will grant that the incredible corruption and tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages made the Reformation both necessary and inevitable, but the way it was done by most Protestants made spiritual tyranny inevitable among them as well. This was because they simply replaced the Catholic papacy and church councils with the Bible itself, or rather, how Protestant leaders read the Bible. Calling the Word of God what is actually your INTERPRETATION of words of men writing in the name of God is stretching things beyond any bounds of logic you can imagine, which is why Christians constantly emphasize faith as their standard.
P Z Myers and his gang wreck a Christian poll
First, read this blog entry from Pharyngula:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/christianity_today_is_full_of.php
Category: Pointless polls
Posted on: May 1, 2009 10:26 AM, by PZ Myers
Can you bear yet another poll today? The initial results of this one, before all of you readers get to work and use your magic clicky fingers, is mildly interesting. The readership of Christianity Today consists primarily of scientific illiterates and wishful dreamers, split between people who seriously believe the earth is 6000 years old, those who think the Bible is a science text and are willing to stretch a metaphor, and fuzzy thinkers who want a god to have guided natural processes.
I imagine the readership here can rock their little world.
What best describes your view of the origins of creation?
Young-earth creationism 29%
Old-earth creationism 28%
Theistic evolution 26%
Naturalistic evolution 4%
I don’t know 7%
None of the above 6%
How Christian bigots make the peace process of Israel and Palestine impossible
After all the killings and destruction since 1948 in the “Holy Land”, we must do all we can to undo the systematic brainwashing of the American people that has been done for many decades by Christian fundamenalist leaders and propagandists. As far as I’m concerned, they are mass murderers by proxy!
First, they claim that Israel’s founding was a fulfilment of Bible prophecy and thus will lead to the return of Christ and the establishment of God’s kingdom. They must claim this because so many prophecies in the Old Testament referring to Israel were NOT fulfilled in ancient times, therefore, they assume that these prophecies will be fulfilled in modern times with the new state of Israel. But that is nothing but a rationalization.
Second, if you read what Jesus actually said in the Gospels about his return, then certain events were supposed to take place, then he would return while the generation that saw him alive still lived. Indeed, the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70 and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 could be seen as fulfillments of what Jesus said…….but he did NOT return. So why would some Christians still be waiting for his return nearly 2000 years later? And linking his return to the JEWISH state of Israel is absurd, period!
Third, and worst of all, many Christians see what has happened in the Middle East since 1948 as a reenactment of the ancient wars described in the Bible, where many atrocities were also committed. Indeed, the Book of Joshua describes a long campaigne of conquest and genocide that would be compared with what the German Nazis did if it happened today. And that is the main reason most fundamentalist Christians are not bothered by the wrongdoings of Israel because they think, “Such things were done in Biblical times and were said to be God’s will, so why not let them happen again?” That’s a bit like expecting a teenager to wear diapers long after he has outgrown them and been potty trained. This is one reason why I am sometimes so contemptuous of religion: It actually prevents people from growing up spiritually and morally.
And Palestinians, you are not blameless either! You, just as Israel, have murdered far too many innocents in the name of your religion and your nationality. If I had my way, I’d sweep both you AND the Jews off the “Holy Land” and allow that land 100 years of healing before I ever allow any people to live there again. And then only atheists and agnostics, who would treat the land and its history more objectively than any Jew, Christian, and Muslim would.
If you want to see just how stupid the mentality I described just above can get, just go to a library and check out The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, and its several sequels that this despicable fraud wrote in the late 1970s and 1980s. He was using religion to promote hard-line Conservative politics, and for that alone I will spit on him forever!
Why do people have different opinions?
One of my most basic axioms is that there can only be one truth and one standard of right and wrong as far as empirical facts as well as ethical standards go, but that the limited vision and knowledge of human beings makes us unable to know absolutely what that truth or that ethical standard is; we can only approximate it in our minds. If this is true, how does one explain the incredible diversity of opinions regarding what is true as well as what is ethical? Why the clash between Creation and evolution, between various religions, and between supporters and opponents of the death penalty, abortion rights, or other political and moral issues?
I believe that we humans, for all our intelligence, are still limited in our minds as well as our preceptions of reality. We can only know so much or sense so much and thus when we form opinions based on our knowledge and preceptions, we are prone to error. The problem comes when clashes between people with different opinions occur. Often, debates result in which efforts are made by both sides to show that the other side is in error. Usually, however, most supporters of both sides refuse to budge in their positions, and so the debates prove fruitless. Why is that, if we all live in the same universe, use the same senses, and sometimes communicate the same ways? What’s stopping us from reaching the same conclusions?
I think the primary factor in people stubbornly clinging to an opinion, even if it is highly questionable, is that a community has formed among holders of that opinion, and there is the ever present fear that being willing to change your opinion to fit all the facts you know would lead to one being ostracized by that community. To reinforce the social bonds of that community, its leadership will put out propaganda, distorting the facts and the issues to demonize the ones opposed to the goals and beliefs of the community, even going so far as to accuse the opponents of being dishonest and unfair, without any clear evidence for this. This gives doubting members of the community all the excuses they need to put aside their doubts and remain in the community.
As an Honorable Skeptic, I find that totally unacceptable. Over the course of my life, I’ve been in and out of several communities, having been a Southern Baptist, an agnostic, a Baha’i and an agnostic once more. Sure, leaving those religious communities when I became disillusioned with their teachings was painful, but in the end I felt being liberated from unfounded dogmas was worth the agony. Sadly, most people seem unable to make that transition. I consider them weak. Meanwhile, they consider me disloyal and without firm principles, which only shows the depths of their own delusions. It was BECAUSE of my principles that I abandoned them and I had more to lose socially than gain from doing so.
Whatever.
The destruction of Christianity
First, read this news report:
Monks brawl at Christian holy site in Jerusalem
Published: 11/9/08, 12:25 PM EDT
By MATTI FRIEDMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli police rushed into one of Christianity’s holiest churches Sunday and arrested two clergyman after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the site of Jesus’ tomb. Continue reading
Attack of an Obsessive Christian
Last night, I had an unpleasant experience on this blog. I sat down to check on it, like I do every day, and found no less than NINE comments on it awaiting moderation. And when I read the comments, I found several things noteworthy about them:
- They were all by the same user, named Michael.
- They were all on different entries, including some that were many months old
- They were all expressing Christian bias and attempting to engage me in debates rather than simply comment on what I had written.
Now, I don’t mind responding to one or two comments at a time. I don’t mind several people posting at my blog at the same time, for that means it is getting a lot of attention from the public. I also like answering questions from a Christian about my beliefs, or lack thereof, as an opportunity to explain myself. What enraged me was that this guy, by posting so many comments at once, came across as fixated on me to the point of cyberstalking, making me feel threatened. Plus, most of his comments came across as nonsense. He had no respect for my positions at all.
So I approved two of the comments and rejected all the others, and then disemvoweled one of those I had approved, a technique I had learned from biologist and blogger extraordinaire P Z Myers, and finally banned the pest outright from making further comments. I did this because I knew it would be futile to engage the bigot in battle, based on many previous experiences with people of his type, and did not intend to waste my energy in another endurance contest. Especially not on Halloween.
What did this guy do next? Rather than take the hint, he proceeded to locate my MySpace account and sent me a message there. I read his message, replied to him, and finally blocked him there too.
Still not understanding how deeply he had offended me, Micheal continued to send me comments, which were automatically listed as spam. At one point, he even agreed to leave me alone, but then broke his word the next morning by spamming me some more.
I have no interest in having a “dialogue” with someone who thinks he is so superior to others because of his faith that he claims a RIGHT to post comment after comment after comment on my blog, even before I have responded to any of them. I was disgusted by Michael’s antics, especially since a more productive thing to do would have been to create an entry on HIS blog about me and my positions, and invite me to see them with just ONE comment that I would have read, responded to by making one comment on his blog in return, and then both of us could have gone about our business. Instead, he tried to be a cyberbully. He denies that was his intention, but I don’t believe his denials. When you have absolute faith in something, you can justify almost anything, however despicable, to promote that faith. I’m not about to excuse such rudeness from anyone, whether Christian or atheist. Michael should have known better! He has NO IDEA what a productive dialogue is!
Debunking the Liar, Lunatic, or Lord argument
One of the favorite arguments put forth by Christian apologists is that of “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” in reference to Jesus. It was published by C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity, and later repeated by Josh McDowell in his works. Basically, it goes like this:
“Jesus claimed to be God. If so, he must have been God incarnate in order to be accepted as a great moral teacher. If he was NOT God incarnate, then he must have been either a liar (evil) or a lunatic (diseased in the mind) and by definition someone who is evil or diseased in the mind cannot be a good moral teacher, so the only logical conclusion is that Jesus must have indeed been God incarnate, and therefore his teachings were infallible and he was by nature superior to any other moral teacher that ever lived.”
This argument is completely bogus! And here’s why:
First, we know NOTHING about Jesus that came directly from him. Everything written about him, including all quotations of his words, are second-hand or third-hand sources. See my earlier blog entry for more details:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-chain-of-abrahamic-religions-is-too-rusty-and-weak/
Second, it is perfectly possible for someone to teach good morals and yet be a con artist. Indeed, you wouldn’t expect someone to openly proclaim “I am a liar and am immoral, corrupt, and serve evil causes!” You would expect someone to USE issues of morality to attract the well-meaning but gullible followers that the con artist could exploit for his personal gain later.
Third, even most insane people have some elements of lucidity in their characters. There is not an absolute distinction between the insane and those of normal mentality. Mental illness has many different manifestations and degrees of severity.
Fourth, there is an incident recorded in the Gospels of Jesus cursing a fig tree just because it had no figs to give him at the time (and it wasn’t even the season for them) and the tree soon dies: Mark 11:14, 20-23, Matthew 21:19-21. He uses this irrational action as an example of the power of faith. Sounds like insanity to me!
Fifth, the same liar, lunatic, or lord argument could be just as well applied to the founders of every other religion, including those with teachings very different from Christianity. Yet to be a Christian, you must assume that all those other religions are false!
Quite simply, this argument is an appeal to religious and cultural prejudice. It is no more valid than arguments to support astrology, palm-reading, or belief in a flat Earth.
Rep. Michele Bachmann is a liar and an extremist
See for yourself here:
Since when it is anti-American to have political, social, religious, and cultural diversity in your friendships or associations? How is associating with people who are not actually criminals, even if they have done or said questionable things in the past, anti-American? We have had Liberal Presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter and no one questioned their love for America!
This is the sort of innuendo and slander that supporters of Sen. John McCain have resorted to. Let’s send them a message: YOU DO NOT BELONG IN OUR GOVERNMENT ANY MORE!
http://www.censurebachmann.com/
It’s time to tell the truth about Liberals and about their Conservative opponents. Conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and now Rep. Michele Bachmann have been allowed to get away with slander, libel and hyperaggressive tactics for too long. Enough already! Liberals made America a free and independent nation, not Conservatives. Liberals fought to end slavery, not Conservatives! Liberals fought for women’s right to vote,, not Conservatives! Liberals, not Conservatives, led us Americans through two World Wars and even through much of the Cold War, before Conservatives Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. came along and just happened to reap the political benefits of presiding over the downfall of the Soviet Union. What have Conservatives done to make America great? Nothing, instead they only hold us back from being a more enlightened society, preferring one run largely by religious loons who happen to call themselves Christian!
Let George W. Bush be the last “Conservative” Republican President America ever has! I’be absolutely had enough of the hypocrisy of Conservatives and their outdated and increasingly useless dogmas. End their reign of terror, NOW!
Science needs a new superhero
Carl Sagan died in 1996, yet he still lives in the hearts of those who knew him, whether personally or as the public celebrity he became.
Now the time has come for science to move on and find a new superhero, someone who can command both the public respect that Sagan did and challenge society for the better. Although Sagan was an agnostic who championed skepticism, he did not come across as openly hostile towards all religion, as Richard Dawkins does. Such hostility, even if justified, can turn gentle souls away from science. So who can possibly succeed Carl Sagan? Who can be the champion of reason, rationality, and tolerance for all?
I will. And so can you. And you, you, you, you and you, if only you just care to be as dedicated to science and to the welfare to humanity as Sagan was. I have championed the philosophy of Honorable Skepticism as my tribute to Sagan. But the best way to honor him is not merely to keep playing his COSMOS series and talking about what he did, but to make our own contributions to science, to EXCEED Sagan’s work, to become superheros of science ourselves. We are not expected merely to blindly follow what Sagan taught, for he was by no means infallible. Because he was human as we, we can carry his vision forward, and we will do it by eliminating the concept of “sacred cows” and seeking change to improve our societies, regardless of what short-term and localized interests get stepped on. They deserve it! And we cannot afford to appease those interests anymore. Having a global and long-term perspective is what will save us, not any religion or political ideology.
The chain of Abrahamic religions is too rusty and weak
There are four religions in the world that are classed as “Abrahamic”, being descended from the original work of Abraham. Abraham himself left no writings of his own and he may have been only legendary, as much as Greek myths are thought to be. He founded no religion that survives today.
Judaism: Considered to have been founded by Moses. He was credited with writing the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament), but this is incorrect; He may have written the laws detailed in the Torah, but not the Torah itself, since his death is recorded at the end of it and it is implied that it was made several centuries after Moses’ time. So the foundation of this religion is uncertain.
Christianity: Considered to have been founded by Jesus, but he himself wrote nothing that we have and the stories and quotations of him are entirely second-hand. In addition, most Christian doctrine was formulated by Paul, who was not even an original desciple of Jesus, but joined the Christians later after being their enemy. Thus the foundation of this religion is highly uncertain.
Islam: Founded by the Prophet Muhammad. He was said to be illiterate, and dictated most of the Quran to various scribes rather than write it directly. It wasn’t until after his death that the Quran was assembled in its final form, and it was not assembled in chronological order.
The Baha’i Faith: Baha’u’llah, the founder of this religion, is said to have written his own books. But he too relied on personal secretaries to do most of this, including Mirza Aqa Jan, who later would be condemned as a “Covenant-breaker” for opposing Abdu’l-Baha, the son and immediate successor of Baha’u’llah.
The credibilility of the Baha’i Faith is dependent on Islam, the credibility of Islam is dependent on Christianity, and the credibility of Christianity is dependent on Judaism. Yet all these religions also claim that the earlier ones were corrupted over time, making the new ones necessary. Does this make sense? What if all four religions were flawed from the beginning, because their means of recording their teachings were flawed? Their founders could have written and edited their writings all by themselves and not allowed others to make unauthorized editions after their time. Thus any possible errors or contradictions in those teachings would have been prevented. Outsiders could have been prevented from polluting the original faith with foreign concepts. Disputes between followers could have been settled without assuming blindly that the leadership was never to be questioned and that others could “agree to disagree” without being treated as traitors.
None of these were done, except by the most liberal branches of these faiths, and thus they have been sources of tyranny and ignorance rather than liberty and enlightenment. And as this essay shows, there is really no reason for ANYONE to be certain that any of them are absolutely true, especially since modern science has completely debunked the creation myth that was said to be the very root of all of them.
Seeking balance in politics and activism
For starters, I wish to state that in an issue like politics, extremism among some individuals is inevitable. There are two reasons for this. First, many people mistakenly apply religious impulses to politics and thus attempt to be consistent with a certain political viewpoint, even at the expense of ignoring or denying clear empirical evidence that is against it. Quite simply, it is easier (if you are intellectually lazy) to just blindly follow a dogma of some kind that happens to appeal to your ego than to dig for the truth, apply consistent logic to all issues, and thus have a perspective that is subject to change and moderation over time. Second, extremists on any issue tend to work the hardest for their chosen causes and thus tend to rise to leadership positions within political organizations as well as single-issue pressure groups, by virtue of their extensive track record of having done so much for their causes as well as appearing to be experts on the issues they represent. This explains why so many otherwise worthy causes, such as animal rights, get so absurdly corrupted by groups that claim to represent them, such as PETA or ALF, and people who might be motivated by natural compassion to support animal rights are repelled by seeing extremist groups like the aforementioned ones claiming to be the best examples of those causes’ representatives. Let me assure you, they are not and I would be quite happy to see them destroyed without thinking for one second that this would be damaging at all to the cause of animal rights. If you, by your words or actions, make a cause look loony, that’s the best way to ruin it, and you might as well just oppose the cause altogether.
The insane Schlafly klan
Phyllis Schlafly is remembered as the one who leads the Eagle Forum and fought to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and 80s. For that, she is condemned by progressive women as being of the same character as Benedict Arnold. Indeed, Phyllis’s whole career is one of staggering hypocrisy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly#Criticism
The feminist activist Gloria Steinem and the author Pia de Solenni, among others, have noted what they consider irony in Schlafly’s role as an advocate for the full-time mother and wife, while being herself a lawyer, editor of a monthly newsletter, regular speaker at anti-liberal rallies, and political activist.[30][31][32] In her review of Schlafly’s Feminist Fantasies, de Solenni writes that “Schlafly’s discussion reveals a paradox. She was able to have it all: family and career. And she did it by fighting those who said they were trying to get it all for her… Happiness resulted from being a wife and mother and working with her husband to reach their goals.”
Now her son, Andrew Schlafly, is continuing in his mother’s footsteps, and is making an absolute fool of himself as the head of an biased web encyclopedia known as Conservapedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia
Here’s an example of Andrew’s foolishness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia#Lenski_dialog
On June 9, 2008, New Scientist published an article describing Richard Lenski‘s 20-year E. coli experiment, which observed the bacteria evolve the ability to metabolize citrate — a rare and complex mutation.[65] Schlafly contacted Lenski to request the data. Lenski explained that the relevant data were in the paper and that Schlafly fundamentally misunderstood it. Schlafly wrote again and requested the raw data. Lenski replied again that the relevant data were already in the paper, that the “raw data” were living bacterial samples, which he would willingly share with qualified researchers at properly equipped biology labs, and that he felt insulted by letters and comments on Conservapedia, which he saw as brusque and offensive, including claims of outright deceit.[66] The exchange, recorded on a Conservapedia page called “Lenski dialog”,[67] was widely reported on news aggregate sites and weblogs. Carl Zimmer wrote that it was readily apparent that “Schlafly had not bothered to read [Lenski’s paper] closely”,[68] and PZ Myers criticized Schlafly for demanding data despite not having a plan to use it nor the expertise to analyze it.[69] Consequently, editors who began to ask too many questions about the issue and about specific links “not allowed in Conservapedia”, were censored and permanently blocked. [70]
Andrew founded Conservapedia because he claimed that Wikipedia was biased to the left, but in fact, being a right-wing extremist, he naturally sees anything even slightly to the left of him as unacceptable, and Conservapedia is a manifestation of his own bigotry.
If people like the Schlaflys ran America, we wouldn’t have a free country at all, but a theocratic empire in republican clothing, and where women are allowed to have careers, but only under men’s terms, not their own. They must be discredited and buried forever!
The Fatal Flaw in Baha’i Authority
This is the direct sequel to my first blog entry on the Baha’i faith:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/why-i-quit-the-baha%e2%80%99i-faith/
The basic problem of authority in the Baha’i Faith, with its false claim that those authorities are infallible, really becomes obvious when you consider the issue of the Guardianship, which Shoghi Effendi held from 1921 until his death in 1957. He was appointed to that position by his grandfather, Abdu’l-Baha.
Sarah Palin, living a lie
Let me be frank and blunt about this matter of the Republican Vice-Presidental nominee of 2008: She is an IDIOT and a disgrace to all responsible women in America, if not the entire world!
She has five children and her oldest daughter Bristol, only 17, is already expecting a child of her own. So in essence, Sarah Palin illustrates that women, even highly achiveing ones like her, are still expected to be breeding machines as well.
I find that absolutely disgusting!
How can anyone, knowing the vast environmental destruction humans have caused around the world, because of our growing populations, ever put their trust in anyone that herself contributes to the problem?
How can anyone think that her assumptions about birth control and abortion are in any way applicable to places that are overcrowded, just because they seem justified in lightly populated Alaska, the state Palin is governor of?
How can anyone, claiming to be Christian, be so damn materialistic as to favor the exploitation of Alaska’s mineral resources to make people richer, at the expense of the wildlife that live there? Jesus constantly denounced that attitude! So do I, despite being non-Christian.
How can anyone, having so strong sexual urges herself that she would crank out five babies, seriously think that abstinence before marriage is an option for teenagers with their own raging hormones, including her own daughters? One of them has obviously rejected that. If those values didn’t work for the Palins, why should they be applied to anyone?
Nevermind that Bristol, the pregnant daughter, is planning to marry her baby’s father. Statistics show that the overwhelming majority of teen marriages end in divorce. In any case, she is at a disadvantage in moving on with her education, and even if she does that, many teen mothers, lacking financial resources, would not be so fortunate.
Nature made our sexual urges strong for a reason, that being that REPRODUCTION, the purpose of sex, is what perpetuates all species. Unless we eliminate those urges, we will inevitably give in to them when opportunities present themselves. I think anyone who says otherwise is a LIAR.
Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church, advertising its priest and nuns as celibate and therefore “pure” and totally dedicated to the church and nothing else, is lying to us all. And so is Sarah Palin.
Her daughter Bristol is living proof that her values on sexuality are a failure. And that being the case, her values about economics and the environment, issues which are affected by human population growth, are also discredited.
We need to BURY this loon before she destroys us! IMMEDIATELY!
Behold the Blasphemy!
What else would you call it when certain people portray God as no better than Satan?
Since 1955, Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) has taken forth the precious from the vile, and is therefore as the mouth of God (Jer. 15:19). In 1991, WBC took her ministry to the streets, conducting over 34,000 peaceful demonstrations (to date) opposing the fag lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth. In response, america bombed WBC. Now, God is america’s enemy, dashing your soldiers to pieces. 4,122 dead. 29,978 wounded. America crossed the line on June 26, 2003, when the Supreme Court (the conscience of the nation) ruled that we must respect sodomy. WBC believes her gospel message to be this world’s last hope.
http://www.godhatestheworld.com/
Click a completed country (how do I zoom?) to find out why God hates that country, and why this world is doomed. “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” Revelation 19:15.
http://www.godhatesamerica.com/
God Hates America. This is a profound theological statement that any God-fearing person will recognize as truth. America is on a path to sure destruction, and there is no remedy available to Her anymore. She was once a great nation, like Sodom and Gomorrah, blessed with great propserity and power not before seen in the modern world. And, like Sodom and Gomorrah, she has spit in the face of God until His wrath has been brought down upon her with fierce anger. “Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them” (Ezekiel 5:13). America is the spitting image of ancient Israel and Judah “But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy” (2 Chr 36:16).
http://www.godhatesmexico.com/
WBC Thanks God For 900,000 People Made Homeless By Flooding In Mexico
Viva La Flooding- See This Article About The Flooding Done To Evil Mexico
Sodomite Mexico is fast reverting to the vile Satanic ways of the filthy fagot Inca and Aztec empires, which were obliterated by God Almighty because of their sins: Mexico – Land of the Sodomite Damned. Ezekiel 16:3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. Mexico is even in a worse state than Doomed america is; at least america has the prophets of God (though they be a small remnant). Mexico doesn’t have even that one lone voice crying in the wilderness. Mark 1:3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
http://www.godhatescanada.com/
WARNING!!!
To God’s Elect: Leave Canada NOW!!!
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” Rev. 18:4
Fags have a 3 point agenda: 1) decriminalize sodomy, 2) add fags to the protected classes as victims like blacks, and 3) criminalize Gospel preaching against fags. Canada’s doom is now irreversible!
On April 28, 2004, Canada hoisted a filthy fag finger in the Face of God by passing a law making any criticism of homosexuals a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment. The churches and preachers of Canada tried massive last-minute lobbying and protests on Parliament Hill to defeat the bill — too little, too late!
For years, WBC has warned that Canada is a homo-fascist state where the filthy fag agenda has become the law of the land. WBC members have been arrested at Ottawa’s International Airport upon entering Canada to picket Parliament and burn the Canadian flag. In Albert, WBC members were ordered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police not to carry “God Hates Fags” signs on pain of arrest and prosecution. When WBC members did in fact actually burn the Canadian flag in religious protest to Canada’s approval of same-sex marriage, the so-called Christians of Canada were the loudest in denouncing WBC and “widely reviling” her Gospel message.
There is no hope for Canada. God hates Canada!
With God believers like these, who needs atheists or Satanists?
The sad downfall of Silly Old Bear in Care2
Silly Old Bear, also known as Henric Jensen, is one of my best online friends. He is Jewish, Swedish, married, a transexual, and one of the best human rights activists I’ve ever known. He was also one of the most hated people in Care2. Hated because he was a firm opponent of Israel-bashing, which he saw as anti-Semetic, and was just as eager to defending men’s rights even before angry feminists who seemed to have a grudge against all men. Continue reading
The death (and so-called life) of Sen. Jesse Helms
Imagine the irony of learning today that Jesse Helms, retired Senator from North Carolina, died today. Today being July 4, Independence Day, which we use to celebrate our freedom. Continue reading
Sun Worship
Most people have the preception that “pagan” religions, especially those with ancient roots in polytheism, are inferior to monotheistic faiths like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many pagan religions featured worship of the Sun or a god that was thought to control the Sun in its travels in the sky. Should we think this irrational?
- The Sun is the source of light and heat, without which we would not survive. This is self-evident. By contrast, we have no way of knowing even the existence of the God of the Abrahamic religions, let alone what He does for us.
- We see the Sun every day and we can invent rituals that are based on the movements of the Sun that make perfect sense to the followers of Sun worship. No one has seen God, at least that we have confirmed and the rituals connected to Him in the Abrahamic religions seem to have no relation to natural needs. Is it rational to believe in what cannot be seen?
- All things in the Solar System revolve around the Sun. It also has 99% of the mass of the Solar System, and science can directly access it. We cannot access God via science, and thus we’ve had constant conflict between science and religion as a result.
I would therefore suggest that Sun worship should eventually replace the Abrahamic religions if we are to renew the spirituality of the human race. Then mankind would become more firmly united and at peace and science would advance more rapidly. Imagine what our lives would be like if everyone on Earth were sun worshippers. No more arguments over dogmas or rituals made up by priests to appease a God that does not speak for himself, but appears to speak through prophets who may or may not be telling the truth. No more scriptures that are claimed to be infallible but in fact are deeply flawed. Issues of sexual behavior would have no ties to religion, making the dealing with those issues easier and more realistic. Of course, the sun also causes storms, heat stroke, and sunburns, but at least we would understand the reasons behind that, instead of wondering why our “god” was either punishing us or allowing such evil to occur to us. And we would STILL have something to center our lives around, day by day, and year by year. Many people have a natural need for such rituals for the sake of self-discipline, and we should find ways to accomidate those needs.
Conspiracy theories, credible and incredible
For any conspiracy to succeed, there are several conditions that may be required:
- The participants must be as few as possible.
- The conspiracy must be of as short a duration as possible.
- The conspiracy must be extremely secretive.
Condition 3 relies on the first two, as indicated in the proverb, “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
Thus, the commonly held 9-11 conspiracy theory that many government officials under the Bush Administration were directly involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is far less credible than the idea that a few dozen operatives of Al-Qaeda were responsible. Likewise, it is far more credible that Exxon and its operatives have been planting misleading claims about global warming in the popular press and various blogs over the past couple of decades than that thousands of scientists have been misleading people about global warming since 1896, when Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first identified the heat retaining properties of carbon dioxide (called “carbonic acid” in Arrhenius’ paper referred to below).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/18/Arrhenius.pdf
People make up conspiracy theories to explain what could be responsible for something they happen to dislike. The “theory” could be more properly considered a hypothesis in science. The problem comes when these people do not take the next step in the scientific method, which is to test the idea via observation or experiment. Instead, they proclaim the conspiracy theory as DOGMA and proceed to interpret all evidence according to that dogma, despite never finding any direct evidence to confirm the theory. Then they abandon all willingness to allow the claim to be disproven.
You can’t do science that way! Just because a theory claims to explain something doesn’t mean it is true. You must ultimately rule out all other possibilities before stating something questionable to be FACT.
Censorship in the name of religious freedom?
I’ve never seen such a blatant attempt at denial of academic freedom! Now, if the people being attacked were committing libel, this lawsuit would make sense. This is a clear example of hypocrisy!
http://www.pacificjustice.org/resources/news/focusdetails.cfm?ID=PR080512a
An Evolutionary View of Religion
Considering that most of the opposition to evolution is based on religious bias, it is ironic that evolutionary concepts are most useful for explaining the history of religion. It is common knowledge, for example, that Christianity evolved from Judaism, Buddhism evolved from Hinduism, the Baha’i Faith evolved from Islam, and that Christianity has diversified into hundreds of sects including Roman Catholicism, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Thus religions themselves illustrate the concepts of common ancestry, mutation, and adaptive radiation as well as mass extinctions (many pagan religions died out as Christianity and Islam expanded, leaving behind “fossils” in the form of published records that are today dismissed as “myths”).
And now I wish to dispel one of the most common misconceptions about evolution: That because humans evolved from ape-like animals, that humans are by nature superior to their ape cousins. And that evolution is a ladder of progress in which all decendants are by nature superior to their ancestors. It is ludicrious to suggest that fish are inferior to mammals. Both fish and mammals are animals well adapted to their environments. If they were not, they’d become extinct. Most fish cannot breath air and thus cannot survive out of water, but the reverse is true of most mammals, which would die if they could not breath air. So from a fish’s point of view, a mammal must seem inferior, even the whales, which must also rely on their lungs to breath, not gills. Evolution is all about change, not progress. A fish is merely different from a mammal, period.
Likewise, Judaism is different from Christianity. There is no reason for Christians to think themselves or their faith superior to the Jewish faith, except by their own arrogance. Judaism has been in existence longer than Christianity, but it has also evolved just as Christianity has. For a Christian to convert to Judaism is not to take a “backward step”, merely to adopt a different set of teachings.
Thus, I totally reject the Baha’i concept of “Progressive Revelation” that implies that the Baha’i Faith is the supreme religion because it came after all the others, and that other religions are valid but destined to be replaced by the Baha’i Faith. Must we assume that because mammals came later than fish, they are destined to replace all fish? NO, that is nonsense! In my view all religions must be seen as equal because all of them have evolved and adapted to their environment. Until this is understood by nearly everyone, wars and discrimination based on religious bigotry will remain a serious threat.
PZ Myers fan here!
I am a regular reader of the blog by PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
A Real Skeptic vs. a Denialist
A skeptic is defined as someone who reserves judgement on an issue until enough evidence is found to support a claim beyond a reasonable doubt and also clearly defines what would make him disbelieve a claim. This is scientific thinking.
By contrast, a denialist has no such defined limits, either of belief or disbelief. The denialist starts from a position of dogma, asserting opposition to an idea by presenting a contrary idea as absolute truth and interpreting all evidence according to that unalterable dogma, rather than draw conclusions based only on the evidence. This is the opposite of scientific thinking, although denialists often use scientific terminology to make their positions seem legitimate to fool the ignorant.
Denialism vs geuine skepticism is found in debates over evolution vs. Creationism, global warming, religion, and politics. If there were no denialists, most of those debates would have either ended long ago, or would be a lot more cordial than they tend to be.
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 