tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310687705751279942024-03-13T12:46:21.908-04:00SkeptiKyleA blog full of blasphemy.Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-67264387190348996572016-11-12T13:40:00.000-05:002016-11-12T13:40:09.513-05:00Thoughts on the 2016 ElectionYou probably don't need another Facebook post about politics at this point in the week, but I wanted to point out something that very few people are bringing up in the aftermath of the election. Everyone is talking about how Trump appealed to non-college educated white people and nationalists, but the single biggest predictor of whether someone would vote for Trump was simply whether or not they voted for Romney.<br />
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Sure, there were plenty of NeverTrump people who voted for Romney, and Trump certainly encouraged some people to vote this year that didn't vote in 2012, but he mainly just got Republicans to vote for him. The current vote count has Trump at 60,072,551. Romney got 60,933,504. Romney lost the popular vote by 4% and Trump will probably end up with about the same number of votes after they're all counted. Obviously, Trump won anyway because Clinton wasn't even close to Obama's vote total (currently 60,467,601 vs. 65,915,795). (Let's save the Electoral College discussion for another day, because it isn't likely to change. If you spread another million votes for Clinton across Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida she wins the election, so the point about her total vote count vs. Obama's still stands.)<br />
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By and large, people vote for their own party, and the winner is largely determined by which party motivates more people to vote. Most people who vote in general elections will cast a vote regardless of who the candidate is, so both parties have a base of votes they're guaranteed to get. It didn't matter that Trump may have been the worst presidential candidate of all time; he was still the Republican candidate, and that was enough for most (not all, but most) Republicans. Clinton was also not a great candidate, and it was shown by how few people voted for her. Her biggest appeal was that she was Not Donald Trump, and that simply wasn't enough for many people.<br />
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Now, you can argue that those people who stayed home should have voted even if they weren't "excited" about Clinton, and the people who voted for Trump shouldn't have done so for a plethora of reasons. Those are valid arguments, and I wholeheartedly agree with you simply because I think Trump is completely unqualified for the office he was just elected to. However, the reality is that people are motivated to vote by things other than logic. I weighted factors like "probability of starting a nuclear war" pretty strongly when I cast my vote, along with "probability of worsening the national debt and income inequality via tax plan" and "probability of worsening climate change" and "a general understanding of how science works" and "ability to conduct oneself like a reasonable human being," but not everyone thinks like me. The more important factors for many people were: 1) Does the candidate have a 'D' or an 'R' next to their name? and 2) Do I like them?<br />
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Trump had the R by his name, so that gave him well over 50 million votes by default (likewise for Clinton). Then there were some people who actually like Trump's message (particularly those who are less-educated), so they either flipped from Obama or came out to vote for the first time in a while to get him his 60 million votes. Clinton got a large-but-not-large-enough portion of Obama voters, plus some people who were repelled by Trump, and here we are.<br />
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My main takeaway from all of this: both parties did a terrible job in the primaries. Hillary had all the qualifications in the world, but she also had a ton of skeletons in the closet and people generally don't like her. This allowed for a false equivalency in the minds of many where they just thought that both candidates sucked regardless of who sucked more. Trump was the most disliked candidate of all time, but Hillary is second on that list--people <b>do not like her</b>. If you want your candidate to win a general election, you should try nominating someone that people like.<br />
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On the Republican side, Trump only got 30-40% of the vote in the primaries, depending on the state. Most Republicans didn't want to nominate him, but the assclowns in charge of the party did a terrible job of organizing things and let 17 candidates into the process. Reince Priebus probably deserves more blame than any other single person for Trump's election since he's in charge of the Republican National Committee. He's largely responsible for the most disliked candidate of all time becoming President, although he was helped greatly by the Democrats who couldn't get out of their own way. Preibus' candidate won in spite of the fact that he is objectively terrible at his job. Man does that guy suck.<br />
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The lesson for all of us: vote in the primaries. Only 57.6 million people did so this year, less than half of the number that voted in the general election. If someone like Trump ever runs again, make damn sure you vote. If you're a Republican, vote for someone else and make sure you're all voting for the <b>same someone else</b>. If the Rubio/Cruz/Kasich camps could have solidified around a single person, we wouldn't be in this spot. If you're a Democrat, vote for someone who can win a general election. They have to be likeable; "better than the other guy" isn't good enough, even though it should be.<br />
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Also, vote in the midterms. If you've been depressed about how little Congress has gotten done in the last few years, vote for people who don't block every single bill that gets proposed. We all agree on some things, like background checks for gun buyers, but that hasn't become a law yet because there are people in Congress who refuse to do their jobs because they're afraid they won't get reelected if they work with people across the aisle. This will continue if only the die-hards show up to midterms and primaries, because the people who vote in those elections are the only ones that matter to Congress. Voting once every four years isn't enough. There are too many unreasonable people in this country for the rest of us to afford staying home on election days.Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-54725254961908487662015-03-21T00:56:00.002-04:002015-03-21T00:56:55.908-04:00The Ease of Irrationality<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s really easy to be irrational. We’re all prone to thinking and believing things that don’t aren’t true or logical, and we usually have reasons for it. Even yours truly, a Spock-like dude (RIP, Leonard) who values logic over pretty much everything, has had bouts of irrationality. For example, I met a girl named Liz at a bar a few years ago. There was obviously some mutual attraction--she actually approached me (albeit with a friend), and even though we only talked for maybe 10 minutes she invited me to go bowling with her friends that night. Enter Irrational Kyle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First of all, I gave her my number instead of getting hers. This was a terrible idea. Despite the changing times, many women still expect men to take initiative (this makes things tricky for some girls who like girls, but works out pretty well for guys who like guys). Shockingly, I never heard from her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Secondly, I didn’t go bowling with her. While alcohol is great as a social lubricant that reduces inhibitions and enables people to talk to each other, it tends to have a negative effect on decision-making. I somehow got the idea that she wouldn’t want me to come because she was a shy person and would feel weird about a pseudo-date while among her more boisterous friends. Did you know that shy people are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">more</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> comfortable when they’re around their friends? Drunk Kyle didn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lastly, I spent an untold number of hours attempting to stalk her on the internet over the following week. Turns out it can be hard to find people when all you know about them is their first name and they don’t have a public Facebook profile. Or LinkedIn. Or MySpace (yeah, I checked). I even looked at rosters of bowling leagues and went to bowling alleys a few times in the hopes of running into her without it appearing insanely creepy. Does any of this seem reasonable? No, not at all. But, hey, that girl smiled at me, so </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">clearly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> we were meant to be.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Society as a whole can get pretty irrational, too. I don’t mean that popular consensus is sometimes wrong--it’s easy to believe that the sun goes around the Earth when there’s no information suggesting otherwise. I’m talking about when we all have information and choose to ignore it. In the past couple decades, for example, there have been huge spates of cheating in sports that we simply pretended weren’t happening. Lance Armstrong won SEVEN straight Tour de France’s with ONE TESTICLE. You know how they have separate sports leagues for men and women? That’s because men are (in the aggregate) genetically better athletes, largely owing to higher levels of testosterone. You know where testosterone comes from? Balls. Also, you know what tends to have a negative effect on health and general physical ability? Cancer. Turns out Lance was involved in the biggest doping scandal of all time and lied about it. But, hey, it’s fun for America to be the best, and a cancer survivor turning into one of the greatest athletes ever made for an amazing story.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There’s also the crazy spike in home runs around the turn of the century. The McGwire-Sosa battle was the last time I gave a shit about baseball (although I’ll pretend to care whenever the Indians make the playoffs), and I’m probably not alone. No one had ever hit more than 61 homers in a year, but then McGwire and Sosa </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">both</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> smashed that record with Big Mac hitting 70. A few years later, Barry Bonds hit 73. Nothing suspicious about that. Nope, nothing at all. Especially not the </span><a href="https://rootforthehometeam.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/barry-bonds_lightbox.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">drastic changes in proportions</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> they all went through. But, hey, it’s fun to witness history.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The main thing that all these examples have in common is wishful thinking. Humans have a tendency to believe things more easily when they’re good for us. It’s easier to accept a good job review than a bad one. It’s common to think that we’re special in some way as </span><a href="https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/05/11/intelligence/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">most people think they’re smarter than average</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. It’s enticing to think that relationships will last forever rather than recognizing the flaws. Speaking of which...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">time travel></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(The following was written on 5/18/14 while in the full throes of irrationality)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> A couple years after Liz, there was Melissa. I’m actually writing this between my first and second date with her, assuming that I am at the height of my irrationality as it concerns this relationship. I’m really fucking romantic--I write about how irrational relationships are before they even happen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So I met this broad, and she is, to put it succinctly, fucking delightful. At this point in time, I have talked to her for a grand total of four (4) hours, plus a few emails. We do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> know the following information about each other:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Names of siblings, friends, parents, or coworkers</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Type of high school experience</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Type of childhood experience</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Vacation destinations</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Professional goals</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sex preferences</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Music preferences beyond one band (Frightened Rabbit, for the record, a band that is easily in my top five)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Favorite books</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Favorite TV shows</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Experiences in previous relationships</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Favorite color</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Exercise habits</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Political preferences</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cleanliness habits</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Presumably other things</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In addition to all these things I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">don’t</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> know about her, I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> know that she hates peanut butter but likes cucumbers (which is indicative of some serious mental issues), she’s taller than me, and she has a work schedule that is incongruous with mine (she basically works 10-12 hour days every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, plus 3 out of every 4 Saturdays, whereas I just work 9ish hour days Monday-Friday), all of which are less than ideal if I were to create the perfect girlfriend.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Despite all of the above, I am unequivocally crazy about her. The logical side of my brain very much would like me to calm the hell down because, again, I’ve only spent 4 hours in her company and there’s a ton of stuff that I don’t know about her. And there’s some stuff that I know about her that falls into the “cons” side of the ledger. And I’ve been single for almost exactly 4 years now, so history is not on my side. And I’ve only ended up going on more than 2 dates with 5 people since college, and only 3 in the past 4 years, so even if I like the chick there’s no guarantee that we’ll get anywhere near a relationship (if you are now thinking to yourself “Damn, Kyle, no girlfriends between the ages of 25-29? Have you considered the possibility that you might have Asperger's or something? Why am I bothering to read your blog if you’re so socially inept?” I don’t blame you. In defense of my blog, it tends to deal with matters of logic and reason, which tend to be mutually exclusive from relationships. Also I might have Asperger’s. Not really. But maybe. But I don’t think so.). Plus, in 2009 717 people died from getting tangled in their bedsheets, and if </span><a href="http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=7" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">the trend of cheese consumption is any indication</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, there’s a chance she’ll die in her sleep and thwart this whole thing tomorrow. (Editor’s note: that may be the weirdest sentence I’ve ever written.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The other side of my brain doesn’t give a shit about any of that. It’s the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">honey badger.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> This side of my brain simply knows that I just went on the best first date I’ve ever had, I enjoyed the hell out of those 4 hours, and so did she. This side of my brain wants to defend irrationality because, you know what? I might be right. We might be as good of a match as I think we are. We might spend the foreseeable future together happily ever after. I really, really, really like this broad and she is, at the very least, feeling better than lukewarm toward me. We clicked, immediately. We have a very similar sense of humor and made each other laugh easily. We both appreciate the genius of movies like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Billy Madison</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Super Troopers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. We’re both intelligent (she’s a vet, and I’m almost as smart as I think I am). We like drinking. She’s crazy-cute and I’m not entirely abhorrent. We’re both dog people. We converse swimmingly. To be honest, my goal in life at this moment is to prevent myself from getting too creepy/clingy too fast because I have such high hopes for the two of us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not really sure how to adequately convey how crazy I am about this girl. If she asked me to marry her tomorrow I would probably take my chances and say yes. If her house burned down on Tuesday I’d make room for her to move into mine on Wednesday. If she told me that her favorite band was Hanson or Creed or Nickelback or Justin Bieber I would still date her and work on not hating that band. These are all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">true statements</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I want to point out here that I am the most logical person that I know (obviously I’m biased, but still) and, again, everything that I’ve written about this girl is 100% true. After one date. How incredibly, ridiculously crazy is that?! The ridiculosity is off the charts! And yet, I can’t deny how strongly I feel this way </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">despite knowing that it’s incredibly crazy to feel this way</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. I, the annoyingly super-logical dude, am admitting that I’m perfectly vulnerable to incredibly strongly held yet incredibly irrational beliefs. If you want to talk about cognitive dissonance and wishful thinking, I’ve got them both in spades.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">/time travel></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Things have worked out incredibly well with Melissa, so in retrospect I don’t look as crazy as I thought I was at the time. Further evidence has proved that we are, in fact, a great match, so there’s no longer any wishful thinking involved...but there certainly was at the time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So what’s my point here? I’ve gone through a few different phases regarding my views on religion. I was brought up Christian, so I spent the first two decades of my life believing in God. Then I started seriously thinking about the merits of Christianity and drifted toward agnosticism over the course of a few years. After more thinking and exposure to arguments against religion that I hadn’t previously heard, and particularly after learning more about how evolution works (a big sticking point for me when I was younger), I became an atheist. There was some anger involved when I became an atheist--religion just seemed so obviously wrong and I was mad that so many people still bought into it and made decisions based on it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Shockingly, it turned out that the non-atheist people in my life weren’t big fans of the angry atheist phase, and some relationships were probably damaged as a result. Consequently I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why so many of these people, who I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">know</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to be intelligent, still cling to religion. There are a multitude of reasons, obviously, and I think the main one for many people is simply wishful thinking. After all, if I’m susceptible to bouts of insane irrationality about a girl and I’m normally an incredibly logical guy, how easy is it for people to become irrational when the topic comes to their relationship with a supposedly loving God? When the reward for that irrationality is eternal bliss instead of eternal torture? When you’ve been brought up by your elders to think that these beliefs about God are not irrational, but a perfectly good explanation for life? When most of your peers share the same beliefs? When “God works in mysterious ways” is a convenient catch-all for everything that we can’t definitively explain? When your religion is built entirely upon faith and the idea that “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe?” When the things that you pray for occasionally come to pass? It’s pretty damn easy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not saying that Christians are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">entirely</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> irrational, or that the only reason they believe in God is wishful thinking, but it definitely plays a part. I’ve spent a ton of words on this blog pointing out how illogical religion is, but the intellectually honest Christians </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">admit</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that religion is illogical. They know it doesn’t make sense objectively, but they believe anyway. This still frustrates me since I don’t think faith is a virtue, but at least there are some semi-rational explanations for these irrational beliefs.</span></div>
Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-10932159700460624812014-11-21T22:56:00.000-05:002014-11-21T22:56:04.727-05:00The Basis of Religion<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Author’s note: I started writing this post a loooong time ago. Sometime in the middle of 2012. I originally planned to have this follow my posts on crazy Bible verses since it’s largely related to the validity of the Bible. However, as I’ve discussed here recently, I felt a bit bad about all the blatant blasphemy in this blog and the fact that it bugged some buddies who believe in the Bible, so I became a bit bashful about blogging about this. This is a rather important facet of my reasoning for atheism, though, so here goes.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As I’ve written previously, the Bible is not exactly a perfect document. It’s full of contradictions, has not held up well over time, and is clearly inconsistent in its moral teachings. Most Christians want to believe that their god is a loving god, but there are a multitude of examples where this god is indisputably cruel. Deuteronomy and Leviticus are undeniably overflowing with pure ridiculousness. You know--all that jazz about how eating bacon and menstruating are sins that need to be atoned for by killing goats and stuff. I covered it in </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-bible-undermines-all-of.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">this post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, which was so much fun to write that I wrote </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/09/bible-stories-part-deux.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">another post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> about other crazy shit in the Old Testament. Then, to be fair, I wrote </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/11/vaginas-and-other-things-god-doesnt-like.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">another post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> detailing the pearls of wisdom that can be gleaned from the New Testament.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Three posts may seem like a lot, given that the general theme of all three was “lookit how batshit insane the Bible can be!” In reality, I could write another three posts on the subject since it’s a pretty big book and there’s more than enough crazy in it, but I hope I’ve made my point: the book that Christianity is based on has a ton of passages that most people disregard outright because they’re so crazy, and it also has a ton of passages that require a silo full of salt to rationalize.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This means that the Bible as a whole cannot be completely trusted because we know that, as a whole, it is fallible. Having established that...how reasonable is it to believe in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">any</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of it? What sense does it make to try to derive a code for morality from the same book that condones slavery? How can one point to this book that is clearly full of errors and use it as a rationalization for believing in any form of Christianity? If you gave the Bible to a college graduate who had never heard of Christianity before, let them read it, and then asked them whether they believed in the Holy Trinity, how could they possibly say “yes” by using the Bible as justification?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Other than the Bible, what evidence is there for Christianity? Most people hold on to Christianity because of personal experiences and stories from other Christians--times when a prayer has been answered, or comfort was found in times of sorrow, or deep reserves of motivation were accessed. Even if you’re convinced that the only explanation for these experiences is a “higher power,” how do you know it’s the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christian</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> god? Without the Bible, there would be no reason to attribute anything to the Christian god because Christianity would not exist. Religions require a common thread to tie people together, and it’s usually some selection of writing that the members agree is “holy” in some fashion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Everything that we as a society “know” about Christianity is derived from the Bible: God created everything, got really mad and killed almost everyone, allowed His “chosen people” to be slaves for a while, and eventually mellowed out and knocked up a broad named Mary who gave birth to Jesus who had some sweet magic powers and then died so that all of us lowly sinners could go to heaven even though we’re terrible people and should stop sinning even though we’re already forgiven for our sins that we haven’t yet committed. Also there’s something called the Holy Ghost. Got it? Good. Christians generally agree on some version of that stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, there’s a bunch of stuff they don’t agree on. Catholics prohibit the use of birth control, but Protestants don’t. Why? Because it’s not in the Bible (and because many Protestants are reasonable enough to admit that birth control, in its myriad forms, is right up there with vaccines among the most convenient medical advances in the world). Then again, Baptists disagree with many moderate Christians on the topic of homosexuality even though that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in the Bible because they “interpret” the Bible differently. The Bible is ultimately what ties all Christians together, but it’s so messed up and controversial that they had to split into a bunch of denominations based on how they interpret it. Still, the Bible is the common source for their religious beliefs and practically all Christian worship services directly reference the Bible.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s the next question: what differentiates the Bible from the Koran (or any other holy book) in terms of validity? Not a thing, if we’re being honest. The Bible is less extreme, but that doesn’t make it more correct. Muslims believe just as strongly in the Koran as Christians do in the Bible (and in many cases, they believe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">much more</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> strongly--you may be familiar with a little thing called jihad that some of them support). Muslims have “religious experiences” that are just as vivid and “real” as the experiences of Christians, yet they have an entirely different religion. There are a billion Muslims and a billion Hindus in the world, and there is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not a single thing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that makes their religions any less valid than Christianity. These religions have a holy book (or set of books) that they claim contains the words of the only real god(s). They </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">cannot</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> all be right...but they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">can</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> all be wrong, which is way more likely than any of them being correct.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The question of why Christianity was correct while Islam or Judaism or Hinduism was not was one of the toughest questions for me to answer when I was still struggling with the idea of religion, and it's one of the things that makes it practically impossible for me to ever believe in Christianity again. I never had a better reason for believing in Christianity over Islam other than "that's what I was brought up with." I can't honestly say that Christianity has been definitively proven incorrect as a whole, but it's also true that there's nothing to prove that it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> correct. The most recent books of the Bible were written ~1900 years ago, so the validity of the book as a whole is in question simply by virtue of its age. There's a bunch of stuff in there that is outright wrong, and there's also a bunch of stuff that modern Christians tend to ignore completely. One would think that an all-knowing and all-powerful god would put a little more effort into making sure that his book was more robust and credible. Even if He didn't want to write the book Himself, He could have made some simple decrees like "Don't rape anyone. Ever." and "No one deserves to be born into slavery. Stop that nonsense." But He didn’t. He thought it was more important to stress that making idols of other gods is a big no-no.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(And don’t give me the bullshit about how He was making rules that “fit the time,” as if humanity was so depraved 2000 or 3000 or even 6000 years ago that they were incapable of stopping themselves from banging everything that moves. You know what would convince them to stop raping people? The creator of the universe threatening them with eternal damnation if they did it and smiting some assholes who ignored Him. Problem solved.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When people like me point out all the ridiculous nonsense in the Bible, apologists often retort “Yeah, but you can make the Bible say anything you want,” with the insinuation being that the Bible is so big and so old and so open to interpretation that one can find a passage to justify any standpoint they want. If that’s the case...what good is the Bible? Saying that you can make the Bible mean anything you want is the single most damning thing you can say about it. If you can use it to argue for both sides of an argument and it’s nothing more than a matter of opinion as to which side is interpreting the Bible “correctly...” then it can’t be used to justify anything.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I just don’t get what’s even remotely redeeming about the Bible. Jesus was a good dude, but so was Buddha. The Golden Rule is delightful, but that’s why it’s also in hundreds of other religions and easily predated Christianity. The story of Jonah is kinda fun, but not nearly as fun as the story of Spider-Man. We’ve got laws that we came up with independently of religion since this is not a theocracy, so we don’t need the Bible to tell us what to do (which it does a terrible job of anyway). Most importantly: there’s no good reason to believe that it’s actually divine in any way. It hasn’t been updated in ages and didn’t predict anything other than some crazy shit in Revelation about dragons that (spoiler alert) hasn’t come true. If it’s not reasonable to believe in the Bible, how is it reasonable to believe in Christianity?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’d like to think that, as a society, we should be smart enough to move past the idea that the old religions are valid. I know there are a ton of stupid people in the world, but it’s not just stupid people who are religious. There are millions of people in this country who are of above-average intelligence yet still believe that Christianity is valid...even though it’s based on a book that unquestionably contains a bunch of bunk. I avoided finishing this post for so long because I don’t particularly like calling my friends and family crazy, but I honestly don’t know how I can take an objective look at a religion based on something as spurious as the Bible and come to a different conclusion. Maybe “crazy” is not the right word as I know they all have their reasons, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">objectively</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> religion just doesn’t make sense. They’re great people, and I still love ‘em...but they’re lending credence to the jackass fundamentalists by treating any form of Christianity as valid, and I don’t love that. Most Christians are good people, but they’re enabling the ones that aren’t for illogical reasons. By extension, they enable all kinds of objectively bad stuff done in the name of religion throughout the world. We could be much better off without it.</span></div>
Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-45715378546930461922014-10-10T22:14:00.001-04:002014-10-10T22:14:28.648-04:00Online Dating<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As you may or may not know, I embraced the 21st century (as computer nerds are wont to do) and decided to use online dating as my primary means of finding a lady sometime in 2008 after ending a relationship with a girl I met at a wedding. One of my good friends from college met his wife online, so that was good enough for me to try it out. You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve accumulated some thoughts about the whole thing over the course of 5+ years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For the uninitiated, online dating essentially works as follows:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pick a website and create a profile. This profile should contain some pictures where you attempt to look attractive and some writing where you attempt to seem witty.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Answer a bunch of general questions that are used (both by you and prospective mates) to find people who you would get along with “on paper.” Examples include your height, political stance, religious views, age, occupation, etc. Most people are mostly honest about these.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Look at other profiles to find someone you’d like to date, then send them an email to see if they’re also interested. Of course, they’re not interested, but that’s OK because there are literally hundreds of other people to choose from, and one of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">those</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> people might be interested. Plus rejection is a character-building experience!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When you actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> generate some mutual interest, go on a date and see how it goes from there. Potentially go on multiple dates. Like a boss.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As for my thoughts, let’s start with the data--it’s not pretty. Things started off smashingly well as I ended up dating the second girl I went on a date with for a year and a half, and the third girl I went on a date with has been one of my best friends for the past four years. However, I was also single for those four years so...uh...yeah, it didn’t go so well on the whole.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My original inspiration for this post was a question: what is my actual success rate with online dating? I decided to define “success” as going on more than 2 dates with someone and estimated my success rate as follows: my odds of actually getting a response from someone I contact is about 15%. Of those, I'll go on a date with about 80%. Of those, I'll like them well enough to want to go on another date with about 50%. Of those, about 50% will feel the same about me. Of those, about half will have some kind of reason for not pursuing things further, even if the date went well (more on that later). That leads to this calculation:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.15 * .8 * .5 * .5 * .5 = 1.5%. That is my success rate with a girl that catches my fancy online. Or: one in every 66.6 girls. That’s right--according to my calculations, online dating is literally the devil.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I then went through all the history available to me from the dating sites I’ve used (match, OkCupid, eHarmony, and HowAboutWe) to crunch the actual numbers. Unfortunately, I had to delete about a year’s worth of sent messages with no response from OkCupid, and match automatically deletes old messages so I only have data for girls that responded to me there (since I still have the emails). I didn’t include the “response only” data in my calculations for response rate, but even so the response rate is inflated since I can’t account for the many, many unreturned messages that have disappeared into the ether. For the data I had, here are the actual rates:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">23% response rate</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">47% date rate from responses</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">76% good dates for me</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">71% good dates for her</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">29% of dates last more than 2 dates</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.23 * .47 * .76 * .71 * .29 = 1.69%. That is how often I’ll go on more than 2 dates with a woman I send a message to, or one in every 59 women I contact. My original estimates were way off, but they balanced out (although actually hitting 66.6 would have been really entertaining).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Now for some general thoughts:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--After reading through some of the messages I’ve sent, it's kind of amazing that anyone has ever responded to me. At least 75% of the stuff I’ve written has been really fucking awkward (which would explain the 15-23% success rate quite nicely). I didn’t rush through these emails, either--I actually took the time to try and make them engaging. I wish I had some great insight into why it’s so hard to write like a reasonable human being when attempting to woo a nice young broad, but I don’t. Other than the fact that I like to call them “broads.” It also probably doesn’t help that I’m nearly incapable of writing without using sarcasm. Did you know that people don’t always pick up on inflection online? I STILL HAVEN’T FIGURED THIS OUT.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--It can be just as convenient as it seems like it should be. Theoretically, online dating is a phenomenal idea. It’s easy to meet people in school, but it’s much harder after leaving college. Blind dates are unreliable, dating coworkers is risky and typically doesn’t provide a large pool to choose from, and dating random people in bars is a crapshoot. Dating online, on the other hand, has </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">tons</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of benefits. You get easy answers to important questions before you even talk to the person: how old are they? What are their religious views? Do they smoke? Do they drink? Do they want kids? Do they already have kids? Are they employed? Are they attractive? What city do they live in? Do they have a sense of humor/are they a robot? Are they interested in your gender?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On OkCupid, you might also get the answers to more varied and interesting questions: how many kids do they want? How do they feel about drugs? Gay people? Beards? Nerds? Video games? Cats? Dogs? Furries? Star Wars or Star Trek? Mornings or evenings? Normal or weird? Are they sexually attracted to inanimate objects</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">?</span> (To which I answered “Yes - I love lamp.” Because I'm so damn funny.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even with the answers to all these questions, there’s no telling whether you’ll get along well enough to have a meaningful relationship, but you should be able to tell whether you’ll get along at all. I have friends who have been on terrible dates with people they met online, but I haven’t had a single bad date. I went on a couple that weren’t too good, but I didn’t expect them to be; even if the person is generally boring, it’s still interesting to meet and talk to new people. The key is really getting to that first date, and online dating makes that easy. Well, it’s only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">relatively</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> easy because...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--There are many dudes. Many, many, many dudes. Even when limited to dudes in their 20’s and 30’s with a decent sense of humor who are reasonably intelligent and have their shit together...there are still many dudes. Sooooo many dudes. I’ve heard that the demographics are more balanced in some other cities, but in Cleveland guys like me far outnumber women I’d like to date. I’ve talked to a bunch of women about their online dating experience, and they almost all talk about the insane number of guys they have to deal with. Granted, many of those guys do nothing but send a message that says “how r u?” because many of those guys are bad at online dating (and quite possibly life in general), but there still seem to be a ton of reasonable guys.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are a few reasons for this. There’s still a stigma (although it’s lessening) that online dating is creepy or just for nerds or ineffective or full of losers (which I suppose it is, although there are plenty of good people, too). Men are much less affected by this stigma as I don’t think we’re embarrassed as easily. Even the women who like online dating often want to pretend that they met their guy in a bar, so many of them are reluctant to even sign up. Those that do can easily be turned off by all the dicks they have to deal with (hopefully only figuratively).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, it seemed to me that there were more women joining when I got out of the game, so I think it’s getting better and more socially acceptable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--Turns out not dating religious people severely limits the available pool of women, particularly in Ohio. Even though I included “spiritual but not religious” and “Jewish” I still cut out a decent chunk of the population. If you’ve read this blog you probably understand my reluctance; I’m totally fine with having religious friends, but not so fine with dating religious people. I don’t think they’d be too interested in me, either, as I’m still kind of an ass regardless of how much I work on tolerance. I think religion is silly, and that's not likely to change.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--OkCupid is far and away the best online dating site. It’s free, they employ good web developers, the dating pool is relatively large, and I think their matching algorithm is the best since you can weight which questions are more important to you. Also, anyone in the entire user community can submit a question, and you can add explanations to your answers. It just wins on all fronts. Don’t bother paying for other sites.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--The list of extenuating circumstances (names changed to protect the innocent):</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Agnes: parents got divorced the weekend after our first date</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Esther: was dating another guy before our first date and stuck with him</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lucinda: recently got out of an engagement and I was too big of a pansy to push for a relationship before another guy did</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kay: worked nights and weekends so we never went on a date despite great online chemistry</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cornelia: some people can’t handle sarcasm. Also, I’m kind of an asshole to stupid people sometimes, and she was kind of stupid.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mildred: thinks Jesse Ventura is just speaking the truth, man</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Samsonite: date was immediately followed by a hospitalization for the second time in a few months</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And finally, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Not everyone clicks. I’m glad I didn’t click with any of the people above, but it was always frustrating at the time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--Lessons learned from sending hundreds of messages:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be casual.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ask at least one question.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Make sure they know you read their profile.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Don’t be creepy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be funny.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Don’t be unattractive.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--When you go on a date, don’t talk too much; if you like the person you’re on a date with, the goal should be to get them to talk more than you do. It has to be a back and forth conversation to work, but whoever talks more usually has a better impression of the date afterwards. If you legitimately like them, you won’t mind listening to them talk anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--I have spectacularly fucked up most of the real life opportunities (i.e. meeting someone through means besides online dating) bestowed on me by giving girls my number instead of getting theirs. Or not even bothering to see if they’re interested. Always get a number.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With all that being said, I still view online dating in a positive light, despite all of its frustrations. This is, of course, primarily due to the fact that I finally found a broad that I’m completely crazy about. Inexplicably, she also really likes me. Yeah, I’m surprised too, but I’m not going to complain. I guess sometimes people just work really well together, but the key is actually meeting them to begin with. Luckily for me, I was prudent enough to praise </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Billy Madison</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in my profile and I caught m’lady’s fancy. We never would have met if it weren’t for the wonders of OkCupid, even though we were at the same college for a couple years. Hell, we both almost took jobs in other cities before we met. Meeting the right person can be a bitch.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anywho, I’d give the online dating experience a A-. It’s not without faults, but it still beats the hell out of the other options for meeting a potential mate after college. I think it has a tendency to make people overly picky when they’re presented with the whole of humanity as options to date, but it’s still really useful for those who are open-minded. It also has a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ton</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of success stories now. It really can work. It’s not as good as the Keurig, but it’s still one of the better things we’ve come up with so far in this millenium.</span></div>
Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-49348852157665418692014-07-05T00:38:00.002-04:002014-07-05T00:38:44.992-04:00Discussing Things People Don’t Like Discussing<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-05988169-0356-4bcb-7e6c-18960f1e9a2c" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One of the benefits of writing this blog is that it’s sparked conversations with a variety of people that I otherwise would not have had. To me, the most interesting conversations are respectful debates: conversations where people disagree, but they actually talk about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">why</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> they disagree rather than getting mad and yelling at each other. I love the fact that Bill Maher has conservatives on his show to provide an opposing viewpoint...but I hate the fact that it often just ends up in lots of “No, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">you’re</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> wrong, asshole!” and “That’s ridiculous and you’re a stupid doodyhead.” To be fair, that’s a natural reaction when you vehemently disagree with a person you don’t know (although “doodyhead” seems like a strange word choice), but it’s also practically pointless.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When talking to people that you actually know, the level of vitriol goes down substantially, and people are forced to resort to, like, actual arguments and stuff. “You’re wrong, asshole” is replaced by things like “but the problem with that is...” and “here’s some anecdotal evidence for why I believe you are incorrect, my good friend.” Just kidding, real people don’t talk like that--no one wants to admit that their anecdotal evidence is merely anecdotal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The point is, these are the types of conversations that actually lead to greater understanding on both sides because people are forced to put a real, human face on the opposing side of the argument. They're also less likely to simply dismiss a point they don't agree with when it comes from someone they know. Personally, I wish that these types of conversations took place more frequently. Then again, I’m a competitive jackass who enjoys debating. I also like to bill myself as “the most logical person I know,” so I tend to debate reasonably well. As a disclaimer, I don’t think I’m the most logical person in the world--just the most logical person I know...although I’m probably shortchanging some computer nerds I know. Also, I’m biased.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There’s a bunch of people who believe that the best way to lose friends is by discussing religion and politics. There’s some merit to that: talking about these issues from opposite sides is likely to put some strain on the relationship. If it’s not a very strong relationship then yes, it could be fatal. This is why I don’t advocate talking about this stuff at work--you may not know your coworkers that well or like them that much, but you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">will</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> be forced to continue to interact with them, so you don’t want to strain those relationships as they might not be able to handle it. When you’re friends outside of work and you agree on these topics then it’s fine; otherwise just talk about sports or, you know, whatever it is that women talk about. I assume they have some kind of go-to non-controversial topic they discuss all the time. Like shoes, or abortion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the other hand, some relationships can handle some strain. If you’ve known the other person for a while, there should be a reasonable amount of goodwill built up. Presumably you have respectful conversations. You should be able to disagree on some stuff and still remain friends because your friendship was built upon other stuff to begin with. You can take some time off before seeing them again, allowing everyone to cool down if necessary. You also don’t need to discuss this stuff every time you see them; chances are you can each make the case for your side the first time you talk, and then simply agree to disagree going forward (you’ll just have a better understanding of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">why</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> you disagree).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Having spent my whole life in Ohio where I was raised as a Methodist, the majority of the people in my life are Christian. That proportion decreases as time goes on and I befriend more heathens, but before I graduated college there were very few people in my life who were not religious. I’ve come to find out that some people I assumed were Christian aren’t, and I also know some people who have, like me, quit religion. I’m still left with a bunch of Christian friends and family members (and we’ll pretend like all my family members qualify as friends going forward), so I’ve had a number of these conversations in the past few years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Honestly, I think they’ve all been beneficial. I won’t pretend that they haven’t been occasionally uncomfortable, but I’m glad I’ve had them nonetheless. The main reason is because of the increased understanding between both sides, which in turn increases tolerance and empathy (and hopefully there’s enlightenment on both sides as well).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the religious side, my friends get to hear my reasons for leaving Christianity behind so they understand why I became an atheist. Hopefully, it softens their impressions of atheists in general since, if they’re friends with me, they presumably like me, which should allow them to be more tolerant of atheists (which would be nice since </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/12/its-okay-to-marry-a-republican-or-democrat-just-not-an-atheist/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">atheists may be the least trustworthy demographic in this country</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">). It improves their worldview by adding more information to it--even if they don’t agree with me, they still come away with a better understanding of the world by knowing how a group of “others” views it. It will also give them food for thought. Again, even if they don’t agree, they will have had to rationalize </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">why</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> they disagree, and critical thinking is almost always a good thing. Maybe they’ll even be like me and, after a great deal of thinking, come to the conclusion that they were wrong about some stuff that they had always held as true.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On my side, I get pretty much all the same benefits. We’re all adults (I don’t have these conversations with my nephew--somehow I don’t think that would go over well with his ordained parents since he mistakenly looks up to me as a cool uncle (since kids are stupid enough to believe that I’m cool)), so we’ve all had time to think about the big questions and come to our own conclusions. Having come down on the opposite side of religion, I had a tendency for a while to assume that religious people were kinda stupid in some fashion. To be honest, I can’t say I’ve moved past that opinion when it comes to fundamentally religious people who impossibly try to take millennia-old books literally, but most of my friends are of the moderate/liberal Christian variety. Most of them aren’t actually stupid; some are smarter than me. They’ve just had different experiences than I have and they’ve processed the evidence and arguments differently than I have. Do I think they’re wrong about religion? Yes. Do they think I’m wrong? Yes. But now we both know </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">why</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the other person is wrong, and hopefully we don’t automatically disdain someone just for coming down on the opposite side.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I also understand the world better since I now have a better understanding of the billions of people who remain religious even into adulthood. I’ve also had to refute their arguments or adjust my stance or come up with new ideas, all of which are good things if they bring me closer to reality. Again, critical thinking is a good thing. Even when people don’t fundamentally change their stance on a topic, they should at least end up closer to the truth.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One of the other benefits, of course, is that I come away with a better understanding of my friends’ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">specific</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> points of view. Even within the same denomination, religious people can have vastly different views so it’s rarely safe to make assumptions. Just because someone identifies as Catholic doesn’t mean they’re </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">as</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> crazy or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">as</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> unreasonable as a stereotypical Catholic. Most of them don’t even condone child molestation, and most of them have the good sense to ignore that bullshit about birth control being sinful. Plus the new pope seems like a pretty good dude, especially as far as popes go. Catholicism still sucks, of course...but there are plenty of Catholics who don't.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some of the conversations I’ve had in the past couple years have been in writing, which has the advantage of allowing time to clearly communicate arguments. On the other hand, in-person conversations have the advantage of forced cordiality as most people try to avoid disrespecting their friends to their face. Sometimes I can be a bit offensive when writing this blog to the world at large. It’s not my explicit intention to be a dick about this stuff, but I’m not one to let political correctness stop me from clearly expressing how ridiculous I think religion is. In person, though, I’m a delightful fellow who is, for the most part, quite polite. I’ll probably still make more logical arguments than whoever I’m talking to (which is easy to do since my arguments aren’t faith-based), but they won’t be quite as aggressive or offensive. Since I’m not as offensive, I’m more likely to have a receptive audience and they’re more likely to actually consider the points that I’m making rather than simply thinking, “Man, Kyle can be a real dickface sometimes” and refusing to read any more of the stuff I’ve written (I assume that people who don’t like my blog think of me as a dickface. Also, it turns out that Google thinks “dickface” is a real word, so feel free to use it in your own high-minded writings).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My final reason for advocating discussion on religion and politics: these topics are really, really important. As in, so important that they practically </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">demand</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> debate in order to come to the best possible resolution. If there is an afterlife, I’d say figuring out the rules that determine how you spend it is a pretty damn important endeavor. If the major religions have it right and I’m going to spend eternity in either perpetual bliss or perpetual torment then I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> want to know which set of rules to follow in order to get through the pearly gates.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the other hand, if they’ve all got it wrong then we should collectively stop all this silliness we’re engaged in. We should stop wasting so much time and energy and emotion and hatred on baseless beliefs. We should stop acting like books that are thousands of years old provide a reasonable guide for modern morality. We should stop promoting ridiculous views of sexuality that are sourced from (supposedly) celibate old men. We should stop fighting wars over land that is no more holy than my yard. We should stop fighting wars in general since pretty much all of them are fought over religious and/or political ideologies. <span id="docs-internal-guid-05988169-04ca-3f96-4706-16e80038a893" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Perhaps most importantly, we should stop making laws based on our interpretations of what a non-existent god wants (not just in the United States, either).</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-05988169-04ca-3f96-4706-16e80038a893" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All of these “we should stop” statements only apply if there are no gods, but if that’s the case then we really need to stop fucking up life on Earth if it’s the only one we’ve got. Any religiously-influenced laws are made with the afterlife in mind, which means that they are completely, totally, absolutely irrational if there is no afterlife. Sure, there’s an intersection of laws that work on both religious and secular levels--most of us can agree that murder is bad...although even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is not always the case when it comes to Islamic fatwas. So we can’t even all agree on that. Thanks, religion. You’re doing a bang-up job of keeping swaths of the world trapped in the Middle Ages. Maybe it’s time we talked about that.</span> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-36620158583818053772014-03-21T23:27:00.002-04:002014-03-21T23:27:56.684-04:00The Unnecessarily Necessary Debate<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-e7106d23-e7d3-4b87-1c8d-dd9400492c58" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On February 4th William Nye, The Gentleman of Science went to Kentucky to debate Kenneth Ham, The Proponent of Humans Riding Dinosaurs about whether or not creationism is valid. They each had a 30 minute presentation, followed by a rebuttal, followed by a bunch of audience questions that they each responded to. The whole thing took a little over two hours, and you can watch it </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> if you want (skip ahead to 17 minutes). If you can believe it, I’ve got some thoughts on the debate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First, I was mildly surprised by Ham because I don’t think he </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">quite</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> qualifies as crazy. He’s illogical, kinda dense, and most certainly wrong, but I think he genuinely believes his own rationalizations for how the Bible could literally be true despite all the evidence to the contrary. He talks like a sane person, and he makes some arguments that could be construed as worthwhile if you don’t think about them for longer than a second. I mean, a few of the things he said even hold water. If you ever wanted an honest look into how a religious person can compartmentalize their irrationality into a corner of their brain without breaking it, Ham can give you a pretty good insight. I genuinely appreciate his honesty and I even appreciate his passion, misplaced though it may be.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With that being said...Ham made some really stupid arguments. In the spirit of being less offensive in my writing, I’m going to be as civil as possible in deconstructing his terribly, terribly illogical points. I will even refrain from using the word “fuck” when discussing Ham or his arguments because I am (arguably) a mature adult...although it should be noted that I was unable to do that in the first draft of this post. So: what did Ham get wrong?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One of his biggest points was that evolution and the myriad forms of dating are somehow not science because they don’t involve direct observation. This is one of those points that sounds reasonable until you think about it for two seconds...because we haven’t been </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">capable</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of recording observations for the past four billion years. That only started a few thousand years ago which, not coincidentally, is when Ham thinks the entire universe began (even though Egyptian history predates the Bible). OK Ken, I concede that we don’t have scientific records available from a million years ago (much less four billion)...but what’s the alternative? Are we supposed to treat the Bible as an accurate historical record? Did you sit down with God to interview Him about how He created the universe? Did you watch Eve eat that apple? Did you watch Noah build his ark? Did you watch God write the 10 commandments with his lightning pen? Did you witness the events at the tower of Babel? This stuff was all written as if it was observed, but there’s no conclusive evidence pointing to it being true; there wasn’t exactly a lot of journalistic integrity in 1000 B.C.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This leads to the issue of faith on both sides. Ham has faith that the Bible is literally true, whereas I have faith that extrapolations based on scientific evidence provide a reasonable estimation of the truth. To Ham, I’m making a bigger leap of faith than he is but, of course, Ham is not a reasonable man. Another of his big points was about how reasonable people </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">assume</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that the natural laws used to estimate ages haven’t changed over time. Here’s my question: is it more reasonable to assume that the things we can observe now are following the same laws that existed millions of years ago, or is it more reasonable to assume that the universe followed a different set of rules 6,000 years ago despite the fact that we’ve never seen these laws violated? Is it more reasonable to base our worldview on assumptions and extrapolations from what we’ve observed, or to base our worldview on the assumption that a 3,000 year old book is the literal truth according to an omnipotent being whose existence we have no evidence of? We’re all working off of assumptions; I prefer to make my assumptions based on logic and evidence rather than the Bible. Of course, logic and evidence have led me to believe the Bible is, at best, only occasionally accurate so I am admittedly biased...toward logic. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ham seemed to think he was making some kind of argument in his favor when he asked, ”Where do the laws of logic and nature come from if not from God?” Wait, what? That’s supposed to be some kind of self-explanatory “gotcha?” There’s no reason whatsoever to assume that a god is needed in order for natural laws to exist. None. What’s the difference between “these laws exist because God created them” and “these laws exist because that’s the way things are?” This boils down to whether or not God created the universe, and the existence of natural laws is not an argument in favor of either side on that issue. I don’t want to spend any more time on the origin of the universe here because it doesn’t currently have a satisfying explanation--you either have the Lawrence Krauss “universe from nothing” theory (where the definition for “nothing” sounds suspiciously like “something”), or you have the “God created everything” theory (which doesn’t explain where God came from, so it doesn’t explain anything). Let’s move on from that quagmire.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In what was probably the most telling moment of the entire two hours, Ham freely admitted that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">nothing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> could change his mind on this topic because, in his view, it’s impossible to disprove the notion that the Bible is the word of God. Nye, on the other hand, answered the same question reasonably: evidence would change his mind. Any evidence at all that goes against the theory of evolution, and he’d gladly embrace it. It’s...it’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">incredibly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> frustrating to know that Ham feels this way, and that many religious people feel the same. How can we possibly have an honest debate when one side unequivocally refuses to be persuaded, regardless of literally all the evidence in the world? How can one have any intellectual integrity whatsoever if they are unable to change their mind? Ham can’t even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">think</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of something that would sway him. I appreciate his honesty, but it’s quite discouraging if, like Nye, you care about the scientific literacy of the country. At some point you have to stop trying to pound the square peg of scientific knowledge into the smaller round hole of theism. There are, of course, reasonable Christians who agree that the world is much older than 6,000 years and that evolution is far and away the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet. Then again, there’s also Ken Ham.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ham won’t even agree to simple math when it disproves his beliefs. Nye made a phenomenal point about how quickly we’d have to churn out new species if we only had 4,000 years to go from some small number of animals that Noah saved to some very large number of animals that currently exist. Nye originally used 7,000 as the number of different “kinds” (Ham’s term) of animals on Noah’s ark, although Ham later argued that the number might be as small as 1,000 in an attempt to make the ark itself more plausible without realizing that it would make the speciation problem 7 times worse. Estimates vary wildly for the current number of species, although </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Internet says</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the current best estimate is 8.7 million. At the high end of, say, 30 million species with only 1,000 of them on the ark, we’d have to generate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">more than 20 new species every single day:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (30,000,000 - 1,000)/4,000/365. In other words, (Total Current Species - Species on Noah’s Ark)/Years Since Noah’s Ark/Days in a Year. At the low end of 5 million species, 7,000 of which were on the ark, we’d still have to come up with 3.4 new species every single day and this is the absolute best-case scenario for the speciation problem.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Life is currently diverse enough (what with our 5-30 million existing species) that we could probably hit that rate of 3.4 a day. Then again, we’d also have to factor in the problem of species going extinct, which inevitably happens as a result of both natural and unnatural selection (turns out we humans are greedy when it comes to space and resources). The problem gets really messy here, because we’re currently losing an estimated 100-200 species a day depending on whose numbers you like, and we’re not really sure how many new species a day are being generated. We’re also not sure how many species have already gone extinct--cataloguing all the species that currently exist and have ever existed is a near-impossible task, but that number would need to be added to the total number that would need to be generated since Noah. There’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">also</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the issue of how long it would take to even split from one to two species when there are only two members of the entire species to start out with. Speciation typically happens when populations are geographically split and the two populations favor different adaptations; in reality this tends to take thousands of years for animals with a reasonable lifespan, and that’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">after</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the geographical split. It can occur quicker than that, of course, but it’s not common (certainly not common enough to happen to 100% of all original species many times over).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In short, it’s flat out impossible for a small enough number of animals to fit on the ark to proliferate into the ridiculously large number of animals that have existed in the past 4,000 years...unless you subscribe to the theory that God has been creating new species </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">literally</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> out of thin air for 4,000 straight years (and if He was going to do that, then what the hell was the point of saving any animals to begin with?). He would, of course, have to sneeze out new species in secret where no one could observe Him, because heaven forbid that an omnipotent being would actually provide evidence that He exists. Luckily for God, He </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">can</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> sneeze in secret because He doesn’t need anyone to say “bless you” since He’s God and all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There’s been plenty of discussion over whether the debate was even worth having. There are some people in the secular community who viewed the debate as a bad idea because they felt it lent credibility to the creationist point of view simply by </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">having</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the debate. There’s some merit there--the Theory of Evolution shouldn’t require any debate since it’s a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">scientific</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> theory, meaning it’s a collection of facts. Reasonable, informed people do not doubt that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life on this planet, but the simple fact that Nye agreed to this debate makes it seem as though there might be a viable counterpoint to evolution. However, as ridiculous as Ham’s viewpoint may be, </span><a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">one-third of the country</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> doesn’t believe in evolution so there is clearly a good bit of education that is still needed on the subject.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are also some people that think the debate is pointless because whether or not we share ancestors with every other animal on Earth doesn’t materially affect the present or future. I get the point that the knowing the age of the planet isn’t a big deal on its own, but that doesn’t mean that believing in creationism doesn’t have drawbacks. For example, a belief in creationism tends to go hand in hand with a lack of understanding of science (which in turn leads to things like denying climate change, which certainly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> a big deal). Ham used clips from a few people with PhDs in his presentation as if to say, “Look! Some scientists are creationists, ergo creationism is legit!” I don’t mean to downplay the difficulty of attaining a PhD, but having one doesn’t make that person right. Also, for what it’s worth, </span><a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">three-fourths of people with postgraduate degrees</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> believe in evolution along with a whopping </span><a href="http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-5-evolution-climate-change-and-other-issues/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">97% of scientists</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, so it’s harder to find smart people who don’t believe in evolution than those who do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An interesting (although not surprising) note from those surveys: both Republicans and religious people are less likely to believe in evolution than their counterparts. This is relevant because people are likely to throw their political support behind the politicians who hold the same views (misguided though they may be), regardless of how terrible those politicians are. These people make laws so they are, unfortunately, important. This goes back to the big picture of the influence of religion. I am far from being a bleeding heart liberal, but there is just soooooo much blatant idiocy being driven by the Religious Right that it hurts. I knew people in college who would vote straight Republican solely because they were the more pious party, and questions like “Do you believe in evolution or creationism?” feed into that nonsense.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s a crazy point, and one that makes Ohio more tolerable to live in: in the Pew survey from 2013, white mainline Protestants (i.e. the “moderate” or “liberal” Christians) are the group most likely to believe in evolution, edging the unaffiliated group 78% to 76% (I would assume this is mostly due to the fact that “unaffiliated” would include those who identify as “spiritual but not religious” rather than strictly secular people, but this stat is impressive nonetheless). To be fair, half of them think that God guided evolution vs. only a fifth of the unaffiliateds, but at least they’re not living in total denial of the insurmountable evidence on this topic.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Finally, this debate is important because a misunderstanding of evolution is one of the biggest barriers that prevent people from breaking away from religion. It was a huge stumbling block for me for many years, so it’s a topic I’ve had strong opinions on ever since I done got myself some education on it. The reason it’s so important is because it can stop the doubt about the validity of religion in its tracks--my train of thought used to go something along the lines of “Man, religion is kinda messed up, and it’s rife with logical fallacies...but humans are really, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> complex. There’s no way we could have come about through random mutations from something as simple as a single-celled organism. Welp, I guess that means God is real.”</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Everyone thinks about the origins of life at some point, regardless of their viewpoint on religion. “Where did we come from?” is truly a universal question. I can’t speak for everyone who was raised religiously, but many of us never gave the question much thought because we simply didn’t think there was a viable alternative to “God created everything.” Evolution doesn’t make sense without an adequate explanation of how it works, and for a long time I didn’t get that explanation. Ergo, for a long time I couldn’t seriously entertain the idea that God doesn’t exist. Above everything else, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is why this debate is so important.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-19507928923106129582014-02-21T23:27:00.000-05:002014-02-21T23:27:39.171-05:00When the Tactless Attempt to be Tactful<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7a0585b0-57d7-7037-14ba-2feb4b59aa74" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So. I managed to publish a whopping three posts in this blog over the course of 2013, because I am clearly a prolific writer of blasphemy. I started slacking off as work got overly busy and I got out of the habit of writing, and despite a few efforts to start back up I managed to go 8 months without putting anything here. To anyone who’s been checking this site during that time, I apologize for wasting your time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Despite my lack of writing, I haven’t stopped thinking about the themes of this blog. Or talking about them. In some ways, I regret some of what I’ve written. Not because I disagree with anything that I’ve written--I just wish I would have written it differently. Religion tends to evoke strong feelings in both believers and non-believers. I’ve mentioned the drawbacks with the former (views on equality, religious wars, an inability to accept realities that are incongruous with belief...basically everything that I’ve complained about in this blog), but I haven’t spent much time discussing the problems of non-belief.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As it turns out, those who believe strongly don’t take too kindly to those of us who don’t ridiculing those passionate, emotional, and deeply held beliefs. To put it bluntly: I’ve been kind of a dick from time to time here, and I didn’t really need to be. If my intention was to convince the Christians in my life that their views on religion are wrong, I’m pretty sure I’ve done a terrible job. None of those Christians have made any convincing counter-arguments, but most of them either A) stopped reading my posts almost immediately or B) stubbornly refuse to acknowledge many of the points I’ve made since I’ve been some combination of dickish, pretentious, vulgar, dismissive, smug, and tactless. Those are not the traits that persuasive people embody. Not only did I fail to be overly convincing, I also strained some relationships in the process. In the words of the immortal Borat: Great success!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So, I want to apologize to the friends and family who I’ve offended. For all the words that I’ve spent here about the moral superiority of secular people, I’ve still managed to be an asshole on occasion, and I feel bad about that. Again, I stand by all the points I’ve made, I just regret not making them more respectfully sometimes. It’s a tricky line to walk, as I don’t really respect religion because I don’t think it’s based in reality, but I still respect many religious people since there’s much more to people than what they think about God. I don’t think my Christian friends are stupid. On the contrary, the majority of the people I like tend to be reasonably intelligent because, to be quite honest, I don’t like stupid people. I just think religious people happen to exercise some incredibly strong cognitive dissonance blended with wishful thinking. I can’t blame them too much since I used to be the same way...I just changed my mind. And wrote about it. Like a logical yet callous meanie-face.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In my defense, the strongest feeling that religion now evokes in me is frustration, and frustration does not lend itself to writing nicely. I’m mad that I spent so much of my life believing ridiculous things. I’m mad that they influenced the way that I lived my life. I’m mad that they influence the way most people on this planet live their lives. I’m mad that people die over these beliefs. I’m mad that people are treated terribly because of these beliefs. I’m mad that, if nuclear weapons end up being used during my lifetime, the cause is likely to have religious roots. That’s a lot of anger, and I still believe it’s justified even if I could have been more civil about it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While the execution hasn’t been ideal, there has been plenty of good to come out of this blog. The biggest benefit has been a massive dose of catharsis for me. I’ve always been a big fan of truth and honesty, and I’m really glad that I’m no longer holding back any secrets about my religious beliefs (according to those crazies that believe in things like mental health (whatever the hell that is), bottling up all your feelings is “bad”). I’m also glad that I’ve been able to convey some of the innumerable thoughts that I’ve had rolling around in my head as religion is something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. I also felt a need to justify why I’d changed my stance on religion since I’d been a believer for the first 20+ years of my life. So from a selfish point of view, I feel much better for having written this blog. While getting people to question their beliefs was certainly part of my goal here, so was getting all this stuff out of my head. It was like a sliver in my brain, but it was like a sliver of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">thoughts</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, man. Ya dig?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve also managed to get some people in my life to at least think about their long-held beliefs, even if they haven’t changed their official stance on religion. Much like admitting that you have a problem is the first step in fixing that problem, giving a topic some honest thought is the first step in effecting a change in the way you think about that topic. I’ve never been a crack addict (I’ve never even been the mayor of Toronto), so I haven’t grossly ignored my behavior while incorrectly believing it was harmless. I have been a Christian, though, so for a long time I largely ignored the question of whether or not God exists because I never had enough information to make me change my mind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Personally, I want to know the truth and I want to be right. Ideally, right about everything and wrong about nothing. This is impossible, but I still want to get as close to that state of knowledge and belief as possible. If I'm wrong about something but I never think about it, it's impossible for me to ever be right. If it turns out that the Christian God really does exist, I would absolutely want to know that (I suppose this makes me a big ol’ softie, but the idea of heaven for eternity sounds better than hell for eternity), so I don’t mind discussions with people who disagree with me (on religion or other topics). The easiest way to learn is by being exposed to the knowledge and opinions of people who have different thoughts rolling around in their heads than you do in yours, and then you decide whether this new information is valid or invalid. At best you learn something new, and at worst you still move the slider one way or the other between certain and uncertain.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I look back at what caused me to finally change my thinking on the subject of religion, I can definitively point to one conversation that made it OK for me to honestly question the validity of Christianity. It was Green Beer Day in 2003, my senior year of college (if you’re not familiar, Green Beer Day is the collegiate response to colleges intentionally scheduling their spring break over St. Patrick’s Day in an attempt to avoid a day of widespread drunkenness on campus--the students collectively decide to christen the Thursday before spring break as a day to drink a ton of beer, color it green, and generally engage in debauchery). I was enjoying a delicious liter of schwarzbier with a friend of mine at Steinkeller. I don’t remember how the topic came up, or even what he said exactly, but I do remember him rather casually explaining that he wasn’t religious and amicably answering my ignorant questions about why that was.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That ended up being the catalyst that I needed to truly start questioning my belief in God, and it came about through something as simple as a smart friend of mine telling me that he wasn’t religious. He doesn’t even consider himself an atheist, he just doesn’t buy all the claims that religion makes about reality that make no sense. It took a few years for me to totally come around, but it started with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">just thinking about it.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I hope that I’ve managed to have that effect on some of my friends. Or gave them reassurance that there are plenty of good reasons to question religion and let them know that other people also think about that stuff. When you’re brought up your whole life believing that your eternal salvation or damnation depends on whether or not you believe in God, questioning that belief is a risky proposition. Particularly in the midwest (or the south) where the populations are still overwhelmingly Christian. So I’d like to think that I’ve had some good things come out of this blog, rather than just ticking people off. And hey, it’s probably been marginally entertaining from time to time, too, so there’s that.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anywho, I’m going to make an attempt to get back to writing semi-regularly again with a post every month or two. I’m also going to endeavor to write less offensively while still being relentlessly logical and relentlessly mediocre in entertainment value. A bit more tolerant, if you will, because that’s what Jesus would want. This is likely too late to make much of a difference since my readership is probably down to about 10 people (9 of which probably already agree with me), but I’m going to make the step toward self-improvement anyway. Life’s too short to piss off the people you love.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-8688813714939058412013-06-01T00:40:00.000-04:002013-06-01T00:40:58.607-04:00Pluralism ≈ Disney Movies (Cute but Impossible)<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tolerance
is often touted as a great virtue. Indeed, it’s kinda necessary for a
world of diverse people with diverse cultures and diverse beliefs to
share the planet without killing each other. For much of human history,
killing “the other” was pretty much standard, but society has mostly
(though by no means completely) evolved beyond that. I would consider
myself a fan of not killing people, so on the whole I have to say that I
support the idea of tolerance and, specifically, religious tolerance.
However, while I approve of the “live and let live” approach that most
religious people have taken, the complacent stance of accepting other
religions as valid puzzles me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
idea is encapsulated in the popular “Coexist” bumper stickers, the
owners of which are basically saying “I don’t agree with your beliefs,
and you probably don’t agree with mine, but let’s get along anyway.”
It’s a practical sentiment to hold...but it doesn’t strike me as
terribly logical from a religious standpoint. As Sam Harris said,
”Certainty about the next life is incompatible with tolerance in this
one.” If you really and truly believe in all the tenets of your religion
(and your religion involves Heaven and Hell), you should do everything
in your power to convince everyone you care about that your particular
set of religious beliefs is correct because, presumably, you want these
people to go to Heaven. Most people don’t do this as it’s not convenient
and, I would argue, most people don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">truly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">believe
their religion is entirely correct. Certainly, religiously hardcore
people will go through the effort of proselytizing and trying to convert
others (or, alternatively, waging war on those insidious infidels), but
most people don’t bother to go to such lengths.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another
interpretation of those bumper stickers takes the idea of tolerance a
step further and actually allows for different religions to be
simultaneously valid; this is the inherently absurd idea of “religious
pluralism.” I’m sure there are some really nice people who buy into this
idea...but really? You think it’s somehow possible for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">all</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> these different religions to be correct? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">? Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship one god...but it is most certainly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not the same god</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
You can’t make the case that it’s the same god. You just can’t. It’s
like saying that baseball, basketball, and Baseketball are all the same
sport. The Bible, Torah, and Koran are disparate books with disparate
tenets and disparate messages. Jesus and Muhammad were not homeboys, so
it’s rather hard to reconcile their respective existences and accept
both Christianity </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Islam
as viable pathways to Heaven. Islam recognizes Jesus as having existed,
but he’s just another dude; Christianity doesn’t even care about
Muhammad. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">They can’t both be right. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Polytheistic
religions, obviously, are an entirely different beast (like an
elephant, perhaps). No matter how powerful a given god may be, he cannot
do the impossible and make both a monotheistic religion and a
polytheistic religion correct.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
fact, that statement applies to virtually any combination of religions.
So why do people pretend that it’s possible when it clearly isn’t? If
there truly was a loving god in existence (who genuinely wanted everyone
to praise him, follow his rules, and eventually end up joining him in
Heaven), he would not allow so many people who are willing to accept the
idea of a deity, accept the concept of intelligent design, and accept
the idea that they need to devote their lives to the “one true God” to
blindly follow the wrong set of rules. That’s not loving; that’s
sadistic.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
may be another example where one might try to invoke the old “God works
in mysterious ways” or “we are incapable of understanding His plan”
bullshit. There is simply no way to reconcile the propositions of all
the different religions on this planet, each with their own sizable
following. It is not possible for all of those religions to be correct,
which means that either one of them is correct or none of them are
correct. Multiple versions being correct is not an option. If you
believe that the only way to get to Heaven is by accepting Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior, then you cannot also believe that people who do
not accept Jesus Christ can go to Heaven. This is a tenet of
Christianity. Jews and Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as their
Savior; therefore, if you’re a Christian, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">you must believe that they’re going to hell</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
There’s no wiggle room here (unless you believe in predestination, in
which case you might as well worship Santa). Either you believe Jesus
Christ died for your sins, or you don’t. There are either zero gods, one
god, or many gods. Working on the Sabbath is either a mortal sin or it
isn’t.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So,
let’s say that rather than no religions being correct, one of them
turns out to be spot on. Let’s say it’s Christianity, and you’re in the
camp that believes in Jesus. You’re saved, and that’s great for you. But
what about the rest of the world? There are billions of people in this
world who are willing to buy into a religion and worship one god, but it
is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">impossible</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
for all of these people to be saved since, regardless of which religion
is correct, the majority of the world is wrong. Do you think that God
is so callous that He will allow everyone else to go to Hell for
eternity just because they were born in the wrong part of the world and
they grew up with the wrong parents who bought into the wrong book? And
you consider this to be a loving god? Really?! Forgive me for pointing
out the obvious, but condemning the majority of the world to eternal
damnation for something that they have no control over (where they are
born and what their parents believe) would make such a god a complete
and total jerk. I hate to keep bringing this point up, but there’s no
getting around it: people who subscribe to a monotheistic religion
worship an asshole.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Back
to everyone’s favorite uncomfortable topic: proselytizing. If you truly
believed that your religion was the correct one, shouldn’t you be
trying to convert the followers of other religions to save them from
eternal torment rather than accepting their differences and tolerating
them under some kind of religious “separate but equal” loophole? So what
causes people to buy “Coexist” bumper stickers and proudly display
them? I can only imagine this is because these people are tired of
seeing violence and hatred in the name of religion. Which is admirable,
at face value: violence and hatred in the name of religion is senseless,
especially when so many religions claim to preach love. But then
there’s the fact that most religions also preach their own superiority,
and it’s hard to be loving and tolerant when you hold The Truth.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Getting into scripture further precludes tolerance, regardless of which monotheistic religion one adheres to:</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”Be
very careful never to make treaties with the people in the land where
you are going. If you do, you soon will be following their evil ways.
Instead, you must break down their pagan altars, smash the sacred
pillars they worship, and cut down their carved images. You must worship
no other gods, but only the Lord, for he is a God who is passionate
about his relationship with you. Do not make treaties of any kind with
the people living in the land. They are spiritual prostitutes,
committing adultery against me by sacrificing to their gods. If you make
peace with them, they will invite you to go with them to worship their
gods, and you are likely to do it. And you will accept their daughters,
who worship other gods, as wives for your sons. Then they will cause
your sons to commit adultery against me by worshiping other gods.”
(Exodus 34:12-16)</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“[Jesus]
said, ‘Indeed, I am the servant of Allah . He has given me the
Scripture and made me a prophet. And He has made me blessed wherever I
am and has enjoined upon me prayer and zakah as long as I remain alive
And [made me] dutiful to my mother, and He has not made me a wretched
tyrant. And peace is on me the day I was born and the day I will die and
the day I am raised alive.’ That is Jesus, the son of Mary - the word
of truth about which they are in dispute. It is not [befitting] for
Allah to take a son; exalted is He! When He decrees an affair, He only
says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is. [Jesus said], ‘And indeed, Allah is my Lord
and your Lord, so worship Him. That is a straight path.’ Then the
factions differed [concerning Jesus] from among them, so woe to those
who disbelieved - from the scene of a tremendous Day. How [clearly] they
will hear and see the Day they come to Us, but the wrongdoers today are
in clear error. And warn them, [O Muhammad], of the Day of Regret, when
the matter will be concluded; and [yet], they are in [a state of]
heedlessness, and they do not believe. Indeed, it is We who will inherit
the earth and whoever is on it, and to Us they will be returned.”
(Koran 19: 30-40)</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sorry
about the lack of readability in that Koran quote--I didn’t enjoy it,
either, but it makes my point: religions do not allow for other
religions. The books of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do not play
nice with each other; it’s mildly shocking that so many of their
adherents have managed to do so. Obviously, there are many cases of
extremists who do not, but most people find a way to reconcile their
religious beliefs with the fact that not everyone shares them.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My sister recently posted a link to </span><a href="http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20090427JJ.shtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">this article</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
addressing religious pluralism from one Christian’s point of view
(reading it might make your head hurt if you think about it too much, so
do so at your own risk). I appreciate the fact that the author believes
strongly enough in Christianity to denounce the absurd idea that
religious pluralism has any merit whatsoever, and he even has a few good
points: some religions are objectively harmful, they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">don’t</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
all teach some version of essentially the same thing, and there is
simply no way that they can all be right (making the point that
monotheism and polytheism are inherently at odds with each other).</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unfortunately,
the dude suffers from some wickedly severe cognitive dissonance. Even
taking into account the fact that I’m likely to view any theological
arguments with an atheist tint, this post struck me as borderline
idiotic. First of all, the fact that some religions are more harmful
than others says absolutely nothing about their validity. There’s
nothing preventing the creator of the universe from having a fetish for
human sacrifices. Just because a religion is inherently “bad” does not
mean it is inherently false. If genital mutilation actually was required
to get into heaven then those actions would be justified. A loving god
is much easier for moral people to worship, but there’s no reason to
think that any creator of the universe is loving. Would a loving god
cause half the human population to bleed for a few days every month? Or
allow George Bush to get elected twice? Or allow The Spice Girls to
break up? No, I think not. No being that allows Posh and Sporty Spice to
separate and stop making the greatest music the world has ever heard
could conceivably be said to be “loving.”</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The author, who I’ll call Dan (because that’s his name), writes:</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
“In most areas of human knowledge, when you encounter contradictory
views you don't throw up your hands and concede, ‘they're both true.’
No, you study hard, make an informed choice, then remain open to further
insight. Note, too, how this Christian view is far more tolerant and
liberal than atheism. Whereas pluralism claims all religions are true,
atheism claims all religions are false; Christians reject both of those
positions in favor of a middle ground.”</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So...atheists
don’t study hard, make informed choices, or remain open to further
insights? I don’t mean to sully this cultured conversation I’ve started
here with profanity, but are you fucking serious? To be brought up with
monotheism and later convert to atheism absolutely </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">requires </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">one to take all three of those actions and, further, to be open-minded enough to actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">change</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
those long-held beliefs that one was indoctrinated with. But no, Dan,
you’re right--Christians who adhere to the dogma they’ve been brought up
with their whole lives are totally more liberal than us heathens who
have actually bothered to think through the logistics of your
ridiculously illogical religion. Further, given some actual evidence
that your god existed, I could actually change my mind again. As it is
pretty much impossible to disprove the existence of a god, is it even
possible for you to be open-minded enough to change your mind?
Congratulations on your “middle ground” of irrationality. Very tolerant
of you to accept one more religion than I do.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s
another fun quote: “There are many things in the Bible that I don't
understand, but I have absolute confidence that God will treat every
person with perfect love and justice (Job 34:10).” First of all, how can
you have absolute confidence about anything relating to God when there
are many things in the Bible you don’t understand? Second, how in the
hell could you possibly come to that conclusion? What world do you live
in where ever person is treated with love and justice? Because of that
Bible verse, which says “Listen to me, you who have understanding.
Everyone knows that God doesn’t sin! The Almighty can do no wrong?”
Holy-fucking-batshit-crazy wishful thinking, Batman! I’ve been a
middle-class white male my entire life so I have no right to
legitimately complain about anything, but I’ve got the sense to realize
that not everyone leads such an easy life. You yourself complained about
Aztec human sacrifice, Hindu widow burning, and female
infanticide--were those victims treated with love and justice? What an
absurd thing to be absolutely confident about.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Veering
away from pluralism for a bit, he admonished Thomas Jefferson for
picking and choosing verses of the Bible that actually make Christianity
seem reasonable...and then proceeded to pick and choose verses to
support </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">his</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
view of Christianity. How delightful! Alanis Morrisette and I really
enjoyed that part, and I’m not even sure if she’s figured out what irony
is yet. I honestly don’t think he even realized what a terribly
illogical argument he made; he basically said “You can’t throw out the
parts of the Bible you don’t like, you just have to remember that this
is what the entire Bible is about: the parts that I like.” Very sound
reasoning, good sir.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then,
to prove that he’s not the only apologist capable of
holy-fucking-batshit-crazy wishful thinking (again, sorry about the
profanity, but I’m not sure how to accurately describe the level of
delusion without it), he offers a quote from CS Lewis (author of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Chronicles of Narnia</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mere Christianity</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, among a bunch of other books):</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Here
is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not frightfully unfair
that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ
and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us
what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man
can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who
know Him can be saved through Him."</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Well,
how about that? Being the crazy person that I am, I’ve always thought
that was the single most damning argument against Christianity: their
god is supposedly an unconditional lover, yet he only allows those who
accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior into Heaven, sending the
rest of humanity to suffer eternal damnation in Hell. Welp, I guess we
can just assume that he’s got some other plan in place for those who
weren’t fortunate enough to be born into Christianity. Problem solved. I
guess religion is optional. Because, you know, that sounds </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">totally</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> plausible.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sadly,
this seems to be a legitimate explanation to most Christians who
struggle with the idea that people are sent to Hell by no fault of their
own: “Oh, it’s OK. God won’t punish them because He’s a nice guy. I
mean, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">still
accept Jesus as my savior, of course, but I’m sure the other two-thirds
of the world will be just fine even though they have no chance of
accepting Jesus as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">their</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
savior.” Does this sound insane to anyone else? Can you think of a more
prevalent example of wishful thinking and cognitive dissonance? These
two ideas are completely at odds with each other: 1) the only way to
Heaven is through Jesus and 2) people who have never heard of Jesus can
still go to Heaven. Does. Not. Compute.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
summarize: religious pluralism is an incredibly ridiculous proposition
and I’m not entirely sure how any sane person can legitimately believe
in it. I don’t think many people buy into it as they consider their
religion of choice to ultimately be the only “true” religion...but all
moral people still struggle with the idea that so many innocent people
could be sent to Hell over something they could not reasonably be
expected to control. Solutions include hoping for loopholes, different
requirements for different people, God being an asshole, and just
outright ignoring the problem because it’s terribly depressing to think
about. Needless to say, none of those trains of thought are very
satisfying. Of course, satisfaction can be had by believing what is by
far the most logical answer to this moral quandary: there is no god, all
religions are incorrect, and no one needlessly suffers eternal
damnation because Hell does not exist. Atheists may not get the comfort
that comes from believing they’ll go to Heaven when they die, but we
also don’t have to deal with the distress of believing that most people
go to Hell when they die. Isn’t it nice when the morally superior stance
and the most logical stance are one in the same?</span></div>
Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-55007862662658897902013-02-15T23:34:00.001-05:002013-02-15T23:34:17.413-05:00Atheism: A Love Story<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One
of the complaints often leveled at the idea of atheism is that it’s
depressing because it takes away the point of life for many religious
people. They view their time on Earth as but a fraction of their entire
experience as they expect to go to heaven when they die. As such, the
“meaning of life” becomes living a life God would be proud of in order
to get into heaven. If there is no heaven/afterlife, then what's the
point of life? First of all, that’s a bit of a shortsighted question--if
you take it a step further, what is the point of heaven? Does anything
even happen in heaven, or does the mind just go to a generally blissful
state? If everything in heaven is perfect, how can one ever feel a sense
of purpose or accomplishment? Obviously, everything relating to the
idea of heaven is pure conjecture (including whether or not it even
exists), so I won’t dwell on it here. As far as the supposed “proof” of
heaven via near death experiences goes, I leave that topic in the
capable hands of </span><a href="http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/science-on-the-brink-of-death"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Sam Harris</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> because he has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and, as it turns out, I do not.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So,
getting back to the original question: what is the point of life from
an atheist perspective? It’s a complicated answer, and there’s much more
depth to it than the religious view described above (a view that I
shared at one time). In fact, I think I’m leading a much more meaningful
life as an atheist than I would be as a Christian. If I read that last
sentence a decade ago, my first reaction would be “Bullllllllll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">shit</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.” My second reaction would be “Hey, future self, while you’re here, wanna toss me some </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Back to the Future II</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
style betting tips? Kinda seems like we’d be wasting this whole
time-traveling experience if we didn’t get anything out of it. Also, how
does my fashion sense hold up?” To which I would reply “Bet the Pats in
the Super Bowl and lose the jorts, nerd. And I’m dead serious about
life being better as an atheist.” Allow me to extrapolate on that point.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First
of all, there are a few obvious (though not terribly meaningful)
advantages to losing my religion. I’m no longer obligated to tithe, so I
can donate money directly to charities who will use all of it to do
meaningful work. Granted, I didn’t have much of a disposable income when
I was still religious, but I imagine that if I was still religious I
would hardly donate anything beyond the 10% I gave to the church (and
you can be damn sure I’d calculate the 10% </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">after</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
taxes. I mean, 10% is a sizable chunk either way, and I’d still be
kinda pissed about it). That’s not the case now--I have more money, and
the organizations I donate to have more money. Everybody wins! Well,
except God, of course. He loses in this scenario. Then again, it doesn’t
seem like omnipotent beings should have to collect donations to begin
with. If I were to give money to an institution inspired by an imaginary
character, it would make more sense to give it to one without
superpowers. Like The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read
Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
other obvious advantage: no boring church services on Sunday mornings.
Sleeping in on Sunday mornings is such a far superior use of time than
listening to someone interpret the words of Bronze Age Jews that it’s
not even funny. I get why weekly services are necessary--if people
aren’t told on a weekly basis that their religious beliefs are correct
they run the serious risk of realizing that there’s no good reason to
continue believing. Sunday mornings are a really inconvenient time to
hold these things, though. For most people, that would leave Saturday as
the only day of the week where they weren’t obligated to get up early.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First
of all, that means those people probably aren’t getting enough sleep.
Secondly, it means people aren’t getting as much enjoyment out of their
weekends as they should be if they have to cut their Saturday nights
short. For most people, weekends are the best part of life, so being
pious kinda reduces their quality of life by default. Granted, some
people actually enjoy going to church, but I have to wonder what
percentage of people fall into that category. The fellowship with other
people is all well and good, but the services themselves? I probably
legitimately enjoyed ~2% of the ones I attended. It was just something I
put up with because I felt I had to, like annoying relatives or
Nickelback on the radio.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of
course, there are plenty of deeper reasons to welcome the absence of
religion. If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you’re already aware
of the fact that I’ve got some serious issues with the idea that
religion provides a good moral framework for society. As an atheist, I’m
no longer tied to a nonsensical set of morals. Premarital sex is
totally fine, just don’t be stupid about it. Bacon is great; put it on
pizza, wrap it around steaks, throw it in omelettes, and blend it with </span><a href="http://www.bspotburgers.com/menu/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">milk and apple pie</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
for a delightfully tasty artery-clogging drink. Treat women and
homosexuals and all other people as they deserve to be treated. No other
rules have to compete with the Golden/Platinum Rule; simply consider
the feelings and judgments of other people rather than a mythical deity
that provides no feedback. In general, being an atheist allows one to
think and act rationally without worrying about dogma which, if the
premise that most people are generally good is true, unequivocally makes
the world a better place. It requires that people actually think, which
I realize is asking a lot in some cases, but I’d like to think that
most people could handle that.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
freedom extends beyond just morality--religion no longer clutters up
any of my thinking. I don’t have to deal with the mental gymnastics of
trying to reconcile what makes sense and what the Bible dictates. I no
longer have to come up with bizarre rationalizations for why good things
happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. I don’t have
to figure out a feasible way for God to allow priests to molest
children for multiple generations without retribution. I don’t have to
tolerate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">any</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Catholic bullshit, for that matter. I always thought Catholicism was
kinda ridiculous when I was younger, but now I can be openly disdainful
of their pseudo-ban on birth control and their belief that whoever they
name the Pope is somehow uber-knowledgeable when, in reality, he’s
clearly a power-hungry crazy fuck (to put it in layman’s terms). Do you
know how great it feels to call the Pope a crazy fuck without a hint of
remorse? Soooooo liberating!</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It
sounds cliche (and probably also sounds like revisionist history), but
becoming an atheist was like lifting a veil from my mind. Until I was
removed from religion, I had no idea how much it influenced my thinking
and worldview. I always thought of myself as a pretty intelligent person
on account of the whole “valedictorian” thing (editor’s note: being the
valedictorian of Buckeye High School does not necessarily make one
intelligent--it just means that said person is capable of thinking and
doing homework. I mean, this is a school that had Drive Your Tractor to
School Day...and they wouldn’t let some people who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">lived on a farm</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
participate. Not that I’m bitter...), but I remember outright rejecting
the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory back in the day
because, you know, God. Now, it seems obvious to me that the only way a
thinking, informed person could possibly reject the reality of evolution
is by wearing religious blinders. There is quite simply way too much
evidence supporting evolution (and way too much concurrence in the
scientific community) to disbelieve it without a religious bias. The Big
Bang is still just our best guess, but there’s much more evidence for
it than the nonsense in Genesis.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In addition to being more open-minded about pretty much everything, I also find that I actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">want</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to learn about stuff now. In the words of Einstein:</span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“The
finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein
lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this
feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a
state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us
really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most
radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor
faculties--this knowledge, this feeling...that is the core of the true
religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank
myself among profoundly religious men.”</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the risk of sounding like a nerd (as if there was any doubt): learning is cool. I actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">enjoy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
learning how things work now. My former lack of interest in learning
was probably due to my dislike for school as much as anything else, and
the fact that I’m no longer </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">forced</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
to learn stuff certainly plays a role in my enjoyment of learning now.
However, I also think that religion dulls the desire to learn more about
the real world. Religion tells us that God created everything and
that’s that. There is no further discovery to make. Finding out that
we’re made up of cells is just more insight into God’s creation. Same
with discovering that other galaxies exist: “Oh, God made other
galaxies, too? Well, we already knew that he created all the stars, so
this isn’t really news.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When
all the answers are not yet known, it instills a desire to find those
answers. Otherwise, I might as well sit on my ass all day and play video
games until I die and go to heaven since there’s nothing better to do
(so long as I pray and tithe). Now that I don’t have “God did it” as an
answer to every question, not only do I have a desire to figure out an
answer to life’s great questions--I am also not hindered by dogma in my
acceptance of new, contradictory data. It’s much easier to learn when
both curious and open-minded. It’s no coincidence that </span><a href="http://www.pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Scientists-and-Belief.aspx"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">scientists are significantly more likely</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to be nonreligious than others.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To steal another quote, this time from Charles Bukowski:</span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“For
those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers
don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries.
We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my
own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and
our education system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill
war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that
Death will tremble to take us.”</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
put it simply: I value the time that I have here much more. I have a
finite amount of time to experience all the world has to offer, and
there is nothing better waiting for me after I die. This really makes me
want to live my life to the fullest, as cheesy as that sounds. Anytime I
get depressed about anything, there’s a really easy rebuttal: it beats
the hell out of being dead. Being sad or frustrated is simply a waste of
time, and it becomes harder to justify wasting time when you’re aware
that you don’t have much of it.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rather
than subtracting a meaning of life (such as “do God’s will”), I find
much more purpose as an atheist. If I’ve only got 70-80 years here, I
want to leave this world a better place than I found it. I want society
to advance. I want future generations to have more knowledge and do
greater things based on what this generation has done. I want to avoid
nuclear war so there will </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
a next generation. I want Star Trek: The Next Generation to become a
reality. Seriously, how cool would it be if warp drives existed and
medical technology was crazy advanced and teleportation was a thing that
people did?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Obviously,
wanting society to advance and loving Jesus are not mutually exclusive.
I’m not trying to make that point, and I hope I’ve made it clear in my
writing that I don’t think the contrast between moderate Christians and
humanists is that stark. I’m well aware that many Christians are fans of
Star Trek. With that being said, there’s definitely a different set of
priorities that comes with being religious. If you think that your </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">eternal</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> salvation is dependent on living something resembling a pious life, then that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">has</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
to be your highest priority in life. It has to be or you don’t truly
believe that. This is one of the biggest issues with Middle-Eastern
culture: they take their religion Very. Fucking. Seriously. If they took
education half as seriously as they take religion, the world would
unequivocally be a better, more peaceful place.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This all ties back in part to my </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-this-blog-exists.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Why This Blog Exists?</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
post in that I think devaluing religion will ultimately lead to a
better world, thereby fulfilling one of my life goals. Writing this blog
has also definitely been cathartic for me and is a big reason I continue to write, but I still believe that we
could make the world better by doing away with religion.</span><br id="internal-source-marker_0.1589557054802352" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
think it’s fair to ask the question “how much of this is
posturing/bullshit/rationalization to make yourself feel better about
not going to heaven when you die?” A bit, to be honest. But I also think
it’s only natural to try to find a positive outlook on one’s belief
system, regardless of what it is. I may not be going to heaven, but I
don’t think it exists in the first place so there’s really no point in
getting down about that. So what makes more sense: being depressed that
after my life on Earth ends I’ll never experience joy again, or finding
ways to experience as much joy as possible while I’m here?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In conclusion: hooray for heathenism, let’s go drink beer.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-79281484597697540532013-01-05T01:00:00.001-05:002013-01-05T01:00:55.127-05:00Plato: Smarter than Play-Doh<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One
of the main arguments for theism is that it provides a moral compass
for humanity. After all, without God telling us what’s good, we’d all
just go around raping and killing, right? (You know, like they did in
the Bible.) This may come as a shock, but I would argue that our morals
are determined independently of religion, and that arguing for religion
as a source of morality is actually an argument against religion as a
whole after enough critical thinking is applied.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve
spent a fair amount of words in this blog pointing out how flat-out
crazy the Bible is. I probably spent too many words on that topic, but I
think it’s important to note how much nonsense is in there. Of course,
there’s some good stuff in the Bible. However, if we’re going to cling
to that “good stuff” as a means of determining what is right and wrong, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">we</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
must decide which stuff is the good stuff. As far as we know, God gave
the entire Bible His blessing, so if we’re going to follow some of the
rules set forth there (but not others) then we have to figure out which
ones </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">on our own</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
Which passages individuals pick and choose to accept as valid says
infinitely more about the moral values of those people than the validity
of the scriptures themselves--there is no more holy justification for
helping others than for hating gay people.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moderate
Christians (who can rationalize better than anyone besides Rihanna)
would argue that they believe in just the parts of the Bible that are
universally accepted as “good” by most people. They care about the
Golden Rule and loving everyone, and luckily most of them will overlook
the majority of the nonsense that I’ve pointed out in my Bible posts.
But even “moderate Christians” is an ambiguous grouping, as there are a
whole host of denominations that have different beliefs about how to
worship and which Bible verses qualify as “good.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
is the first of many issues with trying to use God as a moral
compass--doing so requires everyone to interpret God’s intentions the
same way. Here’s the sequel (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Secret of the Ooze</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
if you will (that’s a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference and yes,
I’m making a cheap Ninja Turtles joke in the middle of a serious
discussion about morality because I am powerless to stop my inner
dork)): how do we know that God’s intentions are good to begin with? We
had better be sure that He is, because placing the moral authority of
God (who we know to be bipolar in His love and disdain for humanity)
above our collective moral authority can lead to completely ignoring the
</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">actual</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ramifications of our actions because we’re too concerned about appeasing an </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">imaginary</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
deity. To put it another way, by attempting to get into heaven (a
mythical place whose existence we have no credible evidence of), we run
the risk of fucking up the lives of people on Earth (whose existence we
can prove because we see them and talk to them every day). Quick
example: the Christian insistence on abstinence-only before marriage has had a
terrible effect on the rates of unwanted pregnancies and STDs. There is
no rationale for this idiotic stance that is not religiously motivated.
So before we blindly accept that God is good, let’s examine that claim
honestly.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Plato
asked: are actions right because God commands them, or does God command
them because they are right? This question is way more important than
it initially seems on the surface. If we take the former stance, we’re
in a heap of trouble. Taking the stance that God determines morality
carries with it a laundry list of implications, and most of them are
unsettling to what would otherwise be considered “moral” people.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First
of all, God approved of a lot of shitty things. Killing. Slavery. Rape.
Genocide. Bigotry. Sacrifices. War. Plagues. Misogyny. Bear maulings.
Eternal damnation. Are we supposed to believe that this behavior is
moral just because God said so? Do we not abhor slavery and killing and the use of bears in retaliation to insults?
This would put our moral code at odds with God’s. If we hold that
killing innocent people is immoral, then we’re implying that we live by a
higher code of ethics and morals than God himself, the benevolent
creator of the universe. Hmmmmm.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Secondly, God also gave us a bunch of commands in the Bible that we no longer follow, so that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">also</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
makes us all immoral by His written standards (except for religious
fundamentalists). In addition to an abhorrence of the list above, we eat
bacon and shellfish, shave our sideburns, work on the Sabbath, treat
men and women equally (in theory), and many of us (though certainly not
all) are even cool with gay people gettin’ hitched. Of course, this is
assuming that you get God’s commands from the Bible. If you get God’s
commands communicated directly, that opens up the possibility of
literally any action with complete justification.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
example, I can kill anyone because God told me to. We can go invade
Iraq and Afghanistan because God told George W. Bush to do so.
Israelites can kill Palestinians because God told them to. Palestinians
can kill Israelites because God told them to. Hell, Joseph Smith started
up an entire new religion thanks to a secret message from God. (The
idea that any action commanded by God is morally good by default is
known as Divine Command Theory. Obviously, one could drive a truck
through the holes in this theory.)</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If your response is “those people didn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> get a message from God; they’re either deluded or dishonest,” well...how do you know that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Because God told you who to trust? How can you refute an accusation
that you’re deluded any better than Joseph Smith could have? What makes
your interpretation of God’s intentions true and Smith’s false? God
clearly didn’t tell everyone what he purportedly told Smith, and it
doesn’t seem like He’s told </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">anyone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the same thing. Catholics and Protestants have plenty in common, but they also have plenty to differentiate them.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
the sake of argument, let’s say that God really does speak to people.
Some people simply lie about God speaking to them or misinterpret His
messages, but God is benevolent so he only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
commands “good” acts. God tells us to take certain actions because the
actions themselves are morally right (the second option in Plato’s
question). This stance also presents a problem: if we can objectively
say that stoning children who talk back to their parents is “bad” but
donating money to the American Cancer Society is “good,” that means that
it is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not God</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> who decides what is right and wrong, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">we as individuals</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
who decide what is right and wrong. God may have told you to donate
that money, but He is not the one who made that a “good” act--the God of
the Bible thought killing disobedient children was good and has no
opinion on researching cures for debilitating illnesses.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
means that God is entirely unnecessary when determining what is right
and what is wrong. Entirely, completely, 100% unnecessary. Our morality
has superseded His morality. This, in turn, means that religion is only
morally effective from a standpoint of obedience--adhering to a religion
can only be considered “good” as in “Good dog! Way to shit outside
instead of on the carpet!” Religion provides a punishment/reward system
for following the rules, but that’s only really a “good” thing if the
rules themselves are “good.” In many cases they are: just like we
objectively consider it good for dogs to shit outside, we objectively
consider it good to treat others as we’d like to be treated. On the
other hand, if I teach my dog to shit on my neighbor’s doorstep because I
don’t like my neighbor, that makes both me </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and my dog</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> jerks even though I can still call my dog a “good dog” for following my rules.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Speaking
of dogs, it should be noted that tons of studies have been done on a
variety of different animals from rats to dogs to chimps to elephants
that show that these animals exhibit the most basic tenet of morality:
be nice to others. Rather than being motivated by Jesus’ words, these
species are moral for much simpler reasons like tribalism and
self-interest. Even rats that have not been mutated by green sludge will
aid their fellow rats simply because helping a brother leads to helping
the species as a whole.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So
what’s the moral of this story (see what I did there?)? In short, the
argument that religion is useful because it provides a moral framework
for society doesn’t hold much water. We don’t need the Bible (or any
other religious book) to differentiate good from bad. God is not
qualified to differentiate good from bad. We’re better off trying to
figure out what’s best for everyone collectively without letting theism
get in the way because, frankly, theism kinda sucks. Finally, if there’s
one takeaway from this post, let it be this: have your pets spayed or
neutered because animals really like to fornicate.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-64933827939103214802012-11-29T20:33:00.000-05:002012-12-01T00:20:43.612-05:00Vaginas and Other Things God Doesn't Like<span id="internal-source-marker_0.36503188185165736" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Confession:
I suck at writing in a timely manner. Ideally, I would have finished
this post a month ago, but it turns out I’m no Bill Shakespeare. On the
bright side, none of the writers of the Bible fall into that category
either, so there’s loooooooooots of material for me to point and laugh
at. If these words were all inspired by the Holy Spirit then he...er,
it...is a terrible muse.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
New Testament has the reputation of being all about warm and fuzzy
stuff like “love your neighbor as yourself” and stories about angels
talking to shepherds. Ignoring for the moment that the Golden Rule was
around long before Jesus said it and appears in pretty much every
religion and culture, what else is in the New Testament? Plenty of
innocuous stuff, and plenty of nice stuff, to be sure. But there’s also
plenty of crap that I’m sure apologists wish were left out.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So
let’s have a looksee at the New Testament. While we’re at it, let’s
also bring back the term “looksee.” Actually, let’s not. It’s kind of a
stupid word.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Don’t
imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, I came to bring a
sword. I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter
against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Your enemies will be right in your own household! If you love your
father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being
mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not
worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me,
you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will
lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Matthew 10:34-39)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Well,
that’s a lot to take in, eh? I mean, talk about high
maintenance--you’re not even allowed to love your family more than this
guy! Jesus is supposed to be all kind and loving, yet he’s openly
encouraging rifts in any families where kids love their parents more
than they love Him. Seriously? So even though God refuses to prove that
He even exists (much less that He’s worthy of my infinite and unrequited
praise), I’m supposed to love Him (and/or Jesus) more than my mom? Have
you met my mom? She’s pretty gosh darn awesome (a less respectful son
would have used the phrase “fucking awesome” there, but I’m classier
than that). She is unbelievably nice, has put up with way more crap from
me than any reasonable person should be subjected to, and I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">know</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that she loves me unconditionally. Yet I’m supposed to care more about a
being who, if He actually existed, would be an unfathomably colossal
jerk.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What
a preposterous demand. You wouldn’t think the most powerful being in
the universe would also be the most needy and insecure.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“A
Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, ‘Have mercy on me,
O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter has a demon in her, and it is
severely tormenting her.’</span></li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But
Jesus gave her no reply--not even a word. Then his disciples urged him
to send her away. ‘Tell her to leave,’ they said. ‘She is bothering us
with all her begging.’</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then he said to the woman, ‘I was sent only to help the people of Israel--God’s lost sheep--not the Gentiles.’</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But she came and worshiped him and pleaded again, ‘Lord, help me!’</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">‘It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs,’ he said.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied, ‘but even dogs are permitted to eat crumbs that fall beneath their master’s table.’</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">‘Woman,’ Jesus said to her, ‘your faith is great. Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was instantly healed.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Matthew 15:21-28)</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh,
snap! The King of Metaphors just got shamed into performing a miracle
by some random woman who out-metaphored Him! I really hope she taunted
Him afterwards.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
New Testament is supposed to be full of unconditional love and
salvation for all and butterflies and rainbows, yet here we have an
example of some good ol’ blatant racism from none other than the Son of
God himself. To be fair, there are other examples of Jesus being more
accepting of Gentiles (the non-Jews, for those uninitiated in
Bible-speak), but apparently He wasn’t always so tolerant of the “dogs.”
Clearly miracles are not overly difficult for Him to perform (the guy
doesn’t even bother with a “Hocus pocus!” or “Expelliarmus!”), but he
shoots this woman down </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">solely</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">because of who her parents were</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
What’s the deal with punishing people for things that are out of their
control, and why does that come up so often in all religions? I know we
all like to feel special and inherently better than others, but it would
be nice if people cared more about being fair than being superior.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“And
wars will break out near and far, but don’t panic. Yes these things
must come, but the end won’t follow immediately. The nations and
kingdoms will proclaim war against each other, and there will be famines
and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this will be only
the beginning of the horrors to come.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then
you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all
over the world because of your allegiance to me...In fact, unless that
time of calamity is shortened, the entire human race will be destroyed.
But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones...</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I assure you, this generation will not pass from the scene before all these things take place.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Matthew 24:6-9, 22, 34)</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
the words on the incomparable Will Ferrell: I wish you weren’t a liar
(ideally, I would link to the dinner sketch with Sarah Michelle Gellar
here, but I can’t because NBC has some weird policy about not making all
of their content available for free. So you’ll just have to take my
word for it: Will Ferrell drives a Dodge Stratus, he would like to
finish his damn story, and he wishes you weren’t a liar). Being
arrested, persecuted, and killed for allegiance to Jesus? For a short
time, yes, but The Crusades were the exact </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">opposite</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
of that, so that’s strike one. The entire human race will be destroyed?
Welp, I’m still alive, you’re still alive (presumably, at any rate--if
you’re reading this on the Afterlife Internet please shoot me an email
so I can stop making an ass of myself here), and there’s at least a 50%
chance that Dick Cheney is not a zombie, so the human race does not
appear to have been destroyed. Strike two.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While
you might think that it should go without saying that there is no one
alive today who heard Jesus speak these words, there are some
fundamentalists who, against the better judgment of any rational human
being, disagree. This passage is one of the origins of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_jew#Biblical_sources"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The Wandering Jew</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
a lucky chap who has apparently just been strolling around for the past
2,000 years. Seeing as how there’s no evidence whatsoever for the
existence of this gentleman (or gentlewoman, perhaps), I’m going to go
ahead and deny their existence. Strike three. As we all know, according
to the rules of Bibleball three strikes means you have to go to timeout
for five minutes, give the other team two free throws </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
the ball, and then pay the income tax (either $200 or 10% of total
holdings). If this sounds harsh, that’s because it is: Bibleball is not
an easy game. The only way you can really win is by not playing.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
should also point out here that this is another example of God getting
up on his High Horse of Sadism. He just flat out says, “Yeah, some
really bad shit is going to go down. It’s going to be terrible. People
are going to suffer. I could do something about all this...but that
would be going against my incredibly strong sadistic intuitions,
sooooo...deal with it, bitches.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“You
[the disciples] are permitted to understand the secret about the
Kingdom of God. But I am using these stories to conceal everything about
it from outsiders, so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled:</span></li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">‘They
see what I do, but they don’t perceive its meaning. They hear my words,
but they don’t understand. So they will not turn from their sins and be
forgiven.’” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Mark 4:11-12)</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At
least we get an explanation for all the ambiguous, cryptic, and unusual
parables that Jesus was such a big fan of: He didn’t want to let all
the heathens in on his secrets to eternal life.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sigh.
To be fair, there are also some passages about how the “Kingdom of God”
is open to all. However, the fact remains that He often used a slew of
odd parables to make his points. Most people use metaphors to make their
points </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">clearer</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
but the Son of God was apparently all about being more opaque. Why did
his message need to be obscured? Because the fucking Scriptures said so.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
is one of the things I hate most about religion, and it’s something
that’s emphasized very heavily in Islam: the idea that people who
believe the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">right</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
fairy tales will be rewarded with eternal bliss, people who don’t
believe in those fairy tales will be punished with eternal
damnation...and, to be honest, they’d rather you suffer than be saved</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
This idea reappears in 2 Thessalonians 2: 11-12: “So God will send
great deception upon them, and they will believe all these lies. Then
they will be condemned for not believing the truth and for enjoying the
evil they do.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The “powers that be” take so much delight in the suffering of heathens that they will </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">actively keep you out of heaven</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
But don’t worry, these beings are benevolent. It says so in their
books. They just, you know, have a thing about making sure that people
they don’t like are punished for eternity regardless of whether or not
they deserve it, but other than that they’re super kind.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“But
if anyone causes one of these little ones who trusts in me to lose
faith, it would be better for that person to be thrown into the sea with
a large millstone tied around the neck. If your hand causes you to sin,
cut it off. It is better to enter heaven with only one hand than to go
into the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Mark 9:42-43)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There
are surprisingly few one-handed Christians. Has anyone else ever
noticed that? I mean, it seems pretty harsh to me since absolutely
everyone who has ever lived ever has sinned and hands are pretty darned
handy. I guess in my case it doesn’t really matter as I should be
visiting with mermen at the bottom of the sea somewhere, in which case I
wouldn’t have much use for my hands anyway (I used mermen instead of
mermaids here in an effort to push gender equality as I feel that mermen
are grossly underrepresented in fictional under-the-sea talk. Side
note: the spell check in Firefox is totally OK with “mermen.” Yeah, it
surprised the hell out of me, too).</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
is another problem with that whole “parable” thing--people don’t know
whether or not to take this passage literally. In this case most people
can agree to treat it figuratively, but that’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">only</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> because most people think that the punishments don’t fit the crimes. “Well, this is the word of God, and I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">did</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
sin...but I really don’t want to cut my hand off because I’m not
ambidextrous...with the exception of that one thing I do left-handed
sometimes...so let’s just say that what Jesus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">meant</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
to say is that I should stop hanging out with people who encourage me
to do bad things.” It’s much easier to take as a figure of speech...but
what if Jesus meant it literally? What if you get to heaven and He’s
pissed that you’ve still got both hands even though you spilled your
seed liberally with said hands? What then? WHAT THEN?! Well, then it’s
off to Hell with you, of course. You should have taken the Bible
literally, like those snakehandlers who you assumed were dumbasses
(“They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink
anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them.” (Mark 16:18) It doesn’t happen
often, but that verse is a lovely example of when natural selection and
the Bible work in perfect harmony).</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Let
the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God
belongs to such as these. I assure you, anyone who doesn’t have their
kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Mark 10:14-15)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Translation:
if you ever grow out of your gullible phase and become capable of
critical thinking on your own, you’re screwed. I’ll write more on the
concept of faith in another post, but I wasn’t being facetious in that
sentence. The “faith of a child” requires a lack of critical thinking.
It requires ignoring all the knowledge gained as an adult. It requires
taking comfort in wishful thinking rather than accepting reality. I’ve
been making a concerted effort to be less of a dick in my writing (I
guess people don’t like it when I say mean things?), but it’s really
hard to sugarcoat this point.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Now,
I’m not saying you can’t be simultaneously rational and faithful. I
have plenty of friends and family who are both intelligent and
Christian. However, anyone who has </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">childlike</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
faith is kind of an idiot, because having childlike faith involves
accepting everything at face value without doubt. Pretty much everyone I
know has at least some doubt about the existence of a higher power and
the validity of their (or any) religion. Yet, here we have Jesus telling
us that we need to have total, unquestioning faith in him to get into
heaven, and that’s simply an unreasonable demand. Oddly enough, one can
still hear this passage quoted ad nauseum in churches because, you know,
ignorance and blind acceptance of what you’re told are admirable
qualities.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you will have it.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Mark 11:24)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
just wish you weren’t a liar. Seriously, how much bullshit is this?
Every single Christian in history has been burned by this verse, leading
to nonsensical rationalizations like the Garth Brooks song “Unanswered
Prayers.” (Quick question: do you think Garth knew how to spell
“unanswered” before he wrote that song?) In that song, Garth sings about
how glad he is that God didn’t answer his prayers to hook up with this
chick that he really liked in high school, because then he might not
have married his current wife. First of all, he has no way of knowing
that he’s better off with his wife than the chick he liked in high
school--maybe that chick would’ve had the sense to talk him out of that
stupid Chris Gaines alter-ego thing he did. Secondly, this line of
thinking begs the question “Why do you pray in the first place if God is
just going to do whatever He wants anyway?”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
number of prayers that have gone unanswered throughout history is
astronomical. Throw out all the prayers from people who didn’t “truly
believe.” Throw out all the prayers from people who haven’t forgiven
their enemies. Throw out all the prayers with either bad intentions or
bad outcomes. That number remains astronomical, and this verse remains
entirely untrue.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
common explanation for this is some variation of “God has a plan,” with
the implication being that you’re not allowed to be mad at God for not
answering your prayer because He knows better than you and somehow, in
some way that you can’t even see because you’re just an insignificant
speck on this planet and God is omniscient, everything is going to work
out for the best. Tell that to everyone who prayed for their release
from a concentration camp, or anyone who prayed for safety in the face
of a natural disaster (or “Act of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”
if you prefer), or anyone who prayed for the end of a war before dying
in battle, or anyone who prayed for their child’s survival before the
advent of modern medicine, or anyone who doesn’t think rape is a “gift
from God” or or or or or or or...how well did “God’s plan” work out for
all those good and faithful servants of His? Either God is not capable
of answering prayers, or his “plan” involves being a dick.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who
believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (John 3:16)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ah,
the most famous verse in the whole book. You’re not gonna believe this,
but I’ve got a number of issues with it. First of all, why did He have
to give up Jesus to begin with? If God is all-powerful then He gets to
make the rules, right? Why the hell would one of those rules be “my son
must die for humanity to be saved?” He already pulled the “raise a guy
from the dead” trick with Lazarus, so it wasn’t like this was the
ultimate example of never-before-seen power. Seems like a pretty stupid
plan with a bunch of unnecessary suffering if you ask me. Then again,
unnecessary suffering is right up God’s alley.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
big issue, though, is that Jesus’ death has been glamorized to such an
absurd degree that people view it as the most selfless, altruistic, and
loving event of all time. Look no further than the Mel Gibson film </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Passion of the Christ</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
for evidence of this, as it’s depicted as some kind of incomprehensible
sacrifice on the part of God/Jesus. While we’re here, allow me to make a
very simple point: if God had any control </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">whatsoever</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> over the events on Earth, is there any chance at all that He would pick Mel fucking Gibson to make this film? You know, the </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/mel-gibsons-new-racist-ra_n_632602.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">openly racist, anti-semitic asshole with anger management issues</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">? I’m going to go ahead and say “No. No He would not.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Back
to the death of Jesus. Part of the reason people treat it with such
reverence is because it was such a terrible experience for Jesus--he was
beaten, whipped, mocked, spit on, and crucified. Unquestionably, this
would have been awful, and anyone who had to go through that deserves
sympathy. However, everyone seems to forget that people go through
horrible experiences </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">all the time</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
and (not surprisingly) it’s often in the name of religion. Jesus was
not the first person to have His life taken for having dissenting
beliefs about supernatural beings, and He was far from the last. Hell,
“witches” were burned alive, and most of them held the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">same</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
beliefs as the people who put them to death! I’m not denying that Jesus
had a really rough time; I’m simply making the point that it’s
disingenuous to treat his death as some kind of unique torture that no
one else has ever experienced and therefore somehow carries extra
weight.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
other main reason His death is so glamorized is because we’re told that
God willingly sacrificed His son. Again, this is not a unique
circumstance--many parents are forced to deal with the death of a child.
Is that a terrible thing to go through? Absolutely. Is it something
that us mere mortals can’t even comprehend? Absolutely not, so let’s
stop pretending like this was the greatest sacrifice ever made because
it wasn’t. How can I say that conclusively? Because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jesus came back to life after three days!!!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
I don’t bust out the triple exclamation point very often, but in this
case it’s deserved. Three days! Do you think my parents lose sleep over
not seeing me for three days? I would certainly hope not, seeing as how
they usually only see me once or twice a month. That’s probably all they
can handle since I’m a terrible person who never says anything nice and
I smell like the city of Pittsburgh, but that’s beside the point. Three
days is nothing. Furthermore, after another forty days, Jesus
supposedly goes up to Heaven and spends </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the rest of eternity</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> by God’s side.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some sacrifice. That must have been </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
hard for God, going three whole days without Jesus while knowing that
they were about to spend infinity years together. Hell, I sacrificed
masturbation for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">forty days</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> for Lent once...</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">in high school</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
Yeah, seriously, I did. If you know anything about the hormones of high
school boys, you will be way more impressed by my sacrifice than God’s.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A
man is responsible to Christ, a woman is responsible to her husband,
and Christ is responsible to God. A man dishonors Christ if he covers
his head while praying or prophesying. But a woman dishonors her husband
if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head, for this is
the same as shaving her head. Yes, if she refuses to wear a head
covering, she should cut off all her hair. And since it is shameful for a
woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, then she should wear a
covering. A man should not wear anything on his head when worshiping,
for man is God’s glory, made in God’s own image, but woman is the glory
of man. For the first man didn’t come from woman, but the first woman
came from man. And man was not made for woman’s benefit but woman was
made for man. So a woman should wear a covering on her head as a sign of
authority because the angels are watching.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (1 Corinthians 11:3-10)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
don’t want to argue against anyone referring to me as “God’s glory,”
but isn’t this taking the misogyny thing just an itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny,
weeeeeeee little bit too far? It’s hard to make the message “women are
lesser than men” any more explicit than this. In this case, it’s not
even a general “women should listen to men” message, it’s a straight up
“God likes penises more than he likes vaginas, so those with vaginas
should cover themselves up in shame and submission.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christians
like to brush away the draconian rules in the Old Testament because,
for some reason, we’ve all agreed that those rules no longer apply.
However, this here is some New Testament nonsense. This is the “Good
News” that the Bible has to offer, and it’s just as crazy and outdated
as the older stuff. Yet, for some reason, there were no ballot
initiatives to require head coverings for women...but there were a bunch
of initiatives regarding whether or not two women could marry each
other. Note to the Religious Right: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">it’s the same fucking book.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Why is it that the vast majority of this country (save for the hardcore
literalists) can agree that this passage is completely worthless, yet
we’re still haggling over birth control and abortion and gay marriage
because of other passages? What in the world could possibly make those
other passages more valid? How could anyone </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">possibly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
know that God doesn’t care if women cover their heads in church, but He
does care if they would like to start a family on their own schedule?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
have yet to hear an answer for any of those questions that makes more
sense than “Well, I choose to believe in the passages that align with my
worldview and disregard the others. In other words: whatever’s
convenient.” Pretty much everything else is pure rationalization.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Women
should be silent during the church meetings. It is not proper for them
to speak. They should be submissive, just as the law says.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (1 Corinthians 14:34)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
only this directive extended outside of church, AM I RIGHT? Seriously,
though, it takes a hefty bit of rationalization for a woman to buy into
Christianity when it’s founded on a book with stuff like this in it. A
number of the women in my family are active in their respective
churches, and they feel no remorse about speaking in church, so
presumably they just kind of pretend that this verse doesn’t exist.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
a way, I can understand it--having been a Christian for the first
twenty-some years of my life, I got to be pretty familiar with ignoring
whole swaths of the Bible because, frankly, you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">have</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
to ignore much of it in order to be a worthwhile member of modern
society (sacrificing doves and goats is no longer commonly practiced,
believe it or not). So I get it--you chalk it up to the fact that we’re
living in different times, and you manage to convince yourself that it’s
OK to pick and choose which verses are worth following and which
aren’t. In a way, you don’t really have a choice if you want to call
yourself a Christian without appearing crazy. And since you’re told that
Heaven and Hell are real places, you’ve got a vested interest in
calling yourself a Christian. In short: being a Christian today is the
epitome of humanity’s ability to rationalize and handle cognitive
dissonance.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even
with all that rationalization, I still wonder how much verses like this
bother female Christians. Aren’t they annoyed by the fact that their
female ancestors were prevented from having a role in the church?
Misogyny was widespread and certainly existed outside of just religious
settings, but the fact that it was so explicitly embedded in religion
bothers me. Call me crazy, but I expect an institution that claims to
provide moral guidelines to, you know, have good morals. Shouldn’t any
source of morality be a proponent of fair treatment? Fairness is a
rather large part of morality, yet the Bible goes beyond ignoring the
topic--it actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">advises against it</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. It’s as stupid as telling someone not to bother putting up walls in their house. “Heat </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">rises</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, and rain comes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">down</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, right? Right. So all you need is a roof.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent
and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way
they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes.
For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves
attractive by the good things they do. Women should listen and learn
quietly and submissively. I do not let women teach men or have authority
over them. Let them listen quietly. For God made Adam first, and
afterward he made Eve. And it was the woman, not Adam, who was deceived
by Satan, and sin was the result. But women will be saved through
childbearing and by continuing to live in faith, love, holiness, and
modesty.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (1 Timothy 2:9-15)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m
guessing you probably don’t need me to tell you how “whoa crazy crazy”
this lovely little passage is as it should be self-evident, so I’ll keep
this brief. Obviously, women give less than a shit about it as gold
jewelry is practically omnipresent and shopping for clothes and shoes
has become the stereotypical national pastime (please note that I said
stereotypical--I’ve made enough sexist jokes in this blog that I don’t
need to be accused of trying to seriously treat all women as a
homogenous group). Unfortunately, there are some men who give more than a
shit about this passage as they can use it as their defense of “easy
rape” statements (which can be found in the gray section of </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/24/1149395/-GOP-Rape-Advisory-Chart-h-t-to-connecticutie"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">this handy-dandy rape chart</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">). Ugh.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Also,
in case you forgot: in the world where the Bible is true, childbirth is
an excruciatingly painful experience because Eve was a weak-minded
broad who ate an apple once. Adam was an innocent bystander, so
naturally men get to pee standing up but women are pushed to the brink
of consciousness (and occasionally death) in order to continue the human
race. This seems toooootally fair. Can’t we all just agree that
religion sucks and women should be treated fairly?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pay
close attention to what the prophets wrote, for their words are like a
light shining in a dark place--until the day Christ appears and his
brilliant light shines in your hearts. Above all, you must understand
that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophets themselves or
because they wanted to prophesy. It was the Holy Spirit who moved the
prophets to speak from God.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (2 Peter 1:19-21)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yeah,
just keep this shit in mind when someone tries to tell you that you
can’t take the Bible literally because it was written by man and not God
and it’s just metaphorical and you’re interpreting it wrong. Not to
mention the fact that the Bible becomes next to worthless if it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">wasn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">inspired
by God; the problem is it’s so damn crazy that no reasonable person
could possibly believe that the entire thing was an accurate reflection
of a being as lofty as the Christian god is purported to be.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">People
like to say “you can make the Bible say anything you want,” insinuating
that anytime someone uses a ridiculous Bible quote to make a point it’s
somehow invalid because they’re just twisting the words of God. I
contend that if there wasn’t so much nonsense to begin with (and if God
had picked some better writers) then this wouldn’t be an issue. You can
only make so many excuses for supposedly omniscient beings before they
lose all credibility. These verses are not fitting for a good and loving
god; they’re fitting for a petty and sadistic one.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-75081323127801066762012-09-29T01:21:00.002-04:002012-09-29T01:21:29.629-04:00Bible Stories, Part Deux<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-bible-undermines-all-of.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">first Bible post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
looked at some of the most blatantly crazy (and hence
crazy-entertaining) verses that lovely book contains. It was so much fun
picking apart the text that is the basis for Christianity that I’m
going to do it again. My aim here is to show what a preposterous book
the Bible really is without abusing too much of the low-hanging fruit. I
covered Leviticus and Deuteronomy in depth in my first post, but those
books are so incredibly outrageous that many Christians will agree
they’re worthless, so I’ll skip those here. I also covered the book of
Joshua in my </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/if-your-god-is-omnipotent-you.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">“God is an asshole” post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
so I’ll skip over all the senseless killing and genocide that God was
such a big fan of in the Old Testament (and, for the record, there is a shit ton of
righteous slaughter to be skipped over). I’ll even skip most of the
stories that are only considered ridiculous because they contain
“miracles.” Of course, it’s interesting that a being with the ability to
break any laws of nature he so pleases stopped doing so a couple
millennia ago, but let’s pretend that God could do things like turn an
entire river into pure blood because He’s God. Sure. Whatever.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
I exclude all that nonsense, I should be left with an inspiring book
that serves as a source of comfort and guidance, right? Christians
complain that atheists only point out the crazy stuff and ignore all the
good stuff, so theoretically I should have only “good stuff” left to
criticize. Oh, if only that were the case. Keep in mind that this is the
source of the religious beliefs of the majority of this country. Here
are some more common (yet still fucking crazy) excerpts.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Let’s
start at the beginning: Genesis. I wish I could skip over the whole
“creation of the world” part since it’s totally ridiculous...but there
are still plenty of people who believe in creationism (and they even
have a </span><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/creation-museum-201002"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">“museum”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">), so let’s get into it. Nearly every verse is worth commenting on, but I’ll try to keep it reasonable.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For God made two great lights, the sun and the moon, to shine down upon the earth.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Genesis 1:16)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So
the moon is a light, eh? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this
whole creation story was written by someone with no knowledge whatsoever
of astronomy or geology, rather than an omnipotent being who, as the
creator of everything, would presumably know how...well...everything
works. You know, like the fact that the moon is just a rock that
reflects the light of the sun rather than being a source of light
itself.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unlike
the relationship between Muslims and the Koran, (most) Christians are
willing to admit that the Bible was written by men and is therefore not
the literal word of God. However, no man observed the creation of life,
the universe, and everything, so we have to treat the creation verses as
the word of God told directly to man. You know what would make the
Bible believable? Two things in particular: 1) God not making false
statements, and 2) some proof, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">any </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">proof,
that God is actually omniscient. There is an endless list of things
that God could have revealed in biblical times that would have proved
his omniscience since there was an endless list of things that people
didn’t know then. All He had to do was proclaim something as simple as
“the Earth revolves around the sun, the sun does not revolve around the
Earth” a few thousand years before humans figured it out, and we would
be forced to put some stock into the Bible. Instead, we’re told things
that are simply not true.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then
God said, ‘Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They
will be masters over all life--the fish in the sea, the birds in the
sky, and all the livestock, wild animals, and small animals.’</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Genesis 1:26)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lots
of interesting stuff here for a seemingly innocuous verse. I’m not the
first person to wonder “Who the hell was God talking to when He said
‘Let there be light?’” If we take this verse literally, we have a
reason: God was not alone before He created humanity. He bothered to
verbalize the obvious because He had other beings to talk to. Not only
that, they were apparently also godlike as He wanted humans to be like
“ourselves.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Are
these the other gods that He’s always bitching about humans worshiping?
Did the God of Abraham used to hang out with the Roman, Greek, Norse,
Egyptian, etc. gods? Was Yahweh (the Christian god) besties with Odin
and Zeus once upon a time? Who had the coolest beard? Sadly, the authors
of the Bible never bothered to provide these details.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another
interesting point about this verse is that we’re supposed to be the
masters of all other animals. While that’s essentially the case today
thanks to things like guns, one needn’t look any further than the
infamous Shark Week to be reminded that there are plenty of species on
this planet that would fuck us right up given a level playing field.
Even God later admits that humans are not the masters of all creatures
in Job 41:1-9: “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Can
you catch a crocodile with a hook or put a noose around its jaw? Can
you tie it with a rope through the nose or pierce its jaw with a spike?
Will it beg you for mercy or implore you for pity? Will it agree to work
for you? Can you make it be your slave for life? Can you make it a pet
like a bird, or give it to your little girls to play with? Will
merchants try to buy it? Will they sell it in their shops? Will its hide
be hurt by darts, or its head by a harpoon? If you lay a hand on it,
you will never forget the battle that follows, and you will never try it
again! No, it is useless to try to capture it. The hunter who attempts
it will be thrown down.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
I didn’t know any better, I’d say God was rather explicitly telling Job
that he cannot master a crocodile. He would have been hard-pressed to
make the point “crocodiles > man” any clearer. The fact that men have
</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
always been the masters of all other animals might lead a thinking
person to believe that the inhabitants of the animal kingdom are
determined by natural selection rather than a divine order that places
humans solely at the top of the food chain...but why believe in a crazy
theory like evolution that has untold volumes of evidence to support it?
I’m sure God would have let us know if evolution was real because it’s
not like him to withhold knowledge.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">’God says we must not eat it or even touch it, or we will die.’</span></li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">‘You
won’t die!’ the serpent hissed. ‘God knows that your eyes will be
opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing
everything, both good and evil.’” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Genesis 3:3-5)</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Again,
I just want to take this opportunity to point out that these are all
direct quotes from the Bible. I am not making this up. God tossed Adam
and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">knowing stuff.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
The tree they ate from was called the “tree of knowledge.” Is this why
the Religious Right views all intellectuals as terrible, terrible
people--because they have *gasp* KNOWLEDGE? The more you think about
these verses, the more preposterous they become.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First
of all, since God is the omnipotent creator of the world, you’d think
he would know better than to place this “tree of knowledge” in the
middle of the garden where the only humans on Earth are living if he
didn’t want them to eat from it. For that matter, if He really want to
be a dick and withhold knowledge from the people He created, why did He
even bother with this magic tree in the first place? It’s almost as if
He’s a stereotypical action movie villain who, instead of simply killing
the hero while he has the hero at his mercy, insists on explaining his
diabolical plan to the hero so that he can later be thwarted. God is
kind of like the original Dr. Evil.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Secondly,
obtaining knowledge about how the world actually works is considered to
be the greatest sin ever committed by humanity? Really? Why is this
never explained? What the hell is so bad about knowing things? Why is
God such an arrogant prick that He insists on being the only one who
knows stuff? Why did he lie to Adam and Eve about the tree by telling
them they would die if they ate from it when in actuality the only
consequence was that they wouldn’t be completely ignorant? We’re barely
three chapters into the Bible, and it sucks already. This does not bode
well for you, Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter).</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then
he said to the woman, ‘You will bear children with intense pain and
suffering. And though your desire will be for your husband, he will be
your master.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">’” (Genesis 3:16)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Childbirth
is the punishment that God comes up with for Eve eating from the tree
of knowledge. To be fair, this is one of the very few questions that the
Bible provides an explicit answer for: “Why is childbirth such an
excruciatingly painful experience?” Answer: because Eve ate an apple.
Duh.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
verse also answers the question “What is the origin of the
Judeo-Christian oppression of women?” Answer: Genesis 3:16. While people
love to quote John 3:16 (which I’ll get to later), Genesis provides a
much more interesting verse. Right at the very beginning, God makes it
explicitly clear that women are meant to be subservient to men. As much
as Christians would like to portray God as a compassionate and loving
being, he turns out to be a colossal misogynist. If you’re worried that
I’m placing too much emphasis on such an old verse, don’t worry--I’ll
point out plenty of other explicitly misogynist verses in this post and
the next. This verse is far from being an outlier.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the future, they will live no more than 120 years.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Genesis 6:3)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This one is too easy. The Bible itself refutes this multiple times (such as Job 42:16: “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”), and I imagine that the late </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Jeanne Calment</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
told God to go fuck himself on her 122nd birthday. Fun facts of the
day: she smoked for 94 of those 122 years, and at a rate of about two
pounds a week she consumed something in the neighborhood of five tons of
chocolate. I bet you can’t eat five tons of chocolate.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Whenever
the sons of God had intercourse with human women, they gave birth to
children who became the heroes mentioned in the legends of old.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Genesis 6:4)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Again,
there’s talk of other godlike beings. So much for being the “one true
god.” So maybe Odin was Yahweh’s grandson? Do they still get together
for Thanksgiving? If so, is it incredibly awkward? Does Thor gloat about
how much cooler he is than his great-grandfather? Does he trash-talk
Jesus about how much better </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Avengers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> was than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Passion of the Christ</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">? I would. That movie was phenomenal.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I
will destroy all the animals and birds, too. I am sorry I ever made
them.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Genesis 6:7)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Whoa whoa whoa Miss Lippy--the part of the story I don’t like is when God decides to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">kill everyone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
He didn’t give them rules or anything, He just sat up in heaven like a
goon and waited. God’s gotta think “You got a society. You got a
responsibility.” If your people are lost, you don’t give them a few
generations and call it quits--you get your ass down there and you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">guide those fucking people!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For those wondering if I was drunk when I wrote that (answer: maybe)--I was referencing what is arguably </span><a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-VB9KbJJJbh44u/billy_madison_1995_first_grade_story_time_part_2/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">the greatest movie ever made</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. You’re welcome.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He
will demand that the people of Israel be allowed to leave Egypt. But I
will cause Pharaoh to be stubborn so I can multiply my miraculous signs
and wonders in the land of Egypt. Even then Pharaoh will refuse to
listen to you. So I will crush Egypt with a series of disasters, after
which I will lead the forces of Israel out with great acts of judgment</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.”
(Exodus 7:2-4) These verses are followed by the plagues of blood,
frogs, gnats, flies, livestock, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness in
chapters 7-10, followed by the killing of firstborn sons in chapter 11. “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Although
Moses and Aaron did these miracles in Pharaoh’s presence, the Lord
hardened his heart so he wouldn’t let the Israelites leave the country.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Exodus 11:10)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
is something that also shows up frequently in the Koran--God “hardening
the hearts” of heathens so that they don’t even get a choice when it
comes to their salvation or damnation. Not to go all SNL Weekend Update
on you...but really? Really?! Really, God, you have to be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">such</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
an asshole that, at the only point in time when a reasonable case could
be made for believing in you (the firsthand witness of miracles), you
can’t let people save themselves from eternal damnation? Really? You
alternately inundate a region in the Middle East with frogs, flies, and
locusts, yet </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">you won’t allow the people that see this happening to believe that something supernatural is responsible?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Really? I thought you wanted everyone to love you! How can they love you if you won’t let them? God, what a jerk.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I,
the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not share your affection
with any other god! I do not leave unpunished the sins of those who hate
me, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the
third and fourth generations. But I lavish my love on those who love me
and obey my commands, even for a thousand generations.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Exodus, 20:5-6)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh,
right, you’re big on punishment; that’s why you won’t let people
believe in you and save themselves. Not only do you insist on punishing
those who were taught to worship Odin or Isis or Zeus, you insist on
punishing their great-grandchildren! I know you made man “in your image”
and we’re capable of holding grudges...but did you ever consider
grabbing some mead and talking it out rather than giving the shaft to
people who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">weren’t even alive</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
when the “sin” was originally committed? Also, what happens when a
parent hates you but their child loves and obeys you? According to verse
5 that child is in for some hellacious treatment, but according to
verse 6 you’re going to lavish your love on them. And what happens to
that person’s kids? Their grandparents doomed them to punishment, but
their parents guaranteed them love. I know the Bible is no stranger to
contradiction, but you could at least try not to contradict yourself in
back-to-back verses. Seems like a rookie mistake for someone who’s
supposedly omnipotent...</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Each
week, work for six days only. The seventh day is a day of total rest, a
holy day that belongs to the Lord. Anyone who works on that day will
die. Do not even light fires in your homes on that day.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Exodus 35:2-3)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Now
you’re just being straight up cruel. In your infinite wisdom you knew
that people were eventually going to move away from the equator, right? I
mean, you knew that Russia and Canada and Greenland all existed
(because you designed the Earth), and you knew that it gets cold as
balls in the winter there (because you control the weather), and you
knew that people would eventually move there (because you told people to
go forth and multiply and all that)...yet you had to outlaw fire for
one day a week? What kind of sadistic move is that? Furthermore, you’re
advocating six day work weeks? Come on, now. You know I don’t like to
work on weekends. Weekends are meant for consuming unnecessarily large
amounts of calories and artificially altering our states of mind. You
can’t give the world the gift of booze without also giving us an
opportunity to use it. Seriously, enough with the sadism.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
Elisha was walking along the road, a group of boys from the town began
mocking and making fun of him. ‘Go away, you baldhead!’ they chanted.
‘Go away, you baldhead!’ Elisha turned around and looked at them, and he
cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the
woods and mauled forty-two of them.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (2 Kings 2:23-24)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">OK,
maybe a little more sadism, because that passage was fucking awesome.
Nothing will ever compare to the verse that calls for cutting off the
hands of those who yank on testicles in a fight, but this is still
pretty great. It seems as though all the youngins who are dealing with
bullies these days simply need to curse them and God will ensure that
BEARS WILL FUCK THEM UP. Bullying problem: solved. I guess we need to
add “divine control over bears as a retribution tactic” to the list of
benefits of religion. Also: “baldhead” is cause for a bear-mauling? God
should have invented </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zWNJHS9PBE"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Triumph the Insult Comic Dog</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> a few thousand years earlier to give this passage some more weight.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You ask, ‘Who
is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I. And I
was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful
for me. You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for
you, and you must answer them.’ I had heard about you before, but now I
have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit
in dust and ashes to show my repentance.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” (Job 42:2-6)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
book of Job in a nutshell: Satan bets God that Job will turn against
Him if all his riches are taken away. God accepts the bet, and takes his
inner sadist and channels it directly at Job. Repeatedly. Job questions
why God treated him like shit. God says, essentially: “Shut up. I
created everything. You can’t explain anything related to geology,
astronomy, or biology yet, so that means I am the answer to all
questions. I’m not going to tell you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">how </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">any
of this stuff works because it’s more fun if the answer is ‘God made it
so.’ So quit your bitching because I’m awesome.” Except he does it all
in the form of a question because Jeopardy! is His favorite show (see
the Job quote at the top for a good example of this). Also, since God
seems to have a beef with gay people, I like to think that he threw in a
derisive slur like “</span><a href="http://deadspin.com/5941348/they-wont-magically-turn-you-into-a-lustful-cockmonster-chris-kluwe-explains-gay-marriage-to-the-politician-who-is-offended-by-an-nfl-player-supporting-it"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">lustful cockmonster</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">” somewhere in his diatribe but that part just didn’t make it into the book.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Job,
apparently unaware that God gave him absolutely no reason whatsoever
for why He tortured him, responds with the above passage. That is
literally his entire response, after which Job is blessed with double
his original fortune, and it is never discussed again.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
lesson: don’t ask why bad things happen to good people, because God
will not answer you. He’ll just let you know that He is awesome and you
are not, and because He’s so awesome He’s allowed to be a dick to nice
people for no good reason. End of discussion. Seriously. God never even
bothered to tell Job that he was just being tested by the devil because,
you know, God hates it when people know things.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Why
do bad things happen to good people?” is a question asked by followers
of all religions, and this book is supposed to provide some type of
answer for Christians. In typical religious fashion, it completely
sidesteps the question and instead asks you to adopt the “don’t question
God because you cannot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">possibly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">fathom his reasoning for anything” line of thinking. Because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">that’s</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
totally satisfying. “I know you’re probably feeling pretty down about
getting raped, but don’t you dare get mad at your omnipotent being of
choice. That dude makes the sun rise every morning, so you’re not
allowed to question his motives behind allowing you to be sexually
violated because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He has a plan</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
What do you mean the sun is actually relatively stationary and it’s
only the Earth’s rotation that causes the sun to ‘appear’ to rise in the
morning? If God says He makes the sun rise, then He makes the sun rise.
Your reasoning for how the universe actually works is not welcome here,
blasphemer.” Thanks, Bible!</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So.
There’s a taste of the Old Testament. A mere sampling of the completely
nonsensical bullshit that can be found in the first portion of the
Bible. At least for now, I won’t waste any more of your time pointing
out how ludicrous “the Scriptures” are. While it’s tempting to keep
tying archaic drivel to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Billy Madison</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
since the Bible is a practically endless target of ridicule, I’ll move
on to the New Testament next time. The New Testament is, of course,
still chock full of archaic drivel, but it’s not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">old
as the Old Testament, and for some reason Christians seem to think that
it contains useful advice for living. We shall see about that (spoiler
alert: the New Testament also sucks)...</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-16289635775757995082012-08-11T01:06:00.000-04:002012-08-11T01:06:30.214-04:00Religion vs. Morality<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In my </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/07/beliefs-of-nonbeliever.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Beliefs of a Nonbeliever</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
post, I listed my core beliefs as a humanist, making the case that it’s
entirely possible to be good without a god. I also made the point that
religion has a habit of getting in the way of morality. Being religious
doesn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">necessarily</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> prevent someone from being good, of course...but being fundamentally religious does.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
clarify, I’m not claiming that all atheists are more moral than all
theists--that would be a silly oversimplification as neither group is
morally homogeneous. It would be equally silly to say that all theists
are more moral than all atheists, and if you know me you know that I
would never, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ever</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
say anything silly. I’m simply making the point that religion has a bad
habit of getting in the way of treating people well. Throughout history
there are countless examples of people killing in the name of religion,
and that still goes on today in many parts of the world. Obviously,
people kill for plenty of non-religious reasons, too, but the fact
remains that religious intolerance is a driving factor of much of the
violence that still exists today. On a less lethal level, there are the
notable issues of the treatment of women in Islam and the treatment of
homosexuals by all major religions.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
fact that homosexuality still has so many entrenched opponents in
America today is...peculiar, to say the least. We’ve progressed far
enough to at least </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">claim </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">to
treat women and minorities equally, even if we’re still working on
getting over our biases and stereotypes about them. Yet gay people are
still looked upon with unabashed scorn, usually in the name of religion.
Why--because the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin? The Bible also
says that eating bacon is a sin. I know that I use the bacon example a
lot, but can you blame me? Much like</span><a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/1397"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Mr. Pibb + Red Vines</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
bacon is crazy delicious, and it always seems like a perfect example of
why the Bible can’t be taken seriously today since its consumption is
so widespread. On the whole, Christianity has outgrown a ton of nonsense
from the Bible, so why hang on to hating homosexuality?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
have a hard time seeing what the problem is. I’m not gay myself (rest
easy, past and future girlfriends), but I can’t come up with any good
reason to discriminate against people who are. I’m also not into Justin
Bieber’s music, cucumbers, or the movie </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Little Women</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, but that doesn’t give me any reason to mistreat people who enjoy those things. My mom and my sister love the shit out of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Little Women, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">but
I love them anyway. Of course, my mom would never admit to “loving the
shit” out of anything (including her children), but the point still
stands that she enjoys that movie very much, and her preference does not
affect my feelings towards her. Why? Because it doesn’t affect me and
it never has. Whenever she put </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Little Women</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
on, I would simply go play NBA Jam on my Super Nintendo Entertainment
System or find something else that was a dramatically better use of my
time.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Homosexuality
is really no different. No one is forcing me to be gay. In fact, the
sexual preferences of others has absolutely no effect on me. One of my
college friends posted a link on Facebook a while ago to John Piper’s
take on the whole “marriage equality” thing. For those who are
unfamiliar, Piper is a popular Christian author who lives in Minnesota,
one of the states that will have an amendment proposed in this year’s
election to restrict the definition of marriage to “a union of one man
and one woman.” His main point is that God created marriage, not humans,
so God alone gets to decide what counts as “marriage.” Oy. This seems
to be the same argument being made by Mike Huckabee and Dan Cathy (the
CEO of Chick-Fil-A).</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are many reasons why this argument is preposterously illogical, so let’s start at the top:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">we aren’t currently adhering to the Bible’s rules for marriage</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
Deuteronomy 22:21 states that if a woman marries a man, and she turns
out not to be a virgin, the men of that town can stone her to death.
22:22 states that adulterers should be killed. 22:29 states that if a
man rapes an unmarried woman, he must then marry her (the victim
apparently doesn’t have a say in the matter). 25:5 states that if a
married man dies before he has a son, his widow must have a kid with his
brother. Jacob and David both had multiple wives, and Solomon had 700. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Seven-hundred wives</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
Seven-zero-zero! If the Bible is supposed to be our guide to marriage,
there should be a hell of a lot more stoning and polygamy...but for some
reason the gentlemen (and I use that term loosely) mentioned above
aren’t making a fuss about the fact that we aren’t stoning fornicators.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve
already used the bacon example in this post (which still applies), so
I’ll move on to some other points. Beyond all the absurd, random rules
that God laid out in the Bible that are no longer observed by most
people (see my </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-bible-undermines-all-of.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">post on the Bible</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
for a list of ridiculous shit that can be used any time someone uses
the phrase “the Bible says...” as if it’s a legitimate argument), there
are some rather significant practices from biblical times that are
regarded with abhorrence today. For example: slavery. Slavery was
accepted as a natural state of affairs in the Bible, in both the Old and
New Testaments. As it turns out, Americans (and most of the rest of the
world, for that matter) have decided that slavery is bad, so now it’s
illegal. Unless you think dressing up as a Conehead covered in Wite-Out
is a good time, chances are you disapprove of slavery.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Was
slavery abolished because God said it was bad? Most certainly not! We
made it illegal because society recognized that slavery is an
unjustifiably inhumane practice. We eventually even got around to
deciding that black people shouldn’t be treated like shit just because
they’re black--something about all men being created equal or some crazy
ideal like that. Also, in what can only be described as a terribly
misguided attempt at progressive thinking, we now allow women to do
things like vote, hold real jobs, and drive on the same roads as men. In
retrospect, this was clearly a gross error in judgment...but at least
we can rationalize it by pretending that men and women are equal.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kidding</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, ladies. Just kidding. Feminists are just so adorable</span><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-17-2012/the-women-s-vote"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">when they get worked up</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that sometimes I can’t help myself. If anyone reading this feels the
urge to punch me in the shoulder the next time you see me, I won’t get
mad. I probably deserve it.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ANYWAY,
the point here is that our advancements in civil rights and the
treatment of people who are not white males have come independently of
religion. If we were still living according to the Bible, we would still
have slaves (“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and
fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” Ephesians 6:5)
and subjugate women (“And man was not made for woman’s benefit, but
woman was made for man.” 1 Corinthians 11:9). So why do people still use
the Bible as an excuse to justify their homophobia?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There’s
another problem with saying that we should be using the Bible to
legally define marriage--a little thing in the First Amendment known as
the Establishment Clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion.” In effect, this means that allowing the
Christian God to legally define marriage would be unconstitutional, and
marriage is most certainly a legal matter. This is not a theocracy. Not
only are our laws </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> based on Christianity--it would be unconstitutional to make a law based solely on Christianity.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lest I give you the impression that I think all Christians are blindly bigoted and incapable of seeing reason, </span><a href="http://matthewpaulturner.net/blog/5-reasons-why-the-church-failed-yesterday/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here’s a link to another article</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that another friend of mine posted on Facebook that I legitimately
enjoyed. It’s a well written look at the gay marriage issue from a
moderate Christian perspective. The bad news is that lots of Christians
don’t agree with this and use the Bible as an excuse to be bigots. The
good news is that lots of Christians </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
agree with this standpoint and use the Bible to make a case for loving
everyone. Luckily, I think the majority of my Christian friends fall
into the latter category. So I’m not saying that all Christians are
bigoted jerks. However, it’s fair to say that Christianity </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">allows</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> some people to be bigoted jerks.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Without
a few verses in the Bible condemning homosexuality, those who are
anti-gay would have no more justification for being homophobic than
racist people have for being racist. It is no longer socially acceptable
to be racist. The only--</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ONLY</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--reason
that Mike Huckabee and his army of homophobes are not completely
denounced by the general public is religion. Yes, there are plenty of
Christians who are openly supportive of the LGBT community, but those
same people would be supportive even if they weren’t Christians.
However, the widespread support for Chick-Fil-A has proven that one of
the side effects of religion is justification for outright bigotry.
Normally it’s completely unacceptable to be a bigot, but if God hates
fags (</span><a href="http://godhatesbags.com/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">and bags</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) then it must be OK.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
was noted by Andy in the comments of my last post, “everyone who is
good is good without god.” We don’t need a 2,000 year-old book that
advocates stoning to tell us how to be good, so let’s stop using that
2,000 year-old book as an excuse to act like an asshole.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-53358486081681526032012-07-26T22:42:00.001-04:002012-07-26T22:42:29.089-04:00Beliefs of a Nonbeliever<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In my</span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-this-blog-exists.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">“Why This Blog Exists”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
post, I listed many of the problems that I have with religion and
explained my reasoning for being outspoken against it. One response to
that was: “Well, what </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> you believe in then?” It’s a good question, and I’d like to think that I can provide a pretty good answer.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Atheism,
on the whole, seems to have a negative stigma attached to it in this
country. The terms used to identify one’s religion (Christian,
Protestant, Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist,
etc.) come with some underlying meaning about what that person believes
in--mainly how many gods exist, what type of behavior they think is
good, and what happens after death. By calling myself an atheist, on the
other hand, I’m only answering the first question: I believe there are
zero gods. Without any further definition, the connotation associated
with “atheist” becomes, for some people, something along the lines of
“godless heathen with no sense of morals who is living a life of
debauchery and undermining society and also enjoys eating babies.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First,
let me set the record straight: I don’t eat babies. I bet they’re
delicious when slathered in barbecue sauce, but I’ve decided to abstain
from cannibalism. If that makes me a weirdo, then so be it.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Second,
it’s clear that the word “atheist” on its own is not enough to describe
a person’s belief system. There are even some nonbelievers who refuse
to identify as atheists because it only describes one thing that they
don’t believe in: gods. After all, no one identifies themselves by their
lack of belief in Santa or leprechauns or bipartisan cooperation--we
all know these are myths.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So
what other terms do I use to describe my beliefs? For starters, there’s
the namesake of this blog: skeptic. Skepticism is essentially the
opposite of faith--it stands for not believing in anything without good
cause. This stance practically prohibits believing in any deities as the
evidence for a god doesn’t stand up to critical thinking. I don’t think
that I’m alone among skeptics when I say that I’d be willing to believe
in God if He were to provide some compelling evidence of His existence.
However, this evidence would have to pass a ton of scrutiny. Logic
dictates that all religions are purely man-made, so it would require
some </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
compelling evidence in order to trump all of that logic. Secondhand
stories of miracles and other “religious experiences” are not compelling
evidence. This is not to say that they are not compelling to the people
that have them; it’s just that there’s always a more plausible
explanation than “divine intervention” to those who did not have the
experience.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
example, a friend of mine told me that one of the reasons she remains a
Christian is because she has talked multiple people out of committing
suicide and she believes that God gave her the inspiration to do so. I
don’t doubt that her experiences were quite powerful. However, it’s
still reasonable to question the role of the “hand of God” in these
experiences. Were it not for God, would my friend have simply told these
suicidal people that she couldn’t help them? I don’t think it’s too
likely that she would say, “Look, I know you’re depressed, but I’ve got
nothing for you. I could probably give you some words of comfort and
motivation for living if I had some supernatural assistance, but, alas, I
do not. Tough luck.” Unless she were a complete jerk, I’m pretty sure
she’d say some nice things instead. She is a nice person, after all. Is
it not a standard reaction for nice people to say nice things when
confronted by a suicidal friend? After all, secular people are perfectly
capable of providing comfort, and many psychologists (some of whom
specialize in suicide prevention) are non-theistic. Further, if you ask
God for help and things go well, the natural inclination is to assume
that God did, indeed, provide assistance. In addition to confirmation
bias (the tendency to overvalue a successful trial), there’s also the
placebo effect (when one </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">thinks</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that they received a beneficial boost even when they did not). So
anytime the statement “I couldn’t have done it without God” is made, it
should be viewed with a skeptical eye.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While
religion is a topic that obviously deserves a heavy dose of skepticism
(regardless of what you believe--even if you have strong faith in your
god, how do you know it’s the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">right</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
god?), skeptics apply critical thinking to all aspects of life. I’ll
admit that I probably accept much of the contents of Wikipedia a little
too easily; however, if I read something that gets the BS meter
tingling, I’ll look into it further (and really, Wikipedia is pretty
reliable these days due to the level of citations and how invested many
people are in maintaining the truth there). If I wake up one morning in
November and read somewhere that Hulk Hogan was elected President, I’m
eventually going to get around to figuring out that didn’t actually
happen...reluctantly. The point is that matters of importance deserve
more than blind acceptance of whatever you’re initially told. The
evidence, knowledge, and logic all need to add up to believe in
something. It’s no coincidence that we so often look to science for
answers, for the scientific method requires the use of repeatable,
verifiable experiments in an attempt to be completely objective and free
of bias.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Skepticism
is really just a way of thinking, which doesn’t shed much light on what
I believe. “Freethinker” doesn’t say a whole lot more than “skeptic.”
It simply means that thoughts and opinions should not be constrained by
any kind of dogma (particularly religious). Really, this is just a less
controversial way of proclaiming atheism in most cases since
“freethinker” hasn’t yet accumulated all the negative baggage of
“atheist”.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The most descriptive word to describe what I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
believe in is “humanist.” Simply put, humanism is the philosophy that
people can be good without a god, although there a number of other
beliefs attached to the term. </span><a href="http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_III"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The Humanist Manifesto</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
does a pretty good job of giving a concise yet complete explanation of
what humanism stands for, so I’d recommend taking a brief look at that
if you’re unfamiliar with humanism. It’s essentially the positive view
of atheism.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At
the risk of sounding sappy and idealistic, here’s my take on humanism
(and life in general): I believe in making the world a better place. I
believe in advancing society not only through innovation, but also by
gaining more knowledge and exhibiting more empathy. I believe in fair
treatment for all. I believe in judging people based on merit. I believe
in truth and figuring out what the hell that really is. I believe in
operating based on logic. I believe in the Golden Rule. I believe in
enjoying life and making the most of it while we’re here. I believe in
making life better for everyone.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of
course, it’s not possible to satisfy everything listed above all the
time. For example, writing this blog often breaks the Golden Rule and
goes against exhibiting empathy as I’m offending some people (including
many that I care about strongly). However, I’ve decided to “come out”
and write it anyway as I think religion does more harm than good on a
global scale and we’d be better off without it, which aligns with my
desires to make the world a better place, advance society, discover the
truth, and live by logic and reason. Everything is a balancing act.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Finding
the proper balance requires some critical thinking and discussion, but
luckily I think there’s a lot of common ground to be found between most
people regardless of religious affiliations. I’d like to think that, at
the very least, everyone wants the world to be a “better” place. People
just have differing ideas about what makes life better and how to go
about it. The optimistic side of me would like to think that most
religious people are down with the majority of the ideals I listed. I
know for a fact that many of them are, which is awesome. The vast
majority of my friends and family fall into the “moderate” or “liberal”
categories of Christianity (which doesn’t necessarily make them moderate
or liberal politically, it just means that they’re not religious
fundamentalists), and we actually agree on most issues. Many of them are
just as mad as I am that religion is getting in the way of having
meaningful discussions and making real progress. They realize that
society today is incompatible with religious views from 2000 years ago
as none of them engage in ritual stonings...as far as I know. By and
large, they even support the separation of church and state.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
wish that more people in this country were like that so that the
argument could simply be “good without God” vs. “good with God.”
Unfortunately, some people don’t really care about the “good” part of
that statement and focus solely on the “God” part. Let’s pretend you’re a
conservative Christian. In the name of religion, it’s OK to deny women
birth control under health insurance plans because it goes against
Catholicism (even though the majority of Catholic women </span><a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/media/resources/Religion-FP-tables.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">use birth control anyway</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">). It’s OK to strip Planned Parenthood of their funding because they sometimes perform abortions (even though </span><a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/08/jon-kyl/jon-kyl-says-abortion-services-are-well-over-90-pe/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">the majority of their work</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
goes toward preventing unwanted pregnancies and preventing STDs). It’s
OK to remove useful sex education from schools and teach abstinence-only
until marriage instead because God said fornication was bad (even
though people more often got married at 13 rather than 30 when sex
outside of marriage was originally decried, and teenagers are still
having sex anyway...</span><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/sexualbehaviors/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">they’re just not doing it safely</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">).
It’s OK to criminalize pot because punishing the “sins” of our
neighbors has become a noble and accepted way of life (even though it’s
not even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">remotely</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> possible to make a rational argument in favor of outlawing marijuana </span><a href="http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Marijuana"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">in the face of facts and reason</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--a
topic which will get its own post at some point where I’ll sift through
the massive amounts of data regarding pot). It’s OK to make laws
against gay marriage because God said it was bad in the same book where
he said trimming beards is bad (even though allowing gay marriage would
harm no one and outlawing it does nothing but bring grief to the
homosexual community).</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
is why religion frustrates the hell out of me. Even if we all want to
make the world a better place, religious dogma is too often too
inflexible to allow us to even have a discussion about how to do that.
I’m not a woman, I’ve never been to Planned Parenthood, I didn’t have
sex in high school, I don’t smoke pot, and I’m not gay. I’m an unbiased
observer on all those issues, so why do I come down on the opposite side
of conservative Christianity on all of them? Because my stances are
based on logic and what is best for society. Conservative Christian
stances are based on attempting to divine the desires of an omniscient
deity from a 2000 year old book (which, of course, involves picking and
choosing which rules to follow).</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ultimately,
this is the main advantage that humanism has over
religiosity--humanists are free to pursue a greater good without the
draconic constraints imposed by religion. Humanism’s catchphrase is
“good without god,” which is a good start, but I feel like it’s still
lacking something. You know, something that succinctly conveys “the
probability of any religion being correct is not even statistically
significant so please stop pretending that any of it is true because
it’s needlessly fucking up society.” Then again, the term “atheist” sort
of carries that connotation with it already, so maybe that can be the
atheist catchphrase while humanism sticks with the less confrontational
“good without god.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So,
yes, I am an atheist, and I proudly identify as such. But, along with
many other atheists, I also identify as a humanist, and I strongly
believe in what are mostly universal ideals. Not believing in God does
not mean that we’re immoral. In fact, I would argue that many humanists
are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">moral
than religious people as we’re not constrained by the dogma of religion
that can inspire bigotry and close-minded thinking. Not only is it
entirely possible to be good without a god--it’s actually easier.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-88711607232477466162012-06-23T00:54:00.000-04:002012-06-23T00:54:12.493-04:00Religious Benefits, Santa, and Agnosticism<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Religion,
for all of its flaws, does have some beneficial side effects. I won’t
deny that, as that would be extremely hypocritical of me since my entire
motivation here is to advance truth and reality, and there really are
some good things that can be derived from religion. It provides comfort
in the face of death if you believe you’ll go to heaven (and it allows
those left behind a measure of peace if they think you went to heaven).
It can make you feel special if you think a supernatural being is
listening to your prayers and watching over you. Churches provide a
sense of community and belonging, and serve as a weekly excuse for a
social gathering. Religion can also be used as a means of getting
children to behave--if you can get your kids to believe that there is an
invisible man watching their </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">every move</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
and then get them to believe that he gets mad when they do “bad” things
and might go so far as to send them to Hell for eternity if they
misbehave too much...it seems like that should do a reasonable job of
convincing them to be good kids.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, none of these are legitimate reasons to continue being religious. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Believing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that people go to heaven after they die doesn’t mean that they do,
regardless of how much comfort that provides. It would make me happier
if I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">believed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that I was going to win the lottery or marry Mila Kunis, but that
doesn’t change the fact that neither of those things are actually going
to happen. Just as believing I was going to win the lottery would have a
detrimental effect on my career as I would likely stop caring about my
job, believing in heaven can cause people to take their earthly lives
less seriously (which, obviously, would be a terrible mistake).
Believing in the power of prayer to change your life is just as bad, as
relying on mythical beings to fix your problems instead of doing it
yourself has a terrible track record. Inspiration is all well and good;
reliance is not.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What
about the “benefits” that don’t have negative side effects? There’s
nothing wrong with feeling connected to other members of a church and
sharing experiences with them and making friends. In fact, I think this
is one of the reasons that religion still exists as it’s one of the
few tangible benefits people get from believing in a god: the fellowship
of other believers. If you’re afraid of losing that sense of community
if you lose your religion, why not find a different community to be a
part of that isn’t based on irrational belief and behavior? Join a book
club. Join a sports league. Have a weekly movie night with friends. Go
to </span><a href="http://www.meetup.com/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">meetup.com</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and find literally anything that interests you. Even if you decide that you want to join a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Twilight</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
fan club, at least you’ll be conscious of the fact that what you read
is fictional. Plus, you still get to lionize a mythical character with
some cool powers. Just call him Edward instead of Allah.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What
about raising kids as Christians to gain the behavioral benefits? I
humbly submit a secular solution to that, too. Many adults
wholeheartedly believe in God, which leads to some confusion about
whether or not kids should believe in God when they get older. Plus,
using God requires wasting countless Sunday mornings if you’re going to
throw yourself into the whole religion thing (not to mention all the pesky praying and tithing and guilt). What if we could all use a
previously agreed-upon fictional character that watches over kids with
the same punishment/reward system for behavior? Why not use Santa
instead of God?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Santa
Claus is really just a nicer version of God. We imagine them both to be
nice old men with flowing white beards. People care about them the most
during December, and even go so far as to sing special songs for them.
Both have supernatural powers, like causing worldwide floods or eating
millions of cookies in a single evening. They both promise to reward us </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">if</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
we’re good. As such, the consequences of ticking them off are used by
parents in an attempt to get kids to behave. We learn about them both
from our parents rather than in school. Those of us who operate
logically grow up and figure out that, even though our parents told us they were real, we should stop believing in them and letting them
determine our actions because they do not exist.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some people figure out sooner than others that Santa doesn't exist, just like some people figure out sooner than others that God doesn't exist. OK, so technically I don't <i>know</i> that God doesn't exist...but I don't <i>know</i> that Santa doesn't exist, either. There is no incontrovertible
evidence that Santa is a myth. I can stay up all night
by the Christmas tree and confirm that a jolly fat man never leaves any
presents there. I could set up a hidden camera to film my living room
every night of the year while I sleep just to make sure that I have no
surprise visitors from the chimney. This would not prove that he hadn’t
visited other houses overnight; maybe he neglected mine because I was on
the naughty list. Or maybe he retired because there’s too damn many
people on this planet for him to deal with. I don’t know for sure,
although at this point it seems safe to say, with greater than 99%
confidence, that there does not exist a jolly old fat man with a long
white beard who dresses in red velvet and flies around in a sleigh
pulled by flying reindeer at supersonic speeds once a year to deposit
presents and fill stockings and eat cookies that may have been left
lying around for him with an uncanny ability to determine the desires of
each person he bestows presents upon. But again, he could just be
retired.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So do I have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">proof</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that he does not exist? No, I don’t, just like I don’t have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">proof</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that God does not exist. Although at this point it seems safe to say,
with greater than 99% confidence, that there does not exist a kind old man with a
long white beard who lives in the heavens (but also has an invisible
branch of Himself that is omnipresent on Earth) who created the Earth
yet refuses to prove it and designed men and women and all creatures on
Earth (including the extinct creatures who roamed the Earth far longer
than 6,000 years ago even though that's when He created it) and got mad at all the people He created and so decided to kill all
the ones who did not build a giant boat and allowed the one guy who did
to live for 900 years and proceeded to have a love/hate,
on-again-off-again relationship with all of humanity for a few thousand
years before he got tired of being a vengeful God and decided to have
supernatural sex with a random broad so she could bear His son whom He
would summarily kill about 30 years later to atone for all of the sins that had ever occurred or would occur by invoking the law of the
universe that states “if you’re a deity you can wipe out all the
misdeeds of an entire race by killing your own son as long as you
proceed to resurrect him three days later.” Also, He seems to like to
put people who fuck little kids in positions of high esteem within His
church. And I think he let a guy live inside a fish for a few days for
some reason.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So, no, I can’t prove that this supernatural being doesn’t
exist (although it is equally impossible for anyone but Him to prove
that he does (which He oh so conveniently refuses to do)), so that is
what atheists mean when they say that they’re technically agnostics. I
don’t believe that God exists anymore than I believe that Santa exists,
but since there is no proof of His non-existence that technically makes
me agnostic.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Getting
back to Santa, the world would be a much better place if he just
replaced God entirely. Kids are naturally prone to misbehave, but they
respond to rewards and punishment. That’s one of the few benefits that
God provides. If we just had a secular Christmas every other month or
so, we could do away with all this religion nonsense. Santa doesn’t
require you to worship him or his reindeer, he just requires you to be
well-behaved. Santa doesn’t encroach on your weekends (or any of your
free time, for that matter). His only restrictions for what you can and
cannot do is how it affects other people; as long as you’re not having a
detrimental effect on others, you can do whatever the hell you want as
far as Santa is concerned. You can masturbate and have sex whenever and
however and with whoever you please, given that you don’t harm anyone
else in the process. He’ll even let you be gay if you want.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The best thing about Santa? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">No one ever thought he wanted them to kill anyone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
No one ever started a war because they favored Santa over the Easter
Bunny. No one has ever committed jihad in order to punish those that
don’t believe in Santa. No one has ever killed others for living on a
piece of the North Pole that Santa promised them. You know what people
do in the name of Santa? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Nice things.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
If we’re going to believe in a fictional character to influence our
behavior, let’s at least pick a good one. I nominate Santa for the
office of God.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-59329769156715637052012-06-02T02:00:00.002-04:002012-06-02T02:00:07.658-04:00At Least Pascal was Good at Math<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pascal’s
Wager is one of the most convincing arguments in favor of religion that
I know of, and it was one of the primary reasons that I hung onto
Christianity throughout high school and college. It essentially states
the following:</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">OK,
so we can all agree that there may or may not be a God, and this whole
Christianity thing may or may not be correct. At the end of your life,
there are four possible states:</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr">
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="136"></col><col width="198"></col><col width="277"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></td><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You Believed in God</span></div>
</td><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You Did NOT Believe in God</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God is Real</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></td><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Congratulations! You get to go to Heaven! Eternal bliss! Hooray!</span></td><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You are going to Hell. This is bad. You are going to deeply regret this. Sucks to be you.</span></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God is Imaginary</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></td><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Well,
that’s too bad, huh? I guess you were wrong, but at least you’ll never
know that you were wrong due to that whole “lack of sentience” thing.
On the bright side, by living a good Christian life, chances are you
made the world a better place by adhering to the Ten Commandments and
the Golden Rule, so at least there’s that.</span></td><td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Uh...congrats?
I guess? You can now say “I told you so” to all those weenies who spent
their Sunday mornings in church, and you get the satisfaction of being
right. Except for the fact that you’re dead, of course. So you can’t
actually rub it in anyone’s face, and you’ll never even get the
confirmation that you’re right because that would require still having
some kind of sentience, but you’re dead and now there’s nothing. Again,
congrats. I’m sure you made your parents proud.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">States
1 and 2 make really really really really strong cases for being a
Christian. We are, after all, talking about eternity. State 3 makes the
argument that even if you’re wrong for being a Christian, there’s very
minimal downside (as opposed to the massive downside of state 2). State 4
provides you with next to no tangible benefit (especially compared to
the benefit of state 1). Given that you have a choice between believing
and not believing...WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANY RATIONAL PERSON </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">EVER</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
CHOOSE DISBELIEF??? Choosing Christianity wins the risk/reward battle
in a landslide. And here you were considering whether or not you should
believe. What an idiot.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh,
if only life was that simple--we could all just agree that it makes
sense to believe in God and move on with our lives, and I could go play
video games. Instead, here I am spending hours writing about all the
aspects of religion that are patently absurd. So why can’t I just take
Pascal’s Wager at face value and get back to shooting aliens?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
most important reason is that it’s an oversimplification of life. In
order to go to Heaven, I would have to believe in a god. On top of that,
I would have to believe in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">right</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> god, the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">right</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> prophets, the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">right</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> book, and the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">right</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
directives of how to spend my life on Earth. In other words, I would
have to look through all the available religions and figure out which
one of them </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">really</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
had it all figured out (or take a page from Joseph Smith and start up
my own religion). That alone is hard enough to do, but that alone is not
enough. Once I’ve picked a religion, I must then </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">truly believe in it and live my life by it</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in order to make it to Heaven. Therein lies the problem: believing.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While
I can choose to practice whatever religion I like and choose to make
all my life decisions based on that religion (i.e. going to church every
week, tithing, reading the Bible every day, praying every night, not
coveting my neighbor’s possessions, etc.), I don’t really get to choose
what I believe. My beliefs are determined by my experiences, knowledge,
and cognition (which I am using here to mean “the thought process used
to process information”). This is not to say that no choices or free
will are involved in the process of forming beliefs--if I didn’t choose
to acquire more knowledge about religion and spend a lot of time
thinking about it, I wouldn’t have come to believe that there is no god.
However, I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">am </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">saying
that I cannot simply “choose” to believe that there is a god. I also
can’t choose to believe that the Easter Bunny exists or that the
Cleveland Browns are a good football team. In order to believe those
things, I would have to be convinced through some kind of evidence. It
could come in the form of a personal observation (watching the Browns
actually play well), information from a source that I have deemed
worthwhile (Peter King writing about how much they’ve improved), or pure
data (win-loss record, offensive and defensive ranks). I would then
have to mentally weigh this evidence against my previously held belief
(the Browns suck) and determine if that evidence is enough to change
what I believe. At no point do I get to choose whether or not I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">believe</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that the Browns are good. I can choose to say that I think they’re good, just like I can choose to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">say</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that I believe in God, but that doesn’t make it true.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And
thus, Pascal’s Wager becomes a moot point. Believing in God is not a
choice. If I want to believe in God, there are things I can do to push
myself in that direction. I can go to church, read CS Lewis books,
listen to Christian music, hang out with Christian friends, and join a
Bible study (although I would argue that actually “studying the Bible”
would cause one to drift further away from God, so be careful with that
one if you would prefer to remain strong in your faith. </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-bible-undermines-all-of.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">As I covered previously</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, that book is ridiculous). However, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">wanting</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
to believe in something has absolutely no effect on whether or not it’s
a valid belief. I might want to believe in God because I want to go to
Heaven rather than Hell in case He exists; this would not make believing
in God any more legitimate. My desires do not affect reality. It might
make me happy to believe that the Browns are a good football team, but I
would only be fooling myself. Believing that they are good does not
change the fact that Pat Shurmur enjoys calling plays to gain 5 yards on
3rd-and-7, or the fact that they scored more than 20 points a total of
one time last year. Sometimes the truth hurts. That doesn’t make it any
less true.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pretending
to believe doesn’t help, either. If I were to buy into the idea that
God is omniscient, then I should behave as though He knows what I really
think. Again, while believing in God might be the prudent thing to do,
there is no benefit to be gained if I only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">pretend</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
to believe, and that’s the best that I can do at the moment. Logic
simply precludes me from believing in a higher power. I don’t believe in
any gods, and no matter how often I go to church or how much time I
spend praying, I’m not going to fool anyone who is omniscient. Pascal’s
Wager ultimately comes down to what I believe, not what I want or what I
choose. This makes it entirely meaningless as an argument for believing
in God.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However,
this does not stop many people from “choosing” to believe in God
because it’s the prudent thing to do. It’s incredible how much of an
effect the reasoning behind Pascal’s Wager has on people, as I would
argue that a large portion of people who call themselves Christian
aren’t really Christians. They will claim to believe (especially if you
ask them), but when it comes down to whether they want to do things like
spend an hour every week in church (which consequently interferes with
Saturday night plans and/or sleep schedules), reading the Bible every
day, tithing, praying every night, etc....there’s a fair number of
“Christians” who won’t really put the effort in. They </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> want to go to Heaven, and they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">want
to go to Hell, so they will consciously claim that Jesus is their
homeboy...but religion is not a driving force in their lives. In
reality, they care more about going out and getting drunk (or watching
movies or playing video games or whatever their vice of choice is) on
Saturday night than they do about getting up early on Sunday to go sing
some songs about how great God is and listen to someone spend 20 minutes
on the “true meaning” of some verses in Galatians. I certainly can’t
blame them--I would much rather stay up late and drink than get up early
and pretend to pay attention to someone who claims to understand an
omniscient being. Furthermore, many of the people who do bother to show
up will be thinking about whether or not they set their fantasy football
lineup for that day (or simply fidgeting in their seat in an effort to
stay awake) while their pastor is droning on. But, hey, they’ll get
credit for attendance, right?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
fact is, God (or the idea of God) does not have a strong effect on the
lives of many people who identify as Christians. Eternity is a long long
long long long long time. It is unimaginably long. It is even longer
than the title drought in Cleveland, if you can believe that (although
there’s a good chance that drought will never end, so perhaps that’s a
good metaphor for eternity). Regardless of whether or not we’re living
in an age of immediate gratification and short attention spans, if
people truly, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">truly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
believed that the fate of their eternal soul was determined by their
adherence to the edicts of God, they would carve out the time to praise
him on a regular basis. They wouldn’t take God’s name in vain on a
regular basis. They wouldn’t worship other things before God (work,
significant others, video games, etc.). They would spread the word of
God. In short, they would live their lives by the Bible.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
have an uncle who can be counted on to complain about two things every
time our family gets together: the eternal inability of Cleveland sports
teams to win (regardless of whether or not they do things like put up
the best record in the league two years in a row or not), and the length
of church services. If a service lasts longer than 60 minutes, he will
unfailingly complain about it. In his mind, church should last one hour.
Period. One would think that if the fate of his eternal soul was at
stake, he could spare an extra 10 or 15 minutes a week for the Big Guy,
but that’s apparently too much to ask.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
be fair, I know a number of people who do take their religion very
seriously. While I vehemently disagree with their beliefs, I respect the
fact that they’re serious about them. They’re not just covering their
asses in case God happens to be real; they actually believe that their
eternal salvation is tied to their actions on Earth and they live their
lives accordingly. I still think these people are delusional, and I
still think all religions are completely ridiculous, but if you’re going
to be on the side that has a 99% chance of being wrong you might as
well make sure you reap the benefits on the 1% chance that you happen to
be right (although 1% is a pretty generous figure). As my dad would
say, “Shit or get off the pot.” Some people choose shit. I got off the
pot.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-42751175933703652362012-05-19T11:20:00.000-04:002012-05-19T11:26:02.065-04:00Closets are Uncomfortable<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve
got some great news to share with you, so I’ll get right to it: I’m an
atheist. Actually, it’s not news, as I definitively stopped believing
in any type of deity about 4 years ago. However, being out of the
atheist closet is certainly news, though, since this post is essentially
me coming out. I’ve gotta be honest: it feels phenomenal.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve thought about religion a lot. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A lot. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Therefore,
I have a rather large number of thoughts to share on the subject, and
if you’re also interested in the topic of religion I hope you read some
of them. However, I realize that this is not a YouTube video of Antoine
Dodson which means there are other things you’d rather spend your time
on, so I’ll try to make these posts as meaningful as possible and limit
the filler material as much as possible. Many books have already been
written on religion, and I don’t intend to add to that number. Instead,
my goal is to clearly explain to you, dear reader, why I’ve come to the
conclusion that religion is complete and utter nonsense and a detriment
to society and cause you to examine your own beliefs if you still
believe in a god. I was a Christian for the first ~23 years of my life,
and I absolutely understand why the majority of this country is still
religious. I did not come to the conclusion that religion is bunk
easily, and I would not have changed my mind on the most important
question in life without very, very, very good reasons. As it turns out,
those reasons exist.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
be clear, I’m not writing all this because I’m bitter; I’m writing
because I want to clearly answer your question of “Why did you become an
atheist?” I’m writing because I’m big on the truth. I’m writing
because the vast majority of the people in my life are religious, and
religion can be a dangerous thing (as any kind of dogma can be
dangerous). This doesn’t mean that I’m determined to convince you that
you’re wrong if you’re religious, but it does mean that I hope you at
least think about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">why</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
you’re religious and whether that makes any sense. It’s entirely
possible that you’ll read some of what I write and your faith will only
be strengthened because you soundly refute my arguments (I’m not saying
that’s likely, but, hey, it could happen).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
plan on writing a ton of posts about religion because there is a lot to
be said on the subject. I don’t expect many people to actually read
anything that I post after today, so I’m going to start with some
important and interesting stuff.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A few quick things:</span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
you want to discuss any of this stuff over a cup of coffee or a beer,
I’d love to. I’ll even buy you one. Seriously. I’ll even buy you tea or
wine, if you prefer.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">More conveniently, feel free to post comments on these posts or send me an email and I’ll get back to you.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m
going to write pretty casually, which means I’m gonna do stuff like use
the following: the impersonal “you,” the phrase “a lot,” words like
“asshole,” the X-Men to make a point, and run-on sentences. It’s really
easy to come off as a pretentious jerk when discussing atheism, so I’m
gonna try to avoid that as much as possible. I may even cause you to
smirk on occasion.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On
a related note, my intention is not to make you mad. You might get
offended if I describe aspects of your religion as ridiculous when you
take it seriously, which means that I’m calling you ridiculous by
association. You have every right to be offended and to make your point
about why believing that when you take communion you are literally
ingesting the body of Christ is not ridiculous. I will make a conscious
effort to not act like a jackass.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Much
of what I write is kinda obvious, and much of it has been said before,
so I apologize in advance if any of what I write seems trite rather than
bright, alright? It’s not my intention to bore you; my intention is to
cover as much as possible for the benefit of those who haven’t heard
these points before. Also, I will keep the unnecessary rhyming to a
minimum. Sorry about that.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With all that out of the way, let’s talk about God, shall we? Click on "Older Posts" below or pick one from the archive section on the right. Enjoy!</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-12111743135509092642012-05-19T11:17:00.002-04:002012-05-19T11:17:55.522-04:00Why This Blog Exists<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So,
after years of living somewhat-secretly as an atheist, why have I
bothered to start a blog full of blunt and blasphemous material? It’s a
fair question, and one that deserves an answer. I didn’t really see any
benefit to “coming out” for quite some time. My entire family and the
majority of my friends are all Christians, and many of them are rather
devout. I don’t typically enjoy pissing off the people that I care
about, and I didn’t figure I would change many of their minds anyway, so
I figured it wasn’t worth bringing up.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
suppose that the main reason that I’m ultimately bringing this up is
this: I want the world to be a better place when I die, and religion is
having the opposite effect. Most importantly, religion is a driving
force behind much of the conflict in this world, and I genuinely fear
that it will be responsible for a nuke going off in my lifetime. Jihad
is religious in nature, and Muslims will not stop committing acts of
violence in the name of Allah as long as they believe that Allah exists.
The Koran is a scary book </span><span id="internal-source-marker_0.6342867206689808" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(“Slay
them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which
they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage...If they attack you put
them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded: but if they
desist, God is forgiving and merciful. Fight against them until idolatry
is no more and God’s religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight
none except the evildoers.” (Koran 2:190-193) This is but a sample of
the Koran; there are many, many similar passages)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, and Islam is capable of being a scary
religion </span><span id="internal-source-marker_0.6342867206689808" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(the
Bible also contains passages about killing others, but luckily our
culture has evolved enough to weed most of that out. It’s a danger with
all religions, but it’s most prevalent in Islam)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
standard liberal reaction to that last sentence is to worry that I’m an
intolerant racist who unfairly blames the actions of a few extremists
on the religion as a whole. There’s a problem with that reaction.
Namely: not all viewpoints </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">should</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
be tolerated. Look, I wish we could “all just get along” as much as
anyone else, and being tolerant of the differences of others certainly
plays a part in that. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
when we don’t oppose the objectively detrimental behavior of others in
the name of “tolerance,” we’re implicitly conceding that their behavior
is acceptable. To say it a little more plainly: it’s stupid to allow
people to act like jackasses just because we want to be accepting of
everyone. I’ll get into more details in other posts, but when people are
convinced that the afterlife is much more important than their lives on
Earth, they use their beliefs as justification for doing terrible
things. You know, like killing infidels and people who inhabit their
“holy land.” This is not acceptable behavior, and religion is at the
root of it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m
aware that religious extremists and fundamentalists may only make up a
small portion of any particular religious population, but the extremists
are enabled by the moderates. There’s a reluctance to condemn any
actions done in the name of religion as it’s considered taboo to demean
anyone’s religious beliefs. Societies as a whole give religion a free
pass because no one wants their own religious views ridiculed or called
into question. So, we’ve all decided that everyone can believe whatever
they want and act however they want in the name of religion. Whenever
someone points to religion as the root cause of terrible actions,
“moderates” throw a fit and defend their religion by claiming that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">they</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
are not performing these actions so we can’t consider religion to be a
motivating cause. The truth of the matter is that the “problem” with
fundamentalists is that they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">don’t</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
ignore certain tenets of their religion that the rest of society has
deemed crazy. In other words, their problem is that they adhere too
closely to their religion. Religion </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the
cause in many cases, but moderates forbid attacks on religion because
they want to continue practicing their bastardized version of it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Following
your religion to its fullest extent would be fine if religion was
harmless, but it’s not. It’s been the cause of way too many wars
throughout history and is a driving force in the current “War on
Terror.” While I’m glad that we haven’t been the victims of any serious
attacks since 9/11, I am most certainly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">glad that this “war” continues to suck up so much of our country’s budget.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To put it succinctly, here’s the problem: our economy sucks and our national debt is preposterously high. </span><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/U.S._Defense_Spending_Trends.png"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Spending $700 billion a year on defense</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> does not help. Who is going to pay off that debt? Future taxpayers. I am a future taxpayer. Ergo, I am pissed.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Obviously, there’s more problems with the budget than just military spending (namely the fact that we spend over $1.5 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">trillion</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
annually on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security). That doesn’t
change the fact that we’ve more than doubled our spending on defense in
the past decade. Ideally that number would be zero dollars annually if
we could get the whole “world peace” thing figured out. That certainly
won’t be happening anytime soon...but it will </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">never</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> happen as long as we continue to tolerate religious beliefs that encourage killing others.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My
reasons for being anti-religious are not all selfish; I wish that
terrorism was not a threat and I wish that I didn’t have to pay to fight
it, but I also wish that the quality of life was better for everyone in
the world. I wish that people would stop killing each other over
Palestine. I wish that India and Pakistan would stop threatening to blow
each other up. I wish women were not treated like property and could
wear whatever they chose in Muslim countries. I wish that people would
stop taking their own lives and the lives of others to earn a reward
that will never come. I wish that we could freely distribute condoms in
Africa to cut down on the AIDS epidemic. I wish that people would stop
pretending that abstinence is a reasonable form of birth control. I wish
that no one will ever be used to make a blood sacrifice again. I wish
that people were not ostracized for refusing to believe in imaginary
deities. I wish that gay people were treated like straight people. I
wish that creepy old men would not molest innocent boys because they’re
sexually repressed. I wish that stem cells could be used to relieve the
suffering of people that actually exist rather than worrying about the
imaginary souls of things that are incapable of thought. I wish that
people would stop using the words of books that are thousands of years
old to justify their behavior. I wish that people weren’t sent to jail
for possessing plants that are harmless. In short, I wish that logic,
reason, evidence, and knowledge took precedence over superstition and
archaic beliefs.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All
of those issues can be attributed to religion. People like to complain
about atheists under the premise that religious beliefs are harmless. I
strongly, strongly beg to differ, and that’s why I’ve bothered to “come
out” and start this blog.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-68821432453842892332012-05-19T11:13:00.003-04:002012-07-28T00:28:07.185-04:00Why the Bible Undermines All of Christianity<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
Bible is one of the most outlandish pieces of literature ever written.
The only books still read today that provide any competition in terms of
sheer ridiculosity are other religious books (the Torah, the Koran,
etc.). The Koran will get its own post as it is capable of inspiring
just as much fear as the thought of George W. Bush being the most
powerful person in the world for eight years in a row. Since I was
raised as a Christian and the majority of this country is Christian, I’m
going to start with the Bible. Oh, what fun we shall have!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
went to Sunday School almost every week between the ages of 3-18. In
6th grade, I became a member of the youth group at church. When I got to
high school, I also joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In
college, I was a member of Campus Crusade and was in a small Bible study
group. I also went to church in college and was even a Sunday School
teacher for a year. When I was 20-21, I actually read the Bible in its
entirety. Suffice to say, I spent way too much time with the Bible when I
was younger.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And
yet...it never seemed all that crazy to me when I was still a
Christian. Looking back, this seems unbelievable to me. Reading some of
the stuff in the Bible when not immersed in the indoctrination of
Christianity is an eye-opening experience. When I was younger, I didn’t
fully appreciate how preposterous this book is, because at the time I
was willing to accept anything in the Bible under the premise that it
was inspired by God and I needed to believe in it in order to go to
Heaven. Faith will do some unbelievable stuff, as it turns out. It will
allow you to read stuff that depicts God as a petty, vengeful, cruel,
jealous, megalomaniacal asshole and pass it off by saying “Well, He </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
God. I guess He can act however He wants.” Faith will allow you to
read the Ten Commandments and think “Yep, that’s a pretty good list.”
Faith will allow you to think “Even though the fact that some people
are homosexuals doesn’t affect me </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">at all</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, God hates ‘em so we better not let ‘em get married.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How
is it that I allowed myself to get brainwashed into thinking the Bible
was worthwhile? Well, when you’re a kid, they mostly touch on fun
stuff: Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Adam and Eve, the parting of the
Red Sea, Jonah and the whale, and the life of Jesus. These stories are
all pretty ridiculous, of course, but compared to The Berenstain Bears
and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers, Noah’s Ark seems
kinda dull. His animals didn’t even talk! Then again, I don’t think
there were any Berenstain Bears stories about the near-extermination of
every species on the planet, so Noah has that going for him.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
I got older, the focus seemed to shift mostly toward the New Testament,
and with good reason--if you spend too much time reading the Old
Testament, your chances of sticking with religion will be about as good
as your chances of becoming a Power Ranger. “Bible study” groups like to
cherry pick passages that they can derive a useful message out of (as
opposed to actually “studying the Bible,” which </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">should</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
lead to either dismissing it entirely or becoming a fundamentalist kook
and stoning people for working on the Sabbath. Sadly, many people
who claim to live their lives by it don’t really know what’s in it.)
If you only focus on the stories listed above, the gospels, and Paul’s
letters, Christianity </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">might</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
not seem insane. There’s still lots of wacky stuff, of course, but a
rational person could stomach it if they accepted God’s ability to
perform miracles. This is why Thomas Jefferson cut out select passages
to create </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson%27s_Bible"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">his own version of the Bible</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: he was a pretty rational guy for his time, and he realized that most of the Bible is batshit crazy.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
example: Leviticus. The entire book. If you’re having trouble
controlling your hunger, I heartily recommend reading Leviticus. It’ll
make your appetite disappear in a jiffy. It will tell you, in great
detail, how to properly atone for your sins through the use of
turtledoves: “The priest will take the bird to the altar, twist off its
head, and burn the head on the altar. He must then let its blood drain
out against the sides of the altar. The priest must remove the crop and
the feathers and throw them to the east side of the altar among the
ashes. Then, grasping the bird by its wings, the priest will tear the
bird apart, though not completely. Then he will burn it on top of the
wood fire on the altar. It is a whole burnt offering made by fire, very
pleasing to the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:14-17) Very pleasing, indeed! I
won’t bore you with the details of all the different types of offerings
one can make, but the general idea is that the animal you sacrifice
needs to be free from defects, you need to be particular about where you
smear the blood, and the smell of burning goat flesh is to the Lord
what the smell of apple pie is to you or me (“very pleasing”).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You may be wondering what sins require an offering. Well, for starters, it is made </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">very clear</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that unintentional sins are just as bad as intentional sins. So even if you only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">accidentally</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
touched a woman while she’s on her period, you are still guilty and
need to find yourself a nice goat to go slaughter at the altar. Here’s a
list of things that the Lord disapproves of:</span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eating fat (7:24)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Putting coal in an incense burner (10:1)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mourning by letting your hair down (10:6)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eating bacon (or ham or pork) (11:7)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eating shrimp (11:10)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Giving birth, particularly to girls (12:2, 5)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ejaculating (15:16)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Menstruating (15:19)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Having sex with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">any</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
of your father’s wives (18:8). Yes, this means polygamy is cool, just
as long as your wives aren’t related to each other (18:18)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Being a homosexual (18:22)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eating a three day old offering (19:8)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Harvesting the edges of fields (19:9)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gossiping (19:16)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Wearing clothes from two different kinds of fabric (19:19)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eating fruit from a field during the first four years you plant it (19:23)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Trimming your sideburns or beard (19:27)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Getting tattoos (19:28)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Working on Saturdays (19:30)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
you don’t atone for these sins, you will either be executed (if it was a
capital offense) or God will: give you terrors, wasting diseases, and
burning fevers; prevent your crops from growing; send animals to kill
your children; send armies to get you; destroy your food; make you eat
the flesh of your children; and cause you to flee to the land of your
enemies where you will live in constant fear (chapter 26).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So.
That’s Leviticus. People think being gay is a sin because God said so
in the same book He said eating bacon, masturbating, beard trimming, and
wearing cotton/polyester blend shirts are sins </span><span id="internal-source-marker_0.6342867206689808" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Paul
also mentions homosexuality as a sin, but this is where the idea that
being gay is “bad” originates)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. As Jesus would say:
let he who is without sin cast the first stone, bitches.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Many
peop</span>le are aware of the Koran’s insistence that infidels need to die.
However, while people like to think of Christianity as a kind and loving
religion, the Bible also demands killing those that do not adhere to
God’s rules. For example, check out chapter 13 of Deuteronomy.
Seriously, </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deuteronomy%2013&version=NIV"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">go read that</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
Did you notice that it just told you to kill me? Straight up. I am at
this very moment trying to lead you astray from the Lord your God, and
God was quite explicit in saying that you should stone me to death for
this. Not only that, you should go ahead and kill all of the other
heathens in my town that I’ve lead astray. Then you should kill our
livestock while you’re at it. Then you should burn our town to the
ground, and never rebuild it. This is what Deuteronomy says in chapter
13. It’s very straightforward, and while some of the Bible may be open
to “interpretation,” I have a hard time seeing how this passage could be
construed any differently.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Before
you dismiss this by saying that Deuteronomy and Leviticus are really
old books and maybe something got lost in translation or maybe that only
applied when God was a vengeful asshole, keep in mind that these are
the same books of the Bible that include the Ten Commandments (chapter 5
of Deuteronomy, chapter 19 of Leviticus) that people seem to think are
significant even though an incredibly tiny percentage of people actually
follow them. The Ten Commandments are so incredibly messed up that I’ve
devoted an entire post to them (</span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-people-actually-want-to-put-10.html" style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">which you can read here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">),
so I won’t dwell on them here. Suffice to say that within the same book
of the Bible where we supposedly derive our morality there’s a chapter
telling you to kill heathens...even though one of the commandments is
“Do not murder.” Yeah, good luck sorting out that contradiction.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(To
be clear, I’m not asking that you execute me. I would strongly prefer
that you didn’t, actually. Just take comfort in the knowledge that God
will judge me and send me to Hell!)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Just for fun, here are a few other things Deuteronomy will tell you:</span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Don’t boil a young goat in its mother’s milk (14:21)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You should kill those that worship the moon (17:3)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You should not sacrifice your children as burnt offerings (18:10)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You can get out of fighting a war if you planted a vineyard but haven’t eaten any of its fruit yet (20:6)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If you can’t figure out who committed a murder, just kill a cow (21:4)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You need to give a larger inheritance to your firstborn son, even if you like the mother of your other son better (21:16)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You can stone your son to death if you think he’s a worthless drunkard (21:21)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God hates cross-dressers (22:5)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You
can’t join the assembly of worship if anyone between you and your
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is a bastard
(23:2) (Maybe this explains why the rabbis were so pissed when Jesus
showed up at their temples...)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God doesn’t want to see your shit, so cover it up when you’re done (23:14)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You must marry your brother’s wife if he dies. If you refuse, she must pull your sandal off and spit in your face (25:9)</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Finally,
what might be my favorite Bible verse ever: “If two Israelite men are
fighting and the wife of one tries to rescue her husband by grabbing the
testicles of the other man, her hand must be cut off without pity.”
(25:11-12) How awesome is that?! This is the ancestor of warning
labels that say things like “Do not stick hand in blender while
operating.” You know some broad interfered in a fight by yanking on
some balls and Moses was like “that is NOT cool. I am totally forbidding
that. Ugh. Women.”</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m
not going to waste too much more time going over how ridiculous the
Bible is, but here’s a brief list of highlights off the top of my head: a
woman being created from the rib of a man, the entire human race
spawning from two people, a family not only building a boat large enough
to carry two of every animal on Earth but also successfully gathering
them all up (led by a guy who lived for 950 years), a woman giving birth
even though she was a virgin, people being resurrected from the dead
(including Jesus himself...after three days), people speaking in
tongues, some dude living inside a large fish for three days, the Red
Sea being parted so that people could walk through it on the floor,
spontaneously combusting bushes, walls collapsing because some people
shouted at them, and for good measure a book that approximates an early
attempt at a trashy romance novel (written by a guy who had 700 wives
AND 300 concubines, so you know he clearly valued relationships for more
than just sex).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh,
and I should give a shout out to the book of Revelation, which was
written by a guy who may have been high on psychedelic drugs at the
time. </span><span id="internal-source-marker_0.6342867206689808" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There
is obviously no way to prove whether or not the author of a book
written 1900 years ago was on mushrooms at the time or not, but it would
certainly explain a lot. The mushroom known as “fly agaric” was all
over the Northern Hemisphere, and some guy wrote</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mushrooms-Religion-Alchemy-Heinrich/dp/0892819979"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">an entire book</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
exploring the theory that mushrooms may have been responsible for all
kinds of “visions” throughout history. Again, there’s no way to prove
that Moses or John or anyone else ever took any of these shrooms, but,
again, it would certainly explain a lot.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I literally opened my Bible up to a random page in Revelation and
picked a random paragraph: “The locusts looked like horses armed for
battle. They had gold crowns on their heads, and they had human faces.
Their hair was long like the hair of a woman, and their teeth were like
the teeth of a lion. They wore armor made of iron, and their wings
roared like an army of chariots rushing into battle. They had tails that
stung like scorpions, with power to torture people. This power was
given to them for five months. Their king is the angel from the
bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek,
Apollyon--the Destroyer.” (9:7-11) The rest of the book is just as
crazy. It should be noted that this is the same book that makes people
think that a “rapture” or “day of judgment” is going to occur sometime.
Because, you know, clearly the man who wrote this book was sane. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So.
That stuff all exists in the Bible. I did not make any of it up. It is
clearly ridiculous...but for some reason people still </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">love</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
to quote it. People quote the shit out of the Bible! Everyone wants to
use the Bible to make a point, and they are not ridiculed for doing so.
That people still put stock in the Bible (or any other holy text) is
nothing short of ridiculous. To borrow a quote from Sam Harris:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Tell
a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen
yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much
evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you
give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an
invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails
to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to
require no evidence whatsoever.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It
is simply stupefying to me that people still have any shred of
reverence whatsoever for a book written between 1600 and 3500 years ago.
Even though Genesis covers events that supposedly took place as early
as 6000 BC, it wasn’t written until sometime in the 1400’s BC. The
gospels were all written 60 years or later after Jesus died, and none of
the authors were disciples. It is full of contradictions (see </span><a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cv/scb/index.htm"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">this list</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
for a bunch of examples, although I will freely admit that it would be a
stretch to classify some of them as “contradictions”). There are a
multitude of different translations of it. There are a multitude of
different “interpretations” of it. Some people take it literally and
some do not, and those that don’t cannot agree on what exactly is meant
by those passages that cannot be taken literally.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At
the time it was written, people thought we lived in the center of a
relatively small universe, had no idea the Americas existed, didn’t know
what germs were, found slavery to be a natural and acceptable practice,
had multiple concubines, enjoyed stoning others, thought birthrights
were the best way to determine leaders, and regularly made blood
sacrifices. But we’re supposed to take this book seriously? Really? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Really?!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There
is simply no suitable rationalization for taking the Bible seriously.
Much like the credibility of a witness in court is demolished when they
are caught in a lie, the credibility of the Bible has been destroyed by
time. Once you know a witness is willing to lie, you can’t trust
anything he says. Once you realize that many parts of the Bible are
complete bullshit (see above. Or, you know, just look around and realize
that you’re living in a society that eats bacon), you can’t trust any
of it. You can’t just throw out the parts of the Bible you don’t like
and pretend that they don’t exist. The God of Abraham and the God of
Jesus were the same guy, and Jesus studied the scriptures of the Old
Testament like a good boy. In fact, Jesus was mad about supposed
religious leaders that did not keep to the laws: “The teachers of
religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the
Scriptures. So practice and obey whatever they say to you, but don’t
follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.” (Matthew
23:2-3) Furthermore, even though it’s largely disjointed and
irrational, we’re told that it was all inspired by God: “All Scripture
is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and what is
wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is
right. It is God’s way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for
every good thing God wants us to do.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Like it or
not, the Bible is completely outdated and completely unsuitable for
dictating how people live their lives.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
we take the logic a few steps further, we see a rather large problem.
Christianity is built on the Bible. Without the Bible, there would be no
Christianity. It is considered to be the “Word of God.” However, it’s
pretty clear that we cannot take this text seriously, at least not in a
literal sense. In fact, most Christians will admit that those who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
take the Bible literally are crazy and are offended when non-believers
try to place “moderate” Christians in the same group. Admitting that we
cannot take it literally and outright </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ignoring</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
certain passages that do not fit with the modern world and our current
moral and ethical code is an admission that the Bible is not perfect
(and far from it). Yet, this is what the entire religion of Christianity
is based on: a poorly written book full of contradictions and
directives that we can all agree are irrational today.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
Bible has not stood up to the test of time, and this is not debatable.
Why is it, then, that we’re still debating whether or not Christianity
is a viable worldview when it’s entirely based on garbage?</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-80931387291352737622012-05-19T11:03:00.002-04:002012-05-19T11:03:55.313-04:00“Intelligent” Design<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We
can’t discuss religion without discussing the whole “origin of life,
the universe, and everything” issue. After all, it’s the main reason
many people still believe in a god.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some
people think that science will never come up with an acceptable answer
to the big question: how did we get here? I freely admit that I used to
be one of these people. I thought that life in general and humans in
particular were much too complex to have come about by chance, and
therefore we must have been created by a higher power. For most of my
life, I was lazy enough to be satisfied with that. Ahh, to be young and
naive...</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Disclaimer:
much of this post is sourced from Richard Dawkins, who is an
evolutionary biologist and writer. I highly recommend checking out one
of his books for more detail on this subject from someone much more
qualified than me.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
start with, it is incredibly short-sighted to think that the only two
options are pure chance and Intelligent Design. Those are both </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">terribly illogical</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
explanations. They are both completely and totally irrational. We can
all agree that life, the universe, and everything are incredibly complex
(and 42 doesn’t provide much satisfaction as an answer). Humans alone
are incredibly complex: we have eyes and ears and noses and hearts and
kidneys and livers and legs and arms and hands and fingers and shoulders
and bones and blood vessels and cells and DNA. There is no way that we
could come about, as presently constructed, by pure chance, right? That
is right, actually. Some have used the analogy that humans coming about
by chance is like a tornado flying through a junkyard and creating a
fully-functional Boeing 747. I completely agree.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
lazy option is to stop thinking there and chalk life up to Intelligent
Design. But what if you keep thinking? “Humans are really, really
complicated, so they must have been created by God. OK, that makes
sense. God could decide that His planet will be populated with beings
that have eyes and ears and everything else, and while he’s at it he’ll
create a bunch of other species (which are themselves really complex) so
that there’s some variety on Earth. But...if it requires a god to
create everything on Earth, what would it take to create a god? That
being must be even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">powerful
than our God (who is already omnipotent) in order to have created Him
so that He could create us, and someone would have had to create him,
and someone had to create him, and someone had to create him...” This
is what Dawkins refers to as “the Ultimate 747.” Our life is about as
improbable as creating a 747 in a junkyard via tornado, which we can all
agree is highly improbable. However, if we were intelligently designed,
our creator is by definition even more improbable than we are, meaning
that whatever created </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">him</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> would have to be even more improbable, ad infinitum.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">OK,
so we’ve established that Intelligent Design is incredibly improbable
because, as improbable as it might be for there to exist a being so
complex that it could design us, it would be even more improbable for
there to exist a designer of this designer, as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> designer would have to be even more complex than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">our</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
designer. The real question is not whether or not there is a God that
designed us (as we can be quite certain there is not), but this: why is
there something instead of nothing? That’s a good question, and a
really difficult one to answer. Just because we don’t have a good
explanation for that doesn’t mean that we should accept a bad
explanation. Erroneously attributing the universe to God doesn’t solve
any questions; in fact, that complicates things even further because it
brings the question of God’s origin into play. We have knowledge about
our own lives on Earth; we have no knowledge about the life of any god.
We can’t just ignore the question of where God came from. Saying “He’s
always been there” doesn’t solve anything. Furthermore, since there is
nothing to suggest that a god created the universe, it makes us all look
stupid and naive. So let’s stop that.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
my knowledge, cosmology hasn’t advanced far enough to provide a good
answer for the universal “something instead of nothing” question. It’s a
question that likely won’t be definitively answered in our lifetimes,
and it’s entirely possible that it will never be answered. Stephen
Hawking and Lawrence Krauss both have theories (and I’m sure there will
be many more to come), but it is such a ridiculously complicated problem
that there’s really no way to prove what happened billions of years
ago. If you’re thinking “Hey. Idiot. We already have an answer: God
designed everything. He is infinite. He always was and always will be.
He is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega and all that
jazz,” allow me to respond. Simply put, that is a completely baseless
argument. You can’t decide that the universe needs an origin but God
does not. You can’t argue against all secular theories for the origin of
the universe by saying “you can’t create something from nothing,
therefore it must have been created by God,” because the existence of
God Himself falls prey to the same argument. If the universe can’t come
from nothing, then neither can God. Is it really harder to believe that a
universe can come about more easily than a supernatural being capable
of creating a universe? If your head hurts thinking about this, it
should. Saying that the universe has a creator only makes its origin
more complex, not less.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ANYWAY,
let’s stop going around in circles on that question as there is no way
to prove any theories about the origin of the universe (unless, of
course, there is a God and he finally decides to prove to humanity that
He does, in fact, exist; strangely enough, this has never happened).
However, even if we can’t answer the universal question, we should be
able to answer the local question about the origins of life on this
planet. While the universe is, to put it succinctly, freaking humungous,
our own planet is finite in size and we’ve been here for quite a while,
so that’s within our ability to explain. Luckily, we have an
alternative explanation to random chance and Intelligent Design: natural
selection.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s
a common misconception to think of “natural selection” and “chance” as
the same thing, which is why many people dismiss this theory. The
general thinking goes something along the lines of “You’re telling me
that humans evolved from single-celled organisms? Random mutations
caused those organisms to grow some limbs because that would be
convenient? Whatever, nerd.” This is an oversimplification of natural
selection. In general, the theory states that, over a period of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">millions of years</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, those single-celled organisms </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">very slowly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
and incrementally mutated. Miniscule, nearly imperceptible changes. If
Organism A underwent a change that was beneficial to survival, and
Organism B did not, naturally Organism A would not only have a better
chance of surviving itself, but its descendants would also have a better
chance of surviving. Eventually its descendants undergo another slight
mutation that allows for better survival and procreation, and this
process of evolution is endlessly repeated. Organisms that undergo
detrimental mutations, on the other hand, naturally die off.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The "millions of years" point is </span><span id="internal-source-marker_0.914418776383772" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">one that cannot be stressed strongly enough--we’re talking about a
time period so long that we can’t even comprehend it. While we have less
than 10,000 years worth of history passed down from our ancestors (as
language is required for this to happen), we know that this planet is
billions of years old. For those who think this planet is roughly 6,000
years old: please stop being ridiculous. We have fossils older than
that. Dinosaurs most certainly existed before that. The Bible may only
go back to ~6,000 years ago but, again, a language is required to pass
history on. If you are of the opinion that life began with Adam and Eve
6,000 years ago and they could speak then, I would love to hear your
explanation of cavemen paintings that have been found that point to a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">non-existence</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of language at the time.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There
are some points of this theory that are initially hard to accept from a
common sense standpoint. For example, we know that human beings today
are very complex. Even little bits of us are incredibly complex, such as
the eye. How could we come to possess a pair of eyes through tiny,
miniscule changes if each and every change has to improve our chances of
survival? Doesn’t it seem like the eye would have to come about in a
fully-functioning form to be considered useful? No, actually. There are
plenty of examples of other species still around today that do not have
sight that is as good as ours (as their means of sight evolved
differently), but their ability to detect the world around them is
beneficial, even if the picture is not as clear as the human eye’s.
Anyone with bad eyesight can attest to this. When I’m not wearing my
glasses, my vision is quite blurry, but I can still make out walls and
doorways well enough to stumble my way to the toilet in the middle of
the night. Without my glasses, I wouldn’t be able to recognize a
person’s face from twenty feet away, but I could at least make out the
shape of a person. With each step closer I take, I get more information
about what I’m looking at. “That looks like a person” becomes “that
looks like a person with long hair” becomes “that looks like a person
with boobs” becomes “that looks like a woman who is clearly watching me
approach” becomes “that looks like a woman who wants to get it on.
Giggity giggity.” Or, conversely, “that woman appears to be creeped out
by me. I should stop approaching her if I don’t want a faceful of
mace.” Even something as simple as being able to detect the difference
between light and dark has its benefits, and every step between light
detection and complete visual clarity is more beneficial than the last.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Creationists
have attempted to come up with counter arguments over the years based
on some feature of humans or other species that cannot be explained by
natural selection. They try to point to something, such as an eye or a
wing, that they cannot envision existing in a lesser version. They argue
that such things are useless unless they are in their present,
beneficial state, and therefore could not have come about by tiny,
incremental changes over time. This argument is known as Irreducible
Complexity, which states something like “nothing less than a
fully-functioning wing could help a fly survive. Having half of a wing,
or a quarter of a wing, is not beneficial. Therefore, natural selection
cannot explain the wing. Therefore, the fly must have been intelligently
designed.” However, evolutionary biologists have come up with an
answer for every one of these arguments, proving them invalid (the wing
is a really good example, actually. While part of a wing (say, 1/10 of a
wing) would not enable flight, it would enable falling from a certain
height without dying. 2/10 of a wing would enable falling from an even
higher height, as would 3/10 and 4/10 and so on). Keep in mind that some
initial changes may not necessarily be beneficial to survival, but
those changes could still persist as long as they don’t decrease the
odds of survival, especially if they eventually turn into something
useful.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You
may be thinking “Why don’t we see examples of these mutations today? I
don’t see the X-Men running around in the real world. According to your
theory, evolution should be ongoing forever.” While it’s true that the
X-Men don’t exist in reality (although it would be awesome if they
did), this is a pretty easy one to answer. Look at your parents. Look in
the mirror. Do you look exactly like one of your parents? Similar,
yes. Identical, no. Do you think exactly like them? Similarly, maybe.
Identically, no. Therefore, a change has occurred between your parents
and you. Trace those changes back through millions of years, and the
idea of evolution doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Mutations </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
occur, and they have been observed not just in humans but in all
species throughout the world in both laboratory and natural settings.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You
may be thinking “Part of the theory of natural selection is what is
known as ‘survival of the fittest,’ which states that inferior life
forms are weeded out. How do you explain apes? How do you explain the
fact that detrimental mutations still exist?” As for apes, they still
exist because they have evolved enough to survive as they are (just like
all the other species that still exist). While humans and apes likely
share a common ancestor, that does not mean that humans evolved </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">from apes</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
which in turn does not mean that the apes we see today are less-evolved
humans--they are a different species. They have evolved to suit their
environment, and we have evolved to adapt to ours. Just because an
organism branches out in a new direction that doesn’t necessarily mean
that the lineage that didn’t go in that direction will die out. Apes are
doing just fine. So are spider monkeys. So are orangutans. They all
still mate. The fact that apes still exist is actually an expected
outcome of natural selection, not a surprise.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some
species are not so lucky and actually do die out. Many more would if it
weren’t for the intervention of humans trying to preserve them. In
fact, there are over 1,500 species currently considered “endangered” or
worse, and the vast majority of species to have ever existed on Earth
are already extinct. Even if you’re under the impression that this
planet is a mere 6,000 years old, we have fossils of countless extinct
species and many more are going extinct on a continuous basis.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
for “bad” mutations not being weeded out, the advances of society and
technology are to blame when it comes to humans. 10,000 years ago, I
probably would have had no chance of procreating since I have both
auditory and visual deficiencies and hearing aids and glasses are
relatively recent inventions. Not being able to hear or see predators
would clearly put me at a disadvantage, and would likely result in a
terribly sad and most unfortunate early death for me. Luckily, human
society has evolved in such a way that I might have been able to survive
5,000 years ago as I would have had a family and a tribe of other
humans to help protect me. My chances of finding a mate may have been
decreased on account of being half-blind and half-deaf, though, so those
genes may not have been likely to be passed on (although, given my
charming personality and stunning intelligence, I may not have had
anything to worry about. Then again, my mustache doesn’t connect to my
beard, so it’s possible that the women of 3,000 B.C. would have laughed
at me. Who knows?). Today, through the wonders of technology, I am
neither half-blind nor half-deaf, and therefore my chances of mating and
passing on those somewhat awesome, somewhat messed up genes are
significantly increased (get excited, ladies!).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Furthermore,
if we were intelligently designed, why are there so many design flaws?
Natural selection allows for imperfections and inconveniences to
persist; its only requirement is the ability to survive and procreate at
a higher rate than dying. If we were designed by someone with the
ability to create us as they saw fit, there’s no reason for us to have
even a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">single</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
flaw, much less a slew of less-than-ideal features. We don’t have 360
degree vision. Our knees are notoriously unreliable. We suffer from
countless diseases that we’re unable to fight off naturally. We have an
organ, the appendix, that no longer serves a purpose other than to
spontaneously decide to EXPLODE in an apparent attempt to kill us. While
the vagina is great for sex, it’s rather ill-equipped for childbirth,
which is something that is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">necessary for life to continue</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and yet </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is one of the most painful experiences in the world. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It gets the job done, sure. But that is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
something that any intelligent designer would consider an ideal way to
give birth. Also, as a friend of mine so eloquently put it: what kind of
designer puts a playground in the middle of a sewage plant? Location,
location, location.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Also,
shit smells. Don’t tell me an intelligent designer would think it a
good idea for us to naturally excrete some of the most awful-smelling
emissions possible </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">every single day. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Farts
are one of the most annoying things in the world. They smell awful, yet
they’re unavoidable. They cause discomfort when you have to hold them
in, but when you release them you have to deal with that terrible smell,
and this happens </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">all the time</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">!
Even if you’re the only one that smells your farts it’s still not a
victimless crime. Thankfully we live in an age of ceiling fans and air
fresheners, so it’s possible to take a shit without gravely annoying
anyone who has to pass in the proximity of bathrooms (and for the
record, I manage such issues well as my mother taught me good manners),
but just think about how annoying it was to take a shit for the majority
of history. I mean, would you want to have to trek out to the outhouse
in the middle of the winter every time you had to drop a deuce? Your
choice was either that or using a bedpan and stinking up the whole
house. Forgive me for being crude if you’re offended by this discussion,
but this is a serious point: an “intelligent” designer would not put
all of humanity through all of this complete nonsense </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">every freaking day. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Why
couldn’t He make farts smell like apples? We know they had apples in
the Garden of Eden, so that scent was available to Him. He had the whole
digestive system thing worked out where we eat food, process what we
need, and get rid of the rest, yet he for some reason decided that we
should be eternally tormented by the scent of shit rather than apples?!
Why would He even make gas a byproduct of digestion to begin with? It
wasn’t enough to excrete solid and liquid waste, we had to include gas,
too? Intelligent my ass (I would add “pardon the pun” here, but I kinda
liked that one. Also, my sense of humor sometimes coincides with that
of a child).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Furthermore,
why create so many species that are nothing but detrimental to
humanity? This includes mere annoyances such as flies and mosquitoes as
well as legitimate threats to human life such as sharks and mountain
lions. The Bible claims that God made man in His image and 99.9% of its
contents are about humans, so if you buy into the Bible you must
therefore buy into the idea that humans have a greater place in this
world than the rest of the animal kingdom and that Earth was created
specifically </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">humans.
You can explain the existence of cows and sheep and goats and other
livestock from a creationist point of view, but you can’t explain
mosquitoes. Not only are they annoying to absolutely everyone who has
ever walked on this planet, they’re deadly when they carry around
malaria. Again--this is the product of an “intelligent” designer?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anyway, If you still doubt the plausibility of natural selection, I recommend checking out some of </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Show-Earth-Evolution/dp/B004AYCWY4/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Richard Dawkins’ works</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
He’s an evolutionary biologist who has spent pretty much his entire
career advancing this theory, and some of the paragraphs above borrowed
liberally from his writing. To my knowledge, he has an answer to all
rebuttals of natural selection.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clinging
to Intelligent Design as your theory of choice when explaining life on
Earth may have been acceptable before Darwin gave us an infinitely
better answer (I say “infinitely” because we actually have evidence for
evolution), but today it’s just a sign of ignorance.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-49330406005803638232012-05-19T10:59:00.000-04:002012-05-19T10:59:29.712-04:00If Your God is Omnipotent, You Unequivocally Worship an Asshole<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some
of the things I write here fall under the category of “opinion” or
“theory” or “conjecture.” I freely admit that. No one can conclusively
prove that God doesn’t exist (just as no one can conclusively prove that
He does, save for the God himself). Some things that I write, however,
cannot successfully be debated. The title of this post is a statement
that has </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">no </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">valid
counterpoint. If you believe in a god, he is either an asshole or he is
not omnipotent (meaning that everything does NOT happen for a reason
and we are NOT all part of God’s plan). There is no third option.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
reasons difficult to justify, many Christians and Jews (though not all)
believe in an omnipotent god. They think He is all-powerful since he
was capable of doing things like flooding the Earth and turning rivers
into blood. This God allowed Moses to literally part the Red Sea so that
His people could walk through it. He gave Jesus the power to perform
miracles, going so far as to raise people from the dead. Hell, He
created life! If that’s not an example of omnipotence, then I don’t
know what is. All these things are in the Bible, so if you trust the
Bible there’s a good chance you think of God as an omnipotent being. If
you worship such a god, you worship an asshole (quick aside: while
everything in this post is more or less my original thoughts, it was
pointed out to me that a gent by the name of Epicurus was credited for
this general argument...in roughly 300 BC. It boggles my mind that this
point was made 2,300 years ago, yet the majority of the world still
believes in a benevolent god). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You
may think that I lack moral fiber because I’m an atheist and I use
words like “asshole,” but I’m proud of the fact that I don’t endlessly
praise someone who is completely fine with untold multitudes of innocent
people suffering and dying.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
the sake of argument, let’s say that the Judeo-Christian God exists,
and let’s say that He is omnipotent. He was cool with every single war
that has ever taken place in the history of this planet. He was down
with people being bought, sold, beaten, tortured, raped, and worked to
death (and he was down with all of this being socially acceptable rather
than morally reprehensible up until a couple hundred years ago). He
gave his tacit approval of more than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">six million of His chosen people</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
being slaughtered. History is littered with endless examples of
horrible things happening to innocent people. Ironically, a large
portion of those atrocities can be directly attributed to religion
(which is an entire post unto itself, so I won’t dwell on that point
here). It’s not like he’s fixed everything and we’re now living in a
utopia, either; a large portion of the world’s population lead what can
generously be termed “crappy lives.” While we tend to take things like
food, clean water, education, and something approximating gender
equality for granted in first-world countries, much of the world is
struggling to attain those things. Even in America we still have
problems that could be easily solved by an omnipotent god, like people
being senselessly and sometimes accidentally murdered, altar boys being
deliberately molested by creepy, sexually repressed old men, and women
getting breast cancer.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even
if God did not actively seek to commit these atrocities, he did nothing
to stop them. If he is, indeed, omnipotent (or even simply capable of
affecting events on Earth), he could have done something to save
countless people from suffering needlessly. Yet, God has stood by and
allowed horrible things to happen time after time. Ergo, God is an
asshole.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Perhaps
you like to say things like “everything happens for a reason” or “when
God closes a door, He opens a window” or “God has a plan.” If that is
your counterpoint, and you actually believe any of those statements,
then you have already lost this argument and should probably start
looking for other phrases to give you comfort when bad things happen. I
humbly suggest the ever-popular “Turn that frown upside-down!” or “We’re
not Detroit!” to lift your spirits in times of sorrow.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Allow
me to illustrate my point with a simple example: the Holocaust. If you
believe that everything happens according to God’s plan, then you
believe that God explicitly allowed the Holocaust to happen. More than
six million completely innocent people were killed for no good reason.
That point is not up for debate. Those people died not because they
committed crimes, but because of who they were; they were not killed
because of decisions that they made, but because of who their parents
were. Any silver linings that you may want to take away from the
Holocaust are completely overshadowed by the fact that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">over six million innocent people died for them. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Not
only were they innocent--almost all of them were Jews! Almost all of
them believed in God! There is not a single lesson that God could have
taught us through the Holocaust that required that many deaths and that
much destruction and suffering throughout Europe. After all, God is
supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, so it stands to reason that
he could have found another way to get His message across (whatever the
hell you may imagine that message to be). Furthermore, if He’s
omnipotent and everything happens according to His plan, not only did he
</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">allow</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the Holocaust to happen...</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He planned it. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
point can be extrapolated to apply to all of the atrocities in this
world: God planned the Crusades. God planned the Spanish Inquisition.
God planned the era of witch-hunting. God planned the era of slavery
(and didn’t bother to end it during Biblical times when He still
supposedly had a habit of directly intervening in worldly affairs,
preferring instead to wholeheartedly endorsing the practice). God
planned every war. God planned every murder. God planned every case of
cancer. God planned every case of child molestation. God planned every
case of rape.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
you read that last paragraph and still think that “everything happens
for a reason,” and that “reason” has to do with God’s plan, then you
will have to concede that your God is a sick, nasty, deplorable dude. If
you concede that point, and still choose to worship Him, then you are a
terribly immoral person and a detriment to society. That also makes you
a doo-doo head. It’s socially acceptable to worship God when we think
that He is a loving God that cares about us. It’s not socially
acceptable to worship a God who intentionally inflicts terror and
suffering upon the world.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some people prefer to explain the bad things in this world by means of “free will,” arguing that while God is omnipotent, he </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">chooses</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
not to affect the decisions of humans. If we accept this argument,
we’re still left with all the suffering that is not caused because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">some person</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
rather than God, is an asshole. Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and
other natural disasters don’t occur because of anyone’s choices
(unless, of course, you subscribe to the idea that God is punishing us
for allowing gay people in our society instead of stoning them or
because modern women show way too much skin. If that’s the case:
congratulations! You’re a heartless bastard who delights in the
suffering of others!). If you view natural disasters as “acts of God”
then you implicitly concede that He’s an asshole as no benevolent god
would willingly inflict such terror and suffering on so many people.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What
about all the medical issues that exist? Surely no loving god would
think of kidney stones, testicular cancer, or Down’s Syndrome as good
ideas, and no one </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">chooses</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to have a child with Down’s.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Perhaps
you have conceded that God is not omnipotent because you do not want to
worship an asshole, and we’ve established that any god that could exist
falls into one of two categories: 1) omnipotent, and therefore a
complete asshole as noted above or 2) not omnipotent (which would allow
said god to be loving and benevolent). Unfortunately, if you’re a
Christian or a Jew, you still worship an asshole. Why? Because the Old
Testament exists. And the Old Testament is the original basis for
Christianity and Judaism. And the God of the Old Testament is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">definitely</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> an asshole.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
world of the Old Testament was a nasty place. Slavery was commonplace.
War was a constant, as almost everyone wanted to expand their borders.
Society in general was pretty brutal. They did not have iPods. They did
not even have Walkmen. And throughout the Old Testament, the Jews (God’s
“chosen people”) were continually being oppressed for some reason. This
is a point that should not be taken lightly: the Jews were </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">constantly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> dealing with tyrants who treated them like shit, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">they were God’s chosen people. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He
couldn’t even be bothered to be nice to His own people! They were
slaves. They were conquered by the Egyptians. And the Babylonians. And
the Romans. God’s idea of fun seemed to be making them wander around in
the desert for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">forty years</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
and feeding them some kind of crappy bread-like substance every single
day that they had to pick up off the ground. And yet these people were
supposed to feel blessed? No wonder they were always trying to find
other gods to worship! The God of Abraham certainly wasn’t doing them
many favors, so they might as well try worshipping someone who would.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of
course, like a good pimp or abusive boyfriend, God would occasionally
throw them a bone to keep them coming back. He would deliver them from
their captors after a while, or give them manna to keep them from
starving to death. He would promise to judge those that were not living
according to His will and punish them with eternal damnation. He gave
them some life advice through the Ten Commandments (and half of them
even made sense). None of this changes the fact that God was an asshole.
The whole act of deliverance is great and all, but He still allowed
them to suffer every time before He freed them. Knowing that your
enemies are going to Hell when they die and you’re going to Heaven
instead would provide some mental comfort...but it doesn’t change the
fact that the Jews were treated like shit while they were on Earth.
Here’s a nifty note (I would call it a “fun fact” but I don’t want to be
misleading) that rarely gets mentioned: the reason the Israelites spent
40 years wandering around after the exodus was because God wanted to
ensure that all the adults He freed from Egypt died before reaching
their destination. Seriously, it’s in the book of Numbers. How can you
construe that as anything other than a dick move? “You’re mad about the
fact that you have been a slave for your </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">entire life. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ll free you from that life that you hate...</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">but I’ll also make sure you spend the remainder of your life wandering around in the fucking desert eating dirt bread. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Na na na na boo boo.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of
course, the Old Testament wasn’t all doom and gloom for the
Jews--sometimes they got to inflict the doom on others! If you want an
example of just how kind a ruler God can be, look no further than the
book of Joshua. First, God directed the Israelites to take the city of
Jericho. By “take the city,” of course, I mean kill every living thing
inside of it (Joshua 6:21: “They completely destroyed everything in
it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, donkeys--everything.”).
Some dude named Achan kept some of the gold and silver for himself
instead of offering it up to God, so naturally he and his entire family
were stoned to death and burned (Joshua 7:25). Then God directed the
Israelites to “take the city” of Ai: “When the Israelite army finished
killing all the men outside the city, they went back and finished off
everyone inside. So the entire population of Ai was wiped out that
day--twelve thousand in all.” (Joshua 8:24-25)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
would become a habit: “Joshua completely destroyed the city of
Makkedah, killing everyone in it, including the king. Not one person in
the city was left alive. he killed the king of Makkedah as he had killed
the king of Jericho. Then Joshua and the Israelites went to Libnah and
attacked it. There, too, the Lord gave them the city and its king. They
slaughtered everyone in the city and left no survivors...” (Joshua
10:28-30) This goes on. And on. And on. They slaughtered every living
being in 31 cities. The city of Gibeon made a truce and was spared, but
every other city was destroyed and “not a single person was spared.”
Why did none of the other 31 cities make nice? “The Lord hardened
their hearts and caused them to fight the Israelites instead of asking
for peace. So they were completely and mercilessly destroyed, as the
Lord had commanded Moses.” (Joshua 11:20) Oh. That’s why: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">because God is an asshole. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What great sin did all these people commit? Their parents weren’t Israelites. That was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">literally</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
the only way any of these people could have been spared--if they had
had different parents. They couldn’t even surrender or beg for mercy as
God intentionally “hardened their hearts.” Think about that for a
minute. God decided these people all deserved to die because of
something that they had absolutely no control over whatsoever.
Seriously. That was the mindset of the “benevolent” Judeo-Christian God.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That’s
the Old Testament in a nutshell: God demands not only unrequited love,
but demands that you put up with suffering on Earth in order to find
eternal salvation. Any Jews who didn’t worship God for their entire
lives (regardless of how miserable those lives may have been) were
sentenced to eternal damnation. And, as far as God was concerned, anyone
who wasn’t born into a Jewish family could die and go to Hell (maybe
Hitler decided to inflict suffering on people based solely on their
bloodline as a reverse homage to God). This is the behavior of a
benevolent God? If God truly was benevolent, he wouldn’t bother with
forcing such terrible lives upon His chosen ones in the first place, not
to mention sending the vast majority of the world to Hell just because
of who their parents were.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
you still do not think God is an asshole, then I don’t know what to
tell you. Even if you think He’s no longer omnipotent for some reason,
He certainly was in the Old Testament, and He wasn’t shy about flexing
His power then. You can’t just pretend that the Old Testament doesn’t
exist--that was the basis of Jesus’ religion, and it seems sacrilegious
to simply ignore the “Word of God” doesn’t it? The New Testament itself
is full of references to the Old Testament, whether talking about “the
God of Abraham” or “the descendents of David” or “the Law of Moses” or
“the prophecy of Isaiah” or simply the myriad references to “the
Scriptures.” Jesus Himself said “the Scriptures cannot be altered”
(John 10:35) and Paul said “all Scripture is inspired by God.” (2
Timothy 3:16) It’s all in the same physical book for a reason. You
can’t just decide you like some of the things Jesus said and ignore
everything else.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Furthermore,
regardless of which religion you subscribe to, chances are you’re going
to Hell just like the majority of the people on this planet. The most
widespread religion in the world is Christianity, the religion of choice
for something over 2 billion people. There are over 7 billion people in
the world. Therefore, if a requirement for getting into Heaven is
worshipping the correct God and following the correct set of religious
beliefs, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a minimum of 5 billion people currently alive will go to Hell because they were born to the wrong set of parents. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That
number only covers the people who are currently alive; just think of
the untold billions upon billions of poor souls who were sentenced to an
eternity of torture and damnation for reasons that were entirely out of
their control! That alone proves, unequivocally and indisputably, that
God is an asshole.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
case you would like to make the counterpoint that anyone can become a
Christian (or convert to whatever the “correct” religion would happen to
be) and therefore everyone has the opportunity to go to Heaven even if
they were born into, say, a Muslim family: that’s a preposterous
statement that you cannot honestly believe. You have no better chance of
converting a Muslim to Christianity than a Muslim would have of
converting you to Islam. Nearly everyone who has ever lived has died
with the religion of their parents because no religion can be proven to
be more correct than any other because any religion that still exists
does so because it cannot be proven or disproven. The people who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
change religions do so because they realize how ridiculous their
religion is and search for something that seems somehow more plausible
while still allowing them to go to Heaven when they die. Also, if God
did exist, he could quite easily prove His existence, end the debate,
and spare everyone from eternal damnation for praying the wrong way.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To his credit, Jesus seemed like a pretty nice guy. But God is an asshole.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231068770575127994.post-26991415374694364152012-05-19T10:58:00.000-04:002012-05-19T11:20:07.438-04:00Some People Actually Want to Put the 10 Commandments in Courtrooms...and Some People Don’t Think That is a Ridiculous Idea<div dir="ltr" id="internal-source-marker_0.8977320204006712" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This was basically how the Ten Commandments were given out:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">OK,
Jews, listen up. I am God. I am the only God. I created this planet and
everything on it. That means I created you, and I control your eternal
soul. If you worship me, you will experience bliss for the rest of
eternity after you die. However, if you piss me off, you will experience
eternal suffering for the rest of eternity instead. Do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
piss me off. If you do, I am liable to flood this whole fucking planet
and start over with only my chosen zookeeper and his family. Here are my
rules for eternal salvation: 1) Be nice to your parents. 2) Don’t kill
anyone. 3) Don’t sleep with anyone you aren’t married to. 4) Don’t
steal. 5) Don’t lie. These are all pretty reasonable, right? Good, glad
we’re on the same page.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh,
before I forget, there are a few other rules. Some of these are pretty
random and/or peculiar, but roll with me anyway: 6) Don’t misuse my
name. You know the phrase “that’s my name, don’t wear it out?” Where do
you think that came from? You can use my name when you’re talking to me
or about me, but that’s it. Don’t use it as an exclamation during sex
or to otherwise express astonishment, and don’t combine it with “damn”
to make a compound word to give added weight to whatever you’re talking
about. If you do, you can be goddamn sure I’ll send you to Hell.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7)
Observe the Sabbath. That means that one day a week, every week, you
don’t work. I don’t care if you have farming to do that is necessary for
the survival of you and your family and I made it rain all week and
then the Sabbath rolls around and it’s a beautiful day--you can’t work.
Your slaves can’t work, either. Neither can your oxen. I am mandating
that you do absolutely no work on the Sabbath. You either take a
vacation day every week to read my books and tell me how great I am or
you go to Hell. Take your pick.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">8)
Don’t covet your neighbor’s possessions. Just so we’re clear, that
means you’re not allowed to desire anything anyone else owns. I’m
allowed to be jealous; you’re not. Just accept your crappy life as it
is, and don’t think about the fact that your neighbor has five donkeys
and you only have two and wonder about how much more work you could get
done with more donkeys. You have two, Mr. Jones has five, and that’s the
way it is. Don’t try to keep up with him.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">9)
Don’t worship any other gods. Even if I don’t answer your prayers and
force you to toil away in slavery for your entire life, don’t go looking
for someone who will be nicer than me. Even though it’s simply human
nature to desire a life that doesn’t suck, you’re just going to have to
deal with it and keep worshipping me even if I don’t do anything for
you.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">10)
Don’t make idols to any other gods. I know I kinda covered this in the
last rule, but this is really important and I enjoy redundancy and
making points that I’ve already made. Also, 10 is a nice, solid number,
and I thought that reinforcing this point was more important than
forbidding rape. So, as long as the person you’re raping is unmarried
(see number 3 above), then rape away! It’s all good as long as you pay
her dad 50 pieces of silver and then marry her (sorry: if you break it,
you buy it). Happy raping!</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Astute
readers will note that the commandments I labeled as 9 and 10 above
were actually the first two listed in the Bible, presumably because they
were the most important. To condense this argument: God demands that
you worship Him and only Him or He’ll send you to Hell, even though He
may never give you any cause to worship Him but will, instead, cause you
to suffer through slavery and oppression.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And those are your hallowed “Ten Commandments.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We
all seem to agree that not killing, stealing, or committing adultery
are good ideals to live by, yet we could care less about honoring the
Sabbath by not working at all for one day a week. The phrase “oh my God”
has worked its way into our vernacular without too much resistance,
even though one of the Ten Commandments explicitly states that we should
not use God’s name in vain. Yet, people seem to think that we should
have the Ten Commandments present in our courthouses and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">they</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
are the source of our morality. Because, you know, it’s much more
important that we not worship any other idols than it is that we not
rape others, so </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">clearly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> those commandments are a good guide to living a moral life.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If
you’ve seen the other absurd rules that God had for living a “moral”
life during the time of Moses (which I so lovingly detailed in </span><a href="http://skeptikyle.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-bible-undermines-all-of.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">this post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">),
you would surely agree that nothing written in Deuteronomy (or, really,
the entire Bible) should be taken seriously today. Just because a few
of these commandments happen to line up with some of the laws we have
today is no reason to laud them. God couldn’t even come up with 10 good
rules! You’d think that an omniscient being could come up with a list
of 10 that would still be relevant 3000 years later. Something like
“don’t rape” or “don’t cheat” or even something as simple as “be nice to
others.” But, of course, He had to spend four of His ten rules to tell
us not to forget how great He is. Maybe, just maybe, if He actually
gave people a good reason to praise Him he wouldn’t have to tell them to
do it all the time. Then He wouldn’t have to be so jealous and
insecure. But you’re right, Judge Rehnquist, we should </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">totally</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> pretend that the Ten Commandments have a direct bearing on US laws.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
fact that some people think we derive our sense of morality from the
Bible is so preposterous that I would almost rather discuss whether </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anchorman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> was a better movie than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jack and Jill. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The argument supporting </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jack and Jill</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
would make about as much sense as the argument supporting the Bible.
I’ve already covered how ridiculous the laws in the Bible are, but it
bears repeating that we’re talking about a book that considers eating
bacon a sin. If your brain still works and you’re living in America then
you’re aware of the fact that Americans </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">loooooooove</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
bacon. Love it. We eat it with eggs and burgers and salads and
sandwiches and soups. We put it inside chocolate. We mix it with apple
pie in milkshakes (which is crazy delicious, in case you’re wondering).
We put bacon in margaritas, OK? This country has an outright love affair
with bacon...and yet God told us not to eat pigs. If we’re supposed to
be deciding what’s moral and what isn’t based on what’s written in the
Bible, I think it’s safe to say we’ve fucked up royally.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But
what about the good stuff, like “do not murder,” “do not lie,” and “do
unto others as you would have them do unto you?” Doesn’t that come from
the Bible? No. No it does not. That all comes from societies learning
how to survive. </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rule"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Every religion and culture</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> came to the same conclusion </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">independently</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of each other: generally being nice to others is best for the group, regardless of the size of that group. This is literally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">common</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
sense as it’s an ideal commonly expressed by everyone in the world: “I
want to be treated well, and if I treat others well they are likely to
treat me well; Ergo, I will treat others well.” This has ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING to do with the Bible, so let’s stop pretending that a vengeful
man in the sky with a poorly-written book that he hasn’t bothered to
update in well over a millenium somehow determines how morally we act.
The world as a whole has agreed that there are some behaviors that are
objectively “bad” regardless of their religion. After you eliminate the
rules that are common to nearly all cultures, you’re left with nothing
but nonsense like “Do not trim off the hair on your temples or clip the
edges of your beards.” Seeing as how we’re not all living like orthodox
Jews, it’s safe to say that we most certainly do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> derive our sense of morality from the Bible.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve been good without a god for years. You should try it.</span>Kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08731818234198573872noreply@blogger.com2