Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Decreationism of Intelligent design

So it is been to my understanding that there is a large group who believes that people were created by a singular being. They believe that the human body is too complex to have happened by evolution. Oddly enough, they don't believe that a deity is complex enough to be affected by thier hypothesis.

I'll grant them that God doesn't apply to our crazy logic. I do this because they need the handicap.

Here is why I believe in evolution:
Appendix : Wisdom Teeth : Dog Toes : Pseudogenes : The Fossil Record : The people that believe in creation : Everything Else

Christians see science as a direct threat to them.
They also seem to act like the things written in a book that is ancient and absurd is more trustworthy than theories and ideas from educated and intelligent people in the scientific community.

What exacerbates the whole situation is how much christians lie!
Christianity = ONLY the bible can explain the ice age Don't be swayed by this guys education. He is a liar. This is the truth.

These are lies as well:

  • human footprints alongside dinosaurs
  • human artifacts found among dinosaur bones
  • a geological column that is almost never in the "proper" order described by geologists
  • proof from all over the world of a worldwide Flood
  • the "NASA computer" that revealed the "extra day" when the sun stopped to give the Israelites more time to conquer Jericho
  • the deep hole geologists drilled and then had to fill in hurriedly when they heard the screams from Hell
  • Darwin's "deathbed recantation" (the "Lady Hope" story)

If you have to lie to justify something you believe in then what you believe is a lie.

If you really go back and see how many things were believed to be scripture then discovered they were false. Like the roundness of the earth.

Christians killed people for proclaming the world was round. They fucking killed people!!!

Now we know the world is not flat, but indeed round.

And what is the Christians response? "Oh.. the four corners of the earth is just a figure of speech. no one ever said the earth is flat!" This is a lie. When the bible was written the four corners was a reference the the fact that most people back then believed that the earth was not only flat, but square as well... How wrong can you get!?

Tower of Babel, anyone?

The great flood?

We were all procreated by Adam and Eve, or Noah; shouldn't we all be about the same color?

Saturday, November 19, 2005

So a Deaf Guy Walks into a Bar...


Sounds like an opening to another [adjective] [noun] walks into a bar joke but this is my story of what happened to me last night.







I was sitting in one the bars that I frequent and I noticed a guy walking in and back out of the bar repeatedly. I recognize him as being the deaf guy that hangs out with some of my acquaintances. Especially one guy I play pool with alot named Joe. I flag him down and attempt poorly to ressurect my sign-language skills.

I ask, "looking for j.o.e?"
He signs at me asking if I know how to sign.
I reply by wiggling a flat hand sideways to imply that I know a little. He calls my bluff and grabs a pen and a napkin.

He proceeds to write down about how joe abandoned him as a friend a month ago. He tells me that he is sad because of it.

I tell him that I'm sorry about that and I don't know joe all that well, he is just an acquaintance.
I told him I would talk to Joe about it if he wanted.
He wrote "no", vigorously.

So then we are just sitting there in a moment of uncomfortable silence. I was pondering the irony of having a moment of silence with a deaf guy when he looks at me and mouths silently, "Do you believe in God?"

I wasn't sure if that was actually what he had asked as I don't usually have to read lips often.

I ask silently, "God?"
he nods.
I reply turning my head from left to right quickly with a smile.

He grabs a napkin and starts writing quickly, "I don't blame you, but I know god exists. can you tell me why you don't believe in god?"
I thought about it for a bit, but then decided to write back, "This napkin isnt big enough for me to tell you".
He smiles.

He writes about how the experiences in his life lets him know there is a God.

Well, normally I'd just smile and say, "cool".
I had a feeling that he wanted to preach to me via napkin so I had to break out one of my favorite quotes. This quote does pretty good at getting christians to pipe down and not sermon me.




(the napkin got clipped in my scanner..It reads:
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other [possible] gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.[--Stephen F Roberts] I repect your beliefs, though.)

He reads it. Then he reads it again.

He then flips over the napkin and starts to write on the other side...stops and flips it back over and reads it again...flips it to the other side and writes...

Him: Are you against me?

I shake me head in a "no" fashion followed with a smile.

He writes: Thanks.

I write: You seem like a great person.

We shake hands and he leaves.

The bar owner "and fellow atheist" asks me what that was all about. and I explain to him that he was upset about his friend Joe and I explain about the religious discussion.

I ask, " Hey Don..Do you know what is up with all that about Joe?"

Don mutters something incoherant. He is quite a drinker and sometimes with the noise in the bar combined with his old age and slurred words...it can be pretty had to hear what he says. "..mrrph..mrrph...boyfriend..mphh..mummuurph"

The only thing I caught was..."boyfriend".

I ask Don, "that guy is gay?"

Don says(clearly this time), "you didn't know?"

I exclaimed loudly, "But he is a christian!"

Don says, "Queers have Gods, too"! I laughed loudly. Don's drunken old-guy antics amuse me.

I'd just like to know if Joe found out that the deaf guy was gay and that is why he is distancing himself(I doubt this because Joe hangs out with a very liberal group) . Or if it is that he doesnt get along with the deaf guys boyfriend(Who I don't know, but when I replay Don's gibberish-like statement in my head, I kind of get the feeling that is it).

Im pretty sure Joe isn't gay. I hope he isn't simply for all the times he explained how lonely he is and I replied, "You'll find the right girl eventually, enjoy being single!"

There are somethings that I really like to know when it comes to that bar. I digress though; I shouldn't even care.

Friday, November 18, 2005

How Spin and Deception Works


Sean says with a bit of interest in his voice, "Hey Tom, I see you got a PDA there. It is very small!"

"I can fit it in my pocket!" Tom replies happily.

"Awesome!" "But you better look in my office..." says Sean sheepishly. Tom looks in the office and sees a HUGE computer.


Wall to wall computing!

"Amazing" says Tom. "It must be one of the biggest, best computers on earth!"

"It sure is.", says Sean with a confident smile. "It sure is."

Looks like Sean scored a powerful computer doesnt it?

But lets compare :







Big computer (ILLIAC IV)

Processing Power: 13MHz

Memory: 1MB

Cost : $31 million







(Little computer)Palm Tunsten T5

Pocessor: 416MHz

Memory: 215MB

Cost: $349





What am I getting at?

Remember during the election when Sean Hannity held up a map bragging about how red the country is?

It really does have alot of red on it!

(red being counties that voted republican of coarse)

So they bragged and bragged about how liberalism is dying, and how "made up the countries mind is".

Just another News day there on Fox News Channel.

Red on the Population Density Map means something else. It means more dense population.

The red on this map contains the majority of US population.

For some reason the poeple who lived in an urban setting and not in a farm or a small town tend to be pretty liberal.

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too
much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good
thing."
-Karl Rove








And what is it about small town rural settings that seem to navigate people away from the ideas that liberals share?

I have a few theories:


Many out in the country are very zealous about thier beliefs

Even to the point to where they will use religion to hate, attack, and even kill people that they do not like.


I would never make a blanket statement about people who do not live near a city. Especialy since I grew up in a small rural community. I fed cows and "Bucked Bails" of hay. But I also went to the churches and listen to them talk over the dinner table. I learned religion is stronger than anyone can imagine in the xenophobic farmlands of America. The country-side is a place where the liberal idea of religious and racial tolerance is not considered a virtue.

Holy-hate is applauded and respected by many "country-folks".

I had been threatened and even assaulted because I didn't "love Jesus" when I lived out in the country. And that, my friends, is the heart of christianity: Believe what you've been told, don't ask questions, and pity/disconnect with the ones that do not share your views. That is what they tried to teach me. I thought others would not buy it, too.

I was wrong.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Hereditary Prejudices & Intellectual Courage





The picture (left) is photoshopped, but accurate none-the-less. -FP

WASHINGTON - Conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting “intelligent design” and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.




"There's been satanic worship. There's been sexual perversion." ..."God is going to use that storm to bring revival. God has a plan. God has a purpose."
-Evangelist Franklin Graham speaking at Liberty University in Va. about hurricane Katrina. Franklin Graham is the successor and son of the infamous Billy Graham.



"For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of
Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ."
-Ronald Reagan, to James Mills, in 1971, regarding events in Libya



"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam," -
President George W. Bush



The above quotes are exaples of extreme religious fervor by those in power, but I'm going to now focus on it in a smaller scale.

The religious have been known to turn tragidy into a divine deed. These deeds usually serve to advance the relgious agenda. One part of that agenda is to punish those whom christians feel as though are not living thier life as God has told them too. Another part is to test the faith of those who do embrace a divine will.


The religious are so eager and dedicated to believing that they tend to look for signs of higher power everywhere they can. Using the idea of thier Gods direct actions being a percievable status helps them rationalize thier beliefs, especially by invoking Post hoc ergo propter hoc("after this therefore because of this".) on a regualar basis.
If a tree falls on a christians house; that christian is very likey to believe that it happened because of a divine purpose. To them it would be because they had sinned in some way recently, therefor they are being punished. Or it could be that thier faith is being "tested". Why else could something so terrible happen to them?
Unfortunatly, these are the only two options available to alot of christians. to many christians It couldn't just be that wind blew the tree over and/or the ground gave way due to the water table.
This leaves the christian feeling as though they should beg for forgiveness from thier deity for a sin that was commited; The sin which could have caused a tree to fall on the house. This could all be followed with praying rituals for help in the repairing of the house.


Religion impregnates itself with mendacity and absurdity . And that is why I am making this blog.



1) A young man wearing a satanic t-shirt is gunned-down by police during a store robbery and dies. It would be easy for a christian to assume that this man may end up in hell.

Lets move onto scenerio #2:


2) A young man is shot and wounded by police during a store robbery. On the way to the hospital he screamed, "Hail Satan!".
He displays many non-christian behaiviors. It would be easy for a christian to assume that this man may end up in hell.
What if this guy lived and found Jesus and christianity and all that other good stuff while in prison? He repents his sins and hope he had earned a trip into heaven.

But There is something wrong with this picture. Is there something inherently unfair about this?

Had the young man that died been shot 2 inches to left and lived, he too could have found religion, but he never got that chance.


So does this mean that God plays roulette with your soul? Not everyone has a level playing field when it comes to religion?

This seems to contradict the fair and all loving God idea perpetuated by christians.

How can you take these people seriously?