Who Died and Made the Church King?

Recently NY Legalized Gay Unions.
Also recently, to no one's surprise, the Catholic Church had a thing or two to say about it.

"This is a further erosion of the real understanding of marriage,"
No, it is not an erosion. If anything, it's an addition. But neither of these verbs is appropriate in describing changes to marital bonds; and your understanding of marriage, between a man and woman, is based on misinformation, lies, or the Bible (Actually, the bible is Both of those things, but I digress).


"The state should not be concerned about regulating affection."
DiMarzio is a fucking idiot. (You can tell they don't go to "real" college.)

First off, he uses the word affection in what seems to be an attempt to pry some sort of extra emotion from people, but the phrase "regulating affection" makes no sense. You can't control how much people care for each other on any level and it's silly to say that everyone who is in a Civil Union is affectionate to what-ever-the-fuck degree.

Secondly, the State WAS concerned about regulating things by telling people with whom they can and can not legally be together. Now they have simply taken a neutral stance. I don't like asparagus. I think it is gross and an abomination, however just because the government doesn't stop people from growing it because of my deeply held beliefs about it doesn't mean there is some vegetable regulation racket. This assumption of his is so incredibly silly I can't believe that anyone would take it seriously.

Thirdly, who died and made the Church king of all things needing to be regulated? I would also say that a celibate priest is not an expert in relationships. Maybe the real reason priests are so angry is because we won't redefine "affection regulation" so that grown men can marry 12 year old boys.

If God is real and I ever meet him. I will expect some answers...

The "problem of evil" argument often leads to questions about why God lets children die. This picture illustrates it much better than anyone could ever say...Well, maybe not Sam Harris, but he is magic.

VIA REDDIT/ATHEISM

Tell Me Your Interpretation of Your Holy Book...of crap

It's not your interpretation of the bible, it's the fact that it is interpretable in so many ways that causes so many problems. Problems like the ones that lead to phrases such as "Well, they aren't real Christians".

Sometimes people don't think critically. At one time I believed that I was a true Christian. How did I know? What is a true Christian? Well at the time it was all a product of my interactions with other members of my congregation. As a youth group member one tries to live up too all the expectations of the elders, of the other youths, and of their parents. It was praise and acceptance that I was looking for. It's the praise and acceptance that everyone is looking for... granted we did have a couple of those "fuck authority" kids, always making their decisions based on how much they could piss off the powers that be (those people annoy the hell out of me too).

My congregation was made up of like-minded people who had specific ideas of what it's like to be a true Christian. Being a congregation meant that we had, for the most part, a similar frame of mind when it came to our beliefs. If someone strayed too far from these beliefs, various forms of spiritual what-not would take place (for example, a sit-down/talk with elders). If/When someone would concede irreconcilable differences they would just find a new denomination with Christians that would welcome their particular take on how "Real Christians" should operate. After finding a new place to call home they would completely disregard the illogical situation that just happened... They were part of a situation that, because of the interpretable "Word of God", they were forced to leave a group of people they once called brothers and sisters. When a preacher is giving a sermon it's called infallible, but when hard questions are asked...it becomes interpretive.

In 2000 the World Christian Database showed about 33,000 denominations of x-mas sects. Now, they only mention 9,000... however, it would still be a "WTF?!" number even if it was 2. By backing this current religious situation Christians are advocating not only the belief in an ancient book, but also that their God is incapable of writing one that is straight forward enough to unite all people. In the Christian religion one is talking about eternal punishment in hell for things that sincere God-loving/fearing people can't agree on. If these beliefs are true... Then Yaweh is a prick, unworthy of worship. I really wish Christians would spot these major flaws of interpretation and stop failing so much at life.

"This is one of the pinnacles of Christian apologetics...and they are unable to spot their flaws in their own [arguments]. Now they are bending over backwards and sacrificing every bit of decency they have in order to make excuses for this fictional monster they feel they must defend." - Matt Dillahunty (around the 30 min mark)

I have Found the Mecca of Religious Debates

So, with all the blogs and research sites I visit there are times when my eyes come across the name of an apologist, or a scientist, or an atheist, or a citation for a debate that I want to know more about. LukeProg over at Common Sense Atheism created a one stop page on his blog for those times when you want to look up debates for any person you have become interested in researching more. I have used it a couple of times and would like to give it the proper recognition it deserves on my site!

500+ Religious Debates:
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=50#latest

PZ Meyers and Aron Ra Take on Some Islam Creationists

Fast-forward to 10:50 and listen to Aron Ra back them into admitting that "you can't be punished for being a non-believer unless you are told about Allah"...the whole audience pipes in.