Things That Need Some Answering

Bible verses...there are good ones, moderately confusing ones, bad ones and some WTFOMFG I can't believe someone put this on paper and thought it was kosher (heh, I crack myself up).

While browsing around reddit I found this handy little list of questionable Bible verses.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/q863w/some_bible_verses_to_use_as_comebacks_in_arguments/

1 Corinthians 11:14 (Men should not have long hair)
1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (Women should remain silent in church)
Deuteronomy 13:6-16 (Death penalty for Apostasy)
Deuteronomy 20:10-14 (Attack city, kill all men, keep women, children as spoils of war)
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (Death penalty for a rebellious son)
Deuteronomy 22:19-25 (Kill non-virgin/kill adulterers/rapists)
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (Pay virgin’s parents for raping her)
Ecclesiastes 1:18 (Knowledge is bad)
Exodus 21:1-7 (Rules for buying slaves)
Exodus 35:2 (Death for working on the Sabbath)
Ezekiel 9:5-6 (Murder women/children)
Ezekiel 23:19-20 (A whore who had sex with men hung like donkeys)
Galatians 5:2-4 (If you are circumcised, Christ has nothing for you)
Genesis 1:3,4,5,11,12,16 (God creates light, night and day, plants grow, before creating sun)
Genesis 3:16 (Man shall rule over woman)
Jeremiah 19:9 (Cannibalism)
John 3:18 (He who believes in Jesus is saved, he that doesn’t is condemned)
John 5:46-47 (Jesus references Old Testament)
1 Kings 7:23 (Pi equals 3)
Leviticus 3:1-17 (Procedure for animal sacrifice)
Leviticus 19:19 (No mixed fabrics in clothing)
Leviticus 19:27 (Don’t trim hair or beard)
Leviticus 19:28 (No tattoos)
Leviticus 20:9 (Death for cursing father or mother)
Leviticus 20:10 (Death for adultery)
Leviticus 20:13 (Death for gay men)
Leviticus 20:15 (Death for bestiality)
Leviticus 20:18 (No sex with a woman on her period)
Leviticus 21:17-23 (Ugly people, lame, dwarfs, not welcome on altar)
Leviticus 25:45 (Strangers can be bought as slaves)
Luke 12:33 (Sell your possessions, and give to the poor)
Luke 14:26 (You must hate your family and yourself to follow Jesus)
Mark 10:11-12 (Leaving your spouse for another is adultery)
Mark 10:25-25 (Next to impossible for rich to get into heaven)
Mark 16:15-16 (Those who hear the gospel and don’t believe go to hell)
Mark 20:21-22 (Sell your possessions and give to the poor)
Matthew 5:17-19 (Jesus says he has come to enforce the laws of the Old Testament)
Matthew 6:5-6 (Pray in secret)
Matthew 6:18 (Fast for Lent in secret)
Matthew 9:12 (The healthy don’t need a doctor, the sick do)
Matthew 10:34-37 (Jesus comes with sword, turns families against each other, those that love family more than him are not worthy)
Matthew 12:30 (If you’re not with Jesus, you’re against him)
Matthew 15:4 (Death for not honouring your father and mother)
Matthew 22:29 (Jesus references Old Testament)
Matthew 24:37 (Jesus references Old Testament)
Numbers 14:18 (Following generations blamed for the sins of previous ones)
Psalms 137:9 (Violence against children)
Revelation 6:13 (The stars fell to earth like figs)
Revelation 21:8 (Unbelievers, among others, go to hell)
1 Timothy 2:11-12 (Women subordinate and must remain silent)
1 Timothy 5:8 (If you don’t provide for your family, you are an infidel)
Zechariah 14:2 (Women ravished when city is taken in battle)

 From now on when someone askes me about coming back to Christianity I will simply copy/paste this list and inform them they need to answer for each verses stupidity and in what context they are ever morally right.  If completed to my satisfaction then we can talk.

Unshakable Faith

So, a senior high school student and newspaper editor for her school had an article rejected because it talked about her atheism and how she feels discriminated against on a daily basis. Apparently the schools excuse was that the article may cause a “disruption”.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/feb/23/lenoir-city-high-school-wont-publish-atheist-on/

And here is her actual article:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2012/02/23/lenoir-city-hs-refuses-to-publish-atheist-student-editorial/

Now, I could agree it could cause a disruption and mainly for people who are ignorant as to what an atheist is or don’t even believe they exist…but so what? Maybe this type of article is a little out of the realm of normal high school newspaper topics… but so what? She is part of a wrongfully vilified minority who simply wants to tell her story (which takes incredible guts for a person her age in a setting like high school). What if it was an African American student wanting to express the hardships of being a “Negro”? I don’t think the disruption that could cause would be enough to make school officials put a stop to the article being published.

I once heard that a true Christian faith is unshakable and has nothing to fear from worldly attacks… well why the hell are Christians so afraid of another point of view? Oh yea! It’s because unshakable faith is bullshit. Santorum has my back on this issue:

"I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely … The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country."
He claimed that,"62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it," but declined to cite a source for the figure. And he floated the idea of requiring universities that receive public funds have 'intellectual diversity' on campus.”

Well, I don’t know where he is getting his numbers, but obviously 62% is bullshit, if that was true there would be a ton less Xtians in America (one could only wish). But I extend a sincere thanks for trying to help me prove my point Santyface.

Burning Koran's for funsies

Yawn, and again we are reminded that you cannot reason with people who take the act of blasphemy seriously.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/23/us-afghanistan-korans-idUSTRE81K09T20120223

My conversion to Atheism (WALL OF TEXT!!!)

Wow, it has been a while since I posted anything.  Just wasn't feeling it....eh, I was lazy.  Here is my conversion story...

I’m of the opinion that most people don’t really become who they are until their mid-twenties. By “who we are” I mean that point in time when you have taken in enough information and wisdom so that you can face any situation life throws at you. Be it work, family, politics, hard times, big life decisions. When these situations arise we should be able to know our decisions were based on sound judgment and reasoning and the truest possible understanding of the world around us as. Becoming an Atheist wasn’t just a choice I made near the end of finding myself, but paralleled the road I took. And it doesn’t start with me walking away from, but trying to get closer to God.


I grew up the son of a pastor who preached in in Stewartsville Missouri. He and my mother, who was just as devote as him, were separated after a domestic dispute and I moved to Oklahoma with her when I was like, 8 I think. My dad never returned to church again (for reasons he never told me) but runs a trucker ministry while being a driver for CFI.

While in Oklahoma I grew up in the Bartlesville/Dewey area and went to the First Baptist church in Dewey, attended bible study, and other church functions every week (I believe they still have an old photo of me in their nursery). I prayed often and earnestly. For the next 10 years my faith steadily increased, especially after I joined a non-denominational Church that had a worship band, down to earth preacher, people dancing around and singing in tongues, the whole nine yards. As a teenager I made trips with them to Toronto revivals to get closer to Jesus.

I felt the presence of God. Sometimes I would tingle and sweat with the Holy Spirit. Other times I felt led by Him to give money to a certain cause, or to pay someone a specific compliment. These things still happen but I attribute them to myself just being a good empathetic person.

Around age 18 when I went away to college I got depressed from guilt, probably because I downloaded music, and watched a lot of internet porn. During this time I also met many different people from many different religions. Growing up in the Dewey area I was never confronted with someone who wasn’t a Christian (except for the Wiccan girl in middle school, who I still feel about making fun of to this day). Before my encounters with them I was of the opinion that if you were not a Christian then you were either evil, stupid, or just not right in the head. I mean, it was so obvious to me, all the evidence was there, and to believe in something else was crazy. First it was my roommate, Charlie; he was the first Atheist I ever met. Until this point I didn’t know it was even possible to “not” believe in God. I was taught that Atheists were just people who are angry at God. Charlie turned out to be relatively normal, just like me in fact and we had a great year being roommates. Then there were the two gentlemen I met in zoology, both Muslim but great study partners. It took nearly the entire semester before I got the gulls to ask why they believe in Allah. As I listened I instantly became aware that they believed for exactly the same reasons as me. Not only that, but they were taught about Jesus and the Christian bible while they were children to help strengthen their faith. I felt kind of cheated by my parents and my religion, why was I so hidden from other religions? I mean the truth of God has nothing to hide from, right? If it helps Muslims to learn about other faiths then it should work for me too and make me a better Christian. So I made it a point to sign up for a world religion course.

That holiday season my faith was truly shaken for the first time in my life. I was watching the history channel and they had a special on about the Jamestown massacre. At first I felt cheated again by my religion for being so sheltered. I mean this was an important part of Christian history, and could teach a valuable lesson about the terrible things that can happen if you can’t think for yourself. When they got to the interviews (of family of followers and followers themselves) I felt myself moving outside of my Christian box. I quickly realized that the people who killed their children and themselves were not crazy and not tricked by the devil. They seemed a lot like my mother, my aunt and other devoted people just like me. They clearly loved God just as much as I did. They prayed, probably more than I ever had. All these people wanted was what all religious people want. To live like God wants them too, right? Why would God let this happen? Why was there no intervention to stop them from feeding their children poison? He had plenty of opportunities seeing as how they spent most of their days praising him.
I tried to tell myself “his ways are above us”, but why? If we are involved wouldn’t that make much more sense for us to understand and thereby stopping atrocities like this that have no Good come from them at all, atrocities so bad, that I thought I had just figured out why this was never taught to me. These thoughts of questioning God were scaring me and made myself stop them and decided that I needed extra help. While continuing to attend church and pray on the matter I purchased an apologetics book my friend prescribed called the Divine Conspiracy to help strengthen my faith. I only made it half way through the book when I decided that it wasn’t giving the answers I needed, while beautifully written, I just didn’t feel satisfied. So if it wasn’t my faith I was trying to fix then what was it? Maybe faith wasn’t good enough for me? This thought also scared me; I realize now it was only because I didn’t understand what I really meant by “faith” at that time.

When my world religions class started I had been praying about my situation and hoping God would give me something that would pull me the direction I needed to go. It was in this class I found my new passion. I loved learning about why people believe what they believe. I soon found myself immersed in the writings of the Mahabharata, Siddhartha Gautama, Joseph Smith and the Koran. When we made it to Christianity I was reminded of my faith problems. Not at anything we learned. It was all basic with just a few things I didn’t know. But wanting to learn more of my own faith I decided to make my way to the religion section in Barns and Nobel. Immediately my eyes found a book called A History of God: The 4,000-year Quest of Judiasm, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong. Without even reading it I knew this was what I was looking for, it would help me understand why my religion is the way it is and hopefully restore some faith. I thanked God for making my search so effortless and went on my way.

The book was amazing. It was a complete dissection of all three religions and where they came from. Starting with pagan/multi God roots and working its way up to monotheism. Yes, when Judaism came to power they were trying to join together all the Gods into one. The original Old Testament Hebrew texts or, the Torah, document this well. In the early parts of the Old Testament the word God is spelled “אלים” the “ים” at the end makes it plural. The more I studied the more I realized that everything I was taught in Sunday school was wrong, Genesis was now completely bunk to me. Humans didn’t always worship Yahweh, there was thousands upon thousands of years where we worshiped whatever the heck we wanted to trees, the sun, or other people and the Christian really didn’t come along until much longer after. So if Genesis was true then all of our ancestors for thousands of years went straight to hell because God didn’t make an appearance until 6 thousands years ago. This led me to a logical conclusion, Genesis, Eve, the apple and the magic snake all had to be true in order for the fall of man to happen. If the fall of man doesn’t happen then Jesus doesn’t need to be crucified. If all of these things are unnecessary then why bother believing in them. At this point I was well out of my Christian box and these thoughts no longer scared me anymore. I was only driven for more knowledge. My pursuit for which religion was most true started with Buddhism. Although a beautiful philosophy and a agreat way to make yourself a better person when I came to the spiritual aspects I just couldn’t believe them with a straight face. This made me realize that it wasn’t any of the spiritual parts of any religion that made me want to be a better person but he philosophies, so I turned to philosophy. After years of study, and watching debates I became an Agnostic. After a little while as an Agnostic I found a program called the Atheist Experience run by Matt Dillahunty. It was this man and his amazing skeptical and philosophical skills that gave the bravery to take that final step. Along with from Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens I came to realize that there is nothing wrong with being an Atheist.
It certainly wasn’t one single fact, but hundreds and hundreds from studies of all religions. Basically, Christianity looks very much like just another religion invented by ancient, superstitious people. Its claims about the universe are numerously false – until they are reluctantly rewritten to keep up with science, which has only made God smaller, less active, and more hidden.

And I can no more chose to be an Atheist then you choose to be a Christian, or choose to love your wife. These are things that happen through our life experiences and feelings from reason and how we interpret the world around us. Even I woke up on day and decided that I would pick a religion because I am scared of going to hell it wouldn’t be an honest route to take; I wouldn’t be worshiping a God because I believe in him, only out of fear of death. For me to become a true Christian again it would have to be something that would turn me away from all the evidence I have seen and the experiences I’ve had over the past 10 or so years. God should know how to do that, and it isn’t impossible because it worked going one way, why not the other?

Bachmann is a Freaking Comedian!

HAHAHAHA, Bachmann says HPV vaccine causes retardation. She is so funny...Wait! An influential person making stupidly false claims about an important vaccine, that isn't funny, it's utterly insane. She didn't even bother to visit the Center for Disease Control's website which, ooh I don't know, actually CONTAINS RESEARCH DONE BY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS AND NOT SOME CRAZY CRYING LADY YOU PASS ON THE STREET.


Here it is. Took me 2 mins.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm


Now your telling me a presidential candidate went on, what I am guessing, is the most watched morning news show and made false claims about a very important subject that would have taken 2 mins to clarify?

Rick Perry, the Republicans' Messiah?

I'm going to start a compilation of Rick Perry shit here.


By Kathleen Parker

August 26

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rick-perry-the-republicans-messiah/20

11/08/26/gIQAGnY5gJ_story.html?hpid=z2

Rick Perry's rapid lead over previous Republican front- runner Mitt Romney was predictable. But it is not a good sign for Republicans hoping to reclaim the White House and further highlights the crucial battle within GOP circles: Who is the godliest of us all?

That's the mirror-mirror question for Republicans.

Forget charisma, charm, intelligence, knowledge and that nuisance, "foreign policy experience." The race of the moment concerns which candidate is the truest believer.

This was always a tough hurdle for Romney, whose Mormonism is reflexively distrusted by Southern evangelicals. Even so, in the absence of a better candidate, Romney had a fighting chance to win his party's support. Then came Perry.

Talk about a perfect-storm, composite candidate. Combine Elmer Gantry's nose for converts, Ronald Reagan's folksy confidence and Sarah Palin's disdain for the elites - and that dog hunts.

Perry doesn't just believe, he evangelizes. He summons prayer meetings. He reads scripture while callers are on hold. Not incidentally, he's a successful governor.

Perhaps most important, he's a wall-scaling fundraiser whose instincts make him a force of nature in the political landscape.

If you're Romney, Perry is a nightmare that's still there in the morning. If you're Barack Obama, maybe not so much?

Perry's political instincts were in evidence when he timed his entrance into the race just as everybody else was trying to grab straws in the Iowa poll. If life is high school in adult relief, Perry is the guy who shows up in a truck with a winch and pulls the car out of the ditch while those other guys are looking for a jack.

Whether you like his politics or not, he emits a pheromonal can-do-ness. Apparently, plenty of Republicans do like his politics, which has much to do with the very devil-may-care attitude that eventually will become Perry's cross to bear. Gallup's recent polling shows him not just passing Romney, but dusting him. Among Republican voters, 29 percent now swear their allegiance to the Texas governor, almost double the 17 percent for Romney.

Huddled around the exhaust pipe are, you got it, the jack handlers: Ron Paul (13 percent) and Michele Bachmann (10 percent), followed by Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman in the single digits.

Perry's campaign strategy is to talk only about jobs- jobs-jobs, no matter what the question. That's both smart and necessary, but jobs-jobs-jobs isn't the money trinity with his base. Perry already hit that station with his prayer rally and various dog whistles to the

congregation: He's not sure anyone knows how old Earth is, evolution is just a "theory" and global warming isn't man-made.

That we are yet again debating evolutionary theory and Earth's origins - and that candidates now have to declare where they stand on established science - should be a signal that we are slip-sliding toward governance by emotion rather than reason. But it's important to understand what's undergirding the debate. It has little to do with a given candidate's policy and everything to do with whether he or she believes in God.

If we are descended of some blend of apes, then we can't have been created in God's image. If we establish Earth's age at 4.5 billion years, then we contradict the biblical view that God created the world just 6,500 years ago. And finally, if we say that climate change is partly the result of man's actions, then God can't be the One who punishes man's sins with floods, droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes. If He wants the climate to change, then He will so ordain, and we'll pray more.

Perry knows he has to make clear that God is his wingman. And this conviction seems not only to be sincere, but also to be relatively noncontroversial in the GOP's church - and perhaps beyond. He understands that his base cares more that the president is clear on his ranking in the planetary order than whether he can schmooze with European leaders or, heaven forbid, the media. And this is why Perry could easily steal the nomination from Romney.

And also why he probably can't win a national election, in which large swaths of the electorate would prefer that their president keep his religion close and be respectful of knowledge that has evolved from thousands of years of human struggle against superstition and the kind of literal-mindedness that leads straight to the dark ages.

Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but Perry makes you think they are.

Dawkins on Perry -

There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today's Republican party is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today's Republican Party 'in spite of' is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory.

Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

God Sucks at Miracles

The recent bankruptcy of Crystal Cathedral in Orange County has sparked a bidding war between a Roman Catholic diocese and a local university.

The Church itself is trying to fight the system and keep their Church by raising enough money to get it back. The comment below reflects their thoughts.

"I believe with every fiber of my being that God turned the eyes of the world on Crystal Cathedral because God wants to make a big bold statement," said Sheila Coleman, the daughter of the founder. "He wants the world to know that he is a God who still does miracles," she said.

Oooh, that makes so much sense. God decided a good use of his miracle powers is to bankrupt a church for a month or two then give everything back. Yes, how his boundless intelligence shows worthwhile miracles. Or he could grow back some limbs from child amputees... would that be too kind? 



And if someone's excuse is that bad things like that happen so we understand how important our life is, they are fucking insane. I don't enjoy the things in my life because someone else cannot do them. I don't care anymore about my legs because a little boy loses his in an African genocide. Or my intelligence because others have autism. Or my food because people are starving. The things that are important to me are important because I find incredible fucking value in their use or how they make me feel. And even IF a God did put great weight on have vs. have not’s...THAT IS NOT A GOOD ENOUGH FUCKING REASON TO LET POINTLESS SUFFERING TRAGIDIES OCCURE WHEN YOU CAN STOP THEM!


Sorry for the yelling...I feel strongly about this...