Monthly Archive for July, 2007Page 2 of 4

This statement is true.

Published

on July 17, 2007

Do you believe it? It seems to me to be a form of the liar's paradox. There is no way to assign a true/false value to such a statement.

The bible asserts itself as true, and many churches state as the first part of their beliefs to be that the bible is true and unchanging, because the bible says it is. For example:

We believe that The Holy Bible is The Word of The Living God; true, immutable, steadfast, unchangeable, as it's author, The Lord Jehovah; that it was written by Holy men of old as they were moved upon and inspired by The Holy Spirit.

This is all based on 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16:

Paul's Charge to Timothy
10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11 persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

This came to mind today as I was reading a rather interesting review of Bart D. Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, a book about some of the history of the bible, where Brown compairs the bible to Wikipedia.

Of course I am already well aware that the bible has many versions, was compiled by different scribes at different times from different written & oral traditions. But upon checking the reviews on Amazon for Misquoting Jesus, it is clear that many people are willing to stretch their faith a little; even if all the words aren't the same, they're still inspired, written by inspired men, goddamnit!

History and physics clearly conflict with the bible in more than a few passages. What I want to know is; how do people rectify their statement of faith with the facts? Of course, this is a silly question on my part, the obvious answer is just that many people ignore the facts. It's either that, or they don't really believe in their heart the bible is perfect.

People seem to think that their faith in the bible is all-or-nothing. Believers are assumed to believe it all; atheists are assumed to think it's all BS.

When their own declaration of faith declares that the bible is infallible, and when many believers look down on those who treat the bible as a buffet (picking what they like from it), I can see how all-or-nothing becomes a natural conclusion for many people. They conclude that they either ignore the facts of the world, or they don't truly believe.

What if I were to give you the following statement:

Bunnies are cute, one plus one is equal to three, there is life on Mars, an objects speed is the distance it travels over time, and this sentance is true.

Of course, not everyone agrees on bunnies, 1+1=2, we don't know for sure about life on Mars, speed does equal d/t, and that statement isn't completely true. But can't we say it's true since it was partially true? If it's not completely true, does that make it completely false? Can we even know for sure?

Even being atheist, I can't discount everything the bible says; I like some of the moral stories, I like some of the songs/poetry, I even like a lot about Jesus with his whole do-unto-others philosophy and I always liked many of the parables. But I can't see it as any more inspired than Harry Potter, The Odyssey, or Macbeth. A little truth, a little myth, a little magic, a bit of death, and a lesson for all of us to learn from.

Still I wonder why there are so many christians still so afraid to acknowledge that their chosen version of the bible has any faults at all? Is their faith so unsteady that one gust of wind might reduce it all to rubble?

Pastor Deacon Fred from Landover Baptist.

Published

Gareth

on July 17, 2007

Landover Baptist’s Pastor Deacon Fred addresses thousands of hellbound freethinkers in front of Congress at the Godless March on Washington.

Pastor Deacon Fred from Landover Baptist.

Published

Gareth

on July 17, 2007

Landover Baptist’s Pastor Deacon Fred addresses thousands of hellbound freethinkers in front of Congress at the Godless March on Washington.

Leadership and Stoicism

Published

DT Strain

on July 16, 2007

Two of Stoicism's most prominent philosophers were Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. As professor Michael Sugrue of Princeton University observes in his wonderful lecture on Marcus Aurelius: one of the wonderful ironies about the history of philosophy was that the former was a slave and the latter an emperor. That speaks greatly to the flexibility and applicability of Stoicism, but it also has recently brought to my mind another thought.

In this year I have found myself in a leadership role in my community organization, my profession, and soon, my family. This has made me recognize new aspects of Stoicism. Previously I had conceived of Stoicism as especially useful to those with little or no power. As such, it helps us to focus our energies on the things we can control and learn to accept that which we cannot.

But lately, as my 'say-so' has risen (power is too strong a word), I have found that my stress has risen with it. Given that we are always seeking greater control, one might expect the opposite. But I think this happens because power is a strong temptation. When we are put in charge of something or made responsible for it, we get used to having more control than ordinary. We soon find ourselves expecting that greater level of control. It becomes even easier to fall prey to the delusion that we can control more than we do, and as that delusion intensifies, so too does our suffering.

So now I am thinking that I must begin to approach Stoicism less from an Epictetan point of view, and more from an Aurelian one. Surely the emperor saw something of use in Stoicism that he chose it as a remedy for his affliction of power. We'll see how this line of thought progresses.

Leadership and Stoicism

Published

DT Strain

on July 16, 2007

How do you explain…this?

Published

David W.

on July 16, 2007

I'm a bit late jumping on this story, so I'm betting most of you have already heard about this. But it's just too... juicy. A door-to-door salesman in Florida was struck by lightning from a cloudless sky, nearly killing him. Paramedics found him not breathing, and without a pulse, but were able to revive him. Or at least, somewhat. The man is currently (as of about a week ago at least) in a coma and recovering. Hopefully he will make a full recovery, and finish raising money for his religious education, because I'm sure he's got some big questions right now.

Because, see, did I forget to mention? He was selling religious books at the time he was struck by lightning. Oh, the irony!

First, yes sometimes lightning does strike from cloudless skies. This isn't a divine miracle, but rather a natural event known as "positive lightning" that is understood scientifically. But if you believe in an active, personal God, then everything is caused by God, right? So what did this poor man do wrong? Was God afraid of him making it to divinity school?

But wait, he was revived. So even though God was able to kill him for a moment, human beings were able to pull him back to life. (Uh oh! Sounds like humans are getting too big for their britches, God's gonna have to do another Tower-of-Babel smack-down!) Not only that, but if they used defibrilators, then the paramedics were really fighting fire with fire. So God throws down his electricity to kill a man, and Man volleys back with their electricity to revive him. Sounds like we're out-divine-ing God's bolts from heaven.

The leader of the man's religious group is quoted as saying, "It's difficult what happened, you know, but what can we do? Things happen in life, but we still believe in God." That's a pretty level-headed response, I suppose their particular group doesn't believe in the "everyone's a sinner, we've all got one foot in hell and the other in purgatory!" point of view that my wife and I are observing so much here in southwest Virginia. Aside from that last phrase "but we still believe in God" that would be pretty much what I would say in such a position.

But it's that "but we still believe in God" that really caught my eye. I wish I knew the full context, because this was probably a response to a question by an interviewer. But it's still interesting that he jumps right to that. Because, I would think, a bolt-from-the-blue event would actually lead many people to even stronger convictions.

But then again, I could just be wrong. One of the larger churches in the next town over from mine was once struck by lightning and burned (not completely, but there was a significant fire). Nobody seemed to think there was a particular message there. I wonder what the opinion would have been if, say, lighting had struck down and burned a Walmart? Or one of those evil evolution-teaching schools? The story might have sounded a little different.

update: A brand new story to add a little perspective to the above -- "close to 2,700 lightning strikes were reported in Washington and Oregon on Friday and early Saturday, sparking 212 fires." All in all, I find it easy to understand how a more primitive society would be quick to make assumptions on the divine nature of lightning. In this case, it must be all those heathens in Washington!

Planet Humanism

Published

Deh

on July 15, 2007

Nullifidian has recently created a new aggregator, Planet Humanism. Looks great, and I wish it the greatest success.

If you're curious, no, I don't think of it as competition to Planet Atheism. :) There's certainly room for both. As I've already told Nullifidian, the only potential problem I see is that the members of each aggregator will probably want to join the other, and will probably be eligible, so there's a risk that they will have something like 90% of blogs in common. But I hope that can be avoided (maybe there's some humanists out there who don't really consider themselves atheists), and it's great to have one more aggregator to read. :)

So... atheist or not, if you have a humanism-themed blog, go join PH. :)

Planet Humanism

Published

Deh

on July 15, 2007

Creationists fight Darwinian science; Scientologists fight Psychiatric science.

Published

new.atheist

on July 13, 2007

So, there's a "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum" run by the CCHR (which is really just a Scientology group) and watching the video tour, I can't help but soon see the similarities to Creationists fighting the idea of Evolution.

Note that they are sure to give you a history lesson, and in doing so, point out how bad things used to be. Pointing out that psychiatrists once idolized Freud is like pointing out that at one time some scientists believed in Lamarck's evolutionary theories. And the idea of eugenics is brought up when claiming the evils of both evolution-scientists & psychiatric-scientists. Apparently nobody believes there is room for improvement and learning and morals in science?

Why is psychiatry their target? Well, there's accounts that the founder of Scientology, L.R. Hubbard, was mentally unstable & spent some time in psychiatric wards. He became resentful and wrote a bunch of new-age self-help books that bashed the psychiatric industry. I'm interested in how extreme the "church" view has become though. Granted, I do tend to think that our society is a bit over-drugged, but this video clearly shows their HATRED for psychiatry and desire to brain-wash their own believers, not just a desire to truthfully inform the public.

While Scientologists don't worship a god that I'm aware of, though they do consider themselves a religious group, and their messages clearly show the dangers of organized religion. I almost think that they're even worse with no god to account to. They don't have any moral code I could find plus they discourage their believers from thinking on their own. At least the Judeo-Christians have the 10 commandments, so if they don't want to think about morals, there's some guidelines. There's something to it very reminiscent of the Catholic Church back in the day. A Catholic used to be able to buy his way out of hell with a few alms to the church, and Scientologists are constantly having to pay the "church" in order to advance in the hierarchy.

Nobody should have to pay cash for spiritual enlightenment.

Creationists fight Darwinian science; Scientologists fight Psychiatric science.

Published

new.atheist

on July 13, 2007

Wait… they open the Senate with a Prayer?

Published

new.atheist

on July 13, 2007

I guess, if I didn't care before that they opened the Senate with a prayer every morning, I guess I can't really complain about it now. But in case you haven't seen, a few Christians weren't too happy that this morning a Hindu was invited to pray.

Video at Breitbart.tv, & more info at CNN.com.

Wait… they open the Senate with a Prayer?

Published

new.atheist

on July 13, 2007

Catching up on other blogs

Published

new.atheist

on July 12, 2007

Since I've been procrastinating so long, my google-reader got really full, and so I'm just checking the latest posts of those blogs near & dear to my heart. I apologize that I'll be ignoring some pretty good stuff that's just too late to comment on at this point.

Honest Doubter has a post on Fear Mongers, where the original video is down, but from the comments, I presume the video Brother Micah, and so I checked youtube for other videos of him. Boy... is it just sad to watch this guy rant:

The problem is, you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar; the way he's yelling at everyone, he's not going to convince anyone of his beliefs. He doesn't want to discuss his beliefs, he just wants to talk/yell about them... if he's really a Christian, why wouldn't he act a bit more like Jesus?

Also, Irreverent Musings has an interesting post on Reason, Faith, & Country. Some people say they put god before country, should atheists put reason before country? I note that some people want to put god IN government, and it's definitely hard get reason in there. I'm not sure how political I want to get in this blog just yet, but with the debates for the election in '08 already started, I'm bound to have a few posts political positions soon enough.

Catching up on other blogs

Published

new.atheist

on July 12, 2007

"My kids are going to school to learn, not to become a homosexual or an abortion doctor or an atheist."

Published

new.atheist

on July 12, 2007

The article states: she went to the computerized card catalogue and typed in the keywords "homosexuality," "abortion" and "atheism." She was shocked by the dozens of titles that popped up.

Hooray for somebody with too much time on their hands! Now, even though I firmly believe in a separation of church & state, I don't think I'd object to any religious books that might be found in the school library. Yes, kids are going to school to learn, and religion is something I think all kids need to learn about, even if I wouldn't want my own kids to become religious, I'd like them to learn about religion.

But the best is the last line of the article:
"My oldest son doesn't believe in God," she said. "I guess he kind of thinks I'm stupid."

I get the feeling her oldest is supremely embarrassed at her actions.