Monthly Archive for February, 2009Page 3 of 4

Rules are Rules

Published

on February 11, 2009

When confronted with ridiculous Bible rules, Christians often respond the same way, "That was the Old Testament. Those laws are no longer valid." Well, here's a little story from the New Testament that disproves their claim.

In Matthew, chapter 15, Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for not washing his hands before eating. He defends himself by attacking them for not killing disobedient children according to the rule: "He that curseth his father or mother, shall be surely put to death." (Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

So, is that rule still valid or not? How do Christians reconcile their unwillingness to kill their own children for cursing them, with their insistence that the Bible is the inerrant word of God?

Deuteronomy explains it like this:

21:18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
21:19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
21:20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21:21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all shall hear, and fear.

Pretty clear, huh?

Eluana Englaro Dead

Published

Felicia Gilljam

on February 9, 2009

Eluana Englaro, the comatose woman whom Italian prime minister Berlusconi declared “in the condition to have babies“, died a couple of hours ago. My immediate reaction was a sigh of relief and muttering, ironically, “thank god”. Regardless of whether one agrees that she should have been taken off life support or not, the political circus surrounding [...]

Kids Are Talking – Are We Listening?

Published

JCE

on February 9, 2009

This past weekend I attended a meeting to discuss Kids and Atheism. It is a vast topic and became apparent during the meeting that more discussion is needed on the subject. The nature of Atheism does not lend itself to community connectivity and parents struggle when facing the task of managing outside religious influences while raising children. My own children are ages 14 and 20 so the issues that affect them have changed significantly. Where I once made an effort to limit the pressure...

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Kids Are Talking – Are We Listening?

Published

JCE

on February 9, 2009

Christian Bus Slogans

Published

TheEO

on February 9, 2009

A christian group is thinking of putting the slogan:

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." on the sides of buses.

Surprisingly, I cannot take offense.
I am certainly a fool. My wife knows me well enough to be a good witness to all my foolishness so I cannot argue with that bit and I have often said that there is no god.
However my foolishness is not in any way related to my atheism.

The next bit, which they will not include goes:
"They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."
Now if they are preaching nasty stuff like this in their churches it is hate speech. I do take offense and, at least, I want such passages removed from the bibles used in schools.

Christian Bus Slogans

Published

TheEO

on February 9, 2009

Get Ready for Darwin Day!!!

Published

on February 9, 2009

Did you know Darwin Day is on Thursday?? My husband and I started celebrating it with our kids a few years ago, but I had a hard time finding resources at first. So, I thought I'd post a blog with some websites, books and ideas for celebrating Darwin Day. What is Darwin Day? It is a day to celebrate science and humanity and we do this on Charles Darwin's birthday, February 12. This year is his 200th birthday!!

The best site to go to for information and events that may be occurring in your area is the official Darwin Day Website. Unfortunately there have not been any family friendly events in my area since I first discovered Darwin Day. If you can't find anything in your area, I'll list some ideas below on how to create your own celebration.

I first learned about Darwin Day through Agnostic Mom. She is a former Mormon turned atheist who lives in Arizona. She has a fantastic blog although she is not as active on it now as she was a couple of years ago. Here is a link to an article on how she and her family celebrate Darwin Day for the entire week of Darwin's birthday. It's a great article and offers some good ideas.

When we first started celebrating Darwin Day, I discovered it a little too late to have some books on hand for my kids. I looked at all of our local bookstores and found NOTHING...so I ended up getting them on Amazon. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Tree of Life: The Wonders of Evolution

Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story

Mammals who Morph

Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution

Darwin and Evolution for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities

The above book has some great activities and I will be using it quite a bit to plan our Darwin Day celebration. It should also be noted that these books can be read by adults who are unfamiliar with the actual theory of evolution as well as children. The explanations are a good start for people who are interested in learning about the theory.

Of course, everyone should also read The Origin of the Species at some point in their lives. It is nice because although it is explaining a scientific theory, it can be read by anybody.

Some websites to look at for information on evolution include:

Talk Origins There is so much information available at this website and it offers a section on common misconceptions about evolution. It is surprising how many people are misinformed and this website is a great tool for people to learn about evolution and to find answers to common questions.

Understanding Evolution This site was created by the University of California Berkeley and offers some great information about evolution. It is very easy to navigate and offers teaching tools for many different age groups. It also offers an option to sign up for e-mail updates about current news that relates to evolution.

I'll post some old blog posts from my myspace below that discuss some of our first Darwin Day celebrations with our kids. This year, I had hoped that we could take a weekend trip to Seattle and visit the Pacific Science Center. They currently have the exhibit Lucy's Legacy through March 8. Wouldn't that be a GREAT way to celebrate Darwin Day??? Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it is going to work out for us to go.

January 31, 2007
Last year was our first year to celebrate Darwin Day. I didn't receive the books I ordered in time for Darwin Day, so we looked up some information on the internet and I told my kids a very simplified version of what evolution is.
On Darwin Day, I planned a nature hike with my kids. It is a little cold in Spokane for this, but we bundled up :) Our goal was simply to observe nature. We talked about the fact that Darwin loved to observe nature and that is why he was able to discover clues that led him to his theory of evolution.
We had ordered "The Tree of Life" and "Our Family Tree" last year, but they didn't arrive until a few days after Darwin Day. As we read them, I encouraged the kids to think of questions they had. So, when they began coming up with questions, we would research answers on the internet. Lastly, we noticed that our library did not have a book about evolution for children. So, as part of our celebration, we ordered an extra copy of "Our Family Tree" and donated it to our local library. This year we'll have to go and see if it's still there :)

I don't have any specific plans yet for this year's celebration, but I did order a couple of new books to help with this years Darwin Day. So, we have now added "Life on Earth" and "Darwin & Evolution for Kids". They're both great and I've found quite a few fun activities in "Darwin & Evolution for Kids." I'll have to post another blog once I get a plan together for our little family celebration :)

February 15, 2007
We ended up having a great Darwin Day celebration with our kids! I combined some ideas that I got from Agnostic Mom with some ideas of my own.

Agnostic Mom celebrates over a 7 day period. I wanted to extend the celebration beyond one day, but I thought 7 days might be a bit much for my kids. So, we decided to have a 3 day celebration. Instead of discussing one animal group each night, we combined some animal groups.

We were supposed to start celebrating on Saturday Feb 10, but other things came about and we had to postpone. So, we started our activities on Sunday and ended them on Tuesday. Our first activity was to make our own family tree. We talked about everybody as we placed them on the family tree and noticed differences and similarities between ourselves and our family members. We decided that it would be silly if everyone was the same and it's nice to have differences. That night we had crab and salmon. These represented some of the first things to evolve on the Tree of Life.

The next day, we had chicken for dinner with a side dish of dinosaur Ritz crackers and some mint green cookies for dessert. This night was our night for reptiles and birds. Our activity after dinner brought about much excitement! and I had found a book about Triceratops that included information about how paleontologists study bones. It came with a little dig site. So, we all worked together to dig out our Triceratops' bones and then we pieced it together. We took this opportunity to discuss how Darwin came to the conclusion that life evolved and how scientists need evidence to back up their claims.

For story time that night, we read the book, The Tree of Life by Ellen Jackson. This was our best night of the celebration because we could tell that it was really starting to make sense to our son. He had so many questions and ideas while we read the story...he was exhilarated.

On our final night, we had pot roast for dinner with banana cream pie for dessert. I showed the kids a series of pictures in my Biology book that displayed evolution occurring in a population of insects. As we looked at each picture, we tried to guess which population of insects would survive and which would struggle. For our final activity, we made a Tree of Life. I had printed out pictures from each of the groups of animals that we had talked about. Then, we drew trees and the kids had to figure out where each animal's place was on the Tree of Life. They had a lot of fun with it and we ended our celebrations eating banana cream pie and the story, Our Family Tree by Lisa Westberg Peters. It was a great time.

I think as they get older, we will focus on smaller topics during our celebration. Right now, they are just getting some basic knowledge. But, when they're older, it will be fun to look at the evolution of horses, dogs, etc. Agnostic Mom also mentioned that she was thinking of a new activity this year involving paint and mixing colors. We may have to try that one out next year. We are having a lot of fun with our new family celebration and look forward to future Darwin Days !

I hope these resources will help anyone who is interested in having a Darwin Day celebration of their own. I want to offer a challenge to everyone. For Darwin Day this year, learn something new about evolution or teach someone else something about evolution. What a great way to celebrate science and humanity!

Get Ready for Darwin Day!!!

Published

on February 9, 2009

An Atheist and Christian Debate: Conclusion

Published

Ron

on February 8, 2009

We finally reach the conclusion of our Atheist / Christian debate. If you've just found this debate and would like to see the earlier parts, please follow the links below (or search in the right-hand margin).
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

-----------------------------
From: Daniel
To: Julio
Subject: RE: Research Volunteers Needed
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:57:41 -0700

Lol, my dad's a physicist too, and this test is bullshit [walks out]. [editor's note: inside joke between Julio and me]

That's it then, I'm more than happy to leave this conversation where it lies. I've made my points, I feel they've been ignored, and there's no reason for me to keep making the same points over again with no direct answers. You've still not provided any proof for your God; you've only misrepresented my side of the discussion. I'm not going to fall into a trap of having the subject changed and then get sucked in to a discussion on the anatomy of a unicorn. I've already mentioned that it's acceptable to say 'I don't know' when asked about the beginnings of time, yet you contend that I must (and have) taken a position on how the universe began. You are the one making the claim for God and the creation of the universe, I've stated this multiple times, and you've still not answered with evidence. Your evidence for God is the same as my evidence for unicorns, Allah, the Hindu Gods, and the Easter Bunny. When you understand why it is that you dismiss everyone else's Gods, then you'll understand why I dismiss your God as well.

I've said it before, and in closing I may as well say it again. Evolution is an accepted scientific theory, the same as Gravity (which you find so compelling) and Relativity. The only reason you dispel Evolution is because your faith does not allow it, much the same way Heliocentrism was dispelled by those of faith. I explained to you why the other Apes did not evolve into humans, and rather than discuss the scientific aspects of it or the reasoning involved, you went way off course and attacked two words in my explanation. Honestly, is that your reasoning for why evolution is false? The reason why the other Apes have not evolved into humans is completely false because the definition of 'theory' and 'accepted' is disputed via wikipedia definitions? Redefining the term 'theory' from a non-scientific point of view does not disprove the idea, and is not even close to a rebuttal.

And if it makes you feel better, throw everything that I've said away and simply provide evidence for your God. I really don't care if you find Evolution to be true or if you believe the Law of Gravity to be true (after all, it's just a law defined by man right?); these things are not required in any way for the atheist viewpoint to be valid. Just give me the evidence for BibleGod, that's all. That's it, one piece of evidence. You've given me nothing this entire time. You feel that you've disproven my Loch Ness monster, which somehow proves that your Bigfoot exists? [insert link from CNN here...] No, you must still prove your Bigfoot. And there are many Bigfoots claimed by people all over the world, so you must also prove that yours is the REAL Bigfoot. I anticipate the sound of crickets chirping from the next email on this subject.

Please feel free to share this with as many people as you'd like, as I'm more than confident in the points that I've made. Is it okay if I do the same? I hate to see this time and effort go to waste without anyone ever seeing it and learning from it.

Evidence for BibleGod Julio, that's all I ask. You believe in Him, so give me the evidence, ANY evidence, that leads you to understand without a doubt that BibleGod is the one true Creator, over all the other Gods available. You should be able to go directly from your evidence to the statement, 'BibleGod must be the one true God, and Jesus is His son'. I will show your evidence to be highly suspect at a minimum, if not completely invalid. And I know I can do this, because your God is the same as every other God created in the minds of men throughout history, past, present, and future. It is completely imaginary.

Good luck, and may you be blessed by all that Allah has to offer you in this life,
Pastor D

-----------------------

Thank you very much for reading, hopefully you've enjoyed the discussion and have learned a few things about atheism and the atheistic perspective!

An Atheist and Christian Debate: Conclusion

Published

Daniel

on February 8, 2009

Scaremongering in the Media

Published

Psychodiva

on February 8, 2009

More scaremongering by the media about the MMR vaccine has recently led to Bad Science being threatened by lawyers for LBC and Global radio who are responsible for the airing of a radio show by one Jeni Barnett - a minor celebrity who thinks she can sound off about vaccines with little knowledge or evidence to support her claims.

Ben Goldacre of Bad Science has been told to take down an audio clip from Ms Barnett's show that he was using to illustrate her complete and utter idiocy on the subject - they are obviously embarrassed by her and trying to protect themselves- but then look at her blog and you will see what the result of idiocy is- anger and insults towards people who know more than her- and interestingly- accusations that doctors and nurses would leave her to die in pain were she to refuse the drugs they offered- shame on you Ms Barnett!

Links to audio clips can be found here

I as a nurse treat idiots like you every day-I keep my views to myself about such idiocy because I am there to do a job- not to impose unfounded views but to present idiots like you with scientifically backed evidence so that you can make an informed decision. You are presenting a wide audience with unscientific views and asking them to believe you - and expect the medical profession to mollycoddle and give in to every stupid idea and treat you- regardless of the your beliefs or unfounded unknowledgeable views.

You on the other hand are now probably responsible for a few more children getting measles or mumps, possibly going blind, possibly having fallout from the illness for the rest of their lives- an illness easily avoided by a vaccine that does not cause autism, does not harm the child and actually prevents great suffering- you need to travel to a country where measles and Rubella are pandemic- see the harm they cause.

Calling them 'childhood illnesses' in the way you do is leading people to think- as you obviously do- that it is good for children to suffer through them - well bollocks- do some real reading and then come back to me with some evidence that shows it is good for a child to suffer from these horrendous illnesses- maybe we should all get smallpox again-according to your logic it might make us more robust after all?

Dr Peter Strebel, an immunisation expert at the WHO, stressed that even in countries with good health services, measles could be very serious.

"Parents and doctors need to be reminded that measles is a highly contagious disease," he said. "Even healthy and well-nourished children, if unvaccinated, are at risk of measles and its complications such as pneumonia, encephalitis and, although rare, death."

Contrast this with Jeni's opinion from the broadcast:

“if its viral, and childrens immune systems are strong whats the problem?”

For information about the harm caused by Vaccine denial go here to a wonderful website called 'What's the Harm?'

Mealses

Mealses

Rubella

Mumps

Scaremongering in the Media

Published

Psychodiva

on February 8, 2009

The Power of 11:11

Published

evtujo

on February 7, 2009

I have a number of personal productivity blogs I check on occasion. Reading about being productive is the next best thing to being productive, doncha know! In any case it occurred to me recently that for some reason or another Steven Pavlina's feed had disappeared from my list. So I hopped over to his page to see what he was up to.

Apparently he is a pretty famous productivity guru. I had read a couple of his essays at one point and they were pretty inspiring. Dream big, work hard, etc. Over time he seemed to veer farther and farther off into the weeds. He would mention how he and his wife had an actual psychic link. He did a weird polyphasic sleep experiment (nap for a few minutes every few hours and don't sleep at night), and raw veganism among other things. I don't actually have anything against the last two, but I completely turn off when people start talking about their psychic abilities.

So I didn't know if I was going to get productivity advice or bizarreness or woo when I checked in. Well, the answer was woo. Woo in a big way.

The two things that compel me to write are: (1) it's always interesting to come across a new area of crazy that I'd never heard of before and (2) it's always oddly compelling to watch the train wreck of a life dedicated to crazy ideas.

I thought I was pretty educated in the ways of woo, but I had never heard of the "11:11" thing before. The funniest part is that it was apparently started by Uri Geller. I kind of find it amazing that people do anything but laugh at this guy. Apparently, I'm pretty out of touch with the New Age movement these days. Here is a pretty succinct response to the whole 11:11 school of thought. In any case, I now have another crazy belief system to add to my collection.

Even more interesting is the long essay that Steve writes on this subject. He clearly really believes it and really believes it's important. At one point he writes:

Form this intention with your thoughts, but feel it as well. You must really want it. You must desire to see the truth about reality as strongly as a drowning man desires his next breath. If you don’t really want to see the truth, nothing will change.

Here he summarizes my feelings about knowing the truth. And yet he does this in service of the idea that seeing a digital clock with the numbers 11:11 on it is a message from the universe. Something special is going on.

And so now I have to stand back a second and be kind of amazed that I'm even surprised by this sort of thing. I guess it just makes me mad that this sort of nonsense is so contagious. Who knows, I'm probably adding to it by mentioning it at all....

I sort of freaked myself out while writing this post, because I noticed that there were 11's all over my screen. Of course this is because I typed them all as I was writing this post and searching for links. But still, what are the chances....?

Of course, what if I'm wrong and being closed minded? Are you brave enough to challenge your preconceptions and experience the power of 11:11? Do you have the guts? No? Okay then... As for me, I'm taking the red pill. Actually 11 of them.

I'm ready to embrace the truth.

The Power of 11:11

Published

evtujo

on February 7, 2009

Form this intention with your thoughts, but feel it as well. You must really want it. You must desire to see the truth about reality as strongly as a drowning man desires his next breath. If you don’t really want to see the truth, nothing will change.

Bale and O’Reilly

Published

CHADMAC

on February 4, 2009

I know I haven't been around here at all lately. I have been really damn busy both personally and professionally. I have to pass these along because they are just too damn funny....

After the release of the Christian Bale tirade on the Terminator set, I should have seen these coming. Combining the Bill O'Reilly teleprompter blow-up and the Bale blow-up leads to pure comic genius in my opinion.

First, we have the YTMND version. This one is my favourite of the two.

Second, this entry from YouTube.

WARNING - Horribly inappropriate language. And by inappropriate, I mean excessive use of the F-bomb. And by F-bomb I mean Fuck.

Cheers,
Me

One more thing…

Published

on February 4, 2009

I forgot to mention during my last post, but I will continue to update both my shared items and Delicious bookmarks. They are accessible from the right-hand column of this blog, or by bookmarking the hyperlinks in the last sentence.

Also, it appears that I'm not the only one feeling this way. Sharon Astyk writes a great blog, and today she wrote the following:

You see, I’m starting to feel I can’t compete with reality - any actual attention to events as they unfold points up the fact that my own doomiest imaginings are being wildly exceeded.
Let’s see - California is broke, functionally insolvent, and has stopped paying for just about everything, including its state police. Remember how often they trumpted that they were the 6th largest economy in the world - well, that’s kinda like saying the UK is insolvent…oh, and that actually might be not so far from the truth too, since they just had to nationalize their banking system. We’ve lost at least 300,000 jobs in two weeks. The New York Times may be out of business by spring. While neither rain nor sleet nor hail will keep the postal service from its appointed rounds, money probably will, and they are talking about cutting out Saturday deliveries. Homelessness and hunger are rapidly on the rise, as are suicide and murder suicide.

There’s rioting in Russia, China, Greece, and massive worker demonstrations in France and Britain. Australia is seeing record high temperatures, while many of the rest of us struggle with record lows. California’s drought may be the worst in a century. And the already hungry are among the deepest sufferers of the food crisis. The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, Bloomberg - they are all starting to use words like “Biblical proportions” “Deep Depression” “Apocalypse.” It is getting hard to compete with the mainstream doomers.

We’ve been “fixing” the problem - which is a big part of the problem - think of the word “fix” here as in “the fix is in.” We’ve just spent 8 trillion dollars bailing out the banks - more than all the wars in US history, the Louisiana purchase and the space program combined. And what did we get for it? Bank of America and Citi are still teetering, the jobs are still being flushed daily. The estimate is half a million a month - every month.

And people aren’t really very angry yet. They should be - think about what 8 trilliion dollars could actually have bought us, had anyone cared as much about the people as they do about the banks, and about the wealth of the fortunate. At some point people will realize that it isn’t going to work - and their anger will be frightening - and just. The New Hampshire state legislature is currently debating legislation that would assert that if the US implements martial law or abrogates the Constitution, it will effectively dissolve the Union. While one wonders where they were the last eight years, this is being taken quite seriously, and it would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Eight trillion could have paid for free health care for every American, cradle to grave for a century. Eight trillion was sufficient to cover the cost of almost all the mortgage debt - every American could have been given their house and the “foreclosure crisis” ended instantly. Eight trillion was enough to build renewable energy infrastructure that could have softened the crisis, to reinsulate our houses, to provide basic food and health care to the world’s poor. The same eight trillion we were told we didn’t have when it was needed by those who wanted educations, basic medical care, decent shelter, a home, hope, a decent life, we had a plenty for the banks and the wealthiest people in the world.

A number of energy and environmental advocates don’t seem to grasp that the 8 trillion figure - and the monies spent by other nations - aren’t proof that we can build a renewable infrastructure or address peak oil if we really want to - instead, they are what we are doing *instead.* Yes, nations can print money, but in order to inflate our currency, we’d have to disentangle ourselves quite violently from the other nations with which we are economically intertwined, and that would have its price too. That is, our ability to keep bailing is limited - and the 8 trillion now buried in bank vaults and flushed down the toilet is money we don’t have for future adaptations. Think about it - we’re debating 3/4 of a trillion dollars for all the American people combined (and some of that will also make its ways into the coffers of the bank) - while we’ve already spent almost 9 times that much on the banks. 300 million Americans get 1/8 or less what the banks get. What does that say about us? And what does it say about the ability and willingness to mobilize funds for things that actually protect human lives?

I encourage you to read the whole post, but that's the part that really struck me. I guess that's why I can't keep talking about all of this, it's got such an air of inevitability. Anyway, if you want to see the full-text of the New Hampshire (state motto: "Live free or die") legislation that would define the conditions under which they will secede (and encourage other states to do the same), it's here. Quite a read. Stunning really, watching this type of history unfold. I mean, the fact that the majority of the population in the US does not realize that there is a new debate about secession going on is really quite amazing. It ought to really hammer home the seriousness of the problems. And to think, I wondered if I was being too dramatic when I wrote about the potential for new wars of secession in November last year.