Atheism is more often coming to the forefront of mainstream news.

This week cbsnews had a piece on atheism that somewhat centered around the fact that Julia Sweeny is an atheist.

Honestly though, this article didn't bring up any new arguments, or ground-breaking atheist revelations. Julia Sweeny has been quite open with her beliefs in the past, and I hope she continues to be so. I'm sure there is much more to her life than her beliefs about religion; none of us should be defined by our beliefs, each of us must define our beliefs on our own.

Again though the comments at the bottom of the page make me cringe. The believers saying all we need is Jesus. The atheists calling all believers morons. And the people who are playing the odds by pointing out something like "if there is no god, no harm; but if there is a god, I win!" I actually respect the Jesus freaks a bit more because, at least they're just saying what they believe in their hearts. Anyone trying to make an argument that god is a better bet probably doesn't really believe in god, or they really just don't understand that believing in something that big isn't as much a decision as a conclusion.

I would much rather approach a religious person with logic & facts about the world. I really don't think, for many people, being uninformed about how the world really works is a choice. People don't know what they don't know.

There's also a recent article in Scientific American on Rational Atheism, and it has a good list of pitfalls & possibilities for atheists taking a stand. I think more atheists who are randomly commenting online about the whole debate should take a step back & read this article just so they themselves aren't accused of making science a religion, or being atheist evangelicals.

Seriously, how the fuck do some people get off calling themselves Christians?

This article, about a how a church took back their offer to hold funeral services for a veteran when they found out he was gay, just really pisses me off.

Now, if Jesus died for everyone's sins, doesn't that mean many Christians believe that just believing saves them, despite their sins on earth? And didn't Jesus himself hang out with the "sinners" of his time? While the church doesn't need to condone anything it considers a sin, if churches turned away all of those sinners, there'd be nobody at their service.

And if they believe all sin is equal in the eyes of god, then just admitting to living a gay lifestyle can't be any worse than the person who consistently lies about their age.

It's just complete nonsense in my eyes. Lets make up a club that celebrates love & diversity so that we can exclude people we don't like! Yayy!

When I spot an interesting article that causes a bunch of people to reply with really stupid comments, I can't help but reply to them! So of course, when I spotted "Faith, Reason and Science, Part X: Some Humor and Serious Ponderings By A Thoughtful Atheist" on A Guy in the Pew, I knew there'd be trouble. You can check there for my ramblings.

I do find his thoughts on science and faith a bit interesting, it seems to me he is one of those people who works his faith around reality as best he can. But the main problem is; those who want to believe mostly seek out books/articles that affirm that faith. I'm not sure if he's ever seen The God Who Wasn't There, just as I haven't read Jesus of Nazareth as he has.

He is prepared to reshape his faith based on evidance, and I think it here that I ask "how then can you have faith at all if it is so easy to change?" If you call yourself a Christian and yet pick & choose what makes sense from the bible, what happened to the rest of it? I had to say it needs to be an all or nothing choice, for while I can take some intellectual & spiritual guidance from the bible, I don't believe any of it to be divine. But can faith in religious doctrine lie on such a continuum?

While we aspire to be a tolerant society in the U.S., that also means we all have to tolerate people saying this we don't like, or that we disagree with. This is a good commentary by Rabbi Aryeh Spero on the subject of how fear of offense shouldn't lead us to criminally prosecute those expressing free speech.

Also, I wanted to link to a really good Q&A on the definition of Atheism & Agnosticism, as well as other common questions about atheism as a belief system.

And an interesting article on why evolution hasn't gotten rid of ugly people. It basically surmises that what makes men and women attractive are very different traits; yet we inherit our physical features from both our parents. I would also think that this would be a logical rebuttal to why homosexuality persists, despite it's obvious evolutionary flaw; gay animals aren't naturally reproducing. (I have heard religious people ask how homosexuality can be genetic if it wouldn't be passed on, or on the other side that evolution can't be real because homosexuality persists within the population.) While it's really great for men to be attracted to women, perhaps there is some factor to that attraction that can be passed from fathers to daughters, resulting in females with strong attraction to females. It'd be interesting to know if there are any studies in that area of sexuality & inheritance.

I spent most of my free time the past week with my nose between the pages of the latest & last Harry Potter Book. I promise not to give away anything here.

I did not wait in line at midnight, but even the next day when I did pick up the book, I noted that the woman in front of me in line had a painted wand & broom on her cheeks. Why do people feel the need to do that?

The Harry Potter releases seem to echo of Star Wars and Star Trek conventions, or Rocky Horror, where people attend dressed as a character. I wondered; is this a modern phenomenon, a side-affect of a society of too much time on it's hands? It is often referred to as a cult-phenomenon, is this a substitute religion? Are people trying to be more like their "gods"?

I also found this humorous take on Harry Potter by some Satan-seekers. The depth with which she finds meaning where there is none, or even mis-reads parts of the book to suit her theories that Potter is evil, is almost fascinating. I'm sure most 10 year olds would easily acknowledge the books are just a story, even while the paranoid adults are over-analyzing it all. Obviously the problem is they attack the books with the same fervor they examine the bible with, and while both are fairy tales, only one is even attempted to be passed off as truth by anybody.

I am guessing the reason some people are so threatened by books is because their lives are so entwined with that one particular book to begin with. If they take one book as literal truth, anyone else might pick any other old book to live their lives by! And we can't have that, now can we?

This seems a little old, but I just came across it more recently:



In the video, Eugenie C. Scott gives a very good explanation of scientific theories.

And of course, if listening to Scientists doesn't convince anybody, perhaps we can all watch the Simpsons!

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?

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.