Your Move Jesus- Part 1

"Water into wine?  I once turned an entire student loan into beer!  Your move Jesus...."

-(anon facebook status)

Quote of the Day-Douglas Adams

"A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. "But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?"



-- Douglas Adams, paraphrase of a parable spoofing modern creationism that Adams often told, as retold by Richard Dawkins in "Lament for Douglas" (14 May 2001)

Bizarre Bible Lessons Part 5- How to Answer Criticism

(Poo on his hands? Don't tell him until after lunch.  It's funnier that way)

In this month's Bizarre Bible Lessons we find another little gem that shows us, once again, that all of the answers to life's problems can be found in the bible.

How should we answer criticism?  Jesus gives us a great example of how to do it, AND make the people doing it feel stupid at the same time!

Let's see how he does it.

It all starts when the Pharoehs and some of Jerusalem's teachers come across Jesus and his disciples eating with "defiled" (that is unwashed) hands. (Mark 1-20)



Was Jesus a dirty bird?
The Pharisees thought so.
They once (according to the bible) asked him, in no uncertain terms, why he didn't wash his hands before a meal according to the tradition of the elders.

His answer?

"Why didn't I wash my hands? You are all over most good stuff, like killin' sassy kids,  judging people based on their sexual habits, and even trying to regulate thought crimes, but you don't help your parents as much as you could when it is inconvenient! So don't bother me with "dirty hands", they aren't gonna hurt me. Sort yourselves out!"

The Pharisees had been put in their place, or at the very least they had been confused into silence by his strange little rant.

After they left and Jesus was alone with his disciples, even THEY wondered why Jesus didn't want to wash his hands.


What was his answer to them?

"OMG, are you guys really this stupid? This is not a hard concept people! We aren't "defiled" by anything that goes into our bodies, we are only defiled by our actions. COME ON!"






His buddies accepted this (of course).
 
 

"Now let's move on to new business. We need to help a lady who has been defiled by an impure spirit that has gotten into her body. But we need to be careful, her mother is a complete bitch, so I'm gonna mock her a bit before we help.  It'll be fun. Ok? Let's roll!"

(Umm, didn't you just say that nothing could defile us but what came from within ...?)

I don't want to get off track.  His point was that our actions are what define us and what will or won't "defile" us.  In other words, it's not what we take in, but what we put out.

Hard to argue with the spirit of what he is saying but in all this we forgot that the pharisees were just asking why Jesus wouldn't wash his hands.

He completely avoided the question and went on to say how we should kill sassy kids, advocated the policy of thought crime (envy), equated sexual immorality with murder (still not sure what sex has to do with morality) and defensively pointed fingers at anyone who noticed his dirty hands.


With all of the nonsense that Jesus had given everyone to think about, they forgot all about Jesus' annoying belief that unwashed hands weren't harmful.

WELL DONE!!

And this is where we get to the moral of the story;


If someone notices your faults, baffle them with bullshit and deflect, deflect, deflect!  Then move on to something else fun.  Like insulting someone in need of help.  Everyone likes that...
AND

there is another lesson to be learned from this story ...

Jesus believed that bacteria on unwashed hands wasn't harmful. It doesn't matter if his belief was wrong, or silly, or misinformed, or even a confusing conflict between science and a supposedly omniscient mind (who should already know the harms of not being clean), all that matters is that he stood up for what he believed in. (and made them feel stupid enough that they likely won't question him again for a long time.)


WELL DONE Jesus!  You have given us a lot to think about: how to defend our beliefs, insight into the veracity of well known scientific facts, and even more about leadership.


(but could you please just wash your hands?)

Logic 101- The Straw Man

In this month's edition of "Logic 101" we will deal with the "Straw Man"
fallacy. It is a surprisingly common argument, and is very often based
on ignorance or willful misrepresentation of the original position.

A Straw Man is when a superficially similar (yet not properly
representative) proposition is substituted for the original and then
subsequently refuted. This creates the illusion of having refuted the
position without ever actually having addressed the original posit.
This sort of argument is endemic in political and religious debates as
they are often attempting to "preach to the converted" or to an audience
that is expected to have a pre-existing sense of confirmation bias
toward the subject matter. They are particularly effective to the casual
observer because the Straw Man very closely resembles the original
argument on the surface and any sense of this confirmation bias towards
the Straw Man's position will make it a very convincing argument indeed.

Let me give you an example:

Some anti-evolutionists argue that "Darwinists" (otherwise known to the
scientific community as "Biologists") claim that the evolution of
things, such as the eye, happened by chance. They then refute this with
a simple argument from incredulity by saying that nothing so complex as
a human eye could possibly have evolved through mere chance.
The problem with this is that no scientist has ever claimed that evolution happens
by chance. It happens through a series of random mutations and the
process of natural selection (in very simplified terms).

Another example would be to say that Abortionists "want to kill babies"
and then go on to talk about the immorality of killing the children of
the future. This is not a true representation of the Abortionists'
position. It is deliberately inflammitory for the purpose of a
dishonest smear campaign against those who disagree with Pro-life
proponents.

It is easy to see how "chance" and "random mutation" get conflated or
how a "killing babies" comment could raise the hackles of those who
listen and to see how those who are looking for a reason to dismiss
evolutionary theory and/or pro-choice arguments might rush to quickly
accept these arguments.

But you would be wrong to do so. No one has posited these positions.
So any such argument that refutes that position merely distracts from
the actual facts of the matter. They either willfully or ignorantly
misrepresent positions so as to bolster their own position and gain
additional support from those whom they can convince with such dishonest
tactics.

The only truths that a discovered Straw Man argument will reveal are
both the level of integrity and the level of ignorance of which the
person constructing the Straw Man possesses.

In short, make sure that you have a full understanding of the opposing
position before you attempt to refute it.

To do otherwise is to court failure.
For if you don't understand the subject, you clearly can't summon the
information nor the skeptical perspective that you will require to
refute it.

If you are constructing a Straw Man out of a sense of dishonest
manipulation, then don't do a thing ...

... you will be discovered soon enough.

Atheist Haiku of the Month- Valentines Edition

Love is not Gods gift

It's a gift between great people

Don't waste it on myths

(I love you Carla)

Rational Response- Governor Bentley

Separation of church and state.


Let that sentiment sink in for a minute…


Separation of church and state.

What does this term mean to you? It can bring forward some pretty intense feelings on both sides of the argument but, just to be clear, let’s outline what it means.

It means to have a secular government that is concerned with the rights and concerns of all individuals and groups regardless of their creed or culture, while not espousing the beliefs and concerns of only one thereby setting that belief on a higher level of importance.

It means to have a government that does not endorse one religion over another as its official religion or as the core of its value system.

It means to have a government that doesn’t “de facto” exclude a portion of its population by supporting as official doctrine a religion that is contrary to many of the segments of its populous.

NOT separating religion and politics violates freedom OF religion because it inevitably supports one over another and relegates other religions to second class citizen status.
Leaving your religion at home in politics is MOST important because it protects everyone.

It PROTECTS religion and everyone’s right to observe their own beliefs within the confines of the law of the land.

The point is that for a government official to purposefully exclude or single out one (or a few) segments of his constituency as unworthy by his religious standards is not only unethical since it was (at least partially) those same people who got him elected, but it is a violation of the principles that many modern nations were founded upon.

Enter Alabama Governor Robert Bentley

I represent you all equally, even more equally if you love Jesus!

In his inaugural speech he said all the right things and displayed all the traits that got him elected in the first place.

He said very clearly that he wanted to be a leader who represented every single one of his constituents as fully as any other.

"(I am) Governor of all of Alabama; Democrat, Republican and Independent, young and old, black and white, rich and poor."

Sounds great! It has been far too long in political discourse that a politician has come along who wants to forget the partisan divide and represent everyone equally.

So where is the problem?

The problem began only a few hours later when he was reported by the Birmingham News to have said-

“If you're a Christian and you're saved, it makes you and me brother and sister," and "Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters, So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

And now we have entered into the realm of the politically unethical. Gov Bentley has raised some eyebrows with these remarks and rightly so.

Certainly the religious organisations were outraged by his singular display of kinship with only one portion of the population and his dismissal of all others. He tries to maintain the high road by expressing how much he desires those who are not his “brothers” to become so.

How can they do so? He is very clear that the only way that he will accept all others as his “brothers and sisters” is if they betray all of their deeply held beliefs and join his, one true religion.


TERRIBLE!!


How can a politician, in all good conscience, betray a large portion of the people who trust him to represent their interests fairly by telling them, in one breath, that he will treat ALL Alabamans equally and then in the next that he feels a special kinship with only a certain portion?

How can he reject all Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Sikhs, Pagans, and everyone else by telling them that he will only fully accept them if they agree with HIS ideology?

The answer is because he doesn’t care about those groups. He has fallen prey to that failure in moral imagination that allows him to forget how people will be offended by being told that they are not good enough.

Now I will say this;

He may actually be able to fairly represent those that he feels are not his “brothers and sisters” but, after being so summarily dismissed, how can anyone who is NOT of this family ever trust that he even wants to?

Are you SURE that I am welcome here?

A message to the Governor-

Sir, you are the representative of a large body of people whose beliefs are varied and far reaching. You have also taken on the responsibility to be guardian to them ALL equally. Not just to represent their interests equally but to always carry the appearance of recognizing their equality.

You violate these principles by publicly identifying your favourites.

You violate the principles of your office by bringing religion into the public forum, and you display for everyone how little you understand the concept of the separation of church and state.

Freedom OF religion means freedom FROM religion.

If you can’t understand how this best protects everyone, atheists and theists alike, or even why it is important to appear to have everyone’s interest at heart equally and to keep your religion to yourself, then I am afraid that you have taken on an office that you don’t deserve.

This should concern everyone, most of all you.

You owe the people of Alabama an apology and you owe your own office and position far more respect than you have shown it thus far in your very early gubernatorial life.

Peace



Edit- He has since apologized for his remarks.  Is this a case of too little too late or has he already revealed himself?

Shout Out to Stupid- Bill O'Reilly

I just don't know what to say.   I have taken a week or so to think about this one because of the sheer stupidity that is involved. 

To let everyone absorb it.

It was so stupid that even his guest (David Silverman, president of "American Atheists") had to have a double take.

In an argument about whether or not "religion is a scam", O'Reilly took it upon himself to defend his God's existence.
How did he do this?
By way of a wonderful "No Spin Zone" analogy.

"Ill tell you why religion is not a scam, in my opinion, tide goes in, tide goes out, never a miscommunication." 



Never?

"Tide goes in tide goes out??"

That was Mr Silverman's response to what 'ol Bill said.  He gathered himself with a shake of the head and carried on, but it was a comical moment.

But what made me pause, FOR A WEEK, to consider this monumnetal misstep was the statement that immediately followed.

"YOU can't explain that"

Um ... are you serious?

Bill?

Tides are pretty easily explained. 

By anyone.

Well, anyone over the age of 10 anyway.

note to Mr O'Reilly- Do NOT go on this show

When Jeff Foxworthy leapfrogs over you in terms of intellectual standing at Fox

....you might be a redneck.

The fact that he kept arguing that point, as though it held water was shocking to me.  Even though he has made a career out of being more than a bit of an ass, and saying some crazy things, THIS was over and above anything that I have ever heard in a public forum. 



Hey Sarah, you two have so much in common!



Just in case you ever read this Bill, I will try to explain it to you with the expurgated version of "Tides-101". 

The moon is a REALLY big thing....

did I just lose you Bill?  Ugh, I am afraid that I just can't get into this without thinking that he will come back with "Gravity is just a theory".

On second thought, I will leave it to the intelligent people at Fox News to explain it to you.

Now I am not saying that I even agree with Mr Silverman's argument, nor his approach in saying that religion is a scam.  (A scam has to be a concious thing, not just the product of irrational thinking)  I actually think that he was being a bit of an ass himself and only trying to ruffle feathers and get some national attention and I think that Bill O'Rielly was right to say that he (Mr Silverman) was insulting people and he wondered what he sought to gain by it.

But O'Reilly's response let him off the hook with the sheer stupidity of its content.  He took all the attention off the actual topic of discussion and moved it into the realm of absolute incredulity over the magnitude of idiocy it took to utter that statement.

The clown took the stage and stole the night.

To your credit Bill, you jumped at the chance to defend your beliefs, you displayed a take no prisoners attitude and certainly thought you were helping when you joined the fray against something you found pretty offensive. 

And believe it or not, I thought, for once, you had a salient point.

But sadly, in order to defend your beliefs, you had to open your mouth, and now I am pretty sure that even God wishes that you had stayed out of it.

Seriously Bill, can you downplay our relationship a bit?

For those of you who would like to watch the infamous stupidity, here is the link (if you wish to skip the interview and get right to the stupid, go directly to 1:55 in the video)

Peace

Atheist Evolution- Hate Mail

I thought it would be entertaining to post some hate mail that I have received over the last year, and to look forward to more great examples of theistic love in the year to come.

What surprises me about my hate mail, is just how vitriolic is gets at times.  I try to be very respectful, rational and reasonable in my posts and never use profanity or insults in responding to people who write to me in response to articles that I have written.  So when I get some of the more hateful letters and realize that they are not responding to my articles at all, but merely attacking me as a person, I get confused (and to be honest, more than a bit entertained).

Let's move on to story time;

 (* I have corrected for spelling and grammar for the most part, for the sake of readability)

This one is by a fellow called "Darwinisatwink";

"anyone who says one word of disrespect to God should be put to death. People like you are PWNED by Satan. Which means watch out for that gang of home brothers from the hood. They carry big knives. Justice is often carried out by criminals unknowingly working for Satan."

He is actually saying that he hopes that I will be attacked and killed by gangbangers working for Satan (who is clearly defending God.)  Doesn't that mean that God lets Satan do his dirty work and that the gang is by extension, working for God?

Nice!

Here is another one by "solariis888";

"You stupid fuck, how dare you call the bible immoral. You are the immoral sack of shit and your blasphomy will be punished in hell. Simple as that fool."

Well, he's certainly convinced me.  Apparently it's as simple as that!

This one was a poster who just wouldn't stop with his hatred.  I received more than a dozen from this little gem named "Saynotodarwin";

"You are no better than Charles Manson and are probably worse if the truth be known. You have disrespected the godly. I sentence you to hell. You will die this year, before January 1. God will judge you and put you right in hell. You are a detriments to your grade school, for you are a fifth grader, nothing more.' "

Apparently he is the jury for God almighty!  He has sentenced me to death and hell.  I had to include this one because it is now January 4rth.  His sentence is a bit late in taking effect.  Ugh, Jesus is late AGAIN!

There are others still that go on and on with scripture and preaching and then end with;

"I HOPE YOU DIE, AND YOUR FAMILY BURNS!!"

Thank you "DarwinsBSdog" for that one.

Others are just nonsense from the start (Darwinisadink);

"idiots like you will fail. You shall die of AIDSm all nuts are homer sect shules."

Huh?


There are others which are far more common, but to me, the most entertaining (holisticgod);

"If you want to live your life judging things solely by what is REAL, and accepting only facts as truth, then you will miss out on everything that is good in this universe.  Then you will burn and die in hell for not loving it in the first place.  Hope you are ok with that"

This was one of my favourites.  She is actually deriding me for judging things based on them being REAL and TRUE.   Hilarious!

I get a LOT of these ones (Repentorburnbaby)

"True men who fight for their country are always the Christians. We saved the world for you, you butt nuts. USA all the way. We are the ones with a great Christian country that saved the world.  There are no atheists in the military, you are not a soldier, you are too cowardly for that and I hope that you get captured and tortured by the Taliban.  Who will you scream for then?  No one will hear you scum!" 

Um, didn't he just get finished telling me that I wasn't a soldier? 

There are many more, but I just wanted to share a small portion of them, and share the joy and ironic smiles that I had in reading such irrational and nonsensical letters.

Not sure what the point was in writing them, but I am pretty sure that they didn't acheive it.

Message to the haters; 

Do you realize that you convince me and those like me, with each hateful word, that I have made the right decision? 

Do you realize that you are giving a perfect example of "Christian Love"or how "peaceful" islam is, each time you write?

Please respond to the criticisms specifically or know that you are only adding to the mountain of hateful theists that give credence to the sterotype of "hateful theists" that abounds in our circles.

If you don't care about that, then keep 'em comin', we all need a good laugh.

Peace







 

Atheist Haiku Of the Month- New Years Edition

New Resolutions?

Don't rely on gods for help,

Have faith in yourself.



Logic 101-Logical Absolutes

"Logic 101" is a new series that will attempt to illustrate some of the logical fallacies that many arguments, especially those regarding religion, fall prey to during a debate. 

I feel that it is important when having a debate to have a solid grasp of logical principles. While some arguments may seem iuntuitively convincing, we need to understand the fallacies that are leading you from the path of reasonable claims to the field of irrational conclusions.

So many discussions get mired in stagnancy because people unknowingly violate logical principles. Those conversations can, therefore, never bear rational fruit because of that fundemental misunderstanding.  Further, I felt it was unfair to deride those claims as irrational unless I made an effort to demonstrate how to avoid those pitfalls beforehand.

Before I get into the discussion myriad of fallacies and how to avoid them, it is important to set the tone by mentioning the oft referenced but rarely understood "logical absolutes".

The first thing that we need to get out of the way is that these rules (especially the third one) applies only to formal logic where definitions in question have been clearly defined.


I can not emphasise this enough. 
DEFINITIONS ARE IMPORTANT! 
Without clearly defined terms it becomes impossible to make any logical debate work within the cloud of logical uncertainty that misunderstood terminology will create.
Once these definitions are established, then these are the three tenets by which every argument MUST abide or else they will suffer from being self evidently wrong.

ALL claims must adhere to these three rules called the "Logical Absolutes":


1.  The Law of Identity -  Something is what it is, and is not what it is not.  Aside from the equivocation fallacy (which would be covered by clear definitions at the start) this is absolute.  Things simply are what they are, and are not what they are not.  They have a clear set of properties and a very specific nature.  Something can't defy its own nature.  That is a logical absolute.

i.e.- A rock is a rock, and not a fish.  Pretty easy to accept.

2.  The Law of Non Contradiction - Something can't be both true, and not true. 

 i.e.- A chair can't be entirely made out of wood, and yet made out of entirely NOT wood.  Again, this is pretty easy.

3.  The Law of Excluded Middle -  A statement is either true, or false with no middle ground.  It is often cited that paradoxical statements need to be excluded from this rule, but that is false.  Statements like "This statement is false" violate logical (LED) principles and are, therefore, NOT valid and logical statements.  Any proposition which asserts its own negation is not logically consistent.  This kind of statement is called the Liars Paradox.  We will exclude these arguments for the informal reader.


Very dry stuff but very necessary for any logical discussion.

So to summarize, every claim must:

1. Clearly define terms;
2. Ensure that we don't posit claims which violate the pre-defined nature or assert properties which are contrary to previously asserted properties of that claim;
3. Don't make contradictory statements; and
4. Don't ride a middle ground between true and not true.  Any statement that is a logical statement is either true or false. 

There is our argument box.  Clearly (and easily) defined.

Let's try to stay within it.

Next in Logic 101:  The Strawman!