Your Move Jesus...



The Bible is the "word"?  Pretty sure that everybody knows that the BIRD is the word, your move Jesus....

Rational Response- Vicarious Redemption

This month's "Rational Response" is a rejoinder to the morality claim of Christ supposedly dying for our sins (if there really is such a thing).


It is an oft heard appeal for us to obey God becuase he gave up his only begotten son, or because Jesus sacrificed so much for us.

But is this a moral teaching?

Is this really a good reason to bow down to a being (real or not)?

And finally does this story display God's (and therefor Jesus') good and loving nature?
These are only a few of the questions that we have to ask ourselves when thinking about this.

For me, I have always had a hard time listening to this story (even while I was a Christian) for a few reasons;


1. What did he actually "sacrifice"? He is an aspect of god, and as such the mythology tells us that he can't die. The only thing that "died" was his mortal skin that he adorned in order to appear human. Sure he was in pain, but was it a sacrifice? His suffering was over in a mere 3 days (not all that long in the grand scheme of an infinite life) and he rose to be the ruler of the universe. Sounds more like a hazing ritual for a promotion than a sacrifice.

2. Did he die for US? He died because the other part of himself (we won't get into that bit of irrational nonsense here) decided that he needed blood entertainment in order to forgive his creations. Not just any blood would sate his wrath, but the blood and torture of his son. There was no choice. He wasn't told that we would suffer unless he took our place, nor did he plead for us not to be tortured in such a way. He just went along with God's decision to kill him. He chose that method of forgiveness. He could have chosen
anything, but he chose torture and blood. So he was just participating in a play of his own writing. There was no outside agency that was going to harm us if he didn't act. It was his choice, so there really is no component of heroism here.

3. Is it a moral teaching? NO! It is exactly the opposite for many reasons. It espouses the idea of vicarious redemption and that is about as lazy and immoral an idea as they come. You are no longer called to be responsible for your own crimes, because someone else will pay for them in your stead. Where is the
concept of personal responsibility, the very ideal upon which morality is based?

4. Does this show God's mercy and goodness? This is the crux of the argument for me. As I said before, there is no outside agency coming to hurt those whom Jesus loves. So there is nothing requiring him to stand before us to save us from the pain of whatever punishment we have coming. There is only him, and he makes the rules. He decided that we were immoral, he decided that the only way that he wanted to forgive us was to torture and kill someone, and he decided that someone would be his son. That is like getting robbed, and then in order to forgive the thief, stabbing your own mother in the face saying "that feels better, I can forgive you for robbing me now. Want to come back to my place for beers?".

(Don't worry my mother is tough, she'll only spend 3 days in the hospital).

I can't imagine the robber extolling your moral fiber to his robber buddies. He wouldn't be saying "His mother got stabbed so that I could be forgiven, what a great gal!". He would be saying "What a crazy bastard! He did give me beers though, and never stabbed me even once, so I guess all's well that ends well.... But let's not cross this crazy guy again, OK?"

I find the teaching of vicarious redemption and the cross to be morally reprehensible and intellectually impossible. Can we actually pass on our own responsibility to others for our wrongdoings?  The very concept of moral absolution degrades our morality as it deprives us of the opportunity to discover ethical values, and relieves us of the intellectual and societal responsibility to do so.  Thomas Paine once said that we can take on another man's debt, or even his place in prison, but we can never take on their crimes as though they were our own. That is an impossible action that would rob him of individual culpability for his actions and his responsibility to others and thus rob him of his morality as well.

So do we really think that you can take on another person's crimes as though they were your own?

Would we even want to live in a society where you could?

Stand Up Islam- Part Deux!

Sharon Horgan, host of a BBC show "Have I Got News For You" is catching
a lot of flak from islamic officials for a (possibly) tasteless joke
that she told on her show.

"The Independent described the Dostoevsky metro station... as the Mecca
for suicides. Not to be confused with the Mecca of suicide bombers -
which is Mecca."

First off, that IS funny!

Not because I paint all Muslims as suicide bombers, but because it is a clever play on words and the unpalatable fact that the suicide bombers in the news are Muslim. Clearly no one with a modicum of sense believes that all Muslims are suicide bombers, but Mecca IS the direction that the newsworthy suicide bombers pray towards.

Second, there is irony in the protests, because those who are offended by this are threatening HER. If this doesn't represent the stereotype more than her joke did, then I'll eat a cat. (and I like cats a lot)

Third, (and most important!) if Muslims across the world are more upset by this joke than those Muslims dragging Islam's rep through the mud by being suicide bombers for Allah, then their priorities are pretty mixed up. Use this sort of comment as fuel to publically attack those organizations and show the world that Islam will not stand for violence in it's name. Why must we only hear of Islam's offense when there is a cartoon drawn, a joke made, a movie released, women defended, or bikini's worn?



Stop implying we are violent...OR I'LL KILL YOU!

Stand up Islam!





Stand up and tell the Muslim world that your leaders will no longer put up with such vile acts. (if you can get them off the news talking about vile things that is)

Stand up against Sharia laws that subjugate women and call for the death penalty for the simplest of crimes. Stand up and disavow Islam with violent protests and call the protesters offensive.

Stand up and show the world how little you appreciate your own members acting in such a way.

THIS would be the way for Islam to clean up it's world image. By staying relatively silent on these crimes that should be far more eggregious than simple jokes and cartoons, they give silent permission to those who ACTUALLY damage the way that the world perceives them.

If they are offended, they should direct their ire in the right direction.

Shouldn't their voices be the loudest each time a bomb sounds killing innocents in their name, or at every protest where "Kill the Infidel" signs are displayed by Muslims, or at the very mention of beating or
stoning women? If they were really concerned about being seen as a peaceful religion, shouldnt' they be first in line fighting Sharia law in many of it's forms?

I am pretty sure that no one would answer "No" to that.

Aren't there acid scarred women, stoned reporters, bomb victims, that need those voices supporting their cause?

If they are so concerned about their reputations, shouldn't they have better things to rail against?

So why I am only hearing them ring in the media in response to a harmless comedian?

You decide...

Headline Cartoon found here

Atheist Haiku of the Month- Vicarious Redemption

If my son volunteers to let you punch him in the face, I'll forgive you.

He died to save us?

Who made that immoral rule?

God did it to us.

God is Immoral- Part 1

Next we'll go for beers and watch people drown in Africa

So many theists give apology to a god who would CHOOSE not to protect his "flock" that I felt compelled to write something about it.   It bothers me when people praise his good and loving nature for things like saving a child from a flood. 

Why not save them all? 

Or even prevent the flood from ever happening?

I can't reconcile a loving and merciful god with a god who would pick only one child from a natural disaster to save as his demonstration of that love.  That child has lost his parents, his home, all of his friends and everything that ever mattered to him/her so what has god achieved by picking that one individual out while ignoring the prayers and lives of all of the other victims?

Is it a message?  What an immoral message.


How about the millions of abortions that he performs each week?

How about disease epidemics?

How about the animals created ONLY to live off the suffering of others?

How about the lack of a real easily distinguishable moral code?


Why do apologists find miracles and faith in the few that he allows to survive the deaths that he designed for so many others?

I find it disgusting to think of being supplicant to a being who would play such nefarious and immoral games with our very lives.

And finally, I find it reprehensible that theists support the idea of Hell.

God made hell for people who don't like him because fuck you is why.

By doing so you are agreeing with a policy of torture and infinite pain for the crime of simply not loving your god enough. 
What a terrible, immoral, evil and despicable thing to support.

What I will say is this;

If God is real, he is the biggest and most evil bastard that the world has ever known and even has another evil player (the devil) working for him to try and tempt us to find out how vast his fury really is.

If one day I found out that this christian God actually exists, I STILL wouldn't bend a knee to him.  This concept of a God is immoral and his "creations" are vastly morally superior to their supposed creator.

Shame on you theists for siding with such a creature.

(Good thing he isn't real, for all our sakes!)



THANK GOD!

Peace


-Spoiler Alert found here (along with other Godless Gifts)



Women are to be Seen and Not Heard.

"Christian women", are you as faithful and dutiful as you think?

If you are an intelligent and discerning woman with a modicum of self respect and have still found some way to maintain a Christian perspective then you are not.

Shame on you!

At least this is what the Bible teaches.

Shame in copuous doses.



Christian women listen up;



There are simply some things that are better left to men.
You are created to be man's companion, his helper, and his servant.
If you don't understand something, you are permitted to ask your husband, who will explain it to you.
You are made beautiful, only so that you can hide that beauty from all who look at you, and yet you are made to be seen and not heard.
You are not made for any truth or promise but those your father or husband allows.
You are made for one man to choose to take ownership and responsibility for you and to care for you in all things.
You are to serve him as he serves his lord.
This is all done with the humble understanding that sin began with a woman tempting a man and that because of that you are the reason for death in the world.
Be grateful for man's love and care for you and accept it in all graciousness. Give your man his sexual pleasure when he asks for it with no amount of regard for your own selfish wants and needs and always be mindful of your "dirty time" so that you don't sully the man in the eyes of god.
If you are raped or sexually assaulted by a man who is not your fiance, ensure that you yell loud enough for all to hear and that your fiance receives due recompense for the rapists crime against his property, and then beg for his forgiveness for your own immorality. (Oh and say goodbye to him as well since you will now be marrying your rapist instead. Kind of a "You broke it, you bought it approach to sexual assault)



This and a little faith is all that it takes to be a dutiful Christian woman.



If you are a Christian woman, and you are not living your life by these simple tenets then you are doing your ideology a disservice and only playing at being a Christian. If you are a Christian and also a modern, independant and powerful woman, you had better give your religion another thought because the bible says that Christianity is not for you.

Ironic Creationist Quotes

Please don't apply my words to MY opinions

"The peril of negative arguments is that they may rest on our lack of knowledge, rather than on positive results"

-Micheal Behe 2003 (Intelligent Design "scientist")

Wasilla High School Principal Bans Rock Legend's Song at Grad

WHS Principal Dwight Probasco has revealed himself publically this week as a homophobe and a bigot. Earlier this week he heard from a parent that Queen lead singer Freddy Mercury was gay, and decided that was enough reason to ban their song "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Just figured that out now??

Seriously??

It contains no reference to homosexuality and is certainly not a cry for LGBT rights or even a criticism of the religion that so hates the idea of human rights for all.

It is simply a classic rock song.

An iconic song, and one that the students decided that they wanted to represent them at graduation by having their choir sing it. Mr Probosco, however, doesn't care about the content of the song, only about the sexuality of the person singing it. Why would he even care about the sexuality of the person singing the song if it doesn't have an LGBT message? Does he think that the writer's sexuality might somehow rub off on the students through his words like osmosis? Or does he just want to ignore everything that homosexuals do even outside their bedroom activities?

Ban songs written by them?

Keep them from living in his neighborhood?

Is he attempting to wipe them from his personal experience of the world?

Maybe he would rather they play something staunchly heterosexual like Fat Bottomed Girls.

Who knows how THIS would affect them though...

Let's be clear.


This has nothing to do with his view on Freddy Mercury's sexuality. The song is completely unconnected to that issue.

It has to do with hate.


He hates gays and doesn't want even a simple reminder that they exist near him.


To be fair, his students were not hurt by his bigotted actions as they stepped up and informed the ACLU and contacted a human rights lawyer. When the hateful principal learned of the steps his students were taking to defy him, he backed off his hate pretty quickly.



Although not completely.


He still wants the line "Mama, I just killed a man" left out of their performance.


We can only assume that he figures that will keep them from becoming serial killers.







-Article headline art found here

Atheist Haiku of the Month-

Will the 21st

Be the end of everything?

Ask me the next day.

Top 10 Biblical Prophecy FAILS.

If the bible is to be accepted as divine, then it is reasonable to assume that it's prophecies will be unfailing. Divine and omniscient power can't save the bible from being horribly transparent when it comes to the man made origins of it's "prophecies".

Not even modern apologetics can explain some of these horrible prognostications.

Christians love to point to prophecy in the bible as evidence for it's divinity, but their prophecies usually lie in one of two categories. The first is a prophecy that is vague enough and common enough to apply to something modern day if you look hard enough (and they usually can be applied to many different incidents across history if interpreted with bible coloured glasses long enough).
A great example of this would be Isaiah 13:13;

"Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the LORD Almighty, in the day of his burning anger."

A Christian might claim that the earthquake in Japan was the fulfillment of that prophecy and take this as evidence of coming end times. However this could just as easily applied to ANY major earthquake in the earth's history. It is a vague enough example of a common occurrence that it is easily claimed as a fulfilled "prophecy" when it is really just confirmation biased interpretation. 

The second is a prophecy that is a "no brainer". This is a prophecy whose fulfillment is inevitable. Take, for example, any prophecy that Christians cite as predicting the unrest in the Middle East. Is this common claim a difficult one to make "prophecy" about?  Isn't it pretty obvious that there will be numerous wars in that historically war torn geographical area? Couldn't any of us make nonsense predictions like this and then claim godly inspiration after the virtually inescapable has happened? This kind of "prophecy" is a no brainer that doesn't require a "touch of the divine" to reveal it's likelihood, and is not the sort that we will deal with today.

We will look at prophecies that are specific in their subject and pointed in their prophecy.  Only one is needed to rule out divine authorship but I will give you 10 just to be sure.

10 different sorts of FAILURE.  

Here are 10 of the best failed prophecies from the bible.  These are prophecies that are specific enough to be verified or debunked at a simple glance.

Have fun reading!

Top 10 Bible Prophecy FAILS

 1.Isaiah 17:1 

"An oracle concerning Damascus: See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins."

 FAIL:  Damascus is generally considered the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and it is still inhabited today with almost two million people.  Never in it's history was never a time where it ceased to be a city.  How did the "Lord Almighty" miss that one? Two million people is not exactly a "Where's Waldo".


2.Isaiah 19:4-5

"I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry."

FAIL: The river mentioned here is the Nile which has never dried up in since historians began to keep records of such things (nor even in the oral record of times before).  How does an omniscient being miss one of the largest rivers in the world?  Once he realized it wasn't going to dry up, couldn't he just have willed it to happen just to keep his rep intact?  Guess me must have forgotten about this one. 

3.  Isaiah 52:1

"Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again."

FAIL: Um, there is currently no restriction on uncircumcised men entering the city. How would you even pass such a law, let alone enforce it?  It is hard enough getting people to accept the airport scanners without telling them they have to whip it out for an official "ant-eater" hunt too.


4.   Ezekiel 30:10-11

 "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He and his army - the most ruthless of nations - will be brought in to destroy the land. They will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain."

FAIL: Ezekiel predicts that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon will conquer Egypt filling it's borders with the slain. In 568 BCE Nebuchadnezzar attempted to conquer Egypt without success. Egypt's king ruled for another generation and outlived Nebuchadnezzar thereby escaping the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Egyptians were not scattered or dispersed or slain in droves across the lands.

5.   Ezekiel 29:10-11

"therefore I am against you and against your streams,and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years."

FAIL: Egypt has NEVER been uninhabited, let alone for forty years, in it's history (since it's inception). It is currently inhabited by almost 80 million people.

6   .Matthew 16:28, Matthew 23:36, Matthew 24:34

16:28

"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

23:36

"I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation."

24:34

"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."

FAIL: Jesus says very clearly that the things that would demarcate the end of the world would be fulfilled before that era's current generation passed away.  He said that  it would happen before the people that were standing in front of him "tasted death". That was 2000 years ago.  Either he is a terrible prognosticator, or he is habitually late.  SO late in fact that people die and a hundred generations can pass before he remembers his promises. I think that being 2000 years late qualifies this one as FAILED.


7.   Isaiah 7:14

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold,a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

FAIL: It is Christian tradition to accept that Jesus was born to a virgin. This is a translation error but it merits being mentioned. The "virgin" in this verse is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word "almah", which means "young woman".  A young woman is not necessarily a virgin. "Bethulah" would have been the correct word to use if the author meant virgin. Now on to the prophecy... nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus referred to as Immanuel.  Can't the writers even fulfill prophecy that was in earlier chapters of their own book??  So either Jesus wasn't that son, or he has a brother that hasn't come yet whose name is Immanuel, or this one is total nonsense.  Either way, the prophecy is left unfulfilled.  I can't get over how the bible's editors let this one slip by.  JK Rowling would never stand for this. 

8.   Matthew 2:23

 "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."

FAIL: Nowhere in the Old Testament is such a prophecy found, so how could such a one be fulfilled? Why talk about a divine prophecy that isn't even found in the "inerrant" word of that divinity?

9.    Genesis 4:12

"When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth."

FAIL: As a punishment for killing Abel, God says Cain will be "a fugitive and a vagabond." Seems like a pretty light punishment for murder but looks like God can't even hold this "prophecy" true. In a mere four verses later (4:16-17) Cain settles down, marries, has a son, and is the founder of his very own city. This is a pretty sweet deal for a fugitive and a vagabond.  I am pretty sure that there is not criminal on the face of the earth who wouldn't accept THAT as punishment for their crime. I can see it now. "Oh yea God, you done me good!  I learned my lesson.  I wish that I could live in my own filth on the run from the law like all my other vagabond/fugitive friends instead of living with my family and having my own city.  This is BS! I truly regret my crimes *wink wink*"


10. 2 Samuel 7:16 

 "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”

FAIL: God says that David's kingdom will last forever. By forever he must have meant 400 years.  I mean, what would David know then?  He would be dead. So he allowed it to be destroyed about 400 years after Solomon's death, never to be rebuilt.  So does forever=400 years? 
 
If your answer is no (and grade 1 math reveals that "no" IS the answer) then we can see the inerrant bible revealed for what it is....
 
.....The writings of men, and completely fallible.
 
I just want to point out that I am not interested in debating other prophecies at this point.  If the bible is divine, it shouldn't be this easy to pick 10 and debunk them almost effortlessly.
 
If this isn't evidence against the divinity of the terrible book called the bible, I don't know what is.
 
Peace











Sources-www.truthsaves.com
Www.sab.com
Www.biblegateway.com