Robert's Thought's

Rants a dwindling..

2008-06-06T12:36:00.002-04:00

Wow, I did not realize it had been so long since my last post. Actually, i have done half a dozen or so drafts to post on various things, but never really finished them enough to publish anything. Plus, I've been really thinking hard about not being anonymous anymore, and thus migrating everything into 1 blog. Each time I consider moving to one single blog I just can't seem to justify it. This one is mainly for rantings and just my own personal thoughts on things. The others that I have tend to be much more family related. Now that things have settled down I'll be sure to come up with something interesting to write about within the next day or so :)

More Thoughts on Evolution

2008-02-25T09:22:00.005-05:00

After reading some of the ridiculous claims against evolution, I found myself thinking about how to relate this to regular people without using something like gravity. Many moons ago I took electronics and it seems this fits quite nicely to help some people in understanding What evolution really is. Basically, just like evolution, the DC Theory is also a theory. Same with AC. The funny thing is, even with DC/AC Theory.. sometimes people will debate the direction current flows. In any electronics, current flows from negative/ground to positive. To sum up, ground has an abundance of electrons and those electrons flow towards the available holes on the positive side where electrons have been kicked out of the way to create holes or places for the electrons to fill up. Now for me, I'm not 100% sure how to "prove" witch direction the current flows, and to be quite honest it does not matter.. All the equations for AC/DC theory work. Everyone knows that their electronic devices are obviously working, but we don't Believe IN the AC/DC Theory, we simply use it as a tool to answer how something happen, or what will happen. I mean, hell on a quantum level, we still do not KNOW or understand how the electron even moves. Anyway, this is kindof a short post, I'll try to edit and fill in some other information. I just thought about it today and thought maybe it would give someone a glimpse of how the theory of evolution is no different the the hundreds of other theories we use everyday that are not up for debate. I think the AC/DC Theory is a pretty good one that many people should be able to relate to or understand. Evolution is simply the best answer to understanding everything around us and how it all works.

My first though was the "Internal Combustion" ( i mean Thermodynamics Theory). lol... but I wasn't sure if that would work as well... I could imagine someone claiming that every time a piston fires it must be god igniting the gas... course I'm just rambling off topic now, but it was kinda funny.

Jesus Cosmetics

2008-02-12T19:13:00.000-05:00

A good friend of mine sent me this via instant message today, and I thought it was pretty funny so, figured I would post it.

From NPR

A Singapore retailer has pulled a line of Jesus cosmetics after receiving complaints about the American-made products branded "Lookin' Good for Jesus." They included a "virtuous vanilla" lip balm, as well as hand and body cream. Their slogan: "Get His Attention."

Here is the link to NPR site.

The Watchtower..

2008-02-06T13:15:00.000-05:00

Is it odd that every time I read that title I have the sudden urge to break out into a Jimi Hendrix tune? Maybe it's just me. Anyhow, onward to what I have to say today. It's of course nothing new, but for some reason today it bothers me as I think about it.

Today, after having a wonderful lunch with my wife, I find 2 pamphlets standing upright against my front door. Not surprisingly it was from the Jehovah's Witness. My complaint here is not really about them coming by the house. Heck, I even give them some credit... At least they DO what they preach lol.... Out of the 20 or so churches in town, they have been the only ones that come by consistently trying to find that one moment of insecurity where they can be there to try and save the day.

Anyway, I had to spend a few min in the house after eating a fulfilling lunch so I grabbed the pamphlet on my way to the Throne. This is the February 1, 2008 issue of The Watchtower. The front cover has storm clouds at the top, a man with his head down holding the top his suit jacket over his left shoulder with his forefinger and the jacket on his back, and a newspaper in his right hand. Giving that appearance that his is maybe not having the best of days. Then the title is what got my attention:

How Can
You Find Real
Peace of
Mind?

Yes, on the pamphlet the font slightly increases to emphasize Peace of Mind. So, I figured what the heck, lets see what they have to say. I began to flip through and the first stop was pg 4.

Where did We Come From?

WHY DOES THE ANSWER MATTER? Many people are taught that life on earth emerged by accident. They are told that through a series of unlikely, random events, evolution produced the human race with all its emotional, intellectual, and spiritual capacities.

But consider: If we really are the product of evolution and there is no Creator, the human race would, in a sense, be an orphan. Mankind would have no source of superior wisdom to consult-no one to help us solve our problems. We would have to rely on human wisdom to avert environmental disaster, to solve political conflicts, and to guide us through our personal crises.

Do these prospects bring you peace of mind? If not, contemplate the alternative. Not only is it more appealing but it also makes more sense."

Now, lets just ignore the typical straw man setup at the beginning for a moment. We all know how easy that is to refute. But check out the consider portion!!

"Mankind would have no source of superior wisdom to consult - no one to help us solve our problems.."

Exactly!!! We have to use our own intelligence to get by! That is the point... If you remove the supernatural, you are left with the natural, the common, the normal, the only difference is now you have no one to blame. One of my biggest problems with religion is this small tiny fact that remains constant. Belief in the supernatural removes personal accountability.

After reading that page the rest of the pamphlet got progressively worse, leaning more towards the divine at one point proving my point of removing accountability by answering the question why does god allow suffering by blaming it on Satan. If I have some extra time, I'll try to blog on that because they really did not answer the question, they simply blamed Satan and and said god allows it because there is still a score to settle... Really lame explanation if you ask me..

The Irony...

2007-12-26T11:33:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist, Everyday I see this sign and kept telling myself I was going to snap a shot of it, and finally today I did. The irony of this sign speaks for itself :)

Just Cause..

2007-12-20T23:32:00.000-05:00

It's been 2 months since my last post! My how time flies. I've just not found much to blog about lately, besides I barley have enough time to read through the 400+ posts a day from the various news feeds. I think PA hammers out around 200+ posts a day itself. Really it's getting quite crazy yesterday I checked my google reader after not logging in for 3 days.... Over 3000 posts where in there. Granted some are dupes, but wow. Anyway, life is going pretty good.. Obviously getting prepared for all the holiday fun. Got a nice long weekend coming up. Looking forward to spending time with the family and maybe getting some home projects done. I think my problem with the blogging thing is the fact that I spend roughly 60hrs a week in front of a pc coding applications. Well, just figured I'd wish everyone a fun filled year end :)

Second Life Delusion?

2007-10-29T13:19:00.000-04:00

Second Life Players Bring Virtual Reality to Court

Since when has reality been required for legal action?

Now that's hilarious.

In Second Life, more than nine million users spend many real hours and lots of very real money to clothe, feed and comfort their avatars. According to Linden Labs, proprietors of the virtual environment platform where all this craziness takes place, users cumulatively conduct transactions totaling more than $1 million each day. That's real dollars -- the kind you can use to clothe, feed and comfort yourself in the real world.

That is just plain sad. Although not surprising, so many people are unsatisfied with their own lives and feel this is a way to "Fix" that.... Instead of actually getting out of the house and making things happen or socializing with real people face to face.

Still, these virtual-world real-world lawsuits can get pretty tricky. How and to what extent should real laws apply in Second Life?

Here is the simple answer, They shouldn't!! What happen? did the "Virtual" court system throw the case out? I mean if they have a CSI-NY in Second Life one would expect they have some type of justice system, right?

However, is it really surprising that people would be so obsessed with Second Life? We have millions who still believe in the invisible sky daddy... I've never played around with Second Life, but does it have churches too... that would be quite funny....

What a freaking SHOCKER!!

2007-10-25T19:18:00.000-04:00

Like we didn't see this shit coming--- Democrats worry Bush setting up war with Iran... Except now instead of claiming that they have WMD's we are going to claim that because they have the potential to have WMD's we should attack them? I posted a few months back on what I think about this shit, and it's again starting to piss me off that our war mongering President George W Bush has yet to quench his thirst for blood. I've never hated anyone in my life, but mr President you are at the top of my most disappointing people's list! Your ignorance and idiocy has put our country smack in the middle of problems that could have been avoided. In my opinion if you continue down this road this WILL start another global war. I am deeply ashamed of this country and what it appears to be turning into. The leaders of our country are acting no different than other totalitarian countries, claiming to bring freedom and democracy while destroying people's lives in the process. It's time we grow up and begin to use our heads instead of trying to prove our might. It's so damn hypocritical of us to think we and our allies are the only ones allowed to have nuclear power. This world needs to stop with the bullshit and treat everyone as allies. Course thats difficult to do when the rest of the world sees our embarrassment of a president, and the appearance that our country is a god fearing nation of christians. Why don't we just paint a big freaking bulls eye over our country? It really does not matter how much of a super power we are, if we start heading in this direction we will all loose eventually. I'm done ranting now.... Yea, this post may be one sided but just the thought that our government would entertain the idea of "bombarding" Iran pisses me off.

More Thoughts...

2007-10-25T12:19:00.000-04:00

This will probably be a regurgitation of what others might have said, but it was something that hit me last night as I was pondering stuff while sitting in front of a nice little bond fire in the back yard last night and wanted to write it down.

I watched this debate between D'Souza and Hitchens and one of D'Souza's claims is that our morals came from christianity and that many of the great minds that founded science were also founded on christianity as well. Between this argument and a documentary that I watched on the History Channel called "A The History of God" got me thinking....

In the documentary they were showing how god evolved throughout the bible. The "Evolution" of god so to speak or if you prefer how our understanding of god changed through time. How the biblical patriarchs (Abraham, Jacob, Moses, etc..) began the transition to a monotheistic religion and how god changed from knowable to unreachable or incomprehensible. They explained how the god started as El during the time of Abraham, then transitioned to a no name god when Jacob wrestled with him and won, then turned to a deliberate vague god with Moses by answering Moses's question as to what god's name is with Eyeh Asher Eyeh: "I am what I am"; A mysterious phrase, A Hebrew idiom of deliberate vagueness. Again this happen because in those days knowing a gods name gave you power over that god. I'm not going to do a full review of this show, but my point is there is clear evidence of how god changed over time to become what we know and don't know about god. This boils down to the simple concept that no one can grasp a new idea without growing it from the old ones. Something that we see when we look at the history of god. He started as El a knowable god and ended up unknowable as well as personal.

So, as I thought about this evolving of god I thought hey wait a minute. If the concept of god can evolve over time. Why can't the same be said of morals, and values? Not only that, but if new ideas and concepts must be grown out of old ones within the same confines of the current environment or belief systems, then surly the same is true with morals and values. Realizing that god is not going to provide all the answers, and is not THE answer to all unanswerable questions forces one to no longer rely on a god, but to rely on other people. The transition to this line of thought would then force people to admit they do not know everything and through communication with other people they would learn that other people can also have value. Not to mention the morals and values that developed around the same time in other religions.

And this leads me to contemplate other issues as well. If we ideas are grown from old ones, witch is very clear throughout history. In every field of science, math, philosophy, astronomy, even theology we can see how ideas and concepts were born then evolved to what we have today from within the confines of the idea's in their own times. So, when someone tells me Einstein was a believer it really does not shock me. I would not be surprised if Einstein used wording that was vague as to his beliefs. Look at the time in witch they lived. They were trying to breed new thought from existing idea's in order for those thoughts to be taken seriously they had to find common ground with the majority. In my opinion, if any of these excellent thinkers of their times were here today it would be very unlikely they would be theists at all.

I'm sure you've heard the old adage that great minds think alike. I disagree with that statement, I think great minds simply think.

Wintessing and The Kirby Salesman

2007-10-16T12:32:00.000-04:00

After my previous posts, I was doing some more thinking and it occured to me that the kirby salesman (or almost any door to door sales) and christian witnessing have a lot in common.

They knock on your door at the most inconvenient times
They are only there to sell you something to gain something in return
They begin to present their case by showing you how it has helped them and others
They will show you the dangers of not having their product
They will sometimes measure their product against others to show how theirs is so much more powerful
They attempt to use fear to ensure you side with them that their product is better
They will offer you a reward by acting today
They try to break your will to say no by continuing to stay long after they are no longer welcome.
They will show plenty of documentation to back up what they are saying
If by chance you do say no they attempt to influence you by saying something to the affect that your lifestyle and the way you live is completely filthy and maybe one day you will realize the benefits of their product and come back to them.

That was just a few that I had come up with in the last 20 or so min thinking about it. Quite humorous lol..

Atheist Conversions

2007-10-16T11:24:00.000-04:00

I absolutely love these stories. Read this today from "Kill The Afterlife: Atheist Turned Christian" The claim of a christian saying they were just like me an atheist! My initial knee jerk reaction is "Oh really? Apparently you were not just like me otherwise you would not have been converted?" It's always so interesting to hear their testimony on how they used to be atheist but the found god. Most of the time there was some traumatic event or instant revelation personally that suddenly caused them to loose all sense of reason thus proving god was working in their lives personally. It reminds me how kirk cameron uses this same ploy to try to convert people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying what is or is not an atheist. What kills me is the thinking that being an atheist means we automatically share some type of bond. No offense to the other atheists out there, but if we ever met out somewhere in the real world and it came out that you were an atheist as well. I seriously doubt it would change how I perceive you. Sure knowing that would tell me we could probably have some healthy conversations, but I'm sure we would have probably already been into some type of good conversation by the time that information came to light :) Again my point is this is just another strategy of winning souls for god. It's no different than the Rainsoft salesman that walks in the door. Within the first few minutes you have to find some camaraderie, something that will identify with the "target" in order for them to let their guard down. This makes it easier to persuade them to your thinking, maybe even play on some emotions. Basic sales and persuasion techniques 101.

Incompreisible, Unfathomable, Unknowable

2007-10-16T10:35:00.000-04:00

I'm sure everyone at some point has encountered this situation when discussing god with a believer. Especially after you've made a very compelling case against them that they are not able to ignore. Their typical reply? You just don't understand, god is beyond our comprehension, beyond our understanding, beyond our imagination. We simply can't even know who or what he is. I find this funny as hell honestly. I liken this to those discussion when you were 3.. you know the ones.. "Oh yea, well I say yes times infinity" then the friend would reply "Oh yea, well I say times infinity times infinity!" aaahh such fun..
The problem is most religions have already defined what god is and what god is not. Therefore they have already built the construct for what god must be. I'm sure it is convenient when faced with obvious facts to the contrary to say god is all things unknowable, and yet still be everywhere, know everything, yadda yadda. By bringing spirituality into the mix they are able to convince themselves that there is "More than Meets the Eye" to god. Personally, I think spirituality is nothing more than another emotional state.
To duplicate this what if I told you last night I was lying on the ground star gazing and saw the most indescribable view of the universe. The stars were unimaginably bright, the constellations were unfathomably vivid. The view literally took my breath away and at that moment I felt connected to the entire universe. In this instance you know the parameters of what was viewed, and seen, so the construct is there. The rest could be embellishment, or simply the emotional state I was in when viewing the sky. My point is together we could view a thousand other night sky's and with this definition I just gave, I could always say that this particular night could never be duplicated and you would never be able to fully comprehend it.
This may be an over simplification when it comes to god, but I don't think so. Instead of something tangible and viewable they simply replace the night sky with nothing and add stuff that we are aware of. For example relating god to the ether to explain his ability to be omnipresent etc.
My thought is that religion is simply a tool of persuasion that plays on emotions in order to bring people together for a goal. The men who created the first religions wanted to ensure their powers over others by use of something greater. Unfortunately, I think this is still the case with religion. It's a measure of control over people. Goto any church, and I guarantee you a majority if not all of the parishioners will show submission to that pastor. For that matter check out the definition of reverend when used as an adjective: worthy of adoration or reverence

Just some more of my thoughts for today... ;)

Join a Church??

2007-10-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

Presbyterians grapple with question: who should be allowed to join the church?

What a cool idea... I've often thought about picking a church and attending. I've joked about this with the wife often, usually on a Sunday morning around 10am I'd roll over in the bed and say "Honey, why don't we go to church this morning" .. Usually, the reply is "I'd rather stay here in bed." or just as sarcastically as I said it she will say "Sure, I'll get dress.." hehe.. Anyway, I've considered going just for the socialization.. But then I realize it would not last very long. The first time someone asked me a question, or the pastor started asking me about my salvation things might get interesting. I would find it difficult for me to respond in the manner they expect, not to say that I couldn't, but if I did it would simply be to pacify them and I'm not one that condones agreeing with someone just to keep the peace or the "Status Quo". On the other hand it would be interesting to see what types of conversations could be brought up...

I give this guy some kudos.. Apparently, not only did he attend the services regularly, but he became a member (I wonder if there was a fee?) Anyway, I was just curious if anyone else considered attending a service strictly for the social interaction? Or have you considered joining a church just to be the inquisitive mind asking the questions no one else in the congregation would dare to ask the (Sheep in wolves clothing)? And I'm not talking about the just visiting various churches, I'm mean attending regularly, partaking in the social events, etc. Where I live there is little hope of starting a successful "Free Thought" group, but there are plenty of religious organizations around here to ~~proselytize~~ I mean attend :)

Good Deed/s...

2007-10-13T12:24:00.000-04:00

Just the other day the family and I went to SAM's to pick up some supplies, as we were leaving I heard a very familiar sound.. (I tend to always drive with the window down) Anyway, it was the sound of an engine failing to have enough juice to ignite the fuel. Immediately, I stopped the truck and began looking around. Then threw the truck in reverse, slowly backing up to see if I could spot this sound and verify my suspicions. Sure enough "bingo" I noticed a red ford ranger with 2 people in it. The man already a cell phone to his ear attempting to find someone to help. I waved to the gentleman and asked if he could use a jump. His facial expression changed from disparity to excitement instantly. Since I always carry jumper cables in the truck I was more than happy to help this man and his wife. I mean hell it takes me what 5 or so min to pull up, jump out of the truck, connect the cables and BAM he and I are both on our merry ways.
In all honesty this is not really a rarity for me. Anytime I see someone on the side of the road, hood up, or someone walking down an isolated road with a gas can in hand.. I will usually give them a lift or see if they need help. What is shocking to me is the fact that so few other people put forth this simple gesture of concern for others. What is quite humorous, is that when I mention this gesture of kindness to others to those I know personally of a religious faith, their response is usually surprising. Instead of seeing the "Good Samaritan" side of this act, their initial reply would be something like, "Well, you just never know.. They might have a gun, or want to rob you". How pathetic, so they don't help people because they are afraid it's a muse? You would think their "god" would protect them... Of all the various people I've helped, I've yet to find one that was "faking" being broken down. So, if you see someone in need take the 5 or 10 min to see if you can help. I'd be willing to bet if everyone did just a little something to help others as cliché as it might sound the world truly would be a better place. We shouldn't be fearful of doing something kind.... Just some thoughts for today...

Religion and Politics.....

2007-09-23T20:56:00.000-04:00

....And why they should not be intermingled, even in a small town. This incredible display of "chrisitan" character absolutely disgusting!

City Commission Meeting Turns Ugly

They should make excellent commissioners! I just hope the citizens remember this later, and if they don't... you can be damn sure I'll still have this post around to remind them.

One of the great things I did notice about this election, is that the "Good ole Boy" network is loosing strength in this town. The final tally for mayor was only a difference of 15 votes.. 49% to 51% at least that shows that the town is growing closer to becoming more progressive. Hopefully, in another 4yrs, enough new people might move in and finally wipe out the old school of thought and actually bring about the much needed change in this area.

I've got mail (Feedback Welcome)

2007-09-12T18:46:00.000-04:00

I'm posting this because I'd like to hear how others might have responded.

I recently received this in my inbox:

I found your site. Your definition of faith is flawed, because it assumes that all faith is flawed. Emotion about an irrational notion or a false notion is certainly a problem. But faith is something that you use all the time whether you are rational or not to find truth about things that are true.

For example, I have faith in the future. The future is something that hasn't happened yet, because I cannot yet see it. But that doesn't mean that it isn't real, because it will shortly present itself. And from past experience, I know that it is real, because it has presented itself previously. And it takes faith for me to believe that it will continue to present itself. And wait, what is that? Woah, the future just became the present, and I believed it would, and hey, I was right! And I just proved it. Because the future just became the present. See the mental exercise there? Faith is useful when based on the truth. A hypothesis is faith, because its hope in that which is not seen, but which might be true, and if proven, then it is true. A natural law is a proven fact that started out with a hypothesis that is now proven. Therefore your definition of faith is fundamentally flawed, because the principle of faith is interwoven with science. You just have just dismissed it entirely in the realm of religion, because you have dismissed religion entirely. If you don't believe in religion, you should just say so, but don't trash on faith. Faith is something that you can't do away with, because it is fact when it is used with something that is true.

Faith, or the HYPOTHESIS, opened the way to every discovery in science. Faith is the CREATIVITY that brought about the reason for doing the EXPERIMENTATION, that let to the DISCOVERIES in science. Therefore, I challenge your fundamental definition of faith. If you hate religion, just say so. If you don't believe in God, because you don't believe in something that the scientific method can't touch, then just say so. But you can't trash on faith, because it is the core principle behind the scientific method.

Now, how do you get to know God? Not through the experimentations of science, but through spiritual experimentation. If you don't believe in that, then it is simply because you haven't done the experimentation, and you haven't had the true desire to experiment to get the result that would yield fruit. Therefore I challenge your notion that God and religion is something deluded or irrational, because you haven't used the principles of the scientific method to prove that your assertion is so. And you can't use the tools in your lab to scientifically prove God is there. You have to scientifically pray.

A believer and knower of a scientific and rational God,
XXXXXX

I pondered over this email for awhile and decided to respond as follows:

Hello XXXXXX,
Thanks for visiting my site, and taking some time to send an email. I appreciate your input, however, all you have really done here is prove your lack of understanding not only in the definition of faith, but in your definition of a hypothesis and your complete disregard for the scientific method.
You are attempting to integrate faith into logic and the 2 are mutually exclusive. Time or "The Future" does not require faith. The mental exercise you so sarcastically presented really proves nothing. Why not attempt to prove this with some evidence? How could we possibly do this without faith? To begin with we would have to create a hypothesis based on observable repeatable evidence (A hypothesis is simply an educated guess based on observable evidence it is not faith) from there we could make a prediction and based on the results we should be able to share this evidence with others to verify our observations in order to validate our initial hypothesis. I'm sure you can figure the rest out.... We could use our rising sun as the basis, the fact that we grow older, etc.. So, you see no "faith" is required. Faith is never based on "Truth". It is however something required to believe in something that has no evidence.

PS. "You have to scientifically pray" is probably the funniest thing I've heard in awhile... Thanks!

I'm providing you with a few links that may clear up your understanding of the scientific method..
Introduction to the Scientific Method
Scientific method
Steps of the Scientific Method
Sincerely,
Robert

And now for his reply:

You sound a bit overconfident in yourself. Let me quote from dictionary.com since you reject the definition (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith ):

14 results for: faith

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
faith

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
—Idiom
9. in faith, in truth; indeed: In faith, he is a fine lad.

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

The relevant results here for a secular definition of faith (outside of a religious context) are 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9, and all back up my points in my original email.

Therefore, this refutes your argument on faith, and shows that my definition was perfectly fine. Further, reference #2, specifically backs up the fact that having confidence in the ultimate result of a hypothesis, and the proposal of a hypothesis, is indeed an act of faith. Therefore you are simply wrong. Faith is a HOPE of truth. Faith is always based on something that you hope turns out to be true, and is useful when that which is hoped for does turn out to be true, just as a scientist hopes that his hypothesis turns out to be true once tested. Therefore you are plain wrong.

Faith is a principle of reality that is based upon a guess that you hope for might turn out to be true, and if it does turn out to be true, then the faith was useful. This principle can be used in a secular context just as easily as a religious context. Just because you reject the religious context out of hand doesn't justify dismissing its usefulness in a secular context. Therefore, the fact that it is used in conjunction with a hypothesis means that it is a core piece of the scientific method and you are now refuted. Don't argue with me. Go argue with the dictionary.

Now, in a religious context, if you don't believe something to be true, and it does turn out to be true on judgment day, then you are damned because you didn't care to attempt to find out if it was true before judgment day.

Now, in the scientific method, facts are found out by the use of observation of observable phenomena. The problem with spiritual things is that they are not observable phenomena, and are usually only discernible by their effects, not unlike dark matter and dark energy. How do you use the scientific method with spiritual things? By spiritual experimentation. First, you must have a desire to know if spiritual things really do exist, and if they do, then you must want to know if God exists. If you don't care, then don't bother. But you should know first of all why it would be useful for you to know why God exists.

Many Christians are absolutely wrong about the reason for existence. Is it really to serve God as the religious people that originally indoctrinated you tried to drill into you? No. That is only something that you end up doing because you want to, that is, if you end up being happy in the state you end up being in. Happiness is the design and purpose of our existence. Misery is not.

What makes you happy right now? And what is lasting happiness? What if you die and then you haven't prepared to be happy after death? Let's say for the sake of argument that your mind is an immortal thing that cannot be destroyed, just as light is, or matter is. If your mind is indeed going to outlive your body, and is actually an independent entity that cannot be destroyed, doesn't it make sense to find out ahead of time before you can't do anything about it, and haven't prepared for the eventuality?

My last reply was as follows:

Interesting argument. In your honor, I will rename my "Definition for Faith" on my website to "A Religious Definition of Faith".

I still have my doubts as to your conclusion and your use of the term faith, but i have read where this argument has been made before.

Thank you for your feedback.

Robert

Now, if you happen to make it through all of that... What do you think? He brought up truth, yet I don't recall mentioning anything about truth. Any hypothesis has an equal chance of being true as it does being false prior to being verified who says the one hypothesizing wants it to be true or false? Anyway, I had so many thoughts on this that I simply didn't know where to begin, so i figured I'd share and see what others thought as well.

Slingshot Theory

2007-09-10T16:36:00.000-04:00

I really love this stuff. A new theory is always intriguing in my opinion. When theorizing on things of this scale it's simply mind boggling. This really begins to make you think we really are just a drip of water in someones cosmic sink.

Cristiano Germani Slingshot Theory

Here are some highlights that I found interesting..

"I AM a heretic," Cristiano Germani announced to an audience of
cosmologists last month. Few would disagree, as he is proposing a
radical alternative to standard cosmology: a universe with no big bang
creation moment, and no rapid inflation. Rather than a big bang, he
suggests a slingshot.

When someone claims to be a heretic it always seems to catch my attention. And oddly inspires me to at least listen to their view point as objectively as possible :)

But then Germani considered a spinning universe. "In fact, it is much
more realistic that the universe will be rotating as it drops," he
says. Something more interesting happens to a rotating universe as it
hurtles down the throat. Because it is spinning, it avoids falling
into the tip of the throat and whirls round it instead. Like a
boomerang or a stone from a slingshot, it then flies back up again.
Germani realised that the second leg of this journey could correspond
to the expanding universe we observe today.

See what I mean.... A drip in someones cosmic sink lol.... I've thought about this when contemplating the Bubble Theory as well. This stuff is way above my head, but very interesting.

Objective Morality

2007-08-27T12:59:00.000-04:00

So I noticed this post about Dr Craig's argument for god by Goosing the Antithesis today and it got me thinking so i wanted to jot down some things that popped in my head..
first here is the statement he lays out..

If God does not exist, then there are no objective moral values and duties.
There are objective moral values and duties.
Therefore God exists.

My first thought was the term god could easily be replaced with societies.

If Societies do not exist, then there are no objective moral values and duties.
There are objective moral values and duties.
Therefore Societies exist.

but then I got to thinking some more.. and with this new statement I think it is much easier to see how/where our moral values come from.

I think we could take it a step further and say:

If diversity within society does not exist then there are no objective moral values and duties
Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Therefore diversity within society exists.

It is my opinion that morality is based on society, in addition Objectivity increases as Diversity increases. I'm glad I watched that video it seemed to open my mind as to where our morals come from.

If we look through history we know that when societies began moral values were very different than they are today. But as cultures began to intermingle, and society became more diversified, our "Objectivity" to moral values has also increased due to the increase in diversity.

What a fun little exercise :)

Crazy busy...

2007-08-20T22:12:00.001-04:00

I've been quite busy for the past few months with some other priorities... And i must say it is quite difficult to just keep up with all post. (Planet Atheism jumping from 39 to 103 blogs! wow) However, things have somewhat slowed down. After I play catchup for the next few days attempting to read some posts, I'll be posting some new stuff. Also, you might have to bear with me but I'm planning on migrating another blog to this one. It's just too much trying to maintain 2 blogs :)

What the hell...

2007-07-04T22:37:00.000-04:00

I was flipping through the channels tonight, when this seemed to just glare as an odd and out of place title:

White House Salute to Gospel Music

While I am in no way surprised that the White house would host a Religious Concert it just weird. I mean surly they host multiple types of other concerts at the White House right? Just never thought I would see White House and Gospel Music in the same sentence lol...

** Update **
I did do some research after posting this, and the White House does in fact host many musical concerts in the East Room of the White House. Still that title just got my attention :)

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land

2007-06-30T21:38:00.000-04:00

This was an interesting movie, quite long. but informative as well. Any one that watches news exclusively from American media should at least watch this once.

Trip down memory lane...

2007-05-31T23:45:00.001-04:00

As I read through this article I could identify with it, hell there was a point in my younger years where i would be supportive of this.. But now when i read it so many things run through my head. but more interesting was some of the comments made in the post itself.

Like some of the following:

Today Pentecostalism and related charismatic offshoots have spread across the globe and account for at least a quarter of the 2 billion Christians worldwide, according to the World Christian Database. A large part of this growth is happening in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia. Although the movement was marginalized in the early 1900s, by the end of the century, it had made inroads in such mainstream denominations as Catholicism and Presbyterianism.

Really?

Why the rapid growth?

"It's a very emotional form of worship that enables people in groups to experience ecstasy, emotional release and communal support," said Amanda Porterfield, the Robert A. Spivey Professor of Religion at Florida State University.

It also allows people to share suffering and grief, whether because of poverty and illness or social alienation, she said. And it creates community.

"To belong to a group that is the custodian of a supernatural experience," she said, "is powerful."

aaahhhh, ok that makes sense... So they are taking advantage of those suffering, in grief, poor, sick , and alienated... Yup, that's what made christianity strong in the first place.

The other thing that gets to me about this whole story is how strong the use of peer pressure is being pushed on these people. In practically every story mentioned the individuals are constantly berated and pushed.. Being told that if they don't speak in tongues something is wrong with them or they don't "Truly" believe.

In each case they end with something like this

But she doesn't need to be convinced. Her spirit has already been released to God.

So in the end they finally submitted. It seems as if this a legal way to torture someone until they finally cave to the churches will. Terrible!

You know in your heart....

2007-05-31T21:17:00.000-04:00

During my latest encounter with a couple of door to door "soul" winners from the local church... This was the statement they decided to leave me with when our conversation was over:

You know in your heart that god is real. You know in your heart that you should follow god.

As if saying everyone is "Born" knowing that god is real. I happen to disagree with this claim. If you can be born knowing a particular god is real, then why does "christianity" have a specific beginning in a specific area of the world? What about the native Indians... you know those people that lived in harmony with the land before we arrived and practically wiped them out... Also, if you can be born with the knowledge of the existence of a god...... Why are we not born able to speak? or Why are we not born knowing fire is hot? Why does it have to be learned through experience?

I've also noticed that every time I encounter people on their "Soul Winning" salesman pitch, they continue to try to find what your "problem" is. These 2 constantly kept saying things like:

So your problem is with religion?
Is your problem with churches?
Oh your problem is with Preachers?
Oh you don't believe in hell, so you believe in reincarnation?
Well, I don't know what happen to you... but in my experience I found that people who don't believe in god had something happen to them or disappoint them during church.

It continues to get irritating. I don't mind people wanting to understand you and asking probing questions. My problem is when they try to answer themselves instead of listening to what I say. I don't see my lack of belief in a divine being a problem.

How creative...

2007-05-25T11:28:00.000-04:00

and of course i say this with a hint of sarcasm.... checked my email this morning to find that I had a new comment on one of my older blogs titled "Do you believe" from Victoria. I thought it was kinda funny, and figured I would respond to it here. From her writing and spelling I figure she's probably still in high school.

Listen dude, God is real and if u wanna have a convo about it, i'll straighten all the insucurities u have about the bible.

First let me say, I have no problems having a "convo" about it, but in all fairness I doubt you will "straighten all my "insucurities" about the bible. I have no insecurities about the bible. Calling the bible fiction and worth reading does not seem to me to be an insecurity, it's simply my honest opinion.

It is ashame that u r so stubborn and unsure about the bible as well as urself.

I'm not unsure about myself.. I did not think i was being "stubborn". I'm quite willing to change my views... Given enough proof :)

No matter what u believe, I promise, u will know the truth one day, and God WILL give u a second chance.

Ok? I've noticed this seems to be a common "physiological" game with those of faith. It's an interesting trick... but really does not mean much... It would be like me saying "I promise you... one day you will doubt".

U have alot of knowledge, now use it in a useful and beneficial way.

Thank you for the kind compliment, but everyone has the capability to learn unfortunately many do not want to.

u probly won't listen, but at least u now know SOME truth.

I have listened, but you have not provided me with any truth unless you consider your promise to be a truth. Thanks for your comment, but I won't be contacting you to enlighten me of my "insucurities".....

And an angel appeared....

2007-05-22T21:36:00.001-04:00

To the three women being held captive, and spoke to them God's word that one of them would give birth to a daughter that would save the Sea....

Hey, you never know... maybe god speaks to the fishes too. Too bad the young saviour was killed by a stingray, or maybe that was the sacrifice needed.. lol

Ok seriously, I came across this in "The New Scientist" about a "Virgin Birth" and I could not resist. It makes one wonder... Is it possible for humans to reproduce asexually? Sure, it probably is very rare.. but could this possibly explain many of the stories about virgin births? I mean heck... is it possible that Mary was actually a hermaphrodite? Yes, highly unlikely... but quite interesting to ponder :)

Disappointing poll results...

2007-05-20T17:12:00.000-04:00

I must admit, at first I thought this poll was pretty interesting. It was also nice to see atheists taking part and voting. However, I think it is safe to say this is no longer the case. It appears that someone is simply running a script to continuously vote Atheism "is the only rational outlook", probably with the intention of hitting 100% or at least 99% at the most. That's quite unfortunate in my opinion. I think simply by us participating in the poll whether we won or not would have said more than faking the data.

I was going to post a pic of the poll, but decided it was not worth it, since it's very obvious it has been turned into a joke. My reason for this?

1) There were at my last check 46,292 people that had voted.
2) "is the only rational outlook" was at 96%
3) Approximately 6 votes were cast every second (approximately 354 votes each min). I determined this by simply taking 2 snapshots 60 seconds apart. At 5:20pm there were 45,938 then at 5:21 there were 46,292.
4) It is simply not logical for this website to get that much participation. And if it did for real, the poll results would be much different.

Based on the above evidence, and the fact that the other poll barely hit 2,000 votes... My hypothesis is someone has turned this into some contest to brag about. Again, kinda sad. I think it would have been a more powerful message to them if we had simply participated. Oh well.....

Interesting Poll Results?

2007-05-18T23:03:00.000-04:00

After reading the "Christianity Today Poll" by Friendly Atheist, I figured I would participate and vote as well.... You can imagine my delight when I noticed the results as of 11:10pm May 18, 2007. I wonder if they will spin this? or simply disregard it as a bogus poll? lol you can vote/view the results here.

Reflections

2007-05-09T13:34:00.000-04:00

I was laying in bed last night after listening to some of Julie Sweeney's clips earlier that day, recalling to myself some of the questions I had in my younger years involved in the church. I suppose it started with questions like these:

If God created Adam, did he have a belly button? (later i would here jokes saying sure he did, when God was finished he said "Pop" your done!)

When God created Adam from clay, was he standing up or lying down?

If he was lying on the ground how did God sculpt his backside? Did he breath life into Adam, then when he stood up he sculpted his backside? or did he flip him like a hamburger before bringing him to life?

If he was standing up, how was the clay strong enough to hold the weight of the clay for the upper body?

How did God create Eve from a Adam's Rib? Did he just form more clay around the rib? Or did he just grow eve from the rib bone like you would grow algae?

Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge? Does that mean God wants us to remain stupid or ignorant?

Why did he want us to be naked? Is God some sort of pervert?

These were questions I would ask and never get replies from. Instead, I was typically told, "Well God is all powerful, what we can't understand we are not meant to." or they would get angry at the questions I would ask.

I started thinking about the physiology in the christian faith as well. This faith developed employing some rather successful techniques. Besides the obvious believe or go to hell. One of my mothers favorites was "Be sure your sins will find you out" a paraphrase of Numbers 32:23 "But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out." At first this was a powerful motivator as a child until my first "test" of it :) I did many such tests as a kid. After not getting good answers to my questions above.. There were nights I would lay and bed asking God or even Satan to reveal themselves to me. I tried to make deals with them. I'd say stuff like ok God, if your real, if you exist, prove it to me! Show me with something tangible or personal. Honestly, I made the same offer to the Devil. Obviously neither took the challenge.

My wife tells me sometimes I'm obsessed. She will ask me if you don't believe in god why is it something you talk about or mention so often. Well, because it's everywhere!

Sorta like when you buy a new car. You love this car, and you don't recall seeing that many of the on the road. However, once you are in the car and driving around you start to notice they are all over the place. The same seems to be true with respects the christianity, once you move away from it you start to notice how intrusive into main stream life it is.

Thoughts on "I Sold My Soul on eBay"

2007-05-06T20:26:00.000-04:00

Just finished up reading Hemant Mehta's (aka The Friendly Atheist) book "I Sold My Soul on eBay" and figured I would make a few comments about it.

First, I was not very impressed with the forward. I thought it seemed to directed towards the "Christian" majority especially when ending with "Because prophets can come from the most unexpected places, can't they?". Of course at the same time I suppose that was the point of the book, but still after reading the whole book; this seems to be in conflict with Hemant's own recommendations later on in regards to not ostracising others :). I understand it is just a forward and heck it's not even a full 2 pages, but for me it did seem to set the wrong kind of mood to start off the book.

The next thing I was slightly disappointed about was the fact there was absolutely no description about the alter calls? Hemmant, you mean out of all those churches you had nothing to say about the those very awkward situations? Have churches stopped this practice at the end of the preaching? In my experience with church service this is a very common practice, one that in my opinion would at least deserved a bit more information on how different churches handled it. There was only one reference I found, but it was more informal than what I've seen in other churches. The alter calls I'm talking about involve the preacher asking everyone to close their eyes with soft music playing and typically share some type of intimate thought to set the mood asking people to raise their hand if their not saved then offering them a chance to be saved or come forward to be led to salvation.

I know that's probably a bit nit picky, but other than that it was a very enjoyable read. Hemant has a great story to tell, and I enjoyed every page. After finishing the book my first thought was I wonder how many churches in my area would be open to the idea of an open dialog similar to what Hemant had with Pastor Tim. My next thought was should I send copies of "I Sold My Soul on eBay" to the local churches? :) . Then I started searching for atheist groups near me. There does appear to be 2 in the Tallahassee area (CFI Community of Tallahassee, and The Union of Freethinking Students). I might try to attend one of them, but that's still a day trip for me. It's about an hour 1/2 drive one way. Doesn't sound like much but 3 hours just in drive time adds up. If anyone knows of atheist groups or atheists/agnostics/freethinkers around Apalachicola, Eastpoint, Carrabelle, or Port Saint George Florida please post me a comment! or drop me an email to rpkthoughts@gmail.com

Seriously, I think Hemant did a great job. With each evaluation of the various churches he attended I was taken back to my younger years and could identify with everything he said. Many of the same questions he raised where thoughts I had when I was involved with Christianity. It was funny to listen to some of the sermons overviews... It was like hearing voices from the past. Since the Bible never changes, neither do many of the sermons.

My thought on Divinity

2007-05-05T17:46:00.000-04:00

Any Questions?

Islam is bad....

2007-05-05T16:35:00.000-04:00

Typically I pick on christianity simply because it is the most prevalent religion here in the US, but I have to say.. I came across this site and was truly amazed at what i saw and read. I suppose it's one thing to hear and read about the muslim faith and another to have pictures of those that are actively participating in it to the extream. Something that continues to nag at me is - How the hell is this the fastest growing religion? Who the hell is converting to it and why!! To be perfectly frank, this is a truly Fucked up religion even more so than christianity in my opinion. I've done some reading that states it's a peaceful religion, but it sure seems like this beginning of the spanish inquisition but in islam form.. Again I can't understand people converting to this faith. You can't even call it a step backwards its more of a step straight into antiquity. This isn't a religion it's a Glorified Gang with a holy book. I'd be willing to bet Gang Leaders have more ethical standards compared to this religion. Ok So maybe I'm generalizing a bit too much based on just the information on this web page. And I fully admit I do not yet own a koran and have never attended a muslim service. I've read information on the muslim faith and just as christianity it "claims" to push peace even the term Islam means peace, but just as christians cherry pick from the bible... Muslims do the same with the Koran. However, In recent times you have to admit that we have not seen very many christians cutting off heads or hands of non believers. This yells barbaric, arcane, and the commitment needed to inflict that type of gruesome acts onto another human being is beyond my willingness to comprehend at the moment. Yes I understand there are somewhere in the realm of 10 million muslims in America alone and by those standards obviously not all muslims are practicing their faith as those represented in the following link. However, why are they not speaking out more openly against these extremists? Why do we not hear of some countermeasure from those "Good" muslims? Or have I just not noticed them in the news? I wonder how different America would be if the majority changed from christian to islam? Given how our government seems to lean toward the christian right would they follow suit if islam was the dominate religion? Would laws get passed supporting the islamic faith as has happened with the christian faith? Just some thoughts... I think I'm done ranting now.....

WARNING: This site contains graphic photos of actions taken by followers of Islam!!!
Seriously, this page contains a picture of a body with removed head beside it.
Middle East Info

Just to be fair, here is a link I found later providing more insite into the islamic faith.
Islam.com

Took the plunge

2007-05-04T22:50:00.000-04:00

Well I finally decided to make a move that would expose my lack of belief to those around me. I decided on a hat, since I typically favor baseball style caps. I retired my old hat for this one that I got from cafe press.

I chose this because to be quite honest I do not think those around will actually get it. In a way I suppose I'm testing the waters. My first guess is that people will only notice the cross and the start of david and figure that it is a religious hat and I'd be willing to bet that no one will even notice that is says Detox or what it is implying. Because I live well into bible belt territory, I tried to pick something subtle... Something that forced you to think a bit.. What do you think?

Today also marks the day I got my copy of "I Sold My Soul on eBay" by The Friendly Atheist and "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris.... I'm about half way through "I Sold My Soul on eBay". I'll post a review when I'm done, but be warned I was never very good at book reports :)

A little humor today

2007-05-04T11:13:00.000-04:00

God loses bank Account from Dave's Daily

"An author who changed his name to God for a book was dumped by his bank. Sheridan Simove, 35, had his HSBC account closed after changing his name by deed poll, reports The Sun. The bachelor, of Wandsworth, South London, said: "At first they told me I needed two names to have an account - so I replied that I'd become Almighty God. HSBC said he must use his original name."

An Angry Soldier

2007-04-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

My wife found this post on the best of Craig's list. I'm not sure as to the authenticity of it, but I like what they had to say, and decided to share. Just in case the link ever gets removed, I'm re-posting it here for my benefit.

-- Full unedited Quote from the Angry Soldier on Craig's list----

From an Angry Soldier

Date: 2007-04-10, 1:00PM PDT

I'm having the worst damn week of my whole damn life so I'm going to write this while I'm pissed off enough to do it right.

I am SICK of all this bullshit people are writing about the Iraq war. I am abso-fucking-lutely sick to death of it. What the fuck do most of you know about it? You watch it on TV and read the commentaries in the newspaper or Newsweek or whatever god damn yuppie news rag you subscribe to and think you're all such fucking experts that you can scream at each other like five year old about whether you're right or not. Let me tell you something: unless you've been there, you don't know a god damn thing about it. It you haven't been shot at in that fucking hell hole, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

How do I dare say this to you moronic war supporters who are "Supporting our Troops" and waving the flag and all that happy horse shit? I'll tell you why. I'm a Marine and I served my tour in Iraq. My husband, also a Marine, served several. I left the service six months ago because I got pregnant while he was home on leave and three days ago I get a visit from two men in uniform who hand me a letter and tell me my husband died in that fucking festering sand-pit. He should have been home a month ago but they extended his tour and now he's coming home in a box.

You fuckers and that god-damn lying sack of shit they call a president are the reason my husband will never see his baby and my kid will never meet his dad.

And you know what the most fucked up thing about this Iraq shit is? They don't want us there. They're not happy we came and they want us out NOW. We fucked up their lives even worse than they already were and they're pissed off. We didn't help them and we're not helping them now. That's what our soldiers are dying for.

Oh while I'm good and worked up, the government doesn't even have the decency to help out the soldiers whos lives they ruined. If you really believe the military and the government had no idea the veterans' hospitals were so fucked up, you are a god-damn retard. They don't care about us. We're disposable. We're numbers on a page and they'd rather forget we exist so they don't have to be reminded about the families and lives they ruined while they're sipping their cocktails at another fund raiser dinner. If they were really concerned about supporting the troops, they'd bring them home so their families wouldn't have to cry at a graveside and explain to their children why mommy or daddy isn't coming home. Because you can't explain it. We're not fighting for our country, we're not fighting for the good of Iraq's people, we're fighting for Bush's personal agenda. Patriotism my ass. You know what? My dad served in Vietnam and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

So I'm pissed. I'm beyond pissed. And I'm going to go to my husband funeral and recieve that flag and hang it up on the wall for my baby to see when he's older. But I'm not going to tell him that his father died for the stupidty of the American government. I'm going to tell him that his father was a hero and the best man I ever met and that he loved his country enough to die for it, because that's all true and nothing will be solved by telling my son that his father was sent to die by people who didn't care about him at all.

Fuck you, war supporters, George W. Bush, and all the god damn mother fuckers who made the war possible. I hope you burn in hell.

---------------- End Quote -------------

God has a Hit list???

2007-04-28T11:40:00.000-04:00

So, I opened up my Google reader this morning and was very entertained by this post from Friendly Atheist about Shelley the the Republican.

Then while perusing the STR website I found out that she has "God's HIT LIST!"

First up --- "Enemies of the homeland God’s people hitlist : God wants them dead because they harm America!" including such notable people like Barrak Osama??? who?

Next "Wrong Choices God’s lifestyle choices hitlist : God hates people that belong to one of the groups below because they harm America!" including "Linux users" and "College Professors". Looks like I make that list since I use Linux... hehe

Then there is "Harmful bands God’s music hitlist : God hates people that listen to the bands below because they harm America!" I'm surprised here... They have listed bands like Bob Dylan, and The Dixie Chicks.... but what happen to the Eagles (Did they forget about Hotel California?) and AC/DC (Highway to hell, need I say more) why didn't they make the list???

Something kinda scary about this list is it appears when someone dies that is considered a "WIN" for god... That is kinda disturbing, but at the same time brilliant. Since everything dies eventually god will always win?

I needed a good laugh this morning, and this fit the bill perfectly. There is more information about this site from Friendly Atheist here, and here that explains the intentions of this site. Still, it is kinda funny.

Possible Earth like planet found...

2007-04-24T23:22:00.000-04:00

We think it's bad now with the discrimination against other races/cultures/religions here on earth..... How will religion spin it when we find life on other planets? I'd like to think a majority of people would understand and be excited and interested in such possibles, but others would just claim it is a big hoax, or simply deny it. My best guess would be that Religion would broaden it's scope , claiming we should bring the "Good News" to our neighbor to include other planets as well. I'm not sure how they will cover the whole "God created man in his image" thing , especially if we do find other human like races out there. Then there would be the question, If jesus came to earth to die for our sins, does that mean if life is found on another planet it would be more perfect than we are? Maybe without sin? hehe It's going to be an interesting ride, that is for sure.

Fascinating news: Possible Life Supporting planet found

God = Nothing

2007-04-21T22:21:00.000-04:00

It's not a new theory, but something I thought quite fitting. Typically when one hears the term god used, almost immediately the first typical definition of god is an omnipotent, omniscience, and benevolent creator of the universe. (On a side note, i think using words like 'Omnipotent' and 'Omniscience' is pretty funny... Don't get me wrong I understand breaking the word down changes the meaning, but I suppose my point is that I see this done very often in preaching. Where they will break down individual words in the bible, go back to the original Greek/Hebrew meanings of the words, in an attempt to "reveal" deeper meanings. When in fact it will completely change the meaning. For example: if we broke down 'Omni' and 'potent' an alternative definition could be 'Omni' - A wicked man described in the book of Mormon and 'potent' - The Ancient name for a crutch.)

Moving on... Whilst pondering things in my head the other day; It occurred to me, instead of thinking the typical definition we should simply replace "God" with "Nothing". When this happens, now we start to see some of the "Truth" in christianity/religion. Here are some funny examples:

1) "In God We Trust" to "In Nothing We Trust"
2) "God created the earth in 6 days" or "Nothing created the earth in 6 days"
3) "I'm giving my problems to God" or more accurately "I'm giving my problems to Nothing"
4) "Only God can save you from hell" to "Nothing can save you from hell"
5) "Jesus son of God" or "Jesus son of Nothing"
6) "God is my Co-pilot" to "Nothing is my Co-pilot"
7) "The Holy Bible is God's Word" or "The Holy Bible is nothings Word"

Obviously, this could go on forever, but surely you can see the beauty in this definition of god. It seems to shed much more light into the christian faith. lol..... "God is all knowing and All powerful" or "Nothing is all knowing and All powerful"

So, my point to all this, well nothing i suppose.. Just thought it was funny. And from now on every time I hear the word god used, in my head it will probably get replaced with the word nothing, and I'm sure a hint of laughter will appear as a small smile in my face ;)

2nd to the bible..

2007-04-17T11:23:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been reading "The Intellectual Devotional" a book I would highly recommend as it is very enjoyable.

Anyway, on to my thought for today. I'm sure most of us have heard that the Bible is the #1 selling book. Well, according to amazon's rankings this does not appear to be true as it ranks the bible around #30,001. Of course this is ONLY one version of the bible, yadda yadda... I think they are simply wording it wrong. I have no doubt that the bible is most likely the most "Printed" book, witch I think would be a more accurate statement than calling it a best seller.

Usually though a christian will follow up with "and the #2 book is the satanic bible". Today, however, I read something pretty interesting in my devotional on the topic of Literature. It was about "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes. A work of fiction written in 2 parts, part one in 1605 and part two in 1615. To quote the book:
"It is celebrated as the preeminent work of Spanish literature and widely considered the first moder novel in any language" pg: 93

Definitely sounds like it is worth a read which is why I have added it to my wish list on amazon hehe. Anyway, what I found very intriguing in the "Additional Facts" section at the bottom was this little blurb:
"Of all the books published throughout history, Don Quixote is second only to the bible in terms of number of copies printed"

Just a little tid bit I thought was interesting enough to share today ;)

The Updated Laws...part 2

2007-04-12T20:45:00.000-04:00

This is a continuation from a previous post I started here about the new laws put forth by jesus in the new testament. I started in Matthew chapter 5, this is where jesus began the sermon on the mount. I'm picking up from chapter 6...

#7) Giving/Tithing/Alms

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. Matt 6:1-4

Pretty straight forward here. It would seem then if christians followed their "New Testament" laws there would be no need for a tax right off huh?

#8) Praying

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. Matt 6:5-8

This was the one that got me as a kid. If we were told we should pray in silence, then why the hell do many of the preachers and in my case practically ALL pentecostals have to pray out loud? Especially in a public place like a restaurant? It's as though they feel they have to make a statement like "HEY LOOK AT ME, I'm praying over my food! I'm a christian! Don't you wish you were like me?" When personally, it's just annoying to me.

9) Forgiveness

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matt 6:14-15

Sounds like a pretty simple rule to follow, and hey I agree with this one. Not because I'm concerned with God forgiving me, but because life is to short to carry a grudge.

10) Fasting

Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. Matt 6:16-18

Seems like this one falls under the category of no longer applies maybe? Again though we are presented with a "reward" in the end. It's almost like training a dog, always have to give them a treat....

That's 10 so far, and we still have 1 more chapter to go..... part 3 to come soon.. I should have called these posts "Review of the Sermon on the Mount" hehe

Bush Administration Recognized

2007-04-10T19:39:00.000-04:00

Bush Administration gets deserved recognition ?

I was originally forwarded this link - Bush Administration Gets Muzzle Award but I also found the full list at the TJCenter with their post Censuring the Censors

Salvation is Free, but ....

2007-04-07T18:31:00.000-04:00

I think the sign says it all...

Photo Disclaimer:
This was a photo taken by me personally, feel free to repost or download the pic if you want. I only ask that you link back to this post. Thanks

Why Christians celebrate Easter by Rev. John H. Ricard

2007-04-07T18:02:00.000-04:00

Sunday My View: Why Christians celebrate Easter

While reading local news I noticed this pop up, and thought it was interesting and at the very least it's a different perspective on why some christians might celebrate easter.

Some quotes from the article:

"However, when he rose from the dead, slowly and carefully Jesus was able to convince his disciples that his death was, in a way, similar to what happened to Joseph. God had used the suffering (and, in his case, death) of one man to bring ultimate good into the world."

WOW! That's some fancy foot work there... First (And I will have to go back and dust off my bible again) I do not recall Jesus doing this convincing.... I think it actually happen later with the writings of paul, but I will have to go back and read up on this...

"This is the core of Christian faith: that divine life is given to everyone in the world from the very human death of Christ. By his death, the wood of the cross becomes for all humanity the tree of life."

So much relating, so little time... ;)

I did find this quite funny:

"The cross and resurrection cannot help but make Christians cockeyed optimists, who will never give in or give up on themselves or on their world. After all, Jesus said, “Take courage! I have overcome the world,” and he proved it by conquering death in his resurrection from the dead."

Really! I've met a whole lot of christians, and if you consider them optimists it would definitely have to be a cockeyed version of optimism lol. Besides i don't think handing your troubles off to god and believing that he will take care of everything really qualifies as optimism....

Easter

2007-04-04T23:24:00.000-04:00

Since I don't have an Easter post figured I would put one up at least as a reference for future purposes. I've attempted to include definitions from both sides of the house so to speak.

Instead of re-inventing or in this case re-typing all the information here are links from the "Non" Christian side of the house, (I got most these from Beep Beep Its Me , thanks for the recent reference post :)

Next I've included some of the "Christian" explanations for Easter

Of course most of these links were not hard to come by in fact at the time of this post they are pretty much the first ones displayed in a Google Search for "origin of Easter".

Parasite hijacks brains

2007-04-02T22:09:00.000-04:00

Parasite hijacks brains with surgical precision - life - 02 April 2007 - New Scientist

I just thought this was a pretty interesting. Given that I am a bit of a sci-fi geek, and I do enjoy the StarGate's :)

It's always fascinating to me, when science seems to trail just behind science fiction. Almost as if we create the possibility then see it become reality.

Faith fuels home education boom

2007-03-30T23:06:00.000-04:00

I just read this post BBC NEWS - Faith fuels home education boom and figured this would be a good time to get my opinion out on the matter of Faith based Home Schooling.

First, let me explain my background in education. Kindergarten to 7th grade I was in public schools. When 8th grade rolled around my parents had become engulfed into the religious dogma of Pentecostal Christianity at an Assembly of Free Worship Church. For those unfamiliar, this type of church is simply one that does not want to participate with the Assemblies of God's. They hold the same core beliefs, it's mainly just a matter of politics, etc.. Anyway, since we attended this church and the church decided to open a private school it should come as no surprise that my parents quickly decided this would be a better environment in witch to raise their children. So, from 8th grade - 11th grade was spent attending said private school. Finally, to conclude my christian education my senior year was spent as a home schooled student of Victory Christian Academy. Both in the private school, and in my final year of school I was taught based on the ACE Curriculum. Personally, I liked the curriculum itself, and for self motivating students that can think for themselves I think it's a great curriculum. Of course there are things I think now that would make it more effective like removing all the scripture memorization and removing the bogus Science information about creationism. However, I can identify with this 13yrd student and the comments he made below.

Quoting the post on BBC Jake says the following:

"I like the flexibility. If an opportunity to play tennis or anything else pops up I can do it and just make up the schoolwork later. "
I said the exact same thing, the problem is it's pretty much bullshit that is drilled into the child's head by the parents in order to justify what they are doing. How can I say this, because I said the exact same things. I tried to justify my senior year of being home schooled because I was able to work during the day and still have my nights to hang out with friends or go to church of course. Another issue is what fun is it to be able to go play tennis, the movies, or anything else that "Pops" up if most kids your age are still in school? Let me tell you from personal experience, It's NOT! Sure it's enjoyable, but compared to being able to hang out with a variety of children your own age, with different beliefs and different ideas... It really isn't that much fun.

"And with the one-on-one instruction, it seems you can move ahead quicker and be at a higher level of learning."
Oh this is just dumb. One-on-One instruction? In ACE, because of the way it is done there literally is no need for an instructor. It is pretty much a self-based teaching process. This did allow for me personally to move ahead quicker, but I would not consider it a "Higher Level" of learning. I personally knew many students that left private schools and went back to public schools and found themselves grossly behind other kids their own age. I understand that there are other home school systems like Abeka that do require "Instructor" interaction and are not very similar to ACE, but there are many similarities between many of the Home School Curriculum's.

And yes, says Jack, he does socialise with other children.
"I have friends from church, from sports, and I do know other local home school kids."
Socialising with those from church, from the sports you participate in with those from church, and from other local home school kids that most likely attend the same church does not in my opinion qualify as socialising. In my opinion that is like considering your Tuesday night dinner with the in-laws is also a socializing event. To me true socialization occurs when you are in an unusual or new environment with people you either don't know, or don't know well and you can interact with them. Getting to know NEW people, discussing, and learning other points of views.... That's what socializing is to me.

"Our Christian faith is pretty strong and we thought this might be the best way to be able to pass on those values to our son."
At least with this statement they are being completely honest. This is this sole reason they open private schools, and decide to home school. They think the schools are too secular, and they are afraid their kids will learn something before becoming indoctrinated.

"Character is just as important as academics. And so what we're looking for are character training issues and we would rather do that ourselves."
Oddly enough I totally agree, however character can be taught even with a child attending a public school. All it takes is the parent spending that extra time with their kid often.

"I worry about the lack of accountability in homeschooling,"
I do too, back when I was attending... The "Instructors" at the private school were not required to take ANY training at all. All they had to do was simply volunteer for the position. Sometimes they were compensated, other times it was their "Gift" to god. Very scary!

"I worry about the lack of socialisation for youngsters outside of their families."
As I mentioned above, this is in my opinion most defiantly a problem. When you are always taught about the problems with the "Real" world, but you are always "Sheltered" from it... When you are finally forced to be part of that environment it's usually a culture shock. It was for me. It took me years to overcome the fallacies I was taught when i was younger.

"I worry about the access to other kinds of non-academic resources that youngsters have in public schools that you might not have in a homeschooling situation."
I do too! Public schools systems have the infrastructure in place and have more resources. There are simply more people that do attend public schools.

In conclusion let me state that there are situations when Home schooling is appropriate, but when you have the option of letting you child attend a public school please don't deprive you child simply based on your beliefs. Teach you child your values and beliefs at home. Your child will appreciate it when they are older. I sure wish I would have been allowed to graduate with the 100's of others that where in my class. I might seem a bit bitter towards my education in my younger years, and that would be because I AM! It took me till I was in my late 20's to learn about things that many knew back in high school it was very frustrating.

Baby Got Bible???

2007-03-30T11:15:00.000-04:00

Holy Big Bible Rev. Mix-A-Lot, what the heck was that!

I was perusing through God Tube and just could not resist posting this. It's just so damn funny. I'm sure we all enjoyed the parodies by good ole Weird Al, but doing a "Christian" Parody on Baby Got Back.... That's pretty low, what's next a parody on "I wanna Sex You Up" better not give them anymore ideas. Seems they do pretty well all by themselves.

Free tech advice :)

2007-03-26T14:11:00.000-04:00

I've noticed recently a few people have had some issues embedding video's with the new blogger. From what I've seen this started because the new blogger is more strict on tags being closed. You should still be able to copy the "embed" html code and paste it in the the 'Edit Html' section just make sure there is an </embed> tag, if there is not a </embed> tag then simply put one in before </object> and you should have no problems publishing. Not completely sure why some videos would have the tag closed and others do not, but this is what I've found to be the culprit each time it has happen to me.

** Updated so you could see the tags, took a few min to figure out i had to use the escape codes for it.. if you ever need to do this they have a great list here

His Holy Place

2007-03-21T20:26:00.000-04:00

The other day I got an email from a relative inviting me to join this new MySpace knock off called HisHolySpace.com . I could get into how it's interesting that they did'nt even revamp it at all the entire layout is practically identical to myspace... One would think they would at least put some type of original twist on it, but no they didn't (typical of christianity in my opinion). There is this nice little blurb off the main page:

"HisHolySpace.com is an online Christian Community that is structured on the Core Essential Doctrines of Christianity. The Bible itself reveals those doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith. They are as follows: (1) the Deity of Christ (2) Salvation by Grace (3) Resurrection of Christ, and (4) the gospel. These are the doctrines the Bible says are necessary. Though there are many other important doctrines, these four are the only ones that are declared by Scripture to be essential. A non-regenerate person, or a false religion, will deny one or more of these essential doctrines. HisHolySpace.com separates itself from other online religious community sites, by only allowing those religions that follow these Core Christian Essentials, to be promoted on the site. Anyone from any religion is welcome to join HisHolySpace.com. But if your religion and/or your beliefs fall outside the realm of the above-mentioned Core Essentials, and it is your intention to promote your religion and/or beliefs on HHS, you may be in violation of the site rules, which could result in the cancelation of your membership. The main goal for this site is to glorify God, through Christians being able to pray, encourage, fellowship, and grow with one another. If you wish to learn and understand what orthodox Christianity teaches, and are willing to follow the rules that are set in place for HHS members, including not promoting any other faith that does not adhere to the above-mentioned Doctrines, then you are welcome here."

There are so many things I could say right about now, but I won't. I obviously would not be able to adhere to the "Rules that are set in place for HHS members" and will therefore be unable to participate in it's services. What I do find quite funny are the 3 sections they have on the main page. There are "The Men Who Serve Him", "The Women Who Serve Him", and the "Seekers of the Truth"

Anyway, wasn't sure if anyone else had noticed , but figured I would share.

I was also told they do not allow cussing.... Damn, guess I won't be joining lol

Church Signs

2007-03-19T10:35:00.000-04:00

At least where I live, I'm pretty sure these folks are getting the little comments for their signs from the same place. This particular one we saw twice in the same day. The first one i didn't have the camera with me, but the second one I snapped a shot of. As soon as we passed it my wife says to me, "Does that mean Darwin Informed us?" I love that girl! ;)

Photo Disclaimer:
This was a photo taken by me personally, feel free to repost or download the pic if you want. I only ask that you link back to this post. Thanks

mr. Deity Episode 8

2007-03-18T01:33:00.000-04:00

Angry Atheism....

2007-03-11T22:22:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Friendly Atheist » Why I’m Not An Angry Atheist
and figured I would post my 50 cents :)

First let me say I completely agree with most of what was said in his post. Just the other day I was discussing this same issue with my wife. Mostly, about the same topics touched on in his post. What I explained to her, was I try to live my life by example. As a sort of witness to those around me of the christian faith that there can exists a person who can live a good, decent, and completely fulfilled life without the need of religion or god. I try to show (by example) that I take responsibility not only for my success in life, but also in my mistakes. In addition, I freely admit that I can't answer all of life's greatest questions, but that's not really the true issue is it? It's not the answer that really matters, isn't it the journey that is fulfilling? hehe. I also don't claim to know everything, quite the opposite, I admit my ignorance on many subjects. My take is, I might not know about it at this moment... but i can read up on it, or learn about it. Similar to how I do my job, I might not know how to do it, but I know how to get it done. :) One of my old instructors once said, "It's not the answer that you have to remember, It's how you got to the answer that is critical to learn."

Anyway, One point I'd like to make here (and this is only from my personal experience) is it has never been a problem for me to discuss matters of "faith" with those "intelligent" religious persons. The odd part is most of the time, those intelligent ones are the leaders of that particular faith. Pastors, Ministers, Priests, or practically any official leaders are not usually the ones that are difficult to talk to. It's the followers. Those that seem to be incapable of thinking for themselves. Those unable to accept the fact their faith is not believed in by all. These are the ones that seem to be more numerous and almost impossible to talk to. Unfortunately, my parents are such people. In discussions outside of faith they are both very intelligent, but once you cross that line that blurs into matters of morality/religion/faith an almost instant change occurs in both of them whereby they loose or forget all concept of being able to either listen or discuss matters rationally.

For the most part, I understand where this comes from. It seems they feel the foundation of their entire lives are shaken, threatened; The possibility they could be wrong surfaces and forces them to stand firm on what they believe to keep some grasp on their reality. The frustrating part, and probably one of the reasons I tend to focus on the ignorance, is because they put themselves in a situation that is bound to make them look stupid. One of the prime examples is in my previous post about Obama. Another happen tonight when I checked my email and found a message containing an email that was fraudulent. In the subject was "Powerful Letter", and it was another example of believers will accept practically anything when it lines up with their religion whether its true or not they really don't care. Here is a link to the Pam Foster letter, Just reading through it one statement after another seemed to strike a nerve with me. Maybe it was wrong of me, but I did not reply to the sender showing them this was a work of fiction because to them it doesn't matter. They have a goal, and they feel this lines up perfectly with that goal (true or not). The only thing I would accomplish by replying and referencing that it was fake, is they might get embarrassed and feel humiliated. That's certainly not my goal. In all honesty that just seems to easy.

Finally, one of the reasons I began my blog here was to give me a sort of anonymous outlet to release some of the frustrations I encounter on a regular basis. Every situation is different when discussing religion, and when possible I work very hard to communicate effectively and calmly. When the conversation begins the escalate I'll either drop it, or try to find some common ground. Rarely should it ever escalate to a "your wrong, I'm right" confrontation in my opinion. We all have different views and opinions, here I believe some sort of common ground can always be found. Probably just my optimistic outlook towards life though :)

Barak Obama - Ignorance Revealed...

2007-03-10T15:18:00.000-05:00

I wanted to take a few minutes to clear up some bull shit that I've been hearing around town. I don't really care where you stand as far as your political candidates that you want to support. That's not really the point of this post. The point of this post is the clear up the mis-conception about this man. Barak Obama is NOT a Muslim, and it's kinda dumb to assume that just because of his name! This is complete and utter bullshit and if you hear anyone say this rest assured that they are not only ignorant, but they are being extremely stupid, and they are talking out of their Ass! First off, His name is Barak Obama Jr. This should tell you something right off the bat.... If he did convert to Islam and chose his name, why would he choose to use Jr????? Second, he in fact attends Trinity United Church of Christ. Hey, but don't take my word for it.. check out his bio on his web site here.
There is no ground for making such an assumption just because his last name. I read his book "Dreams of my Father", and I am currently reading "The Audacity of Hope" just to become more familiar with this man. I have not yet decided who I'm going to vote for, but it sure is annoying to hear people making judgments on the man based solely on his last name. That's just stupid in my opinion and very narrow minded.
Sure he attended a Muslim school, but did you know that was because he was living in Indonesia? Did you also know that his mother during this time would wake him up at 3am to teach him other material to prepare him for schools in the US? I know not really relevant, but it's just as relevant as claiming his Name makes him a Muslim... Also, he only spent a few years in Indonesia then went back to Hawaii to finish school. It was actually his grandfather on his fathers side that had converted to Islam. His book does not cover much about his father's faith, mainly because he barley knew his father except for letter correspondences and maybe 2 personal encounters.
Look I have no problem with people forming or even voicing their opinions about people, but to claim facts simply based on his name?? Guess that's how are society is changing, guilty until proven otherwise... Why not get the facts straight or simply go read his book? Or even do 30 seconds worth of research to find information on the guy. Done ranting now.

Banning talk on polar bears?

2007-03-10T15:17:00.001-05:00

What the hell is this about? Does Bush's Administation somehow think if they don't allow the scientists to discuss it when traveling, then it won't be true? WTF?? OH That's right, they don't think global warming exists! This would almost lead you to wonder what other stuff they would love to put a "Gag" order on.

Bush administration bans talk on polar bears

Thoughts on Evolution

2007-03-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

Whilst I was showering this morning, thoughts on evolution were bouncing around in my head. This led to some contemplation on the matter. Let me start off by saying this is not a post about creationism vrs evolution. This is simply me sorting out some of my thoughts regarding evolution and my particular evaluation of it.
Most times when I hear people discussing this subject invariably you here that there is a single point of origin. Whether it was a single celled organism, or that we evolved from "Eve" in Africa, or that we evolved from apes. Whatever the case, this seems a bit too simple in my opinion.
Evolution is the Theory of a "process". Much like mathematics. In math 4 has always existed, but the process in witch to arrive at 4 can take many different forms. What if the same were true of Evolution? Instead of thinking everything evolved from a single point, what if everything evolved from multiple single points around the world? Since the "process" of evolution was hard at work, what if it simply took different paths to arrive at similar solutions simultaneously. Wouldn't this be a more accurate way to explain the differences between species? I mean if when the process of evolution was started whether from the formation of the planet, or from a large meteor impact, once it began it would continue using the material at hand in order to continue life. Now the next question would be are homosapiens the end result, or just another step? hehe.. that's something I would love to see science predict... What we may look like in a thousand, or million years....
Maybe this is just my ignorance about evolution, but i would suggest that there was not a "single" beginning. Instead there were multiple beginnings everywhere. Each of those beginnings using a different "formula" or "process" with the materials at hand to arrive at a particular result. In my opinion this seems to answer the diversity of life better.

Loathsome Remarks By Ann Coulter

2007-03-09T03:11:00.000-05:00

Even though this is not really that much of a surprise given the religious nature of the event, does this type of behaviour simply re-enforce some of the hatred that is evident from religion? From just my personal experience, I would be very hard pressed to find a single Christian devotee around here in my town that would not agree with this woman!! That itself is very sad..

"During her March 3 remarks at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Coulter issued an anti-gay slur and excused the murder of doctors who perform abortions."

SAY WHAT??? Ok, so the anti-gay slur might not be a huge surprise, but excusing the murder of doctors!! WTF? Oh, wait... that's right... Christianity has exceptions to killing.... So, it's ok to kill a doctor who most likely had a family or wife or child, but since he killed and unborn child who's mother did not want it or for whatever reason decided not to have the child that somehow makes it JUSTIFIABLE or even UNDERSTANDABLE?? What a freakin loony toon!

Coulter said, “Those few abortionists were shot, or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure with a rifle performed on them. I’m not justifying it, but I do understand how it happened....The number of deaths attributed to Roe v. Wade about 40 million aborted babies and seven abortion clinic workers; 40 million to seven is also a pretty good measure of how the political debate is going.”

"had a procedure with a rifle performed on them" ???? Does the attempt here to make it sound eloquent make it better? If so, then allow me to say that her head must have encountered a solid object with excessive force as a child, thus clouding all future decisions in her life. And to say that it was a Good Measure of the progress of the debate??? I certainly hope that she does not always revert to death as a good way to size up how well a debate is going. Could you imagine arguments at home?

"Answering an audience question during the Fort Lauderdale event, Coulter said, “I spoke at C-PAC yesterday, and I [took questions] about Obama and Hillary and Gore and global warming, and I said I was going to also have a few remarks about the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but apparently you have to go to rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’”"

Rehab is not going to help with this problem... Unless she has a procedure done involving high voltage electrodes....

Americans United Urges Florida TV Ministry To Disavow 'Loathsome' Remarks By Ann Coulter

Tomb of Jesus Review

2007-03-07T09:59:00.000-05:00

Thank goodness for dvr's. I just finished watching the recently released special claiming to have found the Tomb of Jesus's family, and the "Critical Look" hosted by Ted Koppel afterwards. And I must say, I'm surprised at some of the responses on both sides. I've read a few posts by those with and without faith that seem quite intent to shoot this documentary down based on it's "lack" of evidence or because there are too many "chains" or too many "If's". Among other issues the "Critical Look" show added were poor presentation, One sided views, and over Dramatization.

Come on people, I have yet to see a "Documentary" that was not "Dramatized" in some fashion. As for the issue with daisy chaining.... That's kinda the point isn't it? Besides all of that keep in mind it was a "Theory".. Poorly portrayed or not, there was some intriguing evidence there. Well worth looking into further in my opinion. Was it alot of hype, sure... but so was the "Documentary" that showed that Egyptians and not slaves built the Pyramids. What about the show that was on just before this one portraying the story of the Flood and Noah? I've watched alot of these types of shows on Discovery/History channels and the like, and most if not all have not done anything different than this one. Many times with much less information than what was presented here. Like the shows on the Lost City of Atlantis, etc... Some of those were down right Laughable...

I thought the show was pretty interesting myself. Yes, they seemed to pull quite a bit of their evidence from different sources and some of the items were a bit of a stretch, but in my opinion the core facts seemed to fit quite nicely, and seems to me would be worthy of some further investigation. I think most of the "Rebuttal's" from the "Critical Look" afterwards were just as weak if not weaker than those presented in the documentary itself.

In the end.. Hell, I don't care if it is or is not Jesus's Tomb. To be quite honest it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Considering we have a man right now running around claiming to be "Jesus Christ Man" lol... It does bring up other questions like why wasn't this noticed back in the 80's? Can more dna be tested? Would it be possible to exhume the skeletal remains and do some forensics science? Maybe find the spear wound in his side, or if there are nail marks in the bones? Or thorn marks in his skull? I'd like to see scientist tackle these other questions... Who knows, maybe in another 10 or 20 years they will have another Documentary explaining all this with better evidence....

Celebrity Atheist List

2007-03-02T12:43:00.000-05:00

Main Page - Celebrity Atheist List

Came across this today thought it was interesting.

that's a pretty big list hehe

I love the footer, too funny...

"hosting by Lucifer Media "

Thoughts Tonight...

2007-02-28T22:32:00.000-05:00

I'm sure we have all asked these questions at one time or another, but what's the big deal? What makes it so difficult for people (Christians specifically) from understanding the concept of simply NOT accepting their faith? I run into this so often, and so often I tend to keep quiet simply due to the fact that I understand for the most part people "needing" their faith. The part that irritates me the most is the arrogant claim that it is the "ONLY" way! or if I don't accept their faith I'm doomed for hell...

This brings me to my actual thought tonight. My opinion's of the strategies used to witness. These are arranged in what I've experienced and methods that I've seen first hand used by people in an attempt to witness to me.

#1) The nice approach.
This method is typical and the one encountered the most. In this situation they simply try to witness by leading a "good" life, being kind to others, and throwing in a "Thank God", or some other blip like "Today is a wonderful day that God has made", etc... I don't mind these people because they are genuinely nice people, and usually I can carry on great conversations with them. This is the majority of those that I have encountered recently. (Granted this is only true if my lack of belief in a god does not come up witch it hardly ever does simply because I'm not really what I would consider an Evangelist for the atheist cause. I live my way and let them live theirs.) As a footnote, these are typically the ones that will not often discuss Politics or Religion.

#2) The "Visit" approach.
Now, this is the next most common encounter, and to be fair, I've usually done something to increase my chances of this happening. Typically, it's because I actually went to a "Church" function and that required me to attend a service. I can't really blame the individual for coming by the house to see if I'll come to church again since I did make the initial visit regardless of the reason I went, by attending the function or service Knowing full well what was going to happen, it would be quite dumb of me to not expect at least 1 or 2 visits by either the pastor or members of the church wondering if I'd come back. This is further complicated in the fact that my in-laws regularly attend the church and are probably constantly reminded of their "Wayward" son-in-law that keeps their daughter and grandson from being raised in church. Anyway, moving on... This visit is usually very cordial. Most of the time it's just an open invitation to come back some time and is mostly a very friendly encounter. Usually stated like: "It was great to see you in service xx Sunday's ago, would love to see you again" or something similar, and they do not ask questions. That's #3...

#3) The "Visit" Approach, but they ask a question.
This one has sub-categories, because right off the bat even before they ask the questions they have already formulated what they think the reason is that I don't go to church. Here are a two examples of typical opening "phishing" lines used:
Q1) "Why don't you go to church? Have you been hurt before by church?"
A1) No, I was not hurt in church, but yes I used to attend frequently. However, I no longer attend. At this point, the conversation gets a bit more dynamic. If they are Really interested, then i might attempt to begin explaining why.. Otherwise, if they are only interested because they have ammunition they are waiting to use... I will usually just drop it, and end the conversation.
Q2) "Do you ever feel like your missing something from your life?"
A2) Of course! Doesn't everyone at some point feel like they are missing something? Just because I may be feeling slightly down or left out, Does not mean that your god can fill that need. As a matter a fact, I will promise you that even with your faith you too will still have that empty feeling on occasion. It's perfectly natural.

Unfortunately, these last type of "Visits" rarely end on an upbeat note. Usually, because they find it so difficult to understand that you could possibly be living a full, happy, and content life without their religion or their god. They have been convinced that the only way to be "Truly" happy in life you must be living for their god. In addition as soon as many christians encounter someone that will not accept their faith, I think it causes them to consider the possibility they might be wrong.. This creates a cascade effect and in a moment they go from polite to indigent. Because the simple fact that you exists is in direct contradiction to what they believe and creates a paradox for them. If they are wrong, then their parents were wrong, and they've been living a lie... and the anger usually escalates depending on the person. This almost always end with them ending the conversation by saying "I'll be Praying for you" or "One day you'll understand". etc..

This brings up some funny comments I've heard. Once during a healthy discussion, I was told that my "Intelligence was blinding" me. Another time I was told that I "Should not read books". Both comments were just rather amusing, thought I'd share :)

Church and State Issues...

2007-02-24T21:43:00.000-05:00

So, I've been pondering the whole "separation of church and state" debates today. Simply because I followed the link from Atheist Revolution and I signed the First Freedom First petition then I sent out an email to some friends and family thinking they would also be in favor of the petition. (Yea, I probably should have known better) However, one of the recipients responded to me claiming the following:

1) There is nothing in the constitution that says there is a separation of church and state
2) It only states that the government cannot make one church the "Church of America"
3) that it was "Drummed up by communists" to cause trouble
4) that Every President from Washington to Bush has put his hand on the bible to take the oath
5) We do believe the bible is our only authority

Here was my reply.....

In Reply to Item #1 and #2 combined:

Bill of Rights

Article #1...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

I do not disagree that there is nothing in the constitution that says there is separation of church and state at least not using that exact wording (Althought there should be!). However, simply by the nature in how it is worded, it does at least in some part suggest that there should be at least some separation of religion and Laws that are passed. This (in my opinion) includes not making laws "respecting" or favoring a particular religion. Granted I'm not a lawyer, but I would interpret this to mean the government should not make laws that are either based or favored by a particular religion. Religion should simply not play a part in our government, it's a deeply personal matter and should remain that way.

In Response to #3 the claim this was "Drummed up by Communists"

The truth about the origination for the term "Separation of Church and State":

It was the result of "an inference made from a letter [President Thomas]
Jefferson sent to the Danbury Connecticut Baptist Association on January
1, 1802." President Jefferson was responding to a letter written by the
Danbury Baptist Association expressing concern about individual
religious liberty and its place in the new nation at the time
Jefferson's presidency was being initiated. President Jefferson agreed
with the religious association that "religion is a matter which lies
solely between man and his God." Affirming the Establishment Clause
within his letter, Jefferson rested any fears the association may have
had by expressing his convictions that Congress would "make no law
respecting an establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof, 'thus building a wall of separation between church and
state.'" And thus, the nation's concept of a "separation between church
and state" was born.

The above quote was taken from here if you would like to review it...

Reply to Item #4)

As for the claim that every President puts his hand on the bible when taking the oath is not entirely accurate and has little to do with anything about church and state. It is based on the persons belief as to what is used. If our President or any elected official was Muslim it would be the Koran and if he/she was Jew it would be the Torah or a Jewish holy text, etc..

Proof of this is available here and as a reminder just because the "Christian" faith has been the most dominant religion in regards to political office in America does not make in the ONLY religion in this country. Fortunately, this archaic idea is changing and people are beginning to see religion should be no part of politics. It takes very little research to understand what happens when religion plays too big a roll in government. Our Founding fathers understood this, why can't people get this today?

And actually not every President has used the bible, here are other examples:

"As for U.S. presidents, in 1825 John Quincy Adams took the presidential
oath using a law volume instead of a Bible, and in 1853 Franklin Pierce
affirmed the oath rather than swearing it. Herbert Hoover, citing his
Quaker beliefs, also affirmed his oath in 1929 but did use a Bible,
according to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.
Theodore Roosevelt used no Bible in taking his first oath of office in
1901, but did use one in 1905."

House members are sworn in together on the House floor in a ceremony
without any book, holy or otherwise. But in an unofficial ceremony,
individual members reenact an oath-taking so that it can be
photographed--a tradition dating from the beginning of the wide use of
photography.

and Finally Item #5:

I understand that some christians believe that the bible is the only authority, but our government should not take that same stance given that would mean it does in fact "push" a specific religion (Christianity), and that should be prohibited, Oh! wait it already is! I'm not saying our Political Officials can't be people of faith, but at the same time they should be free to have any faith, or none at all.

Well, that was my little encounter of the day. No wonder this pisses so many people off, If our government actually followed our Bill of Rights, Issues like Gay Marriage, Abortions, Stem Cell Research should not even be up for debate!! Since every single case made against them are done by religious organizations using their particular faith as the sole reason they are against them!!! I'm drifting into rant session now, so I'll stop :)

Religion and Schools

2007-02-21T10:54:00.000-05:00

Was checking out BBC news this morning and came accross this:
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Schools advised on Muslim pupils

What I disagree with was the term "Muslim pupils".. They are freaking kids!
"Its guidance aims to ensure state schools meet Muslim pupils' needs"
They need to just be taught as kids! If the parents have "special needs" they want to force onto their children, either keep them at home, or send them to a school that tailors to your religion, otherwise your child will be treated just like any other kid in school, and should follow the rules of that school.

and this:
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Schoolgirl loses veil legal case

This article was just as dumb. No matter what your religion, I don't think a school should allow you to were a robbers mask. What the hell is up with that anyway. Makes them look like a damn raccoon. After the judgment this was the quote from the article:
They said after the judgment that the family were "bitterly disappointed".
Damn, cry me a freaking river, I'm so sorry that you were unable to force you religious convection's into the school system. I was "bitterly disappointed" when my school banned mini-skirts.

Iran defiant on nuclear programme

2007-02-20T16:46:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran defiant on nuclear programme

Not much to say here, but to voice my opinion on the matter... Ahmadinejad has a good damn point. I agree with him, if everyone wants him to stop enriching uranium, then they should also stop their enrichment programs. I think that it's pretty damn hypocritical for America to just BULLY other countries around simply because we are "Scared" of what "MIGHT" happen or what "COULD" be done with the enriched uranium. That's pretty much what it boils down to.... America is turning into a scared, selfish, paranoid country. Yes, I understand the need to be cautious and keep a watchful eye... But come on! America is not the worlds Big Brother..... And if we continue to act like it, things will only get worse for us. Sure maybe I'm being a bit naive about the situation, still doesn't make it right.

Hey you can't do that because once you do, then you would be able to make this, and if you do that, then you might attack us, and that we can't let you do that.?

Shit, I say give them a pat on the back, help them out. They want to work towards cleaner ways to create power... That beats the shit out of what those fuckers in China are doing! China is throwing up at least 1 coal burning plant a month, and sending all their smog over to California! Thanks!!

It would not surprise me in the least if our asshole of a President falls for this shit and being the type of person he is, tries to invent some reason for us to invade! Damn Prick! I think the only reason his sorry ass is not been impeached yet is because nobody wants to see the #2 Dumb Ass as Commander in Chief! Cause then, someone might get shot... lol

Bush Declares Iran’s Arms Role in Iraq Is Certain

2007-02-15T20:49:00.000-05:00

Bush Declares Iran’s Arms Role in Iraq Is Certain - New York Times

This shit is really starting to piss me off. How much further are we going to let this man bury this country? You know damn well where he is heading with this. Next I suppose he is going to give the whole "If you are not for us, your against us" and then try to push that we should invade Iran!?! OH, or even better maybe he will admit that "Iraq" didn't have WMD's, there was a typo in the reports... they meant to say Iran!

I know I'm just speculating and ranting here, but damn I don't like this man as President.

Ignorance.. Is it really bliss?

2007-02-13T20:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting older, or if it's because I'm starting to actually listen to other people.... But... and don't get me wrong here, I think everyone is entitled to their opinion.. But some of this shit really gets annoying after awhile.

First let me explain what happen a few weeks ago with my father. We were discussing politics and such, mainly me expressing my thankfulness that Bush would soon be gone. That led to a very brief discussion about the war, and that led to the up coming elections. Now for me, I have not come to a conclusion yet as to who I'm going to vote for and I admit it , I have not done much research except for excerpts and news clippings. However, since I'm a registered Democrat I usually lean that way :) Anyway, I had asked good ole dad what he thought between Hillary and Obama. To my surprise he actually got pissed. Ranting that he would never vote for someone with a name like that! And that there was no way in hell a Muslim would be elected president! Ignorance warning Ignorance warning !! Then the other day the same bull shit happen with my brother-in-law except he was claiming that Barack picked that name, hinting that he was Muslim... Ignorance warning Ignorance warning !! My first thought was WTF?!? Where are these people getting this information?!?!? The pastor? Are they just Guessing?!?! Maybe I'm not watching enough TV, but I have not heard that shit! What I've heard is that this is a good fairly open minded christian man, born in Hawaii who's father died when he was young. As far as I know he was born with his Obama name. As I said though, I have not read much about him... This I plan of fixing. Yesterday I bought both his books: Dreams from My Father (supposed to be sort of a look into his personal life) and The Audacity of Hope . I read the first few pages and was surprised to see he is in favor of Evolution ;)

Guess my point is, Ignorance is NOT BLISS and it makes people look pretty damn stupid! When in doubt , say you don't know, maybe formulate some sort of opinion, but then go out and do some reading....

Woefully inadequate...

2007-02-09T14:24:00.000-05:00

After following some recent blogs... It has revealed to me that I know nothing. I have no problems admitting that my intellect or education does not rival that of the great scientists of this world, nor does it seem that I posses the wonderful ability to articulate sound arguments when it comes to debating the matters of the existence/non-existence of a deity. Most of what I rely on that brought me to where I am today has been the experiences growing up, from reading books in an attempt to increase my understanding of the world, from the many conversations with others, and from simple observations.

A few of thoughts on a few matters:

Are all those that religious closed minded and ignorant?
Of course not. If that were true, it is very likely we would not be allowed the freedoms that we have today. From my experience with other people based on my observations only, it does seem that people in general are lazy. At least when it comes to understanding their own faith. It seems they want to believe in a god and after life because that is what everyone else does. It also appears that they simply don't want to have to "Think" or "Reason" or even ask questions. Most people that claim to be Christians (that I know) don't even read their own bible! They go to church on Sunday, and accept verbatim everything that preacher says.

Do I think it is simplest in the Christian faith or any faith for that matter to attribute that witch can not be answered to a deity?
Absolutely! Science provides more logical and reasonable answers to questions about things better than simply attributing it to a god. This in my opinion can be backed up with History. Before medical knowledge existed, when people got sick it was attributed to demons, bad behaviour, or some other form of a non-holy life. We look back on those times and consider those people to have been ignorant and some of the remedies to be superstitious. It would seem to me then, if this happen in the past, and since our knowledge is continually increasing about the world around us that this will happen again. With each step we gain in science, biology, archeology, etc we come closer to understanding the world around us from a different and new perspective.

Why do I deny the existence of the Judaic Christian God?
Because most things attributed to that god can be dismissed (again in my opinion). Example: Being raised in a Pentecostal Church there were things that happen that are difficult to explain. Anyway, most of the notable events occurred when the entire congregation was in unison. During these times you could literally feel something was there. For a long time I had no explanation for this simply because there was nothing else that could be compared to. Until I went to my first "Secular" concert many years later. During one of the performers songs the entire stadium was singing in harmony. At that moment is when I realized; that was the commonality! It wasn't that god was in our presents, it was because a group of people were all participating in something together as one... It truly is a remarkable feeling almost overwhelming. The goosebumps, that tingling sensation throughout your body, but most certainly did not qualify as god. At least not the god of the Christian faith, why the heck would he/she/it be participating in a "Secular" song that was not uplifting to him/her/it??

This post has already become larger than I anticipated, but just had to get some of these thoughts out. Just because I might not have a Harvard education, or posses a large vocabulary, or know all the correct ways to present ideas through arguments does not mean I can't continue to try. Typically, I do not seek out to covert people to atheism... Why? Because, I reject religion for the simple fact they must be right. By nature of the Christian faith, it is the only way! This seems ludicrous to me. If it truly is the only way, then you would think god would have provided a means for his message to be easily seen by all instead of through education from an Evangelist.. I mean damn what good is being all powerful if you are stuck using your own creation as a messenger? of witch you made imperfect so you would know they are going to screw something up. lol

My thoughts for today :)

The Mystery of Consciousness

2007-02-07T12:20:00.000-05:00

Very interesting read..
The Mystery of Consciousness

How to be a cult leader....

2007-02-06T00:22:00.000-05:00

Thought this was pretty funny...Especially since it sounds like just about any religion...

What makes us different?

2007-02-05T22:40:00.000-05:00

I pulled this from Philosophy Now

"Elephants Pause for Reflection"
What’s a girl to do when she discovers a large white cross on her forehead? In the case of Happy, an Asian elephant at the Bronx Zoo in New York, she raises her trunk and touches the cross on her mirror-image thereby passing a standard test known as the ‘mark test’. Happy’s response was on a par with those made when human children or great apes are presented with the test.

Happy, with her companions Patty and Maxine, were shown a very large mirror, and it was observed that after initial exploratory behaviour sniffing the mirror and looking behind it, the elephants took an increasing interest in their reflections. This led to each peering into its own mouth. There was no evidence of an elephant mistaking their reflection for that of another.

This self-recognizing trait is thought to relate to empathetic tendencies and the ability to distinguish oneself from others. The study was carried out by scientists from the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre, Emory University, and the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York."

Even though I don't cling to any religion in particular, this is where I think Hinduism and Buddhism gets it right. All life is sacred. Seldom do we hear people admitting that the animals of this planet can "think" or even dream or imagine, but I got to say... I have had some animals that exhibit if not similar then most definitely some type of behaviour that would be considered unexpected from what I was taught was an animal and is simply unaware of itself. For example, We once had a Saint Bernard. Excellent dog! He was like a Giant throw rug in the fact that he always wanted to lay by your feet keeping them warm. Of course most of us animal lovers that have pets always like to personify them, and according to dog trainers like Cesar Milan this is not always a good idea. However, more than on a few occasions we would wake up to hear soft muffled barking, and what sounded like something ruffing up the carpet. After further investigation we would find this big dog lying on his side sleeping but appearing to be acting out a scene as though he was dreaming. It's instances like this that lead me to believe that animals are more than just animals... sure they probably live more "instinctively" than we do, but that does not mean they are not "aware" of themselves or are not capable of cognitive thinking. Of course it's easier to take a big bite of that juicy cheeseburger if we don't consider that cow to be anything more than just an animal, but hell we have to simply admit we are carnivores. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not going to turn vegetation because "Wilbur" might actually be a thinking animal, I'm still going to eat my bacon in the morning....

This brings me to stem cell research.. yea i know kinda stretching here, but here is my honest opinion on that.... Do you eat eggs? If so, then we should be allowed to do stem cell research because your eating an embryo that has not yet divided. If you don't eat eggs, ok then you can be against stem cell research otherwise shut the hell up and lets move forward instead of being held back by religious zealots that think themselves God's gift to the planet... Oh shit that's right... the bible says they are. damn!

Teaching kids the right way?

2007-02-05T21:55:00.000-05:00

Nursery children 'to be taught philosophy'

I found this tonight and thought it was a great idea!
Wonder if they could embrace this type of teaching in our country instead of trying push religious idea's; how about an honest attempt to increase their own reasoning abilities? Or would that be asking too much?

Maybe time for some t-Shirts?

2007-02-02T23:09:00.000-05:00

Church State T-Shirts and Gifts : CafePress.com : Shop Over 35 Million Unique Products

I love some of these statements....

Mayor converts to Islam

2007-02-02T22:48:00.000-05:00

Macon, Georgia, mayor converts to Islam - CNN.com

Wow.... Anything is possible... Christians are going to love this huh?

I think it's a great thing! Now, lets just get an Atheist in office somewhere :)

Who is more Hostile?

2007-01-31T22:40:00.000-05:00

The other day I read a this post by The New Atheist, and it got me thinking. ...

Why do atheists have to take the rap for being considered Hostile? When in fact in my personal experience, it is always the other way around. I personally do not actively seek out to covert others to the "Godless" cause, or the "Atheistic" cause. I simply think everyone is entitled to believe however they wish. On the other side of the fence are the believers, who not only feel it is their duty, but they are commanded by their beliefs to "witness" and convert others to their cause. This in of itself seems to be more aggressive. However, every time I've been in a discussion with a person of faith inevitably, I end up being considered the "nasty" one or, the aggressive one. Even though I understand why this happens, It still does not make it right.

Who am I

2007-01-31T22:39:00.000-05:00

My name is Robert. I'm a 32yrs family man, with a good and understanding wife, and a good son.
Let's start with my background... My first experience with religion prior age 12 was that typical of most people. We went to church for Easter, and Christmas. Except for the brief time I once went to vacation bible school, but that was for a girl... so I don't remember anything about the church or what they were teaching except for learning that damn song about "Germs" my invisible dog.... (I still find myself singing that chorus sometimes lol) . A few years later is when things really changed.... My parents joined a Pentecostal church, and things seemed to change over night. All my music was thrown out, movies at the theaters were out of the question, and I started attending the private school at the same church, just to name a few. To sum it up, from age 12 till 17 I spent around 6 days a week involved in church. After graduating it went back to just every wed night and both services on Sunday from age 17 - 21. After turning 21 I found myself in and out of church till around 25. During this time was when my biggest changes would happen. Although my journey actually began around 10th grade. I remember because it started in school with a course they called "New Testament Survey" and with the Science curriculum that they taught, if your curious the curriculum was ACE. First, let me get this out.... When I was in this private school, Dinosaurs never existed.... they were considered fake because there was no biblical background for them!! You would not believe my surprise when a couple years ago I heard that now Christians claim there IS biblical text that refer to creatures that could have been dinosaurs... wow what a difference 10yrs can make! Back to my story, My first glimmer of doubt came with how the Science course began to explain creation and the flood. Keep this in mind, you are hearing First hand account of what I was taught from 1986 - 1992. At the time the explanation of the creation and the flood went something like this. God created the earth same as you've heard before, by their counts with the whole "day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day to God" therefore the earth could not be any older than 6000 yrs. Next came the explanation for the earth/flood. Basically the entire planet was a tropical paradise. They explained this by saying there was a vapor like canopy of water encompassing the entire planet. This created a "global warming" effect making the planet a perfect place where there temperature was tropical everywhere. God cause the flood by allowing the vapor to collapse onto the planet, with all this water coming down (btw, they never explained the water that supposedly shot up from the earth) the planet was completely covered with water and remained that way for 40 days until the water receded. Even at my age, and even with my strong beliefs at the time.... this was very difficult to accept. I had so many questions that were unanswered, so many unknowns... Another thing that attributed to my yearning to learn more was the fact that I was always told it was "Wrong" to read anything that did not support our beliefs or did not give "God" glory. In that respect , my teenage years were extremely sheltered from real life. It wasn't until I finally started to work in the real world that I found other people who not only had similar doubts, but had completely different beliefs. The only other real interaction with those of different faiths I hung around with were those at the Martial Arts School. They gained alot of respect from me of course, not only because it's part of the study of the Arts, but because of their high level of respect for others regardless of how they believe. I suppose the biggest eye opener was when i began reading books on my own. Starting with of all people "Tim Allens - I'm Not Really Here" , that led to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, witch led to "What the Bleep Do We Know" (a very entertaining read), and "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" (Excellent Book in my opinion), other books I read around the same time but in no particular order include: "essential Philosophy Everything You Need to Understand the World's Greatest Thinkers" ; "everything's Relative and Other Fables from Science and Technology" ; "The Handy Religion Answer Book" (this was a hard read for me.. it's like reading a school book, but it's packed with tons of information about the 8 major religions Judaism,Christianity,Islam,Buddhism,Hinduism,Confucianism,Taoism, and Shinto) ; "Misquoting Jesus The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" (another excellent book!) ; and "The God Delusion" (another pretty good book). After much conversation with the few people similarly minded, and much deep thought and meditation brings me roughly to where am i today. This post became much longer than I originally intended, but it's seems to be a pretty good background :) If you made it this far, glad you stuck around! Now, it's your turn! Let me know when you post your story, you can email me at rpkthoughts@gmail.com

Do you believe.....

2007-01-30T13:41:00.000-05:00

Q: Do you believe in the God of the Holy Bible?
A: No. I do not believe there is an all powerful entity that interacts with us on a daily basis. Nor do I believe that he sent his son to save us all from an eternal hell.
Reason: Say for the moment we ponder this... God created the earth and everything in it. Why? Because he wanted a species that would serve him by choice? So, our entire existence exists in order to serve a God of whom we can not know for sure exists. Interesting dilemma here, but it gets better. God goofed. After awhile, he decides that he does not like what he created and is going to destroy it all and start over. Except for Noah and his family (hey, he doesn't want to get his hands dirty again by forming another human from clay). So, he floods the world killing all mankind, and they re-populate the earth with stronger convictions of serving the Almighty. Now, Moses comes along.... God must have been in a good mood today because he decides to play ventriloquist with a burning bush. Well, that does the trick for Moses... and he becomes the person that is going to Free "God's" people. Yea, at this point your probably wondering.. what the hell? How is it that now there are only "certain" people God likes at this point? WTF happen? Does this mean that there are other Gods out there playing the same game? Creating other humans? No not really... to be explained all we have to do is just say that these people are the ones God chose. Why? Who knows. Maybe because they were slaves, and you know how much God hates slavery (forcing someone to do something just because you can). Besides it's all in Gods big plan.. you know the one where he is planning for the upcoming sacrifice of his son so that ALL of mankind can be saved, not just "His" chosen, to serve him. Well guess what, Moses gets these people freed with God's help... and yet again they screw up, and God makes them wander in the dessert for 40yrs. I wonder if this time it was similar to when you dangle a string in front of a cat, just for kicks to watch it chase it around. Jumping forward God finally gives them what they were looking for "The Promise Land", but not without some more cruelty. The have to fight, kill, pillage, plunder, and completely wipe out an entire civilization. Sad part of this, it's still going on. They are still fighting over there in Israel over this shit. Well as we move on, God decides that again things are not going all that well, and this time he will take a slightly more personal approach to things. He plants his seen in Mary, to bring forth the "God"/Man creature. Similar to Hercules except without the super strength. The rest I'm sure you are familiar with... Jesus came, was crucified horribly on the cross in order to bear the sins of all mankind so that we could all be saved from the eternal hell and SERVE GOD! Does it make sense now why it would be difficult to believe in this kind of God?

Q: Do you believe the Bible is the True/Inspired word of God?
A: No.
Reason: I think the Bible is a great work of fiction and worth reading, but I do not think one should base their lives, moral values, or seek the Bible for direction in life.

Q: Have you read the Bible?
A: Yes. Have you?

Q: Do you believe God created the world and everything in it?
A: No.
Reason: I think that man evolved from simple creatures, over a long period of time. Simple creatures evolved into more complex creatures through the process of evolution. If you want to understand this process, there are many books on the subject.

Q: Are you open to the possibility that God could exist?
A: If you are referring to the possibility that a form of intelligence could exist and be perceived because of their increased knowledge or Technology as a God, then yes I believe there is a possibility for creatures to exist that have evolved more than we have. Do I believe the God of the Bible is one of those creatures? Sure, I suppose it's possible that the God of the Bible was actually a creature of significant knowledge or technology that was screwing around with us. Again, I don't believe that God created the world and everything in it, or that he/it is watching over us reading our minds, recording our thoughts, and interacting with us daily.

Q: What about quantum mechanics, quantum physics, reality as we perceive it, matter, sting theory, multi-verse theory, etc..
A: What about them? I am fascinated by what we are learning in these area's. Is it possible these fields will reveal that God exists? I don't think so, not the God defined by the Bible. If we redefine God as some sort of inter connectivity between humans on a quantum level, like a massive super computer, where all our minds are connected but at the same time being used like some super massive universal computer. Sure that sounds plausible. There are many things in the field of quantum physics that completely change the rules, but i still don't think that's evidence for the One True God of Judaism/Christianity/Islam. I think it's more evidence that we are all connected and if we work together we could accomplish incredible things. Just like a super computer with many computers programmed to work together, the trick is getting them to work together, and that is what I think we should work towards. One thing that I can claim for sure is that I do not know all or have all the answers. Religion does claim it has those answers and that those answers are simply to say it is "God", and that in my opinion as well as many others is simply not acceptable.

Q: Are you an atheist?
A: An atheist is defined as someone who denies the existence of God. If you define God as the entity as described in the Bible, then yes I am an atheist. Otherwise, I guess I would fall under simply a lost sinner category.

I'll add more to this list as i think of them...

Cop out, or Laziness??

2007-01-30T09:50:00.000-05:00

Last night I was asked "What do you believe?". Of course this is not the first time this question has been presented to me, and every time my response begins the same. First, I will ask the questioner who is usually someone I know already, and by this time someone that I know where they stand in their beliefs, none the less I will say "Are you sure you want to discuss this? Because my thoughts on religion are most likely much different than yours." They usually respond in one of 3 ways.

1) They make an out right firm statement about their faith how they believe in God and nothing is going to change that and all others are going to hell that don't believe.. (this is the most typically reply. At witch point usually I will drop the subject, and move on to something that we can actually have a conversation about even though they brought it up. The way I see it, if they are going to ask, then throw up this wall thinking I'm going to try to convert them it's pointless to actually attempt a conversation. I've already scared them just by questioning their faith, further discussion with them will simply anger them more, and I don't see the point in that when I know it can be prevented.

2) They still make the statement of faith, usually just trimmed down to "Well I believe in God.", but they are genuinely curious as to what i think. This is usually just them being polite though. Normally, if i were to pursue this discussion... Approximately, 5 min into the discussion the conversation will have gone from a polite sharing to immediate debate. After I begin to share anything with them, immediately start to defended or give excuses, even though there is no need for them to defend their position. What amazes me most about these discussions is the fact that about 90% of the people I've made it this far at some point during our discussion will either not be able to defend due to their own lack of knowledge of their own bible, or in the more interesting conversations will say something to the effect of "Your Intelligence is blinding you", or "You should stop learning, and just start living" WHAT???? At this point again I will let it go and move on.

3) This is usually the best reply. The person will say, "I have my beliefs, but I'd love to hear a different view" this type of person is usually the most fun. Granted it's a hot topic and sometimes it can become a heated discussion, but when all is said and done typically we both walk away with the feeling that we've had a good coversation.

With that said, I understand the reasons people grip to their faith... Comfort, Simplicity, etc.. the list goes on... What I don't understand, is how someone is willing to take such a "Defiant" stand for something that they don't truly understand themselves. By that I'll give the example that happen the other night. This person began to say things like, "Well that's how I was raised", and reference some emotionally strong moment at death, or something to the affect that their parents believed and they lived a good life.... Are people really that Lazy???? That they don't want to actually read for themselves and instead want to be spoon fed little bits of facts so they don't have to think?? Or is it more of a Cop out? I don't believe that anyone is incapable of learning or searching for the truth. All it takes is a bit of reading, and willingness to question. Just because you are "raised" a certain way does not make it right, and most of all does not make it true..... Just some thoughts for today..

The Updated Laws..

2007-01-29T10:50:00.000-05:00

After reading some very excellent posts recently... I noticed that many Christians reject some of the Laws of the old testament claiming the 'New Testament' contains the new laws that they follow. So, in order to be informed about this I decided to list the "New Laws" additions and changes that Jesus made in the New Testament.... I wonder how many Christians follow these to the letter?

Lets begin the same way Jesus did...

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matt 5:19

OK, so if ANYONE breaks this list of "New Laws" AND Teaches others to do so, will be called the "least" in the kingdom of heaven... Ok, so you won't go to hell, but they will pick on you about it LOL...

#1) Killing

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Matt 5:21-26

What a doozey we have here.... Now we have gone from facing judgment if we kill someone, to facing judgment if we are angry with someone (of course there is the loop hole here "without cause" nice out huh?) However there is not much of an out in the other addition to the law.. If you call your brother Raca or Worthless you will be in danger of Council, and if you call your brother a Fool well now your going to hell! He continues adding to the law basically saying don't even come to church if there is malice or discourse between you or your brother. Further more he commands that you "Agree" with your enemy!!! so you don't go to jail, cause if you do... per Jesus you should pay/serve the maximum time.. wow...

#2) Adultery

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not [that] thy whole body should be cast into hell.
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast [it] from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not [that] thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Matt 5:27-30

WHOA!!! There is no way around this here... we are screwed! What is interesting to me here, is notice Jesus did NOT lay blame on the woman! He put the blame on the man lusting after the woman. So, it does not matter if the woman wears something provocative. If the man lusts after her, in keeping with this new law he should take out his eye, and if he jerks off, bye bye hand! Other wise your whole body is bound for Hell.

#3) Divorce....

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. Matt 5:31-32

Pretty straight forward here.... If you divorce your wife you cause her to commit adultery, and if you marry a divorced woman you commit adultery. Oddly, seems like it was ok to get a divorce before.... as long as it was documented...

#4) Lying/Cussing....

Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Matt 5:33-37

Interestingly enough, apparently you were allowed to lie before just not to yourself.. However, the new Law is Don't lie, Don't cuss, even with your thoughts.... In addition when you talk, only say yes or no.... Anything else will bring evil. Sounds like Jesus was high this time... he went from talking about lying, then telling you not to lie by earth cause it's his gods footstool , and do not lie by Jerusalem cause it's the city of the great king, to don't cuss in your head, and ending with Hey, just say yes and no.... That must have been some good stuff that day :)

#5) Eye for an Eye

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have [thy] cloke also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Matt 5:38-42

I'm sure we have all heard this one before, turn the other cheek.... But what about the other additions to it? If you get sued, give the person double... IF you are forced to walk a mile, walk 2.... and Don't turn away anyone that askes to borrow from you.

#6) Love/Hate

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more [than others]? do not even the publicans so? Matt 5:43-47

I think this is really funny here, not the love your enemy part, but the fact that he is relating it to politicians... lol Jesus is saying here... hey look, be like the politicians... they are nice to the people that hate them... come on if they can do it so can you.

All that and I did'nt even get to chapter 6. One day I might actually sit down and write this all out... but you get the idea.

Excellent way to cover BullShit

2007-01-27T13:28:00.000-05:00

Nice Preso..

2007-01-26T15:48:00.000-05:00

Affluenza: Rampant consumerism erodes us - Yahoo! News

2007-01-25T18:53:00.000-05:00

Affluenza: Rampant consumerism erodes us - Yahoo! News

I actually thought this guy was making some slight bit of sense until I read this part:

"Compare and contrast Sam, the miserable millionaire and sex-addicted atheist who treats women as commodities for fleeting satisfaction, with Chet the Nigerian taxi driver who is contented, optimistic, sexually faithful and religious."

While I'm sure this guy is just pulling one of those exact opposite type of analogies.... Why do we always get the short end of the stick? :o I suppose all the atheists that are not rich and are very content in their lives are just not applicable?

Anyway, this article overall is nothing new.... I've heard this basic story since i was a kid. Moderation is the key to happiness in my opinion.

Innocent or Ignorant

2007-01-25T14:01:00.000-05:00

I found myself pondering today... Occasionally, I'm sure as with most people, Memories will re-surface. Things you recall from your childhood, Tid bits of words people have said, or simply a familiar smell or word that triggers a cascading of events through your mind. Sending you speeding backward through time, like rewinding a show at 300x speed. I don't recall what triggered this for me today, but none the less it happen. And I found myself engaged in a sortof thought process.

When does innocents become ignorance? And what real difference does it make? No doubt we would probably all consider small children to be both innocent and ignorant, but at what point do we no longer consider a person to be innocent but rather ignorant? Or do we use the term ignorant as a somewhat harsher word for those who are innocent? Can you always be both ignorant and innocent or are you only ignorant and innocent once in your life, then for the rest of your life you can never be innocent again, just ignorant. The good thing is ignorance can be cured through education right?, but can innocents be returned? Sounds rather dumb when i write it out, but that's why i called this Robert's Thought's. Sorta like an inside view of my mind lol. Deductive Reasoning or simply passing time? hehe

In conclusion, I would say:
Innocents is lost whereas Ignorance taught.

Just a thought experiment....

A few Quotes for the Day..

2007-01-25T10:50:00.000-05:00

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. -Eric Hoffer

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. -Steven Weinberg

A cult is a religion with no political power. -Tom Wolfe

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. -James Feibleman

Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers - New York Times

2007-01-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers - New York Times

This is good news right, does this mean our public educations system is in some small way making a difference. I sure hope so. I know our public system isn't the best, but if we can keep church out of it maybe our young children will grow up better than we did. The Second Age of Reasoning might be upon us?

Interesting...

2007-01-22T14:19:00.000-05:00

PA. Man's Letter Brings Secret Service

My wife came across this yesterday in the Strange News section of the Tallahassee Democrat. Just thought it was interesting and worth a post. Since i was unable to find the original article the man wrote it's hard to form an opinion on it, but it is rather amusing for the Secret Service to pay a visit to a man who, according to the article made no direct threat to Bush? Are they running out of things to do? Bored maybe?

Swear on what

2007-01-16T16:04:00.000-05:00

Here is the link to the article
First Muslim in Congress

It's a shame that more people do not know more about the constitution and the reasons for it. Even more alarming is when people claim our country was founded on Christianity when in fact the basis of our country is the exact opposite.. This country was founded on the "FREEDOM" of religion!! Not just the freedom to be christian, but the freedom to be what ever religion you choose, so long as that it does not induce violence. By the way, if we were going to eliminate all religions that beget or induced violence, then Christianity would be the FIRST to go, right along with the Islamic faith. There is little difference in my opinion between the violence created and caused by the Islamic faith compared to the violence created and caused by the Christian faith. Both are filled with belief in an arrogant and pity GOD, and both cause their believers to be Extremely prejudice people. I still look forward to the day when we finally drop the childish ways... Sometimes it seems like people just want someone to release their anger toward. Someone they can bully around. Someone they can show is less than they are... I'm done for now.. :)

Tis the new year..

2007-01-10T19:48:00.000-05:00

And I'm going to start off recommending one of the better books i've read and that is "The God Delusion" An excellent book, well worth the read... I look forward to the day when atheism is treated with the respect it deserves.

Too Funny...

2006-10-09T10:39:00.000-04:00

While on our way to tampa one time, as we passed through Brooksville, the wife snapped this pic of a sign...This should go under one of those catagories of things that you should not put on a church sign! LOL

Photo Disclaimer:
This was a photo taken by me personally, feel free to repost or download the pic if you want. I only ask that you link back to this post. Thanks

Controversy over Jesus camp

2006-09-19T18:37:00.000-04:00

Now is'nt this just wonderful! Are we drifing backwards instead of moving forward in life now? Yea!! Lets create fanatics here too! idiots....

BBC Controversy over Jesus camp

Definition of faith?

2006-04-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

My wife read this in a fictional book, however, It fits so well I had to post...

"Faith is a device of self-delusion, a slight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up. Faith is the attempt to coerce truth to surrender to whim. In simple terms, it is trying to breath life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes. Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men."

Da Vinci Code

2006-02-28T11:48:00.000-05:00

It never ceases to amaze me at people's stupidity and ignorance. I read the Da Vinci Code, and thought it was a fantastic book. It did not reveal anything New, nor did it UnCover any information that was not available before. It was a great story with a plot that kept me interested right up to the end. What is eerily interesting is the fact that it has been criticized so much. This proves the exact idea that was portrayed in the book. When information threatens the foundation of Christianity it will be attacked. In my opinion, if they (the Christian organizations) simply ignored it the book would simply be a work of fiction. Instead they get all up in arms about and continue to spew all the problems noted in the book. Witch in turn causes people to look closer, do some research and find the truth. Personally, I do not see the big deal. So what if Jesus was married to Mary, He was human. Just because he might have had sex like any normal human would not make him less perfect. In my opinion it would make him a true embodiment of human and God. I heard another "Christian" historian say that because of this book people have lost their faith. I think that’s bullshit. People are loosing faith not because a fictional book, but because their faith was already in question and this probably gave them the strength to finally leave behind archaic ideas and beliefs. I certainly did not loose my religion because of this book. I don't believe in Christianity to begin with. Its an old faith that will hopefully fade away one day. The Christian faith has done more damage and hindered progress long enough. Its time to move forward. On that same note, let me say I do not have anything against people that have their faith, but don't force your belief's on me, or change history to line up with your current beliefs. Because in the end, you can only control your own life. My belief is this... If there is a God, and he did create us in his image. I believe he would want us to Live, not for him, not to bitch and moan because our ideals do not match, but to simply live.... To experience life and all the wonders that are here. I think God would be pissed at how everyone has squandered their lives, wasting all their time fighting each other over stupid facts, constantly worrying about everything.

My tid bit of truth to take with you:
1) We live
.....
10) We die

What we do in between there is why we are here. Live, Feel, Experience, Learn, Remember, and Die.

Consider this last point, and I know it’s a bit far fetched but anyway.. What if we are here as a cosmic Virtual Reality. Meaning we are born to experience what it is to be human, what it's like to live, to feel, to Experience, to Learn, and To die. Then upon returning to our cosmic existence we take with us everything we did as humans. Anyway, that's my thought for today. Later.

Epiphany!

2005-11-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

So, I've been pondering a lot of different things lately. Mainly of the area of philosophy, history, religion, ect... yea that typical "Why are we here" stuff. Let me start by saying that my childhood was one of the Christian background. I was raised to believe that God created man, that he did this in 6 days resting on the 7th, and that the Earth is no more than 6000yrs old, oh yea, and that the Flood actually meant the entire planet was covered in water. Yes, that was my background and to take that a step further I was raised in this environment from 7th-12th grade. Because "Secular" schools were just not good enough... besides that might confuse me. HA! OK on to my revelation. I started reading.. Imagine that.. what a concept.. and here is what i have discovered: Besides the fact that religious Dogma has caused more problems than anything else in our history.. Sure we could chalk some of it up to those weird fanatics.. but guess what... Our country was started by those such fanatics! Besides that, who made our founding fathers Sooooo great that they had the right to come over here and Kick the shit out of the Indians (who by the way were very civilized and lived here much longer and in much more harmony than we did), also Did you know that it was the Dogma of Christianity that kept us in the Dark Ages.. Look it up... Ok getting carried away here. but there are so many examples throughout just our recent history that Religion can be blamed... Thats not the point, I have no ill feelings to how i was raised. My point is I was always told that God is the way.. the only way and that to get to heaven i must serve him. And all other religions are wrong and everyone is going to hell. I dont buy it. God gave us a brain. If we are made in his image then he wanted us to think! not just blindly follow, and do what we are told like a bunch of stupid robots. not only that study that damn bible that was "Edited" and put together by a group of MEN! Yea, back when Christianity because the Official religion of Roam is when the vigor for pushing Christianity began... and just ponder that for a moment.. you know why Christianity is thriving.. because it's foundation to penetrate the world.. they are using the same system employed by one of the greatest Empires in the world.. If you look at the techniques used by Rome to expand their boarders you will find the same ideas in Christianity.. Also, did you know the Islam, Muslims, and Christianity worship the same God, and use pretty much the same bible? Amazing! and they cant get along. Another thing most of the ideas of creation where "Divinely" inspired or appeared to the writer in a vision from God.. Hmmmm similar to the visions that Buda had? Crap, I'm rambling... I have so many things going through my head.. then it finally hit me.. You know what. I'm not worried about it. I will not let the dogma of Christianity use fear to force me to live the way they believe. I'm not missing anything from my life. I live a very full and happy life. I live for each day and do my best to make the most out of it cause it could be my last. Living is the ultimate! We should not be bothered by the Bullshit who believe what and why they are right! Fuck that! Every day the rules change. Every day while those others battle out their problems, I'll be showing my wife and son how much i love spending my time with them. God isn’t sitting on my shoulder, and He doesn’t deserve the credit for things I choose to do with my life. On the same token he doesn't take the blame when things in my life go wrong. I do. I'm in control of my life, and I choose to live. Yes, I believe in an afterlife, and I will live there too. I think the worst thing you can do with you life is waste it.

Do me a favor, if you dis-agree with me just goto another blog. Don't bother replying because it will fall on deaf ears. Not only will you fail to "convert" me or change my mind, you will only more validate my point that because i disagree with you, you feel obligated to fight about it.. thus proving even more how aggressive religion is in it's Personal Battle for survial. Religion is dying a slow painful death..... Eventually, it will die and something else will take it's place. My guess is it will come soon, especially as we discover more about Quantum Physics.

Well, if nothing else that's my rant for today.. hehe

Halloween...

2005-10-30T23:10:00.000-05:00

Well, to start I'm sick of people that out of ignorance and stupidity lie or fib to their kids.. I say this because recently I encountered a parental dilemma with my 7yr old son. He was un-decided if he wanted to go trick-or-treating or go to a Putt-Putt park with his cousin's family who were going with the pastor and their family. They were taking the kids there instead of trick-or-treating because of their convictions. That's cool, have no issue with that. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. This is why we live in this Fabulous country. Anyway, during the process of explaining to him that he had to decided if he wanted to dress up and go trick-or-treating or go with his cousin. I had to explain why they were not going, and why they didn't celebrate in the same way. During our discussion he said, "Dad, I know... They don't celebrate because it's the Devils Birthday". I was shocked, and being the type of parent/person I am, I was not about to let this go without further research and investigation so I could properly explain to him what the truth behind what Halloween was and how it came to be. To sum up my results: Halloween did not originate from the devil or even from devil worship, It is not some horrible event or Satanic celebration, as a matter of fact at one point in Europe is was encouraged to be celebrated by the church. Anyway, It is simply a holiday that has evolved over time from superstition, and through time has grown to a simple family holiday meant to be enjoyed by everyone. Oh sure there have been moments through time that it has received a bad rep, but I challenge you to do the research discover for yourself... And share that history with your kids. Truth is always better than just telling some bullshit to your kids, they are pretty smart and can handle it. I'm sure there will be other controversially posts in the future and will have plenty of time to get into religious and political issues as time goes on.. hehe.. Have a Happy Halloween and enjoy.

Dang, what a first post to start with :)

Robert

Thought for today:
Ignorance should not be an excuse, It should be the driving force informing you know there is more to learn.