Logic Error

Thinking it's pretty amazing that we can know this with such certainty and precision.  Yay nerds - not kidding - Fucking Yay Nerds.  

It gets real easy to imagine how eager the (eg) Mayan rubes would be to confer power on the guys who could predict a solar eclipse 8 or 9 hundred years ago and who would then claim it to be their ability to discern what was on the minds of their gods.

Then I think about people today still making claims they can channel a god thru all kinds of magical mystical bullshit, and who then presume to tell us what their god wants the law to be.

I get that the Magic, the Woo, the whatever; it's about power and politics.  It always comes down to that transactional thing where I disconnect part of my living thinking brain in trade for the warm fuzzy feeling of safety within the shelter of the herd, or the arms of a protector, or whatever I get in return for my willingness to self-infantalize - and I'm right back to thinking religion really is a mental illness.

Mr Deity And Da Man

I'm in.

Today's Dead Celeb

Alan Rickman.  Best bad guy ever.  Best badass good guy ever.

Dogma (1999) --from Kevin Smith

RIP

About That Son Of God Thing

I'm not bashing Christmas - I flat-out love me some Christmas, so don't get me wrong, but:

John 3:16 - "For god so loved the world He gave his only begotten son..."

Why "son"?  Why couldn't it have been his only begotten daughter?   If we're talking about an all-powerful, all-purpose, all-in-one Ron Popeil kinda god here, we have to assume "he" could choose.  So why a son?

That right there anchors the Jesus story firmly in the culture and the mindset of the people of the 1st century CE.  There's nothing particularly timeless about it at all - and there's nothing divine about it either.  People were telling a story, and the people of that time placed a far greater value on a boy child than they did on a girl child.  So if they wanna make it a really big deal, then of course, the kid's gotta be a boy.

But, Mike - these were semi-primitive people who didn't understand a lot, so god had to speak to them in ways they could understand and blah blah blah.

Bullshit.  The story says Jesus walked on water.  He fed the multitudes with a few loaves and fishes.  He changed water to wine.  He touched a leper and cured him.  He touched a blind guy and made him see again.  He brought Lazarus back to life after he was fucking dead.  He was called 'rabbi' - teacher.  They said, "Oh Lord, show us the way".  Jesus did all that; Jesus was all that, but somehow a quick lesson on "don't be a mysogynistic dick" - that was just too much?  That's what blows their minds and makes the whole thing unbelievable?

I'm just saying there's something kinda sketchy about the whole Christ Child thing.

But hey - Merry Fuckin' Christmas anyway, knuckleheads. Hope it's a great day for everybody.

Hey - It's Sunday

Beats goin' to church.

Hands To Yourself, Rev

This one's been making the rounds lately.



I think maybe we start with whether or not the tough-guy routine is nothing more than standard macho fantasy bullshit.  Probably it is, but in light of recent events, maybe we shouldn't be making that assumption.  

But anyway, if we take it at face value, we need to be asking why your all-powerful god needs you to go around beatin' up on smart-ass teenagers.  That's number one, but second: has the statute of limitations run out on this obvious perpetration of Assault and Battery?  And couldn't we get after this asshole for the commission of a hate crime?

Thirdly - how come these knuckleheads don't realize they're demonstrating to most of us that they're no different from radical religionists all over the world (and all throughout history) who're more than a little willing to attack and to brutalize and to murder anybody daring to mock certain fairy tales?

hat tip = Raw Story

Is It God?

No.  But when something like this pops up, it's easier to understand how some of us insist on thinking that way.

I guess I just don't see how stopping at god is somehow more wondrous than our ability to push a little bit past that point to where we can actually figure out how such an amazing thing can happen.

Like the man said - we are stardust.  We are made of the same stuff everything else in the universe is made of.  We are the cosmos trying to know itself.

More info at UPI.

Today's Quote

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion. --Steven Weinberg

Don't Believe

"What's it like to lie to children for a living?"

You're Not Alone And You're Not To Blame

Matt Dillahunty excerpted from NonProphets Radio:

Punishment For Being

You may have heard about the obscene behavior of Virginia law enforcement in the case of a 17-year-old sexting his girlfriend:

A Virginia teen is facing two felony charges after he was caught sexting with his girlfriend.

If he's convicted, he could be forced to register as a sex offender and spend time in jail.

Trey Sims, 17, was charged with manufacturing and distributing child pornography in January, while exchanging texts with his then-girlfriend, who was 15 at the time. His iPhone and iPad were seized by police, and he was taken into custody.

And by now, just about everybody's heard of SCOTUS making it more probable that any given employer will be free to create a work environment that feels pretty hostile to any woman looking to take charge of what does or doesn't happen to/with/in her own body.

This kinda shit is happening because the default position in our little Christian-dominated establishment is to punish sexual behavior (ours, not theirs btw).  They have to.  If they don't, then they lose the power to keep us in line.

Adam and Eve "sinned; they were disobedient" - and never mind the metaphorical baloney about trees and fruits and the knowledge of good and evil.  It makes for a pretty good story, but the guys who wrote the book were very much in agreement that it was really all about the sex because the thing they concentrated on - the thing everybody remembers about it - is that god curses all womankind with dreadful pain during childbirth - and how does she get pregnant?  Yeah.  

So they conclude that sex is what Original Sin is all about.  No sex, no sin; so sex must be bad, so sex must be punished.  Except of course that we need you to procreate, so we'll make up some more bullshit and call it "necessary evil" (and don't get me started on the brilliance of that bit of holy entrapment).

So anyway, if sex is OK, then there's no sin, which means there's no Fall of Man, which means there's no need for redemption, which means we don't need a Redeemer, which means we don't need Jesus, which means nobody shows up on Sunday to pay the preacher's mortgage absorb the teachings of holy scripture (which conveniently seem always to fit the GOP Platform), which means Theo-Con Politicians lose elections, which means they can't protect the church's tax-exempt status and to reciprocate the church's largesse by figuring out ways around the law in order to pump more public dollars into church coffers, and on and on and on.

So they have to punish us for sex.  If they don't, their whole thing collapses in on itself.

And also too - why do you think these buttheads rail so loud and so long and so often against Evolution?  Because evolution actually rewards us for sex, which can't be tolerated for all the old reliable reasons.  No Adam and Eve = No Fall = No Jesus = No Church = No Money = No Power.

The Bible Wasn't Written In English

And god didn't tell anybody to write it either.

The Atheist Experience:

One God Further

Walk It Back, Glenn

The Monsters of the Id are breaking loose all over the joint, and even Glenn Beck's more than a little spooked.



At about 12 minutes, Beck gets to the point where he's trying oh so desperately to pull it all back - making the usual theocracy arguments about how god gave us the constitution and we should be worshipping god and not the document god gave us (or whatever that stunningly and stoopidly and in this case conveniently flip-floppy circular crapola's about); anyway, he says he wants to steer us away from armed conflict, and since he's already on about a loving and non-violent god, he throws down the gauntlet, daring us to show him where the bible tells us god sent any prophet to do violence.

Challenge accepted.

1 Samuel 15:
Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord.

2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 

3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

(the rest of it's a pretty fun read too)

1 Kings 18:

20 So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel.
21 Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

But the people said nothing.

22 Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. 

23 Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. 

24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”

Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”

25 Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” 

26 So they took the bull given them and prepared it.
Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.
27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 

28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 

29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.
30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of theLord, which had been torn down. 

31 Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” 

32 With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs[a] of seed. 

33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”
34 “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.
“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35 The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 

37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”
40 Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.

I wonder if there are any other examples of god instigating violence.  I mean, gee willikers, I had to search for almost 85 seconds to find those.

Sometimes, It's just too fucking easy.

Mr Deity And The Psych Exam

This Just In

From the fine folks at UC Berkeley (of course - where else, right?). Well, no - it's The Onion actually, but it'll be fun to see if any of the usual knot-heads feel the need to get crazy over it.

But since we know there's a double-digit percentage of mush-brained dopes who'll believe anything you tell 'em, why not go ahead and present this as just something else all them libtards are trying to force us real 'Murcans to take on faith...?  They're not likely to check it out for themselves (these are the geniuses who have access to practically every tiny speck of truth ever discovered, but who still believe in Bigfoot, ChemTrails and FEMA Camps for fuck's sake).  And even if they do check on it, part of their programming is to reject anything they hear that contradicts the crap they're being fed 24/7, because it's further evidence of how vast and pervasive and deep-rooted the lefty conspiracy is.  So yeah - why not just let it play?

Challenging long-held views on the origins of divinity, biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, presented findings Thursday that confirm God, the Almighty Creator of the Universe, evolved from an ancient chimpanzee deity.

The recently discovered sacred ancestor, a divine chimp species scientists have named Pan Sanctorum, reportedly gave rise over millions of years to the Lord Our God, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

“Although perhaps not obvious at first glance, there are actually overwhelming similarities between the Supreme Being of today and this early primate deity who preceded Him,” said Dr. Richard Kamen, a leading biologist who also heads Berkeley’s paleotheology department. “The holy chimp moved around on all fours, but its descendants eventually began walking upright to expend less energy while foraging across the infinite reaches of the universe. This of course led to the bipedalism of modern-day God.”

“In fact, you can see a distinct likeness to God in the chimpanzee deity’s skeletal structures, not to mention its prototypical expressions of vengeance and wrath,” Kamen continued. “The great-ape god was, however, considerably smaller in stature, having not yet developed the capacity to occupy all space and time simultaneously.”

According to experts, divine life began as a single-celled all-powerful organism roughly 3.6 billion years ago, eventually evolving into a multicelled, sponge-like deity that bobbed and floated across the chaos of the early universe. Kamen explained that over hundreds of millions of years, the godlike life form became more complex, with limbs that allowed for locomotion across the endless expanse of the heavens, and sophisticated photoreceptor cells capable of seeing all things.

Based on newly obtained evidence, the Pan sanctorum is thought to have first experimented with creation ex nihilo around 7 million years ago. Kamen noted that the chimpanzee deity made several early attempts to produce rudimentary solar systems, but on each occasion was spooked upon inadvertently creating fire, which is said to have caused it to screech loudly, angrily swat away the newly formed sun, and then scamper across the universe to hide from the flaming sphere.

“Natural selection played a huge role in the evolution of divinity, and in this regard, the adaptive value of Pan sanctorum’s immortality proved critical to its survival,” said Kamen, adding that with its opposable thumbs, the divine ancestor was eventually able to fashion primitive tools for creating crude oceans and basic mountain ranges. “Today’s Lord Almighty actually still has a small bony protuberance in the small of His back, the vestigial remains of a tail we believe was used by an even older, monkey-like god to facilitate climbing, allowing it to escape into the heavens when faced with danger.”
“That potential for threats made it an evolutionary imperative for the primate god to develop omnipotence,” Kamen continued. “As well as sharp claws and pointed incisors.”

Though its smaller brain limited its cognitive abilities, the chimpanzee deity is believed to have possessed not only self-awareness, but also spatial intelligence, object permanence, and a rudimentary capacity for knowing all that is, all that has been, and all that ever will be.

However, it was only relatively recently that the heavenly species developed the intellectual capacity for higher reasoning, critical thinking, and infinite wisdom, according to Kamen. For Pan sanctorum, he noted, the passage of divine judgment was “purely a matter of primal instinct.”

“While complex speech would not emerge until the evolution of the Cro-Magnon god from Pan Sanctorum, the chimpanzee deity was capable of using grunts and hand gestures to convey basic emotions such as happiness, anger, or the forgiveness of sin,” Kamen said. “However, it appears that the chimp deity often exhibited extremely aggressive behavior, in some cases unleashing its divine wrath with little if any provocation toward the mortal chimps it created in its own image.”

He added, “It is our understanding that these creatures lived in a kind of jungle-like forerunner to the Garden of Eden, until a day came when their enraged creator cast them out, flinging feces at them as they fled.”

Mr Deity On Evolution

It's An Act Of God

God makes a gi-normous fucking mess, and everybody else gets to clean it up.  Is that why so many "conservatives" claim god as one of their own?

So basically - god's that one dickhead you don't invite back for the next party(?)  I can dig it.

The Morality Gene

Bible Thumpers think they win the God vs No God argument by claiming we have to have some kind of outside agency that dictates morality to us.  And that one's always been a really tough nut to crack in rebuttal.  Except that it isn't.

From the last of a 5-part YouTube thingie:

It's All In Your Head

(paraphrasing) "If you understand the psychology of the Big Mac, then you understand why we believe in god"

Andy Thomson:



Check it out - richarddawkins.net