Pat Roberson: Moral Dilemma

I find myself in a moral dilemma, half agreeing with Pat Roberson, and half disagreeing.  I just found this news post and wanted to make my comment on it, and wanted to see what my readers had to say about it.

Pat Robertson is being critisized for his position that a particular man should divorce his wife, who is suffering from the dementia caused by Alzheimer's Disease.  Pat Robertson says:

“His wife as he knows her is gone,” the caller said, and the friend is “bitter at God for allowing his wife to be in that condition, and now he’s started seeing another woman.”

Doomsday Profit

The end of the world is big business in the United States.  A quick Google search revealed lots of links one could use to order doomsday survival gear such as this site, this one, and this one, just to name a few.  I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to be prepared.  I keep jumper cables, a quart of oil and a first aid kit in my vehicle, just in case.  However, no invisible god-fairy told me to do it - I have done it of my own free will for the sake of common sense.

Freak Of The Week: Leonard

This Freak of the Week needs to be given some "props" for his chutzpah.  Leonard, I believe, is a morally good person (based completely on what I read in his posts).  I also believe that Leonard should be forgiven his deceit only because he has gone to great lengths to first deceive himself.

Leonard, in his October 21, 2007 blog post, attempts to equip Christians with the intellectual artillery they will need to effectively argue against Atheists.

In this blog post, I will talk about several of Leonard's posts to justify his position as the Freak of the Week.

Freak Of The Week: Frank Walton

Okay - I admit it, there are freakier people out there, but Mr. Walton gets an honorable mention this week.

On his blog, Mr. Walton makes some very harsh comments regarding people he knows nothing about.  Now, before someone starts telling me stories about pots and kettles, I'm only talking about what Mr. Walton wrote, not his personal thoughts which he didn't write.  For instance, Mr. Walton wrote the following:

Atheism Can Be Fun

I haven't participated in one of these events - yet, but it looks like they had a great time.  See the video yourself below.

First Cause

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, a.k.a. FIRST CAUSE ARGUMENT
(1) If I say something must have a cause, it has a cause.
(2) I say the universe must have a cause.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

Church Signs

So... we should stop praying to Santa Claus?

Atheism: Freedom of Thought

Pansy: The Symbol of Freethought

From Wikipedia: Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas. The cognitive application of freethought is known as 'freethinking,' and practitioners of freethought are known as 'freethinkers.'

Freethinkers, such as Atheists, have a freedom that those who profess to be "born-again Christians" do not have.  We have the ability to change our minds without fear and without guilt.  We would change our minds about evolution if a single fossil were found in the wrong period.  For instance, if rabbits were found in the Precambrian period.

Development of Morality

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987), a psychologist, had a great theory that I believe fits right in to how the Christian church affects its members, and how Atheists fit outside of this box.

Kohlberg theorized that the development of morality came in stages, and thus, stages could be stifled or stopped, but not skipped.

The first stage is the stage of very young children and is called preconventional.  Morality for them is defined as obedience to authority.  If a child is obedient to its parents, the child believes that it is demonstrating moral behavior.  In a Christian church, young children are told to, and thus expected to, memorize Bible verses, stay quiet, pray when it is appropriate and to pay attention (or at least to be quiet when the child must attend service with his or her parents).  The authority figures are adults whom the child has been told (possibly even threatened) to obey.  Thus, a child will develop the idea very early on that performing meaningless rites, learning ancient stories and being able to regurgitate them on command are all moral actions because they are doing what their authority figure told them to do.  This is why churches push Vacation Bible School so hard.  Lazy parents get to drop their kids off at a free babysitter, and churches get to train children that being Christian is moral.

The second stage is called conventional.  This is the stage that most professing Christians are stuck at.  At this stage, the individual denotes morality with the idea that a person in higher authority must therefore be a very moral person and their word should be trusted.  The moral person will follow the authority figure because the authority figure must be trusted to know the difference between right and wrong.  This is how the idea of being buddy-buddy with God came to pass, and how the idea of 72 virgins for Mohammedans who blow themselves up came to be.  At this stage, unless the authority figure shows themselves to be completely worthless of respect due to a catastrophic moral failure, every word they utter will be completely believed.

The last stage, which most Christians do not fully reach, is called the postconventional stage.  At this stage, morality is based on higher principles than just because an authority figure said it.  Authority is questioned and scrutinized against other factors weighing on the particular situation.  Cause and effect become more important than tradition or dogma.  It is at this stage that Atheists emerge.  Atheists don't care what Christians or any other religion say is right or wrong until we have considered the facts and the big picture.

This is why Atheists reject the Christian god.  Richard Dawkins explains why Atheists reject the Abrahamic god:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Macro and Micro Evolution

This post is a direct response to the challenge and lies presented by Colleen @ ID .  As far as Blogspot has granted me the tools, I have strived to produce an APA-formatted research paper.  Obviously I have left out the double-spacing, running head and title page, but the references are sound.  So, let's begin.

Colleen @ ID 's comment was that there is no correlation between micro-evolution and macro-evolution.  Her argument is that micro-evolution does not lead to macro-evolution, so my point regarding Darwin and the human eye was moot.

I am fairly certain that Colleen @ ID  will be happy when I admit that she is abosolutely correct.  However, it is likely that Colleen @ ID  will be dismayed when I explain why she is correct.

Christian Fundamentalism

Christians are difficult to communicate with regarding their religion in general, because most Christians who will communicate with you are fundamentalists.

Christian fundamentalists are the ones who believe that the earth is less that 10,000 years old, was created in six literal days and is ruled by an invisible, unknowable, untouchable sky-god who takes an interest in our daily lives, answers prayers and smites entire cities due to one mean comment made by a lesbian comedian.

Family Day At The Beach

This picture was picked up by a fellow blogger at lolgod.blogspot.com who collects humerous religious pictures, mainly to poke fun at religion.  However, upon seeing this picture my reaction was not one of amusement, but of sick disgust.

This is what I don't want the United States to turn out like.  This is what the dominionists and many churches would like to see in the future.  Sure, right now women have a lot of freedom in the Christian church, but when Christians take over politics completely, what kind of changes could they make which would shorten the path to women being subjected to abuse and objectification like they were in the Bible?

There are two reasons why this woman has to wear her burka at the beach.  1 - Allah (another imaginary god) said it must be so and 2 - Her husband (it can only be her husband holding her so close) is penis-centered and uses his religion to control his wife.

I feel bad for the woman.  I feel bad she was born into such a totalitarian belief system.  I feel bad for future generations of American girls if more people like me don't take a stand against religion.

Freak Of The Week: Brother D

The freak of this week is called Brother D, and his blog is located here.

This blog is a typical example of a doomsday blog, trying to scare everyone into thinking his way based on his (I assume) unsound belief system which has nothing to do with fact, evidence or rational thought.  For those who don't want to delve into the mind of Brother D, I'll provide a short synopsis of his blog.

The mind of the religious is muddled to different degrees.  However, this mind is obviously muddled more than most.

On this day...

On this day, religion reared its ugly head once again.  The World Trade Center was attacked in order to kill everyone inside and cause mass panic and destruction.  All of the major US news stations repeated the same message over and over again, that we were attacked because of our way of life.  They said we were attacked because the enemy was jealous.

We were attacked because of our Christian population.  Its not their fault, as Mohammedans are just as guilty of believing in an imaginary god as the Christians are - but this attack was motivated by religion.

Double Standard

I wish I had made this, but I'm just not this talented.  So, I'll just show it here.  What an honest video.

The Center for Arizona Policy

Another group which is causing trouble and trying to turn the United States into a Christian-ran theocracy is called The Center for Arizona Policy.  They claim that their purpose is to protect and forward legal policies and decisions that protect the family, religious freedom, parental rights and the sanctity of life.  What their real agenda is, is obvious: to use the legal system to force government and institutions to support Christianity above all else.

Lies About Evolution

This post is a direct rebuttal against the claims made by Christwire.org.

The first challenge this website offers is this:  If evolution is true, and mankind evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?  On the surface, this seems like a sound argument, but that's only if you don't invest any thought into it and if you don't know anything at all about evolution.  So, here is a short lesson on how evolution works.

God Eaters

Christians turn a really big blind eye to their own religion when it comes to this one:  Communion.

Admittedly, Catholics are many times more myopic about their religion, but Protestants aren't immune from criticism here either.  This ceremony is sick, twisted and its real meaning is ignored by the "faithful".  Let's start with why Christians do it.

Religious Extremism

Christians all over the globe are denouncing "religious extremism" in all of its forms.  But what, exactly, is an extreme form of Christianity.

I think everyone can agree that any religion that advocates murder, incest, rape or other vicious crimes is extreme, but what does the Bible say?

First, the Bible says that homosexuals, children who cheek their parents, anyone who works on the Sabbath and many, many more must be put to death.  When did this stop being enforced?  Christian apologists will say that Christ came and changed all of that.  But the Bible says that God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  So, if God changed his mind, then the result of changing his mind must have been more perfect than the original, which means that god messed up the first time.  Another case of "God said, "Oops!" (see the post on this blog by the same name).

Braaaaaaains!

The human brain is so complex that science is nowhere near untangling its mysteries.  It is likely we know more about space than we know about the brain.  Here are some things science has discovered, though:

• The brain is where thought takes place.
• The brain is where memories are located.
• The brain is capable of storing more information than the world's largest computer, is faster than the world's largest computer and more capable of drawing from different sources to reach conclusions.
• The brain is the most powerful computer that has ever existed, and likely will ever exist.

Christians attribute this powerful brain of ours to God.  They say that God created Adam and Eve and endowed them with this amazing organ so they could control the world, dominate it and make decisions on their own.

Morality of Christianity

Christians shudder in fear when they consider what the United States would be like if they became the obvious minority, of if they were the very last Christian in the USA.

Most Christians are fed the belief that there would be chaos in the streets.  They are taught that since Atheists have no God to guide them, they have no morals.  The Christians generally believe that Atheists are akin to Satanists and view personal gain at the expense of others to be admirable and even essential.  Most Christians are also taught that if Christianity fails, the world will see "Hell on Earth", people murdering others without punishment, wanton raping in the streets and cannibalism.