I Think I Finally Get It

If you're an atheist, you probably hear this a lot: You hate God. It's not that you don't believe in God, it's that you totally hate him. Probably because your relationship with your father was bad. But you totally believe in him.

This argument is, of course, wildly frustrating. You're inside your own brain. You know what you think and believe and for someone else to tell you different is, at best, rude. Plus, how do you argue with someone who thinks they know you better than you know you? There's really nowhere to go with that.

I love music. I have always loved music. When I was five, my favorite record* was by the Tijuana Brass. I would play it endlessly and dance to it. (I was never into kids' music at all.) I played clarinet for six years. The last two years, I was playing several hours a day (up to six on weekends) and earned a scholarship to study music. Nerve damage to my right hand ended that dream, but music is still as important to me as food.

That's not true. I have chosen to spend money on music instead of food. Music is more important to me than food.

Anyway, last week, my brother-in-law (hereinafter "BIL") was at the house at the height of my husband's mixing marathon (he sent the album for mastering Wednesday). We don't have soundproofing, so you can hear the music fairly clearly on the first floor. My BIL asked me if that drove me crazy, because it would drive him crazy to hear that all the time.

I was flabbergasted.

The Awkward Out (album name) has been the background to everything I have done in the last year: cleaning, bathing, gaming, watching TV, if my husband was awake and not in the room with me, that's what I was listening to. And I love it. I've been bereft since the album went for mastering and my husband, burnt out after two weeks of 16 hour days, hasn't been writing/recording.

It turns out that my BIL doesn't like music. He doesn't like any music at all. Music is as irrelevant to him as God is to me.

That seriously freaks me out. I don't understand it. At first, I thought my BIL just doesn't like Skull Has a Secret's (band name) style of music. I don't judge anyone's taste in music. I like some weird stuff myself, so I'm not judgey about anyone else's taste.

No, he just doesn't like music. I find this very hard to comprehend. So I think I get where believers are coming from in refusing to believe I don't believe in God.

However, no matter how bizarre a statement I may find "I don't like music" to be, I trust that my BIL knows how he feels on this subject. I don't argue with him when he says he likes to watch Nascar. That's five hours of left turn, but if he says he likes it, he does. And if he says he doesn't like music, he doesn't.

And when I say I don't believe in God, I don't. Trust me on this one.



*Yes, I am totally that old.

The End of Days: Indistinguishable From All Other Days

Okay, so at the End of Times there will be: earthquakes, floods, storms, wars and rumors of wars.

So, you know, business as usual on the planet Earth.

As far as prophecy goes, that's like predicting that there will be people, eating food and drinking beverages. Somewhere. In the vicinity of the prophecied activity.

But these signs- they are now! (Well, sure, they are always.)

This is just another strange event...I am constantly in awe by the pure reluctant acceptance of the general populace to the signs around us. I have discussed the earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, pestilences, turmoil in the Middle East and the state of Israel to just about anyone who will talk to me about it and it seems they always come back with the same answer.... It has always been like this! We just didn't have the technology to realize it. It makes me sad that people are just so blind to what is happening. I want people to get right with God to turn back to him. However, it seems that the ME society has finally taken over and they have no room for our Creator! I wish I knew the magic words to open their eyes.....Come Lord Jesus Come!

Psst! You, yeah, you. C'mere. Generally speaking, when you're the only person who can see a thing, that's because it's not actually there. I mean, I suppose it's possible that white horse in the garden is a unicorn, but more than likely, you are delusional.

Seriously, has there ever been a time when there weren't earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, pestilences, and turmoil in the Middle East (and everywhere else)? Go get a history book, read it and then get back to me.

I wish I knew the magic words too

Me, too! That's be sweet! Oh, you mean to convince me that earthquakes are highly unusual events. Never mind.

I found a correlation to these times at work the other day. My coworker Leslie spoke over the loudspeakers to warn customers that the store would be closing in 10 minutes, and people kept on shopping, some came to the front. She then warned that the store would be closing in five minutes. People started coming to the front then.

I realized that on a much wider and less petty scale, this is what the Lord has been doing since 1948. The store is closing, but people are still doing their shopping while those who are listening have gone to the checkout. Soon the store will close and people who didn't listen will be trapped overnight.

Um, wut? What does "correlation" mean again? Do you warn your customers that the store is closing by setting the displays on fire? I . . . wut?

Great Analogy! I could not agree more! It just saddens me to see the blind walking everywhere!

Damn blind people! Stick to your . . . blind . . . places.

Remember hurricane Katrina. Weren't the people being warned four or five days ahead of expected landfall. Many didn't heed the warning and the landfall and the breaking of the levee caused a lot more damage and loss of life than anyone anticipated or could have imagined.

Oh, you mean the poor people who had no way to get out of town and nowhere to go even if they did get out? That makes this analogy . . . interesting.

I'll end with the most disturbing thing I've ever read (and I've read the Bible):

With fish and game comissions trying to rid the US of invasive-destructive species,

starlings have always been a scourge, and remember the snake head fish infestation, should we be surprised when this kind of thing happens?

With toxic spills and weather system changes, fish will suffer very quickly.

All we need is some massive land animal die-offs.

Certianly these events need investigation, cause identification, as there may be a serious health threat to humans.

But This isn't God's handiwork. God would kill every starling on the face of the earth. God's signs leave no doubt.

satan on the other hand, loves to play games, and if these occurances get lots of christians proclaiming "signs of the times"

Well, that will be fuel for scoffers wouldn't it. "So where is your long expected Jesus?"


But then that is real Prophecy coming to fruition, isn't it?


No one knows the day, but act like the time is short - be busy until He sounds the Quitting Time Whistle.

You'll know it's god by the incredible scale of death and suffering. Um, yeah. I'm sure the Egyptians, looking at their dead first born children would agree.

Great, God Just Glorified Himself All Over My Rug

God won't give you more than you can handle.

People used to spout that at me and I would seethe- at the age of 6. The implication is, of course, that if you fail to handle something, it's because you're lazy, not because it's too much for you. After all, god wouldn't do that to you. God is love. And killing Egyptians.

That is, of course, bullshit. Things happen because they do. Or because we cause them to. Or because somebody else caused them to.

This explanation, however, raises the level of horrifying:

God knows exactly how much I can handle, but oftentimes He chooses to display His glory by placing me in situations far above my ability to handle them so that He can come in and show Himself. Sometimes, He has to bring me to a point where I realize that I just can't do it on my own. It is when I confess, "I need you, Lord!" that He is glorified and freely pours out His grace.

I have taught a child to swim. At first, I supported her in water up to my waist for my own convenience, and well above her head, by holding her up with my hands on her stomach, so she could learn the movements of swimming without having to be able to float. Then we moved to the very shallow end of the pool and learned how to float. I chose the shallow end so that if she sank, she could just put her feet down and have her head above the water. Then we combined the floating and the swimming, with me intervening immediately as soon as I felt she might possibly be starting to have trouble. (Cuz drowning other people's children just isn't cool.)

The point is, were I god, according to this person's logic, I would have thrown this child into the deep end and only saved her if she clearly articulated that I was far better at swimming than her and she really needed help.

So, how many of you would pat me on the back and call me a responsible adult if I did that? And how many of you would hold my head under the water until I stopped arguing about it? Yeah, I'd do that, too.

But I should totally get down on my knees and thank the lord for allowing me to drown until I specifically told him how fantastic he is.

Rank Cruelty

He is laughing at your pain.

I worked for about a year in Morristown, NJ. They have a seeing eye dog training facility* in Morristown (or they used to), so I saw a lot of people training seeing eye dogs and a lot people being trained in using a seeing eye dog.

I was sitting on a bench in the park in the center of town during lunch, enjoying a truly spectacular spring day, when I woman with a seeing eye dog stopped in front of me. The trainer ran up to her (they would follow behind a little once the person was a little more familiar with the dog) and asked her what was wrong and she told him she was a little overwhelmed, just let her rest for a minute. I later learned that she was fairly new to being blind and hadn't gotten her confidence back about being out in the world.

Anyway, a woman walks up to her and starts petting the dog (do NOT pet the service dog) and babbling on about her uncle who was blind and never left the house and what a burden he was on the family and how nice that this woman was brave and outside. Yeah, srsly.

She left, and I said, "I'd much rather be blind than be that stupid," and the woman laughed. We chatted for a while and then she had to get back to learning to use a seeing eye dog and I had to get back to work. I really hope everything worked out for her.

I think of this woman, in our society today, when we don't abandon the blind or assume sinfulness led to their condition, when they have programs to read the internet to them, books on tapes and seeing eye dogs, being so nervous about the world when I read this:

"In regard to the man born blind (John 9), the question was asked of Jesus, “Who’s sin was it, this man’s or his parents’, that he was afflicted with blindness?” Jesus said it was neither. In other words, the question was a false dilemma. And those who asked it were trying to reduce to two options something that had more than two. There was another option. Jesus said, “It wasn’t because of his sin or his parents’ sin. This person was born blind so that the power of God and the grace of God may be made manifest.” That person was suffering not from persecution. His suffering was used by God to bring honor and glory to Christ.

I mention this instance because it is a clear biblical case in which suffering has theological value – not merit, but value – insofar that it is useful to the purposes of God.

That is so cruel. There is no glory there, only the sort of rank cruelty that is the privilege of the able. Only a person who has never suffered so could say something like that.

Think of this man, 2,000 years ago, born blind. Think of his life. There were no accommodations, no Americans with Disabilities Act, no organizations to help the disabled, no seeing eye dogs or canes. He was pretty much at the mercy of his family and a primitive, superstitious world. A primitive, superstitious world that viewed his disability as clear evidence of sin.

Imagine that you had the power to set things on fire with your mind. Imagine further that you proved it by setting a complete stranger on fire. And then, as they screamed in agony, you said, "Hey, this is all to make me look good, stop complaining." According to Jesus, that's exactly what he did.

That isn't glory, that is cruelty on a breathtaking scale. And these people celebrate it.

*At first I assumed there was some sort of wide scale industrial accident leading to a much higher than normal incidence of blindness, but I never go for the obvious answer first.

Live by Every Word

The Brick Testament, bringing the Bible back to its roots.

This is a rather excited defense of the King James Bible (arguably the worst translation of the Bible), which doesn't actually address why that version is better than any other version, but does contain this:

God wants us to live by EVERY WORD that proceeds out of His mouth...which is why it is SO important that we have an EVERY WORD Bible. It is soooo sad that Christians are falling for Satan's cruel and brilliant plan, to take away the ONE offensive weapon we have (THE SWORD) in our spiritual armor, and replacing it with something that looks kind of the same, sounds kind of the same, seems to have the same IDEAS, so it must be the same. Read Esp.6, "Put on the WHOLE armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil". Loins girt about with truth, breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation (these are all defensive) and our one offensive weapon is THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT WHICH IS THE WORD OF GOD.

This is the "All caps makes it TRUE" style of argumentation, but the central argument is that God wants us to live by every word in the Bible. Every word. Even the words that contradict other words.

You know, Adam died the moment he tasted the fruit of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Gen 2:17, and he died 930 years later, Gen 5:5. Years were shorter then? I have no idea.

John 14:6- The only way to God is through also God Jesus. Acts 10:34-35- anyone who fears God in the right way is acceptable to him. So, belief in Jesus is necessary or not?

Genesis 6:6. Exodus 32:14, Numbers 14:20, I Samuel 15:35, II Samuel 24:16 God changes his mind.

Numbers 23:19-20, Isaiah 15:29, James 1:17 God does not change his mind.

So . . . does God or does God not change his mind?

In Genesis, Abraham has two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. In Hebrews, Abraham is set to sacrifice his only son. So, what, 1=2? That might help explain how Adam lived to be 930 years old- after he died.

In the ninth chapter of Exodus, God destroys all the cattle. All of them, including the horses. Apparently, Egypt went on quite the cattle buying spree, or there was quite a long time in between plagues, because in the twelfth chapter of Exodus, God kills all the first born cattle. How were there any first born cattle after all the cattle were killed? He killed dead cattle? lolwut?

Then, in Exodus 14, Pharaoh pursues the Israelites on horseback- dead horseback. That's right, Pharaoh was pursuing the Israelites on zombie horses.

You know, I have about 14 pages of book done so far, and in my latest reread, I noticed that, for no apparent reason, the main character, Lucia, switches from calling the Devil "Lucifer" to "Satan". There's no instory reason for it. What happened was I wrote the scene between Lucia and Lucifer first, then went back and put in the beginning of the story. Because I wrote the two about a week apart, I forgot what I had already been calling the Devil. Once I read the two pieces together, I noticed it.

That's what happens when you write stories, you get inconsistencies. The Bible is a collection of stories written by many different people over many centuries. It's not surprising that there are inconsistencies. I couldn't keep one character's name straight over 14 pages written in the space of one week. What this definitely proves however, is that the Bible is not the word of some omnipotent being, whom I would expect to be better able to keep track of such things than me.

I have seen some pretty interesting defenses of these inconsistencies, though not the one involving the Twice Dead Zombie Horses of Pharaoh*. For example, Adam was dead to God when ate the fruit, he didn't physically die until 930 years later. Uh huh.Or the Bible isn't divinely inspired. Occam's Razor, people. Live it, love it.

*I call that as my next book's name right now.

That's . . . Contradictory

These people have never heard of Jesus. Lucky them.

This question comes up a lot in Christian circles: If everyone has to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior to get into Heaven, what about people who have never heard of Jesus or the Bible? Do they go to Hell? It doesn't seem fair at all.

Keep in mind, a tribe living in the jungles of Brazil has never had contact with the rest of the world. Therefore, logically, they have not had any opportunity to hear the gospel. None. Any attempt to share the gospels would be genocide as they, like the indigenous peoples of what is now the US, probably have no immunity to common viruses we all carry.

The answers to the question are hilarious, illogical and utterly contradictory to Matthew 28:19-20 a/k/a "The Great Commission:

¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Anyway, here we go, what happens to Brazilian indigenous tribespeople if they don't get hold of a Bible soon:

Answer: All people are accountable to God whether or not they have “heard about Him.” The Bible tells us that God has clearly revealed Himself in nature (Romans 1:20) and in the hearts of people (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Really? Then why evangelize at all? Why all the pamphlets and websites and home visits and such?

The problem is that the human race is sinful; we all reject this knowledge of God and rebel against Him (Romans 1:21-23). If it were not for God's grace, we would be given over to the sinful desires of our hearts, allowing us to discover how useless and miserable life is apart from Him. He does this for those who continually reject Him (Romans 1:24-32).

Or, you know, sends them to hell.

In reality, it is not that some people have not heard about God. Rather, the problem is that they have rejected what they have heard and what is readily seen in nature.

So, those indigenous persons who have had no contact with the outside world have heard of Jesus? How? I suspect the person who wrote this is simply unaware that there are people who have had no contact with the world. You know what I googled to get that link? "People who have had no contact with the outside world". It's 2011, figure out the internet already.

Deuteronomy 4:29 proclaims, “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.” This verse teaches an important principle—everyone who truly seeks after God will find Him. If a person truly desires to know God, God will make Himself known.

Considering the eternal torment sure to follow, shouldn't god be the one all hot to find us? Also, if you are unaware that such a god exists, why would you be looking for him with all your heart and soul? That would be like a child from a famine stricken county desperately searching for a Williams & Sonoma catalog.

God is very clear in His Word that He reveals Himself to everyone, they just need to follow up on what they see in the creation, and what they feel in their conscience, as a result of His laws being implanted or written on their hearts. So often people will accuse God of being unjust due to so many people being in countries where the gospel isn't widely available. God is 'perfectly' just; because of this, our standard of justice is not as high as His. If fallen, sinful humans think they have a quarrel with God because of their perception of His supposed 'unfairness', they better think again. It just shows that they don't know Him.

lol wut? That's . . . nonsensical. Just wombat bicycle running tall book would. I'd fisk* it, but honestly, I have no idea what this person is trying to say.

Isn't it also amazing that unsaved or saved, at the Judgements, He deals with each person, every person that has ever been born in the whole of history, individually! It is amazing show of love to me, even as he must condemn, that he considers each person specifically when delivering His verdict. There will not be one person who has ever lived that will go into eternity without knowing precisely why the judgement was rendered.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to be much comfort to the people being tortured by demons for all eternity.

Imagine that! For all the unsaved, He could have just issued a blanket statement like "You didn't believe" and wave His hand and be done. But, no every person will still meet God face to face! I know it is a terrible thing for the unsaved, but it just reinforces His love to me, that even if you reject Him, even when He knows that the individual before Him must be condemned, He takes the time to personally judge each one. If He didn't love all humanity, I don't think He would do that. What an amazing Father we have!!!!!

See, now I would consider forgiveness to be evidence of love, but apparently I've been doing the love thing wrong all these years. Which makes me very concerned for this person's children, btw.

Well I will try to sum this up as best as I can:

Everybody is created with the knowledge of The Lord, which is embedded in them. Now whether or not people accept Him, is another issue all together. I personally don't agree with the 'But I didn't know any better' excuse.

Just like a 5 year old child who tells a lie, the child knew better, but did it anyway, hoping to feign ignorance. The child didn't have to be told 'It's wrong to lie' The child already knew that. His concious told him it was wrong.

Yes people are born with the knowledge that had been imparted with them, but too many people feign ignorance because they are happier being sinners, and don't want to have to be reminded of the consequences of sin.

And that's my take on the matter

Somebody doesn't have any experience with children. Children are not born knowing social rules. They are born with some knowledge of basic physics, but not with social rules. Until you tell a child it is wrong, children will bite, hit, lie and generally be obnoxious little animals. Never mind that small children have a very tenuous relationship with reality and have a hard time separating fact from fiction, and, until you have theory of mind figured out, lying isn't quite the same thing as it would be for an adult.

Well, naturally God wasn't saying that they would be born again, just by looking at the world of His creation around them; what He was saying is that in creation, there is an obvious creator. If they observe and ask, He will move toward them in manifesting Himself, and eventually, if they keep seeking and asking, He will reveal their need for a Savior Who is Jesus Christ. You'd be amazed at some of the missionary biographies and what they've reported regarding the work that God had already done in people's hearts prior to the missionary's arrival.

Oh, okay, so these indigenous persons are eventually going to walk into Sao Paolo requesting a Chick Tract, if you please.

Again, if everybody already knows about god and will eventually request the necessary salvation information from you, why bother evangelizing? It's all very confusing to me.

*I think I'm using that word correctly, but I'm not sure.

I Think I May Be God's Favorite Little Light and Other News

We'll start with the other news because what can follow the discovery that I may potentially be God's favorite little light?

When it comes to adolescents genuinely committing to their faith, a study found that their social environment determines how strong their faith level will be.

...

According to the study, titled “Seven Anchors of Religious Commitment,” parents, religious leaders, a faith community, rituals and traditions, faith tradition or denomination, God and sacred texts are crucial to a young person's faith.

Emily Layton, who conducted the analysis as part of her M.S. thesis for the study, explained to The Christian Post, “Relationships were extremely important – relationships with parents, with church leaders and relationships with people in their faith community. That was interesting to me, the relationships with other adults in their faith community as well as other younger teens.”

Shock, shocked I am! Religion is a function of society? The more religious the people around you, the more normalized ritual is in your community, the more likely you are to believe and believe strongly? It's almost like religious belief is like every other sort of belief: a function of it being so pervasive and normal that you never really think about it.

Well then.

Anyway, in the wake of the horse killing homophobes, somebody in real life* told me that the perpetrators could not have been Christian. For the record, I did not say that the perpetrators were Christian, I said that many of the people who spew homophobic hatred are. She not only strawmanned my argument, she whipped out a No True Scotsman so fast I got whiplash. I, of course, argued against the No True Scotsman and was told to read Isaiah and see if anyone who could do such a thing- kill horses, not spread hatred, I don't think she was really opposed to that- could possibly be the light of God, i.e., a Christian.

It's a damn good thing she used the phrase "light of God" because Isaiah is a big book, and what she was referencing, I think, is in chapter 58.

They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
³ ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
⁴ Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
⁵ Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?

So . . . I'm a socialist, which makes me obviously against worker exploitation, and I'm not in favor violence . . .

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice

I am so against injustice!

and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

I am so trying to break every yoke! It's the whole point of my blog.

⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

I do that (and then end up being the hungry, but whatever) and I rarely don't have someone sleeping on the couch in the basement.

when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

I've never actually seen a naked person in public, but if I did, you'd better believe I rush to cover that up.

⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;

Metaphorical healing, perhaps . . . wait! Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is totally making me better mentally.

then your righteousness^[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

If anyone can make an argument that "righteousness" and "rear guard" actually mean "Jägermonster", I will worship the Christian god with a fervor previously unseen in all 2,000 years of Christianity.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

oppression like American business and landowners being free to legally discriminate against gays? Malicious talk like telling people the gays are coming for your children? Like that?

DO THESE PEOPLE EVER READ THEIR OWN DAMN BOOK?

¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

How do they syncretize this with going galt? am I insane or are they?

then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

Which would doubtless make it hard to sleep, but seriously folks, by this measure, I'm the greatest fucking christian of all time and god's favorite little light. (Or the greatest Jew of all time, given that Isaiah is Old Testament.)

*Remember the lady who told the bus driver that god gave him his house? It was her. I wasn't talking to her, I was talking to another woman and she jumped right in to fallacy me into sputtering. She's fun like that.

Blasphemy, I'm Committing It

Rule 34

Since it's the Easter today, I have been seeing for weeks posts about the great sacrifice of Jesus. He died for our sins, you see. He suffered for all mankind. We fucking owe him! (I'm condensing a bit.)

So I'm going to commit the same blasphemy I did at the age of 6 and ask, "What sacrifice? He was god. That can hardly be considered sacrifice from god."*

To condense the entire Jesus story into a single paragraph:

God makes man. God makes a tree that contains all truth and puts it, unwatched, right out in the open, five feet away from man. Unsurprisingly to everyone but God, man eats the fruit of the tree. Man is now sinful, and now all his descendants are sinful. Yes, the descendants didn't do a thing, but Hell for them, too. God lets this go for a few thousand years and then decides to go to Earth as a human to fix this by being tortured and killed. How this fixes anything or why this was the best method of fixing things or why God waited a few thousand years to fix things is never explained.

Now get on your knees and pray!

None of that makes sense. But what really doesn't make sense is how God as a man briefly suffering and then dying- how surprised was Satan to see God in Hell for a few days?- is a sacrifice at all. Jesus suffered for what, a few days? God is eternal, mind you. God's been around, unchanged since ever. What's three days in comparison to ever? Nothing, nothing at all.

I've been sick for about a decade now. That's 3,650 days. I've been suffering for 3,647 days more than Jesus suffered, ignoring leap years. So why isn't everyone worshipping me? I mean, 3 days? Fuck off! Don't you dare fucking whinge to me about 3 days of suffering. Seriously, fuck you.

If someone told me that I could, today, be whipped, have a crown of thorns shoved into my skull and then be nailed to a cross to hang there for 12 hours or so and then I would never be in pain again, my body would be healthy and without any disease of any kind, I would kiss their feet for offering me such an opportunity. I would buy the cat o' nine tails myself, build my own cross and nail my own feet to it. (I can't believe denelian wouldn't do so as well.) Don't act like that's a sacrifice, people.

And, I'm human. I'm not God. God is omnipresent, which means, practically speaking, that only a tiny portion of God was being human, since not all of God could fit in a human body. So only the tiniest portion of God suffered anything at all. That makes anyone going on about Jesus' suffering like someone with a hangnail telling me their agony is so much worse than what I've been enduring for ten fucking years.

Yeah, you know what? You come back and tell me about the Jesus story when he's suffering a tenth as much as me. Then we'll talk.

Feel free to hand me a bag of Cadbury MiniEggs in the meantime, though.

*I probably did not use those exact words.

Sometimes, You Need to Think About What You Are Saying

A good friend of mine, who spends each April mourning her mother, sent me this email:

My cubemate's husband was in a horrific motorcycle accident on Sunday, and airlifted to Indy. Turns out, he didn't break anything or have any internal bleeding, just cuts and bruises, especially to his face (he went through his motorcycle's windshield). So he was REALLY REALLY LUCKY. And I'm very happy for her that he was - they're a lovely couple and they have big hearts and are just...they're very nice.

But all morning, as she has recounted (over and over AND OVER) for coworkers what happened, the conversation never fails to turn into THIS:

"Well, God must have big plans for him...."

You know what? I get that it was scary and that your faith made the whole thing easier for you, and that you feel fortunate (and maybe even survivor's guilt) that it turned out SO WELL and EVERYONE I work with is just SO READY to also believe it wasn't anything but blind luck. I get it. I do. And that's fine. You're entitled to believe that and take comfort in it.

Guess their god didn't have any big plans for my Mom.

That last line kills me. It kills me because I can picture her head tilting forward a little bit in sadness, her voice thickening up with tears, and that unspoken sentence afterwards: My mom, whom I love all my heart, who was my first love, who I really, really need right now, just wasn't special, huh?

I get it. None of her coworkers are trying to make my friend cry, none of them are trying to say that her mom wasn't special, and likely all of them would be at least embarrassed upon hearing what her thoughts on that are. They're not trying to be hurtful, they just are.

The fact of the matter is, if God saves some, then he kills others. If he has "special plans" for some, then he does't have any plans for others. And what makes this guy so much more worthy than my friend's mom, or all the people who died in the tsunami in Japan, or in Indonesia or in New Orleans or in the Holocaust or at Hiroshima? Those people, I guess, just weren't special enough for God.

The little sparrow in the field is special to God, it says so right in the Bible, but no my friend's mom. This guy on a motorcycle is so special!, but not the children who die of abuse and neglect and disease and starvation and war. They're not special. Just the sparrow and this guy on a motorcycle.

Really, this is an image of God, up there in Heaven, looking down on us saying, "this one, not that one, her child, but not your mother, him, but not you . . ."

That is so much more comforting than no god at all? Really?

Have You Read the Entire Bible?

I have. Cover to cover in several different translations. I'm an atheist, surely a group of fundamentalist Christians- who base every moment of their lives on the Bible- could say the same?

Not so much.

I'm almost 53 and have ignored his word long enough.

I started in Genesis and just turned to Ezra this morning.

I've learned a lot already.

For those who have read through the bible, what did you do when you finished? Start over??

My plan is to read through and start over at the beginning and STAY in the word. That is where I feel safe.

I've learned a lot about the faith I already had!

I have read only parts of both Chronicles, both Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but other than those, I have read the rest of God's Word at least once, most books in the NT many more times than once and that was how I became born-again---reading my Bible, book by book in context, at my kitchen table.

So, you read it book by book, but not Chronicles, Kings, Jeremiah or Ezekiel? I guess 62 out of 66 ain't bad.

i wish i could say that [i've read the whole thing], the heart is willing....

Hey, I'm an atheist, and I read all the begats- more than once! Yeesh.

I'm ashamed to say I've never read the Bible all the way through. Parts of it, yes. But not the whole thing. I start with the intention of doing so, and then I always get distracted and fail.

I've read some of it. It's totally the most important thing in my life, though. I live every moment by what it says . . . in the limited portions I have read.

Statistically most people who set ouyt to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation get bogged down early on in the OT. If you attempt this some of the books and chapters are kind of redundant and you wind up asking yourself, "Didn't I just read this yestersay?"

Yestersay aside, the Bible, the literal word of god, is a bit redundant.

I have read probably all of the new testament... and parts of the old.

Probably all? Parts? It's only, you know, central to your faith.

You know what bothers me the most about this? It makes "the Bible is the literal word of God- and that's why I'm trying to install a theocracy and why I hate gays" so disingenuous. Think about this for a second. If I thought any book was the direct word of an omnipotent, omniscient being who had the ability and apparent desire to torture me for all eternity, I would do nothing but read the Bible. I might not even bother with working and doing dishes and mopping floors. Even if I did do those things, I certainly wouldn't waste any time watching tv or reading other books or playing video games or chatting online.

These people can't get through the New Testament (the superrelevant part for Christians), let alone the Old Testament, yet they still claim to believe the book is the literal word of such a god? Stop lying to me.

John Piper Broked Mai Brane

How can we hate what is evil if god has ordained it to happen?

That's a question that ended with me as an atheist. That's a question that's created quite a few atheists other than me. That, my friends, is a dangerous question.

God is omnipotent and omniscient. God has a plan for everyone. Everything is God's doing . . . including a man raping a 6-year-old and then setting her on fire. Yeah, that's God's plan. Think about that for too long and you'll arrive at one of two conclusions: there is no God, or God is a vicious, sadistic psychopath- that loves you very much so get down on your knees and praise him.

John Piper has a different answer:

You hate what God wills to happen if he wills that you hate what he wills to happen. God might will something precisely so that you would hate it.

That first sentence needs a flow chart to be understood, but I think Piper said that your hatred of God's plans is also God's plan. He wants 2 year olds to die slowly and painfully of cancer, and he wants you feel strongly about it. In fact, God might very well have tortured and killed that child just so you'd be all upset when you heard about it.

. . . FUCK?!

Can you imagine being the object lesson in that situation? Can you imagine being the victim, suffering terrible pain all so some other guy can feel something about it? I don't think there's a word to describe how enraged I would be about that.

Think about that for a second. Suppose I lived on a busy street. (I do not.) Suppose my dog keeps getting away from me and running in the street. I could install a fence or something, but if I'm god, I go get another dog and then throw him out into the street in front of a car purely for the purposes of outraging my neighbors.

I would be a complete psychopath if I did that and any sane person would be perfectly justified in hating me for what I did. Not God, though. God's awesome! Everything God does is great. Including killing children and kittens and puppies just to make some guy sad.

The other way is to identify obvious commands like "Thou shalt not kill," as the will of God too. He can ordain that someone kill his son and yet still say, "Thou shalt not kill." That is not schizophrenia. God is not against himself. He has his wise and holy purposes for ordaining what he ordains. But we should govern our lives according to the revealed will of God (his moral will).

No, John, it's not schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is an illness, the word you're looking for is "contradiction". And how is that not contradictory? God says not to murder. God ordains someone to murder. Do not murder. Murder. Do not murder. Murder.

Hey, if you can find some way to resolve the contradiction, tell me all about it. (Note: simply asserting "there is no contradiction" is not enough. Anyone can assert anything. Prove it.)

When it says, "Thou shalt not kill" or "covet" then we should not kill or covet. If God gives a person up to their own covetousness as a means of judgment then you can look at that covetousness and say, according to Romans 1, that it is God's will that the person be given up into their covetousness. But still we should not covet, because God has told us not to.

Again, wtf is God's problem? Don't covet, but, you, Bob, you're going to be coveting. Everything. No, don't covet! What is wrong with you people? I am being perfectly clear.

I don't disagree that we should hate the horrific evil that is in the world. We should hate Satan's designs to destroy people, even though God could snatch Satan out of this world in a minute. He could take him away. He is clearly willing that there should be a Satan, otherwise he would destroy him in a minute. Therefore the fact that Satan is there by God's permission and design does not reduce my hatred of Satan, because God ordains that I hate Satan. In fact, one of the reasons he leaves Satan marauding in the world is precisely so that there would be an occasion for me to declare myself to be morally against evil. If there were no evil there then that kind of dynamic wouldn't even happen.

Again, bad things happen- to other people- just so you can hate them. We could live in a utopia free of hatred, pain, suffering, loss, grief, death, etc., but then you wouldn't have anything to hate. God is so good!

Honestly, I don't know why I bother. Christians do more to prove their religion ridiculous than I ever could.

That's Your Final Answer? You Really Don't Want to Change It? You Sure?

An animation of the interaction inside a neutron. Mostly unrelated, but cool.

ETA: The link to the article I was fisking. Oops!

I would like to begin this by pointing out that "New Atheist" is a code phrase, not an honest descriptive. There is no such thing as "new" atheism. Atheism is the lack of a god belief, nothing more. There hasn't been anything new in atheism since ever. Anything other than a lack of god belief is not atheism.

"New Atheism"/"New Atheist" refers to atheists speaking their minds, writing books and blog posts, wearing T-shirts and putting stickers on their cars and generally being exactly as open and vocal as Christians are in the US. So, of course, we're "rude", "shrill", "angry", "bitter" awful people who need to shut the fuck up and leave the talking to the Christians. Cuz, you know, privilege.

Anyway, here's a fun post:

This is why I don't--why I can't--agree with the so-called New Atheists. Yes, some people's religions lead them to believe demonstrably false statements, such as that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you can cure cancer with acupuncture, or prayer can change the path of a hurricane. These people are wrong and should be argued with, as well as pitied. And yes, some people use their religions to justify causing great harm and suffering. These people are assholes and should be opposed.

But most religious people, which is to say most people, don't. Nothing in their religion leads them to believe anything demonstrably false, or that ever could be demonstrably false. There is thus no meaningful sense in which atheism is more or less objective, or more or less correct, than any of a host of religious worldviews, and most of the arguments otherwise are strawmen. True, atheism is more parsimonious, but parsimony is a standard of the scientific method; there is no particular reason to insist on it in other endeavors.

That raises a whole host of questions. Are you capable of agreeing with old atheists, you know, the quiet, in-the-shadows, hope-nobody-finds-out atheists? Are they just a little easier to take? Yeah, fun.

I. All religious beliefs cannot be true, therefore most, if not all but one, must be false, therefore the following statement is false.

But this, Nothing in their religion leads them to believe anything demonstrably false, or that ever could be demonstrably false, is a thing of beauty. Not one thing. Not one thing in their religion leads them to believe anything demonstrably false.

That actually cannot be true. See, the author never specifies a certain religion, though I suppose he meant Christianity. But he does not specify. Therefore, he says that this is true for Christians and Shintoists and animists and Muslims and pagans and Jews and Hindus and Zoroastrians and everybody else.

Suppose the atheists - whether new, old, medium, well done, beer battered and fried- are wrong. Suppose there is a divine force that created the universe, a divine force we refer to as god(s). So simply believing in god would not be demonstrably wrong. But religion goes a little further than simply "Hey, there's a god!" If I am a Muslim, I believe entirely different things about the nature of God(s) and what he/they expect(s) from me than a Hindu does. My religion requires that I believe these things. If I don't believe these things, I am not Muslim or Hindu.

In other words, even if there is/are (a) god(s)*, most people are believing something demonstrably false. They have to be.

II. This is a blameshift, not an honest argument

But, let's disallow the existence of unproven god(s). I am, after all, an atheist, so I don't believe in any of that. Let's reexamine the statement that Nothing in their religion leads them to believe anything demonstrably false, or that ever could be demonstrably false. First of all, the previous statement is Yes, some people's religions lead them to believe demonstrably false statements, such as that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you can cure cancer with acupuncture, or prayer can change the path of a hurricane.

So, really, I think this is more about pushing Christians the author considers embarrassing away from hir own faith than anything else. There's no real need to bring up atheists new, near, far, where ever you are, into this at all, unless you're going for what all siblings recognize as the double blameshift: It wasn't me and zie's worse! Those other Christians believe ridiculous things that have nothing to do with Christianity (though they'll totally say it does), and anyway, atheists are ridiculous, too. I'm totally reasonable.

I get it. Nobody wants to be associated with some asshole saying that Japan totally deserved what they got because they don't worship the right god the right way. But you know what the difference is between me and the author? I don't deny that guy is a US citizen just like I am. I'm not happy about it, but I don't verbally decitizenize him to make myself feel better.

I also get that believers must feel a bit put upon when they read (up down charm strange top bottom) atheists' writings asking for proof and stuff. "Hey, can you prove you love your wife? Then don't ask me to prove god and the afterlife and miracles." Yeah, that's asinine. Stop asserting stuff you can't prove. And if being asked to do so makes you feel all sad inside, well, I don't know what to tell you. I wouldn't believe you flapped your arms and flew to work without proof, either, so don't feel too bad.

III. Adding demonstrably does not make your beliefs any more true, nor do they now require less proof.

Perhaps, though, I am missing the point. Perhaps the proof is in the adverb pudding**. Nothing in their religion leads them to believe anything demonstrably false, or that ever could be demonstrably false.

Demonstrably. Hmmm . . . I'd have to demonstrate the beliefs are false. Haha! Tricky! But not. Suppose I tell you that I have the cure to cancer in this coffee cup. I would imagine you'd want me to demonstrate that the substance in my cup actually cures cancer, wouldn't you? Would you be convinced if I told you that I'm not going to do that, but you can't prove that it doesn't? I would hope not. I would hope that you would go about your day, secure in the knowledge that I do not have the cure to cancer in a coffee cup.

That's what the less strident god belief is, really. I can't prove there isn't a god, so there is one. Take that atheists! You can't demonstrate I'm wrong, so I must be right! I'm in ur logic syllogizing ur statements!

Right now, I'm an eye-rolling atheist, but hardly new.

*I have been typing so many legal documents. So many. All the parens look normal to me at this point.

**Fucking delicious!