Welcome To Theocracy

Victor Stenger (1935 - 2014)

He posted this article on August 26th and 24 hours later he was dead!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/myths-of-physics-2

Science flies you to the moon. 

Religion flies you into buildings.

(Victor Stenger)

We Are All Going To Die

Erick Erickson is a right wing Christian with a few words to say about Global Warming:

• I Simply Do Not Care About Global Warming
• Folks, I do not care.
• if they are right and the world is warming, there is nothing we can do short of economic Armageddon to stop it.
• The amount of money we would have to spend, if they are right, to stop the inevitable is obscene
• Frankly, I think global warming is a religion of a secular left that rejects the God of creation
• they are manufacturing a panic and their solutions are designed to hinder economic progress.
• This is all orchestrated left-wing crap
• they are maladjusted, angry people in need of prayer
• Let the seas rise. Let the wind blow. We can adapt.
• We are all going to die. Just not today.
• And in the meantime, I simply do not care about this issue.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/08/27/i-simply-do-not-care-about-global-warming/

That's the pathetic part of religious fanaticism. The idea that the whole planet was made for the believer's benefit and, no matter what happens, it will all turn out for the best. Their attitude seems to be:

Cut down all the trees, use up all the oil, pollute all the water, destroy all the forests, turn the world into a desert. It doesn't matter because we won't be here to worry about it. We'll be saved by "The Rapture". We'll be sitting up in heaven with Jesus and watching while all the unbelievers get their come-uppance on a planet ruled by the Devil.

Kevin Sorbo Wonders Why Atheists Care ?

Kevin Sorbo can't understand why atheists care so much about a religion they don't believe in. If they don't believe in god then why does it bother them so much?

Sorbo was being interviewed by Rick Wiles who pointed out that he didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy, but didn't make a fuss about it - so why do the atheists make a fuss about religion.

Well the people who believe in Santa Claus, or pixies, or the Tooth Fairy, are not going door-to-door trying to convert others to their way of thinking. They are not lobbying Government to impose laws that will make life difficult for those who do not believe. They are not asking Government to give them tax-breaks while everyone else has to pay. They are not asking that science classes should include pixies as possible explanations for natural events. They are not asking that all children pray to the Tooth Fairy before the start of each school day. They are not demanding that our courts dole out sentences in accordance with pixie law. Santa Claus believers and Tooth Fairy followers don't do those things - but religious people do...


Anyway, just for the record, here are a few of the,

Reasons Why Atheists Care About Religion

• Missionaries destroying other cultures.
• The demonization of groups that are not religious.
• Persecution of heretics.
• Children dying because their parents refused them medical treatment on religious grounds.
• Slavery supported by scripture
• Holy wars
• Works of art destroyed because they are considered blasphemous
• Censorship of speech, art, books, music, films, poetry, songs and thought.
• Persecution and punishment of blasphemers.
• Exorcisms that often result in the death of the victim.
• People suffering injury or death in the belief that their faith has made them invulnerable.
• Whole countries engaged in war over trivial differences in belief or doctrine.
• Mass suicides of cult-members following a charismatic leader.
• The attempted genocide of followers of opposing faiths.
• The discouragement of rational thought (young-earth creationists, for example).
• Uncontrolled population growth caused by churches prohibiting birth-control and abortion.
• The spread of AIDS due to churches prohibiting the use of condoms.
• Believers whipping and crucifying themselves during religious festivals.
• Fanatical Christians killing people who work in abortion clinics
• Fanatical Muslims flying planes into buildings.
• Women treated as second-class citizens or even slaves
• Pentecostal snake-handlers
• Persecution of homosexuals
• Religious leaders using their power for financial gain or the sexual abuse of children.
• Inquisitions
• Crusades
• Witch Burning

When the Tooth Fairy followers start doing things like that, I'll make a fuss about them as well.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/27/kevin-sorbo-atheists

Kevin Sorbo Exposes Himself

The Christian hierarchy know how to choose their words carefully. They puff up a simple statement with a lot of flowery language in order to leave plenty of escape routes so they can immediately start back-pedalling if the shit hits the fan.

The mugs in the pews are not quite so smart. Whenever a thought pops into their head they spontaneously blurt it out with no obfuscating language to facilitate future back-pedalling. The very simplicity of their brain fart means escape routes are non-existent and they cannot back away from any statement they have made.

But that simplicity causes other problems as well. It makes it very easy to expose the underlying thought processes that caused the Christian to expel the brain fart in the first place. Actor Kevin Sorbo, for example, is the most recent in a long line of Christian zealots who have declared that atheists really do believe in god but they are too proud to admit it.

Now Sorbo would never make that ludicrous claim about any other statement of non-belief. If somebody expressed non-belief in the Tooth Fairy, or Unicorns, or the Hindu god named Ganesha, then Sorbo would never call them liars and say that they really do believe in those creatures - so why does he call people liars when they express non-belief on his own little god?

Well he knows that some of his beliefs are complete nonsense. His religion requires him to believe, for example, that Matthew is telling the truth (in chapter 27) when he says that long dead Christians climbed out of their graves on Good Friday and walked around the streets of Jerusalem where they were seen by many people. Sorbo has to accept such foolishness because he is desperate to get into heaven when he dies, and god will keep him out if he doesn't believe that the bible is true.

Unfortunately for Sorbo, the stupidity of his position is highlighted by every atheist who rejects god and suffers no disadvantage for his unbelief. It almost looks as if Sorbo and his fellow Christians are gullible fools and the atheists are the clever ones who know the real truth...

But Sorbo can't accept that idea so he he casually declares that everybody else believes exactly the same things he believes. He says that everybody knows that god exists, but some people (the atheists) are just too proud to admit it.

So now, instead of looking like an idiot, Sorbo is able to present himself as a completely normal human being who believes exactly same things as every other human being including the atheists!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/27/kevin-sorbo-atheists

Catholic Priest Let's It All Hang Out

Back in February, 2014 "The Observer" (Official Newspaper Of The Catholic Diocese Of Rockford) was proudly boasting that one of their little preachers had taken it upon himself to warn parishioners against the dangers of pornography on the Internet. It "creates loneliness and isolation and confusion ...and it’s going to get worse," he said.

http://observer.rockforddiocese.org/article?id=363

Well it got worse alright - but not in the way the Catholics expected. On May 24th that same little preacher went down to the local gas station and started waving his cock about! He was arrested a short time later.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/24

Aaron Brodeski

Catholic Priest

Hobbies include letting ferret out for a run in public

Remember, you can't be moral without God

Can We Have Our Planet Back?

Original video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv4mSDD4Wd8

Always Let The Atheist Get Nasty First

Blogger Citizenfitz has a few words to say about atheists:

• Some are very stupid. 
• All of them are fools 
• when arguing God with an atheist, you're dealing with a fool. 
• While you may not be on a pedestal, he is definitely in a ditch. 
• Most of them ARE bitter, nasty human beings. 
• they think illogically and often childishly 
• Basically, the atheist is a spoiled child

And right in the middle of all that nastiness he advises other Christians to, 

• Always let the atheist get nasty first

I laughed and laughed and laughed.


You can read the whole thing here:
http://citizenfitz09.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/arguing-god-with-atheists.html

More Christian Love and Tolerance

What horrible deed could some young woman have performed in order to get these reactions from her Christian neighbours?

Burn her

Stone her

Dump her in Iraq

Hang her

Rape her

Murder her

Tell her to jump off a bridge

Shoot her

All of those comments appeared on the WKRG News Facebook page. They were written by devout Christians who left them there until other people started talking about them. Then there was a mad scramble as each of these devout Christians demanded that their comments be deleted for fear that they may have similar threats made against them.

So what were the devout Christians complaining about. What caused them to forget about "love thy neighbour as thyself" and demand, instead, that an innocent young woman should be put to death?

In Alabama the Mobile County Commission voted to put the words "In God We Trust" on a plaque in the city's Administration Building. Then Amanda Scott said that she was not a Christian and felt that the proposed words made her feel excluded from the community. She suggested that instead the Commission should use the Latin phrase "E pluribus unum" which means "out of many, one" and leaves nobody feeling excluded. 

And that's it! That's all she said. And now the devout Christians are baying for her blood. Well not all of them. As noted above, the more cowardly among them have tried to cover their tracks by deleting their comments and hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. (They'll be mightily pissed off when they discover that their names were recorded before their comments were deleted.)

One of those cowards was Bennie O. Ashby who works for the Alabama Department of Corrections; a government worker, whose job involves providing security for people in prison, yet he casually demands that innocent people should be shot on sight!

Christian Love and Tolerance

Original video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su9WmyZzfbw

If the fundamentalist Christians ever get into power in the USA do you think they will have any trouble recruiting believers to work in the torture chambers during their Inquisitions?

Laminin

Laminin is a protein that acts like a glue to hold our body cells together. As shown in the following diagram, it occurs in the basal lamina which lies between the epithelial layer and the stroma, bonding them together:

If we zoom in on the basal lamina we can see it is composed of four different proteins: enactin, perlecan, collagen, and laminin. In this next diagram the laminin is shown in blue. As you can see, it is a flexible protein (like a piece of string) and it's shape can vary depending on its location. It could be stretched out, folded over, or even scrunched up into a ball.

The flexible nature of laminin is made clear in these photos (taken with a microscope) which show the protein taking on many different shapes:

 

Even under the microscope, however, not all of the details are immediately obvious so the biologists have produced diagrams of the laminin protein to make it easier for students to understand what it is and how it works. Here is one such diagram

 

In real life, of course, the laminin doesn't look much like the diagram at all. In this diagram it seems to be a stiff, two-dimensional figure shaped like a cross, but under the microscope we can see that it is a flexible three-dimensional protein that can assume a wide variety of different shapes.

----- ----- -----

But look what happened a few years ago when fundamentalist Christians first saw the diagram. They completely ignored the flexibility and three-dimensional nature of laminin and focused solely upon the diagram where it was depicted as a cross. A cross like the one upon which Jesus was crucified! 

In the world of the fundamentalist that could not be a mere coincidence; it had to be a sign from god.

Probably the excitement would have ebbed away if that was all they had, but then a devout Christian noted that laminin is the "glue" that holds body cells together - and blow me down if there wasn't a bible verse that said practically the same thing:

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  

(Colossians 1:17)

That was all they needed. Within the space of a few days nearly every fundamentalist on the planet was going into raptures about the miraculous cross-shaped glue that holds people together. It was god's message to all mankind, they said - and there was no doubting it, because Saint Paul had talked about it 2,000 years ago in his letter to the Colossians. Jesus (who died on the CROSS) is the glue that holds all things together said Paul. And laminin (the glue that holds our body cells together) is shaped like a CROSS. Halelujah praise the Lord. The message couldn't be any clearer.

We can get a taste of the emotional razamatazz that surrounded the story if we take a look at this video where Louie Giglio almost tearfully spins the laminin story to an audience of gullible Christians. Listen to their gasps of amazement as the story unfolds and be astonished that 21st century human beings can be so bloody stupid. My favourite bit comes at the 3'30" mark where the mugs in the pews actually cheer and applaud when the diagram is revealed. It would be like me drawing a stick-figure picture of a man and you applauding it as the miraculous cloning of a real human being.

 

Of course, when it comes down to the bottom line, Christianity is all about making money, and it wasn't long before the more business-minded members of the flock had taken laminin into the market-place. They were selling wall posters, coffee mugs, T-shirts, and even underpants; all of them dedicated to the cross-shaped protein that could only have come from god! 

Big Bad Goliath

Carrie Dedrick, the editor at "Christian Headlines" has written a story about the upcoming "David and Goliath" movie. Apparently the director has decided not to use CGI gimmicks to create the illusion of a giant and has, instead, hired 7'5" tall Jerry Sokoloski to play the part of Goliath. The director says, "Goliath stood at nine feet, so Jerry was about a foot and four inches shorter than the real thing. He adds an incredible, realistic dimension."

Full story here:

http://www.christianheadlines.com/

Commenters seem to be just as excited: Annette Krecek of Oakland Community College says, "This will be true to history and the biblical account,"  and Shira Levin of Richfield High School writes, "That is awesome! Too few Biblically correct movies these days."

-----

But what do those devout Christians really know about the "biblical account"? Probably a whole lot less than they could ever imagine.

Let's start with the size of Goliath:

Carrie Dedrick says Goliath was nine feet tall and she probably got that idea from the modern bibles that have been translated from a copy of the Masoretic text which dates back to about 1,000 years after the death of Christ. In that text 1 Samuel 17:4 says:

A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span.

But we have original texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls that go all the way back to the time when Jesus was still alive, and in those scrolls (4Q S1) 1 Samuel 17:4 says that Goliath was four cubits and a span tall, or just six feet six inches.

So what happened?

At the time when 1 Samuel was originally written the average height was not much over five feet and therefore, when six feet six inches Goliath arrived on the scene, he was regarded as a "giant". In later centuries, however, the copyists decided to make the story a bit more exciting and they upped the height of Goliath from six feet six inches, to nine feet six inches!

It is worth noticing, by the way, that these figures are not based on mere conjecture. Right now, today, we have the 2,000 year old Dead Sea Scrolls saying Goliath was four cubits and a span, plus the 1,000 year old Masoretic text saying that he was six cubits and span. There is no doubting the authenticity of those texts and there is no doubting the mendacity of the religious copyists who made the changes.

-----

But the bible story gets even more complicated when it comes to the question of who killed Goliath:

In the original Hebrew text 1 Samuel 17:50 says that David killed Goliath, but 2 Samuel 21:19 says that Elhanan killed Goliath.

Years later when the book of Chronicles was being written, the author noticed the contradiction between 1 and 2 Samuel and he tried to fix it by saying (in 1 Chronicles 20:5) that Elhanan killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath

Well that certainly solved the 1 and 2 Samuel contradictions, but then it created a brand new one because 1 Chronicles 20:5 now contradicts 2 Samuel 21:19. One story says Elhanan killed Goliath while the other says Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath!

In many of today's modern versions of the bible these discrepancies still exist, but there are some versions which have tried to solve the problem by adding "the brother of" to 2 Samuel 21:19. Those words do not appear in any of the original Hebrew texts, but what do modern fundamentalist Christians care about the truth when they are defending their God against accusations of errancy?

-----

Christians apologists try to explain the whole mess at this website: 

http://biblestudymagazine.com/interactive/goliath/

-----

Just for the record, however, you should bear in mind that there are many scholars (and I'm talking about well respected Christian scholars, not atheists) who say that David never existed and neither did Goliath. They think the whole story is a myth. Fundamentalists, of course, say otherwise.

Christian Preacher Curses Millions

There are about  ten million gays in America and hundreds of millions more in other parts of the world - and this dear sweet Christian pastor wants every single one of them to catch the Ebola virus and die a lingering painful death.

Original video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G89181Z1qHU#t=263

This is 21st century Christianity at work. And it's not just this one mad self-appointed witchdoctor casting spells over people he doesn't like. This sort of ratbaggery goes all the way to the top. 

In January 2014, for example, the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics around the world declared that his church needs more exorcists to combat the demons that infest the bodies of his followers. And in his April 11th homily the sermon was dedicated to oogedy-boogedy stories about the devil as a real entity!

Hoist On His Own Petard

 

Numbers 32:23

Be sure your sin will find you out

Pastor Rick Joyner - Man of Science

These clips comes from the first two minutes

of the original video which can be found here:

http://www.morningstartv.com/featured-video-week/weightiest-matter

Broadcast June 17, 2014, on Morning Star TV
Program titled "The Weightiest Matter"

If you listen carefully you will notice that Joyner has no real understanding of science; not even a child's grasp of the subject. He is merely spitting out scientific sounding words and phrases in whatever order they pop into his head.

Joyner says: In this science program they were talking about how they've come to believe that some of these black holes, they are having such an impact, where their discovery, you know, the whole supernova, and all this came from, you know, basically, discerning the gamma bursts that were coming from space, but some of these black holes are microscopic... 

His words don't make any sense and neither do they convey any information to to his audience - but his audience dare not say so. Even those who recognise his stupidity do not have the courage to expose him for fear they will be excommunicated and lose their chance for a seat in heaven when they die. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

That Old Time Religion

Joy Joy Joy

Proof of God

What evidence would it take for me to believe that god exists?

I wouldn't accept a miracle as evidence because, no matter how spectacular it may be, I would just assume that I was hallucinating. I would never regard it as a miracle performed by god.

So what would convince me that god exists?

I'd start with the Millennium Prize Problems of the Clay Mathematics Institute. If some character told me he was god, I would ask him for solutions to the problems and if the mathematicians were able to verify those solutions - well we could move on to the next test.

The beauty of my plan is that there is no need for value judgements. In the case of a miracle, even if it really was a miracle, we could still argue about what happened, how it happened, and who caused it to happen, but solutions to the Millennium Prize Problems can be verified by mathematicians. And if they were verified, there would be no doubt that this god character had done something rather special and we could move on to the next test...

"Ah ha!" says the Christian, "You are asking too much because we are not permitted to test god." 

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah (Deuteronomy 6:16) 

Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test." (Isaiah 7:12)

I don't put much store in what the bible says, of course, but let's play along and see what happens:

Firstly, it should be noticed that Deuteronomy is referring to a specific situation - don't test god as you did at Massah - which leaves the way open to test god in other situations that are not the same as they were at Massah. And secondly, Ahaz made a personal decision not to test god, but his decision does not prevent anyone else from putting god to the test.

Furthermore, in other parts of the bible it is made clear that god is amenable to testing. When he was talking about the tithe payments he actually asked his followers to "Test me in this." (Malachi 3:10) And Saint Paul himself gives instructions so that "you will be able to test and approve what God's will is" (Romans 12:2)

So what would be god's next test after solving the Millennium Prize Problems? I'd ask him to write down the password to this blog - or maybe the pin number to my bank account.

I'll bet he won't even get close!

Dealing With Proselytizers

Have you ever come across those people who gently introduce the subject of religion into a casual conversation? I always get a bit wary when that happens because they often turn out to be proselytizers and if you give them half a chance they will start preaching at you. And the worst part is that they don't really give a stuff about you because it's all about them! They are not trying to save you from hell, they are trying to get themselves into heaven. In the back of their mind they are thinking: "Look at me Jesus. See how hard I work for you; preaching your message to everyone I meet. Surely you cannot deny me a place in heaven after everything I've done for you."

So I don't give them a chance to start preaching. Instead of letting them preach, I start asking questions that they have probably never heard before:

What is the correct form of baptism? Affusion? Aspersion? or Immersion? Usually they have to go away and check what the hell those words mean. If they come back with an answer I ask more questions. If the proselytizer opts for Affusion, I ask: Why do you prefer Affusion to Aspersion? Then I ask: Where is Affusion taught in the Bible? If they choose Immersion as the correct form of Baptism I ask if that's Full Immersion, or Partial Immersion? Why is that the case? What is the Bible reference?

I never argue with them, or poke fun at them. I just keep on asking questions in a tone of voice that suggests I might even be interested in their answers. It's the best way to do it because it keeps them on the back-foot, and doesn't give them a chance to accuse me of being rude.

Or I ask if they agree that Patripassianism is true? If they admit ignorance I tell them to go and look it up and that gets rid of them for a while. (Patripassianism is the belief that the Father and Son are not two distinct persons, and thus God the Father suffered on the cross as Jesus.)

Sometimes I ask for the names of all the Apostles - that's apostles, not disciples. There are more than twelve apostles named in the Bible so that will probably shut them up for a day or two. (You can find the names here: Mark 3:13-18; Matthew 10:2-4; Acts 1:13-26; John 1:40-50; 6:71; 20:24; and 21:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1)

Or I ask them what was the first thing Moses commanded when he came back from the mountain with a commandment that said, "You shall not kill"? (The answer is in Exodus 32:27-28: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.)

Or I ask them to explain Malachi 2:1-3 which describes the penalty for failing to honour the name of God. In the New International Version that text has God saying: "I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices." One believer told me that it was a symbolic punishment so I asked what was being symbolized while the poo was smeared on.

Usually one question per day is enough to stop them dead in their tracks - and by the end of the week they will have found some other subject to talk about.

British Comedy

(warning: coarse language)


From the TV show

8 out of 10 cats

Series 16 Episode 7 (Uncut)

But it's not just the professional comedians with a sense of humour.
Check out this British football crowd

And not even the British children get a free pass
Sean Lock hates the little buggers

God Takes A Holiday

God wanted to go on a holiday but couldn't decide where to go.

"What about the Andromeda Galaxy," suggested one of the angels.

"Too crowded," God answered.

"Maybe one of the quasars at the edge of the universe," said St Peter.

"Too far away," replied God.

"How about planet earth," suggested another angel. "It's rather nice down there at this time of year."

"Hell no!" said God, "I'm never going back there again. I was down there about 2,000 years ago and slept with some woman named Mary - and they're still talking about it!"