Monday, June 27, 2011

Examining the Periodic Table of Atheists

OK, so ungodly news released a periodic table of atheists. There are many names on this list, some I'm not even familiar with. There are certainly some names that I think should have been included and others I may just not recognize but would know their work, particularly with the "Wicked of the Web" section.

With the nerd I am, one of the things I was wondering is how some of the symbols were derived. Some are obvious, as they include letters from the persons names. Some, though, are based on works the person is known for, so if you don't know the works, you can't figure out the symbol. Below I will list out those that are not obviously from the person's name, and I'll see how much I know. (Also, any help in figuring these out would be appreciated.)
  • 7. Adam Savage - ?
  • 13. Gene Roddenberry - Star Trek
  • 21. Phil Plait - ?
  • 27. Michael Shermer - Skeptic Magazine
  • 29. - Richard Haynes - ?
  • 30. - David Silverman - He's president of American Atheists, but where does the 'g' come from? The symbol might come from somewhere else.
  • 32. Ian McKellen - My guess is Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings.
  • 33. Eddie Vedder - Pearl Jam
  • 42. Douglas Adams - I feel a bit like an idiot for not knowing this one. :(
  • 47. Morgan Matthew - ?
  • 51. Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook
  • 77. Bobby Henderson - The Flying Spaghetti Monster!
  • 78. Chris Harper - ?
  • 105. Darrel Ray - The God Virus - Easy with a copy of the book on my computer desk!
  • 107. Samuel Clemens - Mark Twain
  • 113. Mohammad Jones - Might just be his name, but reversed?
  • 59. Hemant Mehta - The Friendly Atheist
  • 60. Matt Dillahunty - The Atheist Experience
  • 61. Jennifer McCreight - Blaghag
  • 62. Rebecca Watson - Skepchick
  • 63. Luke Muehlhauser - ?
  • 64. vjack - ?
  • 65. Steve Wells - ?
  • 67. Eli Smith - ?
  • 68. Seth Spreiter - ?
  • 69. Daniel Florien - Name sounds familiar...but I don't know.
  • 70. David Fletcher - ?
  • 71. Brian Keith Dalton - Name sounds familiar...might the guy be a medical doctor?
  • 96. Adam Lee - Maybe the first name in reverse?
  • 99. Andrew Hall - ?
  • 100. Monica Salcedo - ?
  • 101. Adam Brown - ?

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Gay marriage legalized in NY!!!

So, this all happened late Friday night, but I didn't find the time to blog about it yesterday, and I'm still not finding a lot of time today, so I will make this brief...

This is definitely very good news. Bigotry was handed a defeat in New York state, and it is always an occasion for celebration when bigotry loses. Otherwise, other people have covered this, so I will just link you to their articles. The Friendly Atheist made note of the religious exemptions, while Mike the Infidel notes that he thinks this exemption is a good thing; the bigotry of religion is recorded into law. 50-or-so years from now, when gay marriage is legal country-wide, the religious groups will have a tough time claiming they were not all that against gay marriage.

Here are some of the bigoted comments from church leaders:
The leading opponent, Democratic Sen. Ruben Diaz, was given only a few minutes to state his case during the Senate debate.

"God, not Albany, settled the issue of marriage a long time ago," said Diaz, a Bronx minister. "I'm sorry you are trying to take away my right to speak," he said. "Why are you ashamed of what I have to say?"


The Catholic Bishops of New York said the law alters "radically and forever humanity's historic understanding of marriage."

"We always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love," the bishops stated Friday, "We worry that both marriage and the family will be undermined by this tragic presumption of government in passing this legislation that attempts to redefine these cornerstones of civilization."


"State legislators should not decide society-shaping issues," said the Rev. Jason McGuire of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms. He said his organization would work in next year's elections to defeat lawmakers who voted for the measure.
Keep it classy, thee of much faith!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Finally! Soccer!

At last, summer soccer (or football for my international viewers) season has begun. I handed off my captaining duties off to Anthony Schaefer this year and he did a good job recruiting some ringers for our team, Ladybugs (name inspired by the 1992 film).

The first half was great; we dominated on offense and ball control. We scored fairly early in the game. I chased down the ball into the corner with no defenders in front of me. While I was too far out to get in a shot myself, I had time to find the open man to pass to. Unfortunately, that was Zuber on the other side of the field. I managed, though, to get in a good pass, but I have to give credit to Zuber for handling it though. In previous years, I'm not sure my teammates would have been able to control that pass. I know I would not have been able to if it were the other way around.

My memory is struggling to remember the next parts of the game...likely I was not involved in any significant plays and therefore the details are less important to me. I am fairly sure, though, that the next goal was Maria's. I remember yelling, "Shoot it!" shortly before she ended up taking her shot. She slid when she did take the shot. It may have been to save the ball from going out of bounds. As no one was in the area (slide tackling, as well as sliding in general, is against the league rules), the goal counted. (I would warn Maria that I have seen similar goals discounted when a defender is in the area.)

The third goal was an own goal off of a corner kick. The defender had room to make his play, but they were an inexperienced team and he likewise may be an inexperienced player, so he ended up kicking the ball backwards. From memory, he misplayed it off the hop. I think he whiffed the ball on the forward kick, but then hit it on the recoil.
The forth goal was by our ringer, John. It was a good hard kick that bounced off the ground. No offense to John, but a more experienced goal keeper maybe would have had it...but then I am forced to remember Robert Green.




And those are the highlights I remember from the first half.

So...second half...I think they realized by the second half that they had enough players that they could have nine on the field. We could only have the eight that could make it to the game. We were outnumbered, and their advantage showed. They probably had most of the time of possession for this half, though we still had drives on their side. However, we usually only had the midfielders and forwards up...though I do remember a couple of times the defense did get to move up...it was no where near the time of the first half, though.

Anyway, I think they got the first goal of the half. I don't quite remember the events leading up to the goal. At this time, I was playing forward (I had been playing midfield the first half), so I was away from the action. This may have come after my first shot on the goal...I cannot remember for certain. But, speaking of that shot, I probably should not play left field considering that I cannot shoot with my right foot. The problem with my first shot is that the ball was drifting toward the corner, so I had to cut the ball off to the corner so I could set up to shoot with my right foot, as opposed to shooting with my left and not needing to cut the ball off. Having to cut the ball off gave the defenders a chance to catch up. Therefore, I ended up having to rush my shot and I got way too far under the ball and shot plenty high. At the very least, the direction was correct.
My second shot was much better. The ball was a rebound shot off of a defender. I was able to use my right foot for this one. However, the shot was a little weak on the amount of power I had behind the kick. It was also chest-height, so it was at a good level for the keeper to catch the ball. However, since the keeper was not wearing gloves, he bobbled the ball a little. Not enough though; he did maintain control.
OK, then, at some point, John got another goal. Other people had some other good shots as well. Zuber had one that just missed the outside post. John also had another that went wide. Anthony had one that went toward the inside post, but the keeper had it covered.
And, actually, Anthony's shot came after my shot that went in for a goal. Much like my first shot, this was one that was heading for the corner. Again, I had to get around it. I was hoping to hit the outside post, but I ended up hitting it toward the inside post. In fact, it hit the inside post to rattle in. That was not where I wanted the ball to go, but I will take it.
Frankly, my leg was hurting a little at this point. I was having difficulty in the second half with collisions with players on the other team. I took a knee to the right quad (so, my shooting leg) fairly early in that second half. It was stiff for some time; though later the fatigue was my top enemy.
Lastly, near the end of the game, the mental fatigue was getting to me. Ryan had blocked a shot, but was unable to control the ball. The ball was popped up, and for a moment, I reflected back to my days as a goal keeper and wanted to catch it. I came to my senses before it was too late, but the one thing I did wrong was that the ball ended up scraping against my chest. I was facing the goal, by the way. What I perhaps should have done was set myself up for a header. Anyway, it all worked out. There was no one from the other team in the area, and I didn't contact the ball enough to push it toward the goal. I managed to wrap my foot around the ball off the bounce and kick it out.

And speaking of headers, that reminds me of a play I missed in the first half. It was a beautiful pass from John from the sideline that was high so I could have tried to head it in. However, I got too close to the goal, placing me too far under the ball, so I hit it up way more than I hit it toward the goal. Hopefully that was some first-game rust coming off.

Before I wrap up, I should cover some of the other players, instead of just being me me me me! Mostly I want to give kudos to Karl for pressing forward with the ball. Karl did really good going one-on-one with opponents, especially given his experience. This is an area I still struggle with (I try to find a passing lane whenever I can). Good job with the aggressive defense!

So, on to next week. It looks like this team has some people who had been in the competitive league in years prior, so I expect the game to be a struggle. I guess that means I'll just have to train hard this weekend while my wife is away at work! And the forecast looks great!


EDITS:
For those keeping score at home, the final score was 6 to 1.

I also want to criticize myself for kicking the ball too hard on many of my touches. Hopefully that is more first-game rust coming off.

Lastly, much of my body hurts this morning after. A lot.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Follow up on Black Atheists of Atlanta

As I mentioned in the edits of my previous post on this topic, the crew at Ask an Atheist found out that the Black Atheists of Atlanta are not the primary atheist group in Atlanta. As promised, I would put up a post (this one) when the video was available. So, here it is in two parts:



Monday, June 20, 2011

Blacks tithing to stay in poverty

Jamila Bey gave a speech at the American Atheists national convention in April in which she talked about how black women have a bad habit of tithing away their savings to the church. Well, The Young Turks covered a story about a woman giving a bunch of money to Bishop Eddie Long, "a preacher who recently settled a court case involving gay sex with twenty five million dollars."



The white hosts wonder if she was a plant, but Jayar thinks she was legit. Based on what I heard from Jamila Bey, I agree. This is the scam of the prosperity gospel: Those who devote themselves to Jesus will be blessed with riches, only you are really devoting yourself to the church and the way you show your devotion is through tithing. It's basically one of those email money scams where you are promised millions of dollars, but you have to spend money first. This throws the authority of a deity on top of that scam and has the added benefit of playing on people's confirmation bias. For example, whenever something positive happens in the person's life, it will be credited to their god (and evidence that the gospel works), but negative events will be brushed aside. This is the same thinking that makes people believe that prayer works, only under this system, prayer is partially substituted with money to the church. Frankly, all churches do this to some extent, even if only to the extent of paying their bills and paying the pastor a moderate wage, but some push this idea more than others. It should be obvious to outsiders that this one takes it to an extreme, where one would think the hypocrisy should be obvious to the insiders. And to some it probably is, and they will leave the church, but the problem is that they probably don't do a good job of taking other people with them. And at the other end of it, those who are convinced that it works will try to proselytize and drag new gullible people into the church. It is a sad cycle that can perhaps only be broken by those who recognize the scam. It is really up to the Jayar's of the world to stop this. That, and better public education wouldn't hurt.

Friday, June 17, 2011

My disappointments with the Weiner situation.

WARNING: The following blog post contains language not appropriate for children who have been handled with kid gloves as well as adults with the naivety of such children.


I was disappointed last night when I heard that Anthony Weiner resigned, but, upon further reflection, if that is what he felt he needed to do, then so be it. What really pisses me off is the pressure he received from his colleges. I talked to my father this morning, and he wanted Weiner to resign as he thinks we should hold Democrats to a higher standard. When it first came out that Weiner had indeed sent out those photos, I thought he should resign. Then I reconsidered...

The first thing I considered is that this is his private life and it should be just that: private! Nothing illegal was done in this situation. When Republicans engage in such behavior, I call them out primarily because they campaign on "family values." This makes what they do hypocritical toward their voters. Weiner may be a hypocrite toward his own wife and family, but not to his voters.

He did, however, lie at first. I had to consider this. So I tried to put myself in his shoes as much as I could. I suspect that must be embarrassing as hell (figure of speach) to admit that you cheated on your wife. It would then reason that it could be challenging to admit said event. From there it would then reason that one might fail at that challenge, and that failure result in lying about it. So I get it. I can forgive Anthony Weiner for lying to the public.

Recently today, I had another light turn on. As I said, my father said he holds Democrats to a higher standard. This got me thinking today, "What standard? Whose standard?" (Or maybe the better question is, "Why is this part of your standard?") The answer to that came from the conversation I had with my father. I mentioned that humans are very sexual animals, but mostly we talked about bonobos, which are homo sapien's second closest living relative, right after the chimpanzee. (I don't even care if you don't believe in evolution if you instead believe that the creator/god/designer/whatever used a "common template." If that really is the case, then examining chimp and bonobo behavior is important to understanding humans.) I pointed out that bonobos engage in peculiar sexual behavior in that they have sex to resolve disputes as well as make-up sex. Sound familiar to any other species we know? Now, chimpanzees don't display these types of behaviors, but just like bonobos, they are promiscuous. Might humans display similar behaviors? I think the obvious answer is "YES!" Hell, the attention sex scandals get should be evidence enough that humans are very sex-focused. Furthermore, I think this idea that two people are supposed to spend their lives as being each others only sexual partner is not realistic for all humans.

Note the emphasis, because I can imagine some people are wondering if I'm trying to give myself a free pass on cheating on my wife. I'm not. I think people who know me well realize that is not part of my personality...which has likely been heavily influenced by these societal ideas of marriage. However, I'm not going to judge people who cannot live up to such a lifestyle as I realize that it is probably not in the human nature to do so. I put more blame on society for having such an expectation, and part of the problem here is...wait for it...religion! Now, this opens another can of worms that I don't want to deal with here, but the problem is that religion tends to control sex in order to control people. I will try to get a post up in the near future to explain how this works. For now, just look at Christian religions. You'll hopefully notice that the more fundamentalist denominations also have more restrictions on sex, while the more liberal denominations have fewer restrictions.

There are basically two points from this:
  1. Marriage may not have been right for Anthony Weiner, but did he get married to fit with societal norms? ...Norms which I don't think should exist. (Not to mention that he is a Jew who married a Muslim...maybe not a good recipe for a happy marriage...it would likely be challenging at the least...but I'm just speculating here.)
  2. Why is this even a standard we should be expecting politicians to live up to? (Unless they campaign on that standard.) This standard is a conservative/religious standard! Should I hold a Democrat up to a higher standard on this conservative value than a Republican? One word: No! ...Correction! Make that two words: FUCK NO!!! I WILL NOT play by THEIR rule book!

The second thing I considered is what I consider important. And, adding to the first consideration, what someone does in their private life is not one of them! With the way the Democrats have been nearly bending over backwards to avoid confrontation with Republicans, a Democrat who stands up for what he believes in is a huge plus! Weiner is such a Democrat. (Yes, yes, you could argue that he didn't stand up for his marriage, but then I've essentially addressed this already!) That's not to say I agreed with him on everything! His views toward Israel are a good example of where my views differ greatly with his.

Speaking of spineless Democrats, this brings me to my third consideration, which really is more of a reaction...whatever. The more I heard about Democrats asking Weiner to resign, the more I wanted him to stay. I can hardly stand this shit anymore! The Republicans keep blackmailing the Democrat politically, and they keep giving in!

The New Republic put out a good article today covering some of this.
Obama also opined that Weiner should resign because he can’t serve the public effectively—that was the same day he presided over a fundraiser in a half-empty Miami auditorium, while Republicans were successfully blackmailing the Democrats and the country over their vote for the debt ceiling. Obama is worried about Weiner being able to serve “when people are worrying about jobs, and their mortgages, and paying the bills,” but he has not raised a finger to defend Elizabeth Warren, his presumed appointee to head the still-born Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama’s statement was yet another example of what the late Spiro Agnew called “pusillanimous pussyfooting.” Weiner’s resignation means little, except to him and his family, but the willingness of leading Democrats to cave in the face of the campaign against him will embolden the Breitbarts and Eric Cantors of the world to up the ante.
I could not have said it better myself, but this information about Obama out fundraising while not defending Elizabeth Warren and criticizing Weiner really makes me sick. The sad part is I am probably becoming conspiratorial about why Obama is not defending her, who I think is the obvious choice for the CFPB. Selecting her probably angered a number of lobbyists, to which he, or at least his staff, listens to. Now, Obama cannot revoke his nomination of Warren, as that would just be too obvious. But he doesn't necessarily have to defend her, though it does seem silly to nominate her and then not defend her. It is a shame I'll be practically forced to vote for him next election as the lesser of two evils. But I digress.

The last thing I want to post is a video that covers some of the same point that the TNR article did--Democrats caving in only further encourages the Republicans!

Hey, Hament's cause got mentioned on TYT!

I just found out today what happened in Bend, Oregon. First, to whoever did that, you made an ass of yourself and could have made an ass out of atheists in general. Thankfully, there are good people like Hament out there to correct your wrongs! Even I would have perhaps donated some money to protect a reputation (if I had heard about this before enough money was raised)! And on that, it pisses me off that atheists who had nothing to do with this have to spend our hard-earned money to fix this! ...(captures breath)...OK, on the positive side, we've received some positive media attention, but I must say the ends do NOT justify the means! It was good to see this on TYT, and I hear Hament will be on "Fox & Friends" this Saturday morning.




To Ana, there is only ONE Flying Spaghetti Monster! All those others are false gods! :)

To Cenk, great use of the "No true Scottsman" fallacy at the end! :)

Roy Zimmerman is a comedic genius!

The first song I ever heard from Roy Zimmerman was "Ted Haggard Is Completely Heterosexual." That was hilarious stuff. Then, when a video (not the one below) of his popped up on my YouTube home page, I had to check it out, which then got me to check out other videos. I fell in love with this one. I like this idea of a "strawdog" (instead of man), but my favorite part was, "I've got lots of thoughts of my own...no I don't!"

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Michelle Bachmann is dangerous scary!

Michelle Bachmann has been scaring me for a few years now. Originally I was hoping she was from some radical district out of Minnesota and wouldn't stand a chance on a national stage. Unfortunately, my hopes are turning out to be just that as they are not manifesting themselves in reality. It didn't take long for me to figure out that she was an Evangelical Christian wingnut, but she does a descent job of hiding it. The Daily Beast has a great article discussing how she hid her views during Monday's debate.
On Monday, Bachmann didn't talk a lot about her religion. She didn't have to—she knows how to signal it in ways that go right over secular heads. In criticizing Obama's Libya policy, for example, she said, "We are the head and not the tail." The phrase comes from Deuteronomy 28:13: "The Lord will make you the head and not the tail." As Rachel Tabachnick has reported, it's often used in theocratic circles to explain why Christians have an obligation to rule.
Note to my father - This here is a reason why it is good to know what is in the Bible. Christians talk to each other in code, so to speak, and it is good to be able to decipher such code.

Yikes! It gets worse when they reveal that she worked as a research assistant on a book that "argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy." Oh, and the author of that book, John Eidsmoe, supposedly has a history of addressing white supremacist groups. And he is apparently one of the guys Bachmann gets her distorted versions of history from.
Reading Eidsmoe, though, some of Bachmann's most widely ridiculed statements begin to make sense. Earlier this year, for example, she was mocked for saying that the Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly" to end slavery. But in books by Eidsmoe and others who approach history from what they call a Christian worldview, this is a truism. Despite his defense of the Confederacy, Eidsmoe also argues that even those founders who owned slaves opposed the institution and wanted it to disappear, and that it was only Christian for them to protect their slaves until it did. "It might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible."

I've heard she also gets history from David Barton, who is known to make obvious factual errors in the things he says.

I really don't even want to touch on her homosexual bigotry. That is a topic that angers me too much. Just go ahead and read it for yourself!

On the plus side of everything, I keep hearing about how even Republicans are not happy with their choices of candidates thus far, so maybe Bachmann doesn't represent the base of the party...at least not yet.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Black Atheists of Atlanta, your hosts are embarrassing!

UPDATE: I listened to the latest Ask an Atheist episode (video to be added later to a future post), and this is some rouge group that split ties with the Black Nonbelievers of Atlanta, which appears to be the rational atheist group in that community. It is still disappointing to see some radical loons carry the atheist banner (so to speak) around.



I know other atheist bloggers have now beaten me to the punch, but I need to get my thoughts out on this episode from late last month. First, here are the important parts, broken up into three videos:








What is to follow is what I put in the description of the videos. This covers my main objections, though they said a lot of bizarre stuff, and I know I didn't cover all of it.
This is from the May 23, 2011 episode of "The Black Atheists of Atlanta." The hosts make many disappointing comments regarding homosexuality.

Some examples include making an argument from tradition, where they claim homosexuality was originally part of Greek and Roman culture. A caller into the show is the most reasonable one pointing out that the Greeks and Romans may just be the first cultures that are known to accept homosexuals [in their societies], but not that the first homosexuals were Greek or Roman. The hosts also claim that African societies are family centered, but homosexuality is not family centered. [How so?]

They also make up scientific laws, such as what they call the "Law of Reproduction." No such scientific law exists. The idea seems to be that for mammals, a male and female is required for reproduction and that all members of the species have a desire to reproduce themselves. (I derive the first part from the obvious as well as commentary and the second part from their claim about homosexuality being a choice...or that one is not "born that way.") They seem to not recognize, or perhaps they are unaware, that evolution works on a species and not the individual. (The idea here being that not all members of a species need to take part in the reproductive process...at least not to the extent they [imply].)

They also discuss scientists being raciest, which is true, but they get conspiratorial about it, denying any evidence that might go against, dare I say, "their agenda" if it came from a white scientist. They give the example of Piltdown Man, which is indeed a good example of European bias interfering with the scientific process, but they, as many creationists likewise do, ignore the fact that there were scientists suspecting it to be a fraud from the beginning. [They additionally ignore (or their conspiratorial thinking causes them to ignore) that the scientific process is self-correcting. Errors/mistakes can and do happen, but the process tends to discard these, even if it takes many years to do so.]

Another error they make is claiming homosexuals claim to be atheists to get out of the church. That is just complete BS from anything I've seen. Many homosexuals do not want to be thought of as atheists because then they will belong to another underprivileged minority. I personally see many try to reform the more liberal churches, using the claim, "God made me gay" to gain sympathy. It is true, though, that there are likely homosexuals who do become atheists partly due to questioning of their religion resulting from the discrimination. However, they don't become atheists simply by not liking the discrimination. It just doesn't work that way.

In summary, I was disappointed in that I heard a lot of the garbage I typically hear from Christian apologists coming out of the mouths of people who are atheists. Well, this just goes to show how broad the "atheist umbrella" is; all you have to do is reject the claims of a deity. There is no requirement that you have to make that rejection through critical thinking.

I'd also like to note that the caller in parts 2 and 3 was the most reasonable person in the discussion. It was a shame, I feel, that the caller didn't do a better job calling the hosts on their BS, especially where the caller agreed that homosexuality wasn't "family oriented." I'd really like to know why they don't think homosexuality is family oriented. Yes, I get it that homosexuals cannot have children of their own from engaging in homosexual intercourse. But, the hosts point out that Africans (as well as all humans, though they imply otherwise) are communal. Why can't they consider that homosexuals could have a communal role, such as daycare providers or midwives? It would seem the error primarily lies in that one minute they say the culture is communal and then the next minute it is family-based, which are not necessarily the same thing.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

PZ Myers vs. Islamists in Dublin

So, PZ Myers encountered some Muslims at this past weekend's International Atheist Convention (I've also seen it called the European Atheist Convention) in Dublin, Ireland. There are certainly some interesting parts to the video, as I will note below.



PZ: "You're saying Mohammad was some kind of ignoramus living in a cave for all of his life?"

...

Islamist: "In fact, there were no scholars in Arabia in his city. There were only 17 people who could read and write."

...

PZ: "I'm just kind of surprised that your argument rests on the fact that...Arabs were ignorant nomads and knew nothing at all."

Islamist: "Yes, this is what we said, yes." (paraphrased)

Yep, that's right! The Islamists downplay the knowledge of their ancestors in order to support their belief that Mohammad got his scientific knowledge from Allah. The fact is, though, that the Arab world was on the verge of entering a "golden age" in scientific knowledge.

The video gets interesting again around 6:20. It is a bit harder to understand what everyone is saying, as people are talking over each other, but I will paraphrase the best I can.
PZ: "Is that what the Koran specifically says that the bones come first, then the flesh, and then the muscle?"

Islamist: "Absolutely! This is exactly what the Koran says."

PZ: "You've just demonstrated that the Koran is wrong."

Islamist: "How?"

Discussion of Keith Moore's idea that flesh forms after bones (and assumably before muscle). Myers discusses what really happens: muscle and flesh develop simultaneously

Islamist: "Even if that is the case, the Koran is right!"

Islamists discuss how some word in the Koran can mean simultaneously.
So, after admitting that the Koran says the flesh forms first, they back peddle by twisting the meaning of words in the Koran to fit the science. Oh, this sounds all too familiar to what Christians like to do with the Bible..."Oh, this really means this. You have to understand the ancient Hebrew, Greek, etc." ...As if they somehow understand it themselves. *sigh*

A little later on, AronRa points out how people are punished for not believing (just like in Christianity) though no good reason for believing is provided. More apologetics that sound oddly Christian follow.

Gotta Love the Conservative Christian Wingnuts

Here is an article on World Net Daily I found courtesy of Ed Brayton. I personally think it is great that the Federal Reserve is flying the rainbow flag. However, with World Net Daily being anti-gay, some of the commenters have allowed their bigotry to show.
...Homosexuality is a sin against God and he said in his word homosexuals are going to burn in the lake of fire that burns forever but prior to this happening he turns those given to this deviant sexual lifestyle over to a reprobate mind. Keep in mind this is not me judging you but God himself. Romans 1:27-28 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. 1 Corinthians 6:9 Know yes not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. Notice the word effeminate! I implore you to repent of this sin turn to God for deliverance. And please don't buy into this I was born this way, God doesn't create people this way just so he can send them to hell. Hell wasn't created for humans but for Satan and his false prophet. Only people that are children of Satan will join him in the lake of fire. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

I hope everyone learns a very important lesson from this and that is when you hire homosexuals and allow them to obtain positions of authority this is what you can expect. This thing "oh well they are good people" or "I know several really good people that are homosexual" still doesn't nullify what we are seeing and what we can further expect from people that are given to sexual lifestyle God condemns and their judgment while still in a natural state is to be given over to a reprobate mind as God calls it. He also refers to homosexuality as an abomination.

For you Christians notice Daniel gives you insight about the anti-Christ and a sign of where we are on God's time clock of the end time. The anti-Christ is a homosexual or at the very least a bi-sexual because of his affection or lack thereof of women. Daniel 11:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.

Well, I guess I must at least thank the guy for some insight into the New Testament, which I have not yet read in full. However, this idea from Daniel (from the Old Testament) that "the anti-Christ is a homosexual" that does not "regard...the desire of women" does not really align with Matthew in the New Testament. "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. So, if a man regards his desires of women, he admits to being an adulterer. Otherwise, he could possibly be the anti-Christ. Seems to be a bit of a lose-lose if you are male (and a king, since that is what Daniel is talking about...trying to keep it in context as much as I can, though the poster seems to have taken that passage out of context himself). Am I surprised? No.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Gonna eat a lot of peaches! ...And apples.

Here are a couple of pictures from my fruit trees. The first is an apple tree and the second is a peach tree. This is the first year these trees are producing fruit, so I am not sure what to expect. I'll keep updating on the progress as the year goes by.





P.S. If anyone knows HTML well enough to know if there is a way to put these pictures side-by-side to save space, please let me know how! Thanks!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The results are in!

The battle between PZ Myers and other atheist bloggers/media celebrities (for lack of a better word) to raise money for Camp Quest is over! And the winner is the others, with a total of $13,550.06 to $13,016.01 which means Matt Dillahunty will be dressed in drag for not one but two episodes of The Atheist Experience!