They never see the irony

   So there was a state representative from Mississippi calling for the killing of gay people in the news just the other day...but that's not what I'm really here to talk about. What he said included, "The only opinion that counts is God’s: see Romans 1:26-28 and Leviticus 20:13." Leviticus is the verse that calls for the killing of gay people, which I already knew. I was curious about the Romans verse. It states the following:

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

   So I became curious as to the context. Apparently, Paul is telling the Romans how the Big G is taking out his wrath on the nonbelievers...nonbelievers who are supposed to be able to see invisible evidence.

²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

   This is essentially the argument from ignorance. (You can't explain the tides; therefore, God.) Yet, this is still not what I am here to discuss. It is rather the next three verses that I find interesting. (Emphasis mine.)

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

   That sort of sounds familiar...

   Of course, there are a few differences: (1) Christians didn't "exchange the glory of the immortal God" for this image. Instead, they strangely conflate the two. They treat Jesus as both god and mortal human. On the one hand, they try to claim that Jesus "died" for our sins, but then on the other hand they try to claim that Jesus is part of that "immortal God." I'm sorry, but something that is immortal, by definition, cannot die. So either Jesus is (was) mortal and could have died on that cross and then not be part of that "immortal God" or he is immortal and therefore could be part of that "immortal God" but could not die on a cross. It can't be both; that would be a violation of the law of excluded middle. And, finally, (2) there are no "birds and animals and reptiles" in the image. The big irony, still, is that the main Christian image is "made to look like a mortal human being."

   Then again, I already knew Christians are pretty oblivious to irony. They are, after all, very good (or bad, depending on perspective) about ignoring Matthew 6:5-8

⁵ “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

"Organized" religion isn't the problem!

...Well, it isn't, but not the way some Christians suggest.

   It pleases me — PLEASES, I SAY! — when Christians (typically of the more liberal variety) attempt to claim that religion isn't a problem, it's just that damn organized religion that's problematic! To which I say, "Bollocks!"

   What can I say? There was a vote on a ban of gay marriage in North Carolina recently and I found an article about it and in that comment section (it was on MSNBC, but I'm not sure which article or where to find the exact comment now) some Christian was going off about how Christians can't take the moral high-ground because of prior moral failings (agreed), but then seemed to blame this on "organized religion" and had to make it clear he was not an "Atheist" (with a capital "A" because, I suppose, he thinks atheism is a religion). This really causes me to facepalm when I see that there is one survey (how well this was conducted, I do not know) that found about 97% of atheists/humanists support legal gay marriage. (Also, Gallup finds that 89% of non-Christians support gay marriage.) And this guy seemingly wants to distance himself from such a group to make it clear he belongs to the Christian club, or at least a religion. Or maybe he thinks atheists eat babies or are communists who worship government? Most of all, I suspect he's trying to make himself feel superior. It reminds me of the xkcd comic.

   Which brings me right to my biggest point on this issue: there is really no such thing as religion without organization. This commenter goes out of his way to point out he's not an atheist. Why? Seriously, why? As I already suggested, I suspect he's trying to make it clear that he is himself a Christian (without having directly said so). But why is that important? If you think organized religion is so horrible, why imply that you are a member of the group? Perhaps he's afraid of social consequences for denouncing religion. Which brings me to the reality that religion needs organization to survive. I credit the fact that I am an atheist much to not having a religious upbringing. I didn't have to fight off years of people telling me that a god is real. Granted, my parents could have brought up religion in the home more often than they did (which was virtually never), and if they had, I might not be an atheist.

   But what about my children (when Amy and I get around to adopting)? I'm not going to be teaching them religion as literal truth. I doubt Amy would, either. So where could they possibly pick up religion? I mean, without organized religion? Could some friends teach them about religion? Maybe, but those friends might also believe Spiderman is real, too. So when Spiderman becomes fake, so does religion. At best, I would say, they might come up with something of their own, but would they get into anything like Christianity? Probably not.

   I raise this because there have been cases of the children of atheists becoming religion. Some, even pastors (i.e, William Murray and Stephen Kagin). But would this have happened without organized religion? So often I hear stories from atheists who began life as non-religious or not devoutly religious and then got pulled into church or a college prayer group through friends. That's organized religion, even if the organization may be relatively small in comparison to, say, a juggernaut like the Catholic Church. Never have I heard anyone claim that they became religious from a friend merely telling them about Jesus. No, it seems to take some sort of church experience to convert.

   Think about that. If parenting were the primary way to pass on a religious belief and there were no effective conversion methods, specific religions would gradually fade away as parents, such as mine, fail to pass on their beliefs. Now, new religions may — and probably would — spring up from people creating new religions, but even those wouldn't last. About all that might last are the simplest of beliefs. People still believe in astrology, for example, but it is relatively simple. At least it seems to be that way anymore. At one time, I think it used to be quite more complex, by which I mean people spent much more time actually looking at the alignment of the stars and planets because they actually thought that mattered. Today? It wouldn't surprise me if many astrologers know the position of planets, but recognize that all they really do is make up stuff in horoscopes. More importantly, though, there are no scriptures or really any dogma that is tied to such a belief. Just think about that for one, brief minute. What is the Bible, after all? It is an organized collection of stories, poetry, and letters.

   Yet, I can imagine there would be some objections about how that is not what they mean by "organized." Then what do they mean? Why do I get the feeling that their particular brand of Christianity is not organized but everyone else's is???

This doesn't fix the problem.

   Silly liberal(?) Christians! I was browsing the timeline of a Facebook friend and found this ridiculous image. In searching for the image, I found a webpage with a likewise silly comment:

YES, THANK YOU! It’s so hard sometimes to tell non-Christians that you’re Christian when you live in a world where “Christian” means Gay-basher and determiner of law.

My type of Christianity is the kind that LOVES and DOESN’T judge. So two men dig each other. Get over it. So the laws of Christianity don’t govern the whole country. Get over it and read the constitution.

Jesus was a rad dude, you guys.

Sacrifice? What Sacrifice?

   I am working on the concept for a post involving how Christianity is supposedly about love. I have realized that I will have to talk about the supposed "sacrifice" of Jesus because, as I understand it, many Christians consider that to be some great act of love. I have also realized that such a discussion is probably worth a post of its own, so...here it is!

   First, a disclaimer: For the sake of argument, I will be assuming that Christianity is basically true—there is a God, and Jesus actually existed on earth, and the Bible accurately quotes Jesus, etc, etc. And I will use language as such, but my personal views are, of course, that it Christianity is mostly made up stories, just like any other religion.

Quiz Time!!! - Answers and how I did

The following post contains answers to the Christmas Quiz posted earlier. If you'd like to take the quiz first, click here. Otherwise, answers are below the fold.

Quiz Time!!! - My answers

   Below the fold are my answers to The Ultimate Christmas Quiz! Please don't view until you have answered the quiz (or if you do not wish to partake).

Quiz Time!!! - Christmas

(via Skeptic Money)

   It's Christmas time again! That means time for The Ultimate Christmas Quiz! If you'd like to participate, please do so honestly - no Wikipedia, no bibles, no cheating off my answers, etc, and leave your answers in the comments section below. Quiz below the fold with my answers here:

WWJTD - "Four Questions Atheists Won’t Address!"

   JT Eberhard over at What Would JT Do? has been given four "questions" -- interestingly, though, a question mark (?) is nowhere to be found -- that atheists supposedly won't address:

1. If rationality and goodness is instilled in people based on evolution, then why do people go against the very survival-striving instincts we have and behave the opposite (both as individuals and regarding humanity as a whole). I’ve yet to meet anyone who has successfully lived up to THEIR OWN standard of goodness.

2. If truth is a concept that was achieved by naturalistic processes such as evolution, then truth must not be actually true but only functional. When it becomes more beneficial to believe a false idea for survival, then that idea MUST win out over what is truly true, or naturalism is false. If this is true, rationality is not reasoning to find truth but rather to survive, and truth will cease to exist when humans cease to exist.

3. Atheists and religious nut-cases read the Bible with extremely similar hermeneutics.. please explain. (ex: applying Israelite law code that to a non-Jew/Gentile follower of Jesus while totally disregarding Christ’s exposition of Old Testament law. OR taking a parable of Jesus way out of context to say we should kill people who disagree with us. Most atheists I’ve experienced handle the Bible in a more pick-and-choose way than almost any Christian I know who has studied his/her Bible.. and I agree that most claimed Christian don’t study their Bible. It seems disingenuous to tell people to not pick and choose from their religious text, but then to read the Bible in such a way that ignores any explanations to difficult texts, and they are difficult).

4. What to you is your understanding of the good news of Jesus Christ as understood by the Christian faith (you recently said eternal punishment was good news.. which again reveals an extremely fundamental misunderstanding of basic Christian thought). If you only mock this question, as usual, it reveals you really simply don’t understand it.

   Well, I'll go ahead and take these "questions" on! Actually, I made some quick answers already in the comments section, but I want to expand/clarify what I said there.

Either way, Christianity shoots itself in the foot...in the face of nonbelievers

One of my wife's atheist friends posted this article on his Facebook page. It's...not a good read from the perspective of a nonbeliever. Let's first go through Mr. Lose's points.