tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31913804723607079952024-03-12T21:02:19.186-05:00Small Town AtheistThoughts from a non-believer adrift in a sea of theism.STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.comBlogger167125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-12215922830901084182015-12-05T09:07:00.000-06:002015-12-05T09:07:00.186-06:00The Book of MormonI finally got an opportunity to go see <i>The Book of Mormon</i>, the outstanding musical from South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez co-composer/co-lyricist of <i>Avenue Q</i> and <i>Frozen.</i> Being a big fan of <i>Avenue Q</i> as well as Parker and Stone, I jumped at the chance to see this highly lauded play. I'd become a fan of the <i>Avenue Q</i> soundtrack before seeing the production, which filled in the gaps between the songs and made the story a bit more understandable, but I still knew the plot ahead of time. So this time around I chose to not get the soundtrack until after seeing<i> The Book of Mormon</i> so I'd be able to come into it fresh and be surprised.<br />
<br />
And man, was it worth it!<br />
<br />
The songs are fantastically written and the entire play feels like it could be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_About_Mormons#Plot" target="_blank">South Park episode</a> or movie. The South Park boys are no strangers to Mormonism or musicals, and their biting take on the silliness of the religion is hysterical, especially for someone like me (but maybe not so much for the more-than-likely Mormon guy who was sitting next to me in the theater). The play isn't about making fun of Mormons, but rather making fun of their religion and religion in general.<br />
<br />
I'm not here to write a review of this four-year-old play, however. Instead I wanted to talk about the subtext on some of the songs and how they pertain to all forms of religion, not just Mormonism.<br />
<br />
From the very first number, the critique beings with the door-to-door proselytizing the LDS church (and the JW folks) are known for:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hello! My name is Elder Price</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I would like to share with you the most amazing book</span></span></blockquote>
<br />
More and more "Elders" take the stage, each one touting the wonders of this free book that they'd love to leave with you, as the lyrics slowly start to unmask the obvious ridiculousness of the claims.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hello! My name is Elder Young<br />Did you know that Jesus lived here in the USA? </span></span> </blockquote>
When claim of faith are boiled down and subjected to the light of day, you get lines like that one. I loved Julia Sweeny's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTvx_QA6gIc" target="_blank"><i>Letting Go Of God</i></a> which also opens with a visit from a couple of Mormon missionaries and pokes holes in a similar fashion as this musical. Criticism is one of the best ways to get people to question themselves -- to be able to see things so oblivious to them, as in the "That's fine; Have fun in Hell" line in the song. Once you realize how evil the idea is, you begin to see why believing it is unfounded and harmful.<br />
<br />
The first number finishes by introducing one of the two main characters, and does a splendid job of it. The character building and storyline are really well done, but again, that's not what this post is about. Don't get me wrong, the plot is fanatic, but I like the subtle and often double-edged stings that lie within the musical numbers because this is ultimately what the play is "about". Take one of the final lines for instance:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You simply won't believe how much this book will change your life!</span></blockquote>
I can see the multiple meanings there. On the one hand, the line is delivered by a young, naive, idealistic nineteen-year-old who thinks he has found the key to the universe. On the other, it is written by someone who is saying that the text is literally "unbelievable". (Matt Stone has stated that he is an atheist, but Trey Parker won't go that far, though he's <i>close</i> and can see the absurdity in religious ideologies.) There is a third meaning: taken at face value, the line is true. Believing in the religion -- in <i>any</i> religion -- will change your life as you conform it to fit how you perceive that particular doctrine.<br />
<br />
That kind of stuff is all over this play. I'll touch on a few more, but hopefully you can see where I'm going with this.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Ignoring Reality</h3>
The play continues as the Mormons set out to do their mandatory two-year missionary work.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Two by two<br />We're marching door to door<br />'Cause God loves Mormons<br />And he wants some more</span></blockquote>
The main characters wind up being sent to a tiny war-torn village in Northern Uganda. One of the Mormon kids is excited, thinking it's "like Lion King" (many other plays are subtly referenced, another awesome perk of this show). Lion King it is not, as they discover the village is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX0g66MWbrk" target="_blank">squalor</a> where the people have little food or access to medical care -- even the village's own doctor has maggots in his scrotum! But like Lion King, the boys find that the villagers have an African saying that makes things seem not so bad: "Hasa Diga Eebowai". However, after singing it with them a few times, they soon find out that it translates to "Fuck You, God!"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We've had no rain in several days<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...</span>Hasa Diga Eebowai!<br />And eighty percent of us have AIDS...Hasa Diga Eebowai<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">!</span></span></blockquote>
Before the Mormons learn of what the saying really means, they join in with the villagers by recounting the bad things affecting them:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The plane was crowded and the bus was lat<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">e...</span>Hasa Diga Eebowai</span></blockquote>
Talk about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwvlbJ0h35A" target="_blank">First-World-Problems</a>! The song reminds me of when people accuse us non-religious folks of just
having a rough life or that some terrible tragedy has befallen us that
causes us to "hate God". It's a sidestepping tactic that is used as an attempt to keep the <a href="http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Problem_of_evil#The_argument" target="_blank">Problem of Evil</a> of being an actual problem. Indeed, when the boys find out the villagers are cursing God's name they respond with "<i>Things aren't always as bad as they seem</i>". The village leader shows them an example of how <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2015/07/too-much-pressure.html">belief is contributing</a> to their many problems: a man from another tribe got caught trying to rape a baby, because he believed that having sex with a virgin would cure his AIDS, and since there are few virgins in the village, some turn to infants and children. An all-powerful and loving God wouldn't allow things like this to happen. Hell, even a being with nearly-omnipotent power and a love no greater than you, dear reader, would find a way to do something about it. And we are to believe that an all-loving, all-powerful creator can't? The very idea of such a "God" is trash. Hasa Diga Eebowai!<br />
<br />
The play features two songs that are absolute stings in the face of religion: "Turn It Off" and "I Believe". The former is sung during a scene in which the two main characters met their fellow missionaries stationed in the area. The group are telling the newcomers about a way to not worry about the bad things they've seen so far...about how the Problem of Evil isn't really a problem if you just don't think too hard about it:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I got a feelin' that you could be feelin'<br />A whole lot better than you feel today<br />You say you got a problem...well, that's no problem!<br />It's super easy not to feel that way<br />When you start to get confused because of thoughts in your head –<br />Don't feel those feelings – hold them in instead!</span></blockquote>
As the name suggests, the trick is to just "Turn It Off", like a light switch. This is not just a "cool little Mormon trick", but can be applied to any dogma. (Christians too love to use the trick of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Joyce+Meyer+don%27t+think" target="_blank">not thinking</a> about difficult things.) The group's leader, Elder McKinley, chimes in about his experiences with having gay thoughts and feelings, but he just flips his light switch and the "bad" feelings are gone.<br />
<br />
What's great is that during the song, he's even challenged by one of the main Mormon characters, when he tells McKinley that it's okay to have these thoughts just as long as you never act upon them. McKinley replies that this would be lying to yourself, and lying is <i>worse </i>than being gay. It is better therefore to "turn off the gay", so to speak:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So just realize you have a curable curse –<br />And turn it off!</span></blockquote>
And if that doesn't work:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then you've only got yourself to blame<br />You didn't pretend hard enough</span> </blockquote>
Obviously the notion of changing your sexuality by will is ludicrous to the rational mind, and I appreciate the writer's showing this scene to, surprising many, Mormon faithful. The LDS church took out three full-page ads in the playbill with phrases like "The Book is always Better" and "You've Seen the Play, Now Read the Book!" The church's response suggested they took the play as a full parody, and indeed a lot of it was. But parody is based in truth, and to claim that none of it was based on <i>real Mormonism</i> is comical.<br />
<br />
The song "I Believe" takes a swing at boiling down the Mormon faith into one-liners:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I believe that the Lord God created the universe<br />I believe that he sent his only son to die for my sins<br />And I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America</span></blockquote>
The last line there gets a big laugh from the audience, but from where I sit, I can see the first two lines being no different. It's simply that we've heard it so many times that we've become desensitized to the <a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/42/9c/91/429c9142137cc364257d1e579de18af0.jpg">absurdity</a>. The other chorus lines are perfect swings as well:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...I believe [God's] plan involves me getting my own planet<br />...I believe that the current President of the Church, Thomas Monson, speaks directly to God<br />...I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people<br />...I believe that God lives on a planet called Kolob<br />...I believe that Jesus has his own planet as well<br />...I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri</span></blockquote>
The LDS wants to brush all of this under the rug as just simple silliness, but each one of these points can be drilled into and opens a discussion on their faith. I appreciate that the church too sees these as topic-starters, and I think that not only can they attempt to use them for their cause, but their opposition can use these points against them as well.<br />
<br />
It's the final line in the chorus that I love the most:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am a Mormon<br />And a Mormon just believes</span></blockquote>
Oh how I <b>love </b>that line! Anyone who "<i>just </i>believes" <i>anything</i> doesn't have a prayer in the world (pardon the expression) because their ideas are based on nothing but empty hope. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You cannot just believe part-way, you have to believe in it all</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If you believe, the Lord will reveal it<br />And you'll know it's all true – you'll just feel it</span> </blockquote>
Read more of my blog for more on why this kind of thinking is asinine, harmful, and, as the LDS puts it, silly.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Misinterpretation</b></h3>
<br />
The other numbers are extremely well written and entertaining both musically and thematically -- the production I saw had stunning stage work. But there is one other song I want to focus on that I think holds a fair amount of meaning behind it.<br />
<br />
The Mormons are preaching in the village, and one of them explains the tale of how Mormonism came to be, and how the followers were led to Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the villagers becomes drawn in by this tale, and daydreams about how hopeful and happy the place must be. She sings about this paradise in a song entitled "Sal Tlay Ka Siti". She talks about how her mother would tell her stories of paradise to calm her in the frighting nights as a child. Now that a ruthless warlord is assaulting her village with murder, rape, and female genital mutation, Nabulungi dreams about how this place is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...not just a story mama told<br />But a village in Ooh-tah, where the roofs are thatched with gold<br />If I could let myself believe, I know just where I'd be –<br />Right on the next bus to paradise: Sal Tlay Ka Siti</span></blockquote>
There's two points I want to make with the examination of this. Apart from the "If I could let myself believe then I'd believe" bit, which we've already touched on, there's an obviousness here that still merits mentioning: this young African girl is looking at the world through the only perspective she has. Through her eyes and ears, she miss-hears words like "Utah" and "Salt Lake City" and translates them in a way that reflects her surroundings. Since practically all religions have been passed down through word-of-mouth, think about how many ideas were miss-translated from one language to the next, or miss-heard from person to person, group to group.<br />
<br />
Regarding the other point, Nabulungi also starts filling this newly-established paradise with wants and wishes that also reflect her station in life:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I can imagine what it must be like...this perfect, happy place:<br />I'll bet the goat meat there is plentiful, and they have vitamin injections by the case<br />The warlords there are friendly, they help you cross the street<br />And there's a Red Cross on every corner with all the flour you can eat!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sal Tlay Ka Siti, the most perfect place on Earth<br />Where flies don't bite your eyeballs and human life has worth<br />...A land where evil doesn't exist: Sal Tlay Ka Siti</span></blockquote>
"Thatched" roofs of gold, plentiful goat meat and flour, the warlords are nice and there's no flies or evil. None of this exists in Utah, except maybe plenty of flour. The obvious point is that she is describing the afterlife FOR HER. Think about the tales of your afterlife, if you believe in one. Was it dreamed up by people of lived in a time when a big house and riches were the pinnacle of existence?<br />
<br />
The play ends with scenes that bring to light the nature of interpretation, and includes the ingredients that bring about the creation of a new religion. When their Mormon missionary is understood to be killed and Nabulungi discovers that the things one Mormon has been saying aren't part of the Mormon religion and therefore not true, she tells the others in her village, who respond by saying they have always known this. They simply believe that the missionary was speaking in metaphor. And whenever the Mormon boy returns to the village, they see it as a <i>resurrection</i> and revert back to believing in a literal interpretation of his message.<br />
<br />
We see this happening everyday. Are the main selling-points of your religion metaphor or are they literal? If both, how do you discern which is which? Why do some people within your same religion view something you'd call metaphor literally, and why do you take one thing as literal when others -- maybe even in the very same church congregation -- as metaphor? Are you using the same tool to tell one from the other: faith?<br />
<br />
The play ends with a spot-on message:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even if we change some things, or or we break the rules<br />Or we have complete doubt that God exists<br />We can still all work together and make this our paradise planet</span></blockquote>
And that's the ultimate truth, at least as I see it: whether you believe in an afterlife or not is irrelevant. We can all work together to create a better existence for the time we're alive, for this one life we know for sure we get. I don't see why that notion would be upsetting to anyone. <br />
<br />
There is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mormon_%28musical%29#Synopsis" target="_blank">lot</a> that I am leaving out to keep the focus of this post on point. If you get a chance to, go see it! Even if -- <i>especially </i>if -- you are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJBQH14qtHc" target="_blank">religious</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-48691323188967835722015-07-24T09:31:00.000-05:002015-11-10T09:47:30.243-06:00Too Much PressureI've been feeling down as of late. It might be lack of sun or some vitamin I'm not getting, but this uneasiness has caused me to come back to this blog after yet another long hiatus. <br />
<br />
As I sit here typing, my second monitor is displaying a picture of my daughter when she was a newborn. The auto-slideshow just changed it to her playing her drumkit when she was three. That seems like yesterday. She'll be starting school very soon; leaving the house for hours out of the day when neither me nor her mom will be with her...<br />
<br />
And I'm scared.<br />
<br />
<b>Good Ol' Days</b><br />
It's becoming more obvious that I'm slowly losing her to the world. As parents we can fight all we want but we can't win that war. We can't shelter them forever, nor should we, for the sake of health. But still, as a parent you want to keep them all to yourself, safe in the cave. I knew this day would come and I know that other, even harder days will eventually come too. But I still can't help but be scared.<br />
<br />
The world I'm giving her to seems to be a frothing, bubbling cauldron of chaos. Mass shootings, out-of-control law enforcement, governmental quagmires, corporate megalomania, destabilizing climate, ubiquitous vapid entertainment, and eroding common sense are a few of the things I can't help but spot as my eyes scan the horizon for danger before letting my cub out of this cave. I just saw there was another shooting in a movie theater yesterday. You used to not even think about being scared to go out and watch a movie, but now it crosses my mind every time I step into one. I'm always planning ahead, running "what-if's" in my head in an attempt to be ready for anything, not just at a movie theater but everywhere I go. Maybe that's been heightened since I became a parent...I'm sure all parents do that to some extent. I'm watching out for my little girl whenever I can.<br />
<br />
But she's growing up faster than I can think. She'll be going off to school -- another place that used to be safe.<br />
<br />
Didn't it?<br />
<br />
It's easy to think that the world is going to pot. I hear people saying that things have gotten worse, throwing around the old "used to not have to lock the front door" argument. I have to catch myself and remember to be rational when I hear these things. Because in point of fact, things have been and continue to be <i>better</i>. Statistically, we're safer than ever, and crime has been in steady <a href="https://youtu.be/LD0x7ho_IYc" target="_blank">decline</a>. Through technological advancements, the world is becoming better and better each day. But it's hard to miss the big stories and headlines. But it's a product of our modern world. If not for our ability to get 24/7, instant notification of nearly anything we want, it wouldn't seem like everything is so bad. It's all in how you look at it. <br />
<br />
Bad things happen every day. Bad things have <i>always </i>happened every day, only now we know about them faster, so it seems like it's getting worse than it used to be. But it's not.<br />
<br />
It's easy to think that before Columbine, school shootings where "just something you didn't ever see". But that phenomenon it didn't start in 1999. Ever since there have been guns and schools, there have been school shootings. A man entered a school in Pennsylvania with a gun, shot and killed a teacher and nine kids. That could be a report from any day in the last decade -- but it happened in 1764. And things like that have happened ever since. Look up the number of deaths from school shootings in the US since 2000. The number fluctuates from 19 one year to 4 to the next; from 38 to only 3. Now granted, every single one of those are tragedies and I don't think I'd give a good goddamn that crime has dropped in this country if my daughter were one of those cold statistics. "<i>I know she's gone, but there were only 3 this year...it's actually getting better!</i>"<br />
<br />
We're better informed about the news of terrible events (if not informed, at least aware -- hell, we can know there's a shooting taking place before we even know how many people are pulling triggers), but we're at a loss for the reasons why some of these things happen. Of course each is it's own issue and a blanket statement is both belittling to those issues themselves and a non-sequitur of any kind of approach to dealing with them, but nevertheless I hear a rather loud majority unfolding their favorite blanket: religion.<br />
<br />
(I'm going to digress into preachy mode now...this is my atheist blog by the way)<br />
<br />
<b>Can't Reconcile Fact and Faith</b><br />
We don't have enough of it, they claim. We've "turned away from God" and "taken the Lord out of" every facet of our lives, so it shouldn't be such a shock when someone shoots a building full of innocent people.<br />
<br />
Indeed, why would an all-loving, infinitely powerful force lift an invisible finger to help us if we hurt its feelings?<br />
<br />
This is not going to be a post about tearing that argument apart. You've probably already done that before reading this sentence. Instead, I'm more interested in a larger and clearer problem. And it stems from this: I agree. Religion is likely the problem.<br />
<br />
But it isn't because we are not as fundamental as the fundies want us to be. On the contrary; it's because people believe in it, and it's <i>hard </i>to believe in, even for the believers. I think that a majority of people are good, decent and loving. We all want our kids to be safe and happy, and we all don't want to die just because we're in close proximity to a crowd of others. This is true no matter your country of origin or background in life; it's universal. But believers been suckered into thinking that they need religion in order to be decent and loving -- that in fact those qualities <i>come from </i>religion itself. (Each religious and "spiritual" person will have their own exact deity or force in the end, but for the sake of argument we can lump it together here.) And those who believe that must reconcile the world we all live in with the claims their religion makes.<br />
<br />
If you believe in some kind of loving God, you have to try to rationalize <a href="http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Problem_of_evil" target="_blank">the problem of evil</a>, there's no way around it. I'm just arm-chairing here, but I think that doing so causes so much cognitive dissonance that it leads to detrimental effects. I don't have the clinical knowledge to even begin to really talk about such things, but to me, it seems an easy sell. <br />
<br />
I say that because of personal experience; I've been there. I know what it's like to have that internal struggle...that "crisis of faith". I also know what it's like to think I have beaten that, to keep thinking that God loves the world while horrible things keep happening...that there's a "<a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2011/03/reasons-for-everything.html" target="_blank">reason for everything</a>". I know the arguments and the bible verses. I get how comforting religion can be whenever these bad things happen. And now, as an atheist, I can't call upon a sense of love and safety in a deity. But by facing the truth that I'm alone in the universe (theologically speaking) I've found out how to be on my own. I know now how to find true, real hope. I've reconciled personal fears about death, for myself and others. It's something everyone has to do for themselves...I don't have a guide for that. But I can say that I feel healthier and more at ease for understanding the world around me now that I'm not trying to fit a God in there somewhere.<br />
<br />
Many people claim we need religion for comfort. But when I have to watch someone I love die slowly, it's comforting to know that it's not because of some supernatural Shakespearean drama between magical forces. When my grandmother died, I found it comforting to know that there was no outside force that failed to save her, and that there was no outside force that caused her demise. She wasn't "called home" and she didn't die because we failed to pray hard enough. To me, it's more painful to think one or both of those things is true than to look Truth in the eye.<br />
<br />
And in the end, I think that's what make most people uneasy. Maybe that's a reason for a lot of the behavior of people, from rebellious pre-teens up to mass-murdering adults. They're stuck on the problem of trying to get an answer out of an unanswerable question, like trying to squeeze blood from a stone.<br />
<br />
Not everyone will take the time or effort as I have -- either through a lack of personal ability or overwhelming apathy, or something else entirely --- to sit down and think about all this "God stuff". A lot of people I've talked to are on the fence when it comes to religion. There's too much misunderstanding and stigma attached to the "'A' Word" and people wind up being "just spiritual" or "agnostic" in the wrong sense. We don't like to challenge our own thoughts.<br />
<br />
As an animal, we seek to minimize pain. This includes mental anguish. Therefore, I don't find it surprising that humans take comfort in religion rather than tackle the hard parts of life (including questioning said religion). And I understand that having to deal with those feelings when you realize religion is empty of real hope can seem daunting. It takes more work, but you get real, tangible, substantive joy from it. <br />
<br />
<b>Ditch Faith, Find Hope</b><br />
When we were burying my grandmother, we stood for the preacher's final words before departing the cemetery. Then he said something along the lines of, "Without Jesus there is no hope...for everlasting life." The ellipsis there represents a pause he took, a pretty important pause. If he had ended his sentence before then, I'd have probably made a scene right there my grandmother's funeral. Not only do I hate having to sit through religious funerals where we are mostly there for church and not to remember the one we've all lost, but then to be told I have no <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/09/16/penn-jillette-says-he-doesnt-believe-in-god-and-neither-do-you/" target="_blank">hope</a> on top of that...<br />
<br />
But he did finish the sentence. And honestly, he did a good job with the service overall. It was more about her than church (although just barely). I only bring it up now because of that one incident. <br />
<br />
He is right, ya know; without believing in Jesus you can't pretend you'll live forever. Well, unless you're one of those "spiritual" folks. If you are, try talking to someone. Preferably to someone who doesn't believe the same things you do. Challenge everything you believe, not just religion or "spiritual" stuff. Ideas are either strengthened or forgotten by challenge.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;">[To all my loyal readers who come to this blog for concise, well-written posts: forgive this rambling mess as I try to re-enter the blogosphere. I've got some rust to knock off.]</span><br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-25057229077579126362014-03-11T14:45:00.000-05:002014-03-11T14:45:22.897-05:00A Cosmos ApartOver thirty years ago, Carl Sagan kickstarted a decade-long science boom with his show, <i>Cosmos</i>. Millions were influenced, and a generation of kids wanted to become scientists when they grew up. Now, imminent astrophysicist <a href="http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/" target="_blank">Neil deGrasse Tyson</a> takes on the mantle of science popularizer and educator with his take on the award-winning program, <i>Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, </i>produced by Seth MacFarlane (of <i>Family Guy</i> fame):<br />
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<br />
I watched the first episode with bated breath. I'm quite familiar with Tyson and Sagan, so I knew they'd do a pretty good job with keeping the "spirit" of the original series. And they did. With updated graphics and scientific understanding, the show is poised to once again inspire people to look deeper into <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2008/03/but-how-do-you-know.html" target="_blank">how we know</a> what we know.<br />
<br />
Given that I converse with scientifically illiterate people regularly, I couldn't help but view the show through the eyes of an uneducated theist. With this exercise I was able to see that, given the what the material is presented, hardcore theists and science-deniers have their work cut out for them. The show is meant to inspire, to fill the viewer with curiosity. When Tyson makes statements of fact, it's supposed to get the viewer to think, "how is that true?" and then go seek the answer.<br />
<br />
But just as with Bill Nye's approach to the debate with Ken Ham, this tactic won't work; the average viewer isn't going to look any of this up. <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/09/what-are-some-christians-saying-about-cosmos-on-twitter-youve-been-warned/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed" target="_blank">A lot of them</a> have their minds made up already, as one tweet read: "i can answer where life came from.
God
Next question."<br />
<br />
I'm not giving into despair though. I believe the new <i>Cosmos</i> will spark discussion and invite viewers into the world of science at a time when we desperately need it. But I don't know just how big the impact will be. It's my hope that science can once again become popular enough that people begin to understand and appreciate the methods and not just the results it give us.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-85552045980331859962014-02-28T13:47:00.001-06:002014-03-03T03:52:04.364-06:00Should Scientists Debate Creationists?I spend a lot of time in online forums, chat-rooms, and the comments sections of blogs and videos talking with people about religion, philosophy, and theism. Often I have great, civil discussions with my "opponents", but in almost every case, I can find <i>that guy</i> whose not willing to offer anything other than bible verses and wild, unjustifiable statements. And I still attempt to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBHEsEshhLs" target="_blank">communicate</a> with those individuals until it becomes pointless.<br />
<br />
That's because I understand that in those cases I'm not going to change that person's mind. But there are other people watching and listening. Debates are often not about the two debaters; they're for the audience. As in a courtroom, the truth isn't necessarily reached simply because one side has more charismatic orators. I'll answer a person's hate-laced attempt at conversation specifically for the benefit of those who happen to read the exchange (in part as a testament to how civil a nonbeliever can be).<br />
<br />
<b>On the Nature of Addressing Walls of Brick</b><br />
When it was announced that Bill Nye would accept Ken Ham's challenge to a debate at Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky, many were <a href="http://youtu.be/iBMUUU4Iou4" target="_blank">disappointed</a> or even outraged that Nye would do this. Scientists should never debate creationists, many said, because it gives the impression that there is something to debate over. As the late Stephen Gould pointed out, you have lost the moment you step on the stage because what they want is the oxygen of respectability -- to be seen on stage debating a real scientist. It lends a credibility that is unfounded, similar to an obstetrician debating a stork-theorist.<br />
<br />
Now, I'm not a scientist (unless you count computer science), though I am scientifically minded. Nevertheless, I'm of two minds on this issue. should scientists debate creationists?<br />
<br />
On the one hand, I agree that it grants them with far too much clout and makes it seem to an audience that they have an argument that is on <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/why-creationism-isnt-science/" target="_blank">equal grounds</a> with established scientific fact. However, 33% of people reject evolution, despite the observable evidence for it. That number might seem small, but it makes up for over one hundred-million people in the U.S. that don't accept reality for whatever reason. That's an insanely large number. Many of those people are teaching their children to eschew scientific methodology in favor of faith. Many of those people will never attempt to actually understand what the theory of evolution says on their own, preferring instead to stay inside their bubble of self-confirming feedback.<br />
<br />
So yes, at some point those should be forced to confront the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0670020532/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1229972978" target="_blank">evidence</a>. They have to have the chance to understand if we're going to make any difference at all in lowering that number. I see it as compassionate, even though we elevate them up to the stage of equal footing with science. It basically says, "Look, here's your beliefs. It's okay to believe things, but here's why we believe differently". I've found in my discussions with them that the less marginalizing you start with, the more they actually listen to.<br />
<br />
But we have to be careful how we go about it. <br />
<br />
<b>They Win Anyway</b><br />
Ken Ham announced yesterday that he's raised enough money to begin construction on his Ark
Encounter project, due to be finished by the summer
of 2016. He said the <a href="http://youtu.be/hg9bXLIMv2k" target="_blank">debate</a> with Bill Nye earlier this month helped boost support for the
project.<br />
<br />
The debate in many ways was a win for Ken Ham and creationism the moment Bill agreed to it. It was held at the Creation Museum, so the money went to them. The "museum" sells DVDs of the debate, so proceeds go to them. It projected the idea that creationism was worth debating for those 33%, so they rallied more money. Ken knew what he was doing all along.<br />
<br />
But it was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Nu5CV3pyw" target="_blank">good</a> to at least force science into the closet of faith for the believers and creationists who watched it, and being a life-long educator and champion of science, Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' was the one to do it. If 33% of the population actually believed that babies come from storks and vehemently rejected the observable evidence to the contrary, at some point a scientist would have to stand up and say, "No, you idiots! Look at the <i>evidence</i>!". For the sake of our future as a species, learn what knowledge we know, people. Learn real science.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-65825715573574316372014-02-25T19:17:00.001-06:002014-02-28T21:02:02.834-06:00The Moving Goalposts of TheismComing off the heals of the Bill Nye/Ken Ham <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2014/02/creationism-debate-q.html" target="_blank">creation</a> debate and subsequent discussions has got me thinking about the way in which believers in god find ways to hold onto their cherished, comforting beliefs.<br />
<br />
Whether it's through a debate on Creationism, a forum discussion on Big Bang cosmology, or a blog post about science in general, theists often bring up the gaps in our current understanding as a form of proof (or at least, excuse) for justified belief in their particular deity. I've said several times in several places that once the theists arguments are refuted, they hold onto one of three things or a combination thereof as unshakable reasons for them to keep believing: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_REEdvxo" target="_blank">faith</a>, personal experience, and the gaps in our understanding. I've talked about the first two many times on this blog, but the point I wanted to make in this post is on the latter excuse.<br />
<br />
<b>Stop-Gap</b><br />
This argument (which I've also discussed here and elsewhere) is the God-of-the-gaps <a href="http://youtu.be/BGjjwRL99fQ" target="_blank">fallacy</a>. All throughout history, when human beings didn't understand something, they thought strange things about it. This is one of the major reasons for theism, and it still remains even when some bit of knowledge is gained -- the believer just moves the goalposts back. "You haven't dismissed God, you've only explained <i>how </i>he did it!" The problem with this childish game should be apparent to any rational person.<br />
<br />
If you have an idea that keeps getting <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts" target="_blank">shifted</a> to the beginning of some causal chain in our understanding, you should realize how intellectually dishonest this practice is. The honest thing to do is to discard that idea until there's a reason to add it to the chain in the first place.<br />
<br />
Faith to many people is a form of security blanket. It's comforting to think that you're on the right side of truth, to know that your life has been designed specially for you, and that there is reason and purpose to everything. But simply feeling good about something doesn't make it true. I realized several years ago that I cared about what I believed, and wanted to believe as many true things and as few false things as I could. I wanted to know the <i>real</i> answer to things; a placation isn't going to cut it.<br />
<br />
<b>Semper Fi</b><br />
But for a lot of people, they hold fast to their belief even in the face of contrary evidence. It isn't always due to the security-blanket effect either...religion itself promotes and encourages it. Many churches preach the shunning of critical thought and doubt, telling believers to "<a href="http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/pr/3.html" target="_blank">lean not </a>on your own understanding." The believer didn't start at an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg" target="_blank">intellectually honest</a> point and they continue to fill the blanks in our knowledge with "God did!".<br />
<br />
I was daydreaming about some utopian future today in which we get to the "final level" of understanding. There was no more gaps in our knowledge; we knew what happened "in the beginning" and could explain everything up to that point. But it <i>still</i> wasn't good enough for the theist. They would continue to claim that God is still "just beyond" that level of <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/journals" target="_blank">understanding</a>. This was a thought experiment while driving around town today, but the methodology is. I think, a valid example of how many theists operate.<br />
<br />
And even if this where a valid way to evaluate the world, it's still a form of special pleading to somehow fill the gap with <i>your</i> <i>god</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STA STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-28559911247371328652014-02-22T02:13:00.000-06:002014-02-22T03:29:20.583-06:00Creationism Debate Q&A<div class="MsoNormal">
My <a href="http://youtu.be/hg9bXLIMv2k" target="_blank">video review</a> of the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham discusses the majority of the debate, except for the final question-and-answer portion. It was an important part of that night, and took nearly half of the debate time. To streamline the review, I decided to handle the questions one by one here on the blog, rather than in video form.</div>
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Each question was written in by an audience member, and was addressed to either Ken or Bill, who then had two minutes to answer. Then, the other got a one-minute chance to answer that same question. Ken Ham went first, and then they alternated, with a total of sixteen questions in all.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The questions are verbatim, but the answers are not direct quotes (unless stated). I’ll give a paraphrased answer from each debater so you can get a sense
of what they said in their one-to-two minutes. I'll offer further criticisms and comments in red text. Obviously you should <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI" target="_blank">watch</a> the full debate yourself before
coming to any conclusions.</div>
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<b><i>Question 1: </i>How does Creationism account for the celestial bodies
moving further and further apart, and what function does that serve in the
“Grand Design”</b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u> Our
Creation scientists observe the universe expanding, as do the traditional
scientists, and the Bible says God stretches out the heavens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is another example of how observational
science proves Creationism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As to “why”
God did it that way, I can’t answer that, but the Bible says that God made the
heavens for his glory and to tell us how great and powerful he is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And looking at this awesome power
demonstrated by an infinite God makes you feel small, and makes you think about how special we are
that God considers this planet so significant that he created us knowing we
would sin and stepped into history to die for us to forgive us and let us live
forever. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u> We’re all born with a desire to know the answer to the
question ‘why’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To a Creationist, when
your religion gives you the answer -- when it says "He made the stars also" -- that’s
a satisfying answer to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You stop
looking for reasons <span style="color: #990000;">(even though religion is supposed to explain the “why”
while science explains the “how”)</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
give up on wanting to know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To me, I’m
driven to learn the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #990000;">(</span></span><span style="color: #990000;">Bill also
challenges Ken in the last few seconds of his time to deliver an example of
something in the Creation model that predicts something that will happen in
nature, once again trying to get him to address his earlier points.)</span> </div>
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<b><i>Question 2: </i>How did the atoms that created the Big Bang get there?</b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u> This
is the mystery that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0_YHVFoXkM" target="_blank">drives us</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s what
makes us keep looking, keep searching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I was young, it was believed the universe was slowing down in its
expansion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scientists conducted
experiments and took observations to find out the rate of the supposed
deceleration, but they discovered that it is in fact <i>accelerating</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And do you know why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, nobody knows why!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is what drives us to find out!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I</span>magine a student from your local school
who is excited about science and pursues a career in it, and one day discovers the answer to that deep mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To us scientists and searchers this is wonderful and compelling and
what makes us get up in the morning -- the Creationist just says, “God did it”
and goes back to sleep.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u> I just
want to let you know that there is a book out there that actually tells us
where matter came from, and the very first sentence in that book says “In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And really that’s the only thing that makes
sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matter can never produce
information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter how much energy you put <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yr7moDk6xs" target="_blank">into a stick</a>, it will never create life. The Bible tells us that the
things we see are made from things that are unseen: an infinite creator god.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only thing that makes logical
sense!</div>
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<b><i>Question 3:</i> The overwhelming majority of people in the scientific
community have presented valid, physical evidence…to support evolutionary
theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What evidence, besides the
literal word of the Bible supports Creationism?</b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u> I
often hear that the majority believes there is evidence for evolution, but it’s
not the majority who is the judge of truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just because the majority believes something doesn’t mean it’s true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Observational science supports the biblical
predictions, as I’ve shown before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
the Bible is right, that we’re all descendants of Adam and Eve, there’s one
race of humans; science has shown that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Bible is right
and God made kinds...I talked about that in my presentation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really that question comes down to, there are
aspects about the past that you can’t scientifically prove because you weren’t
there, but <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2014/02/slurping-ken-hams-solipsistic-soup.html" target="_blank">observational science</a> in the present does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Understanding the past is a whole different
matter.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u> If
anybody makes a discovery that changes the way we view natural law, scientists
embrace that person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the greatest
thing in scientific thought: to be challenged and shown where we’re wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may have misunderstood something in
evolution -- it’s the method by which we add complexity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The energy we get from the sun is used to
make life-forms more complex. <span style="color: #990000;">(That last point was to Ken’s claim in his
previous answer that matter can’t create complexity.)</span></div>
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<b><i>Question 4:</i> How did consciousness come from matter?</b></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u> Don’t
know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another great mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The joy of discovery drives us to find these things out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t know where consciousness comes form,
but we want to learn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I challenge the
young people to investigate that question, a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>nd I remind the taxpayers and voters that if we do not embrace the
process of mainstream science, we will fall behind economically as a nation.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u> I just
want to let you know that there is a book out there that does document where
consciousness came from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that book,
it says that the one who made us breathed into man and made him a living being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s where consciousness came from: God
gave it to us. I have a mystery, Bill: you talk about the joy of discovery, but you
say that when you die, it’s all over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if
you believe that, then what’s the point of being alive and making discoveries in the
first place?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love the joy of
discovery because this is God’s creation and I want to find out more about
it for man’s good and for God’s glory.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #990000;">(There's nothing really to do here. Bill is showing why we use science, and Ken is saying "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY2U6uoe2bk" target="_blank">God Did It!</a>" You can't convince these people.)</span></div>
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<b><i>Question 5: </i>What, if anything, would ever change your mind?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u> I’m a
Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t prove it to you, but
God has shown me himself through his Word and the person of Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Uv6dlm3jU" target="_blank">I admit</a> that’s where I start from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I challenge people to go and test that, you
can make predictions based on that, you can check the prophesies in the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t prove it to you, all I can say to
someone is, if the Bible really is what it claims to be: then check it
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Bible says if you come to God
he will reveal himself to you, and as Christians, <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2014/02/seek-and-you-will-find.html" target="_blank">you can say we know</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So as far as the word of god is concerned,
no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one's ever gonna convince me that
the word of God is not true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We build
models based on the Bible and they’re not subject to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The facts can’t be disputed; only the methods by
which those facts occur can be disputed because we
observe in the current world and can’t observe in the past. <span style="color: #990000;">(Ken then asks Bill
to answer this question, as if he’s forgotten that they’ve been doing that for
the last four questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a telling
bit that reveals further illustrates how much he wants to get the topic off of
his unquestionable faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I encourage
you to watch him answer this question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From the very beginning you can tell he is uncomfortable and having a hard time figuring out how to answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it’s because he knows
his answer is close-minded and groundless: <i>No, nothing will change my mind
because I really believe in Jesus and don’t make me think about it, next
question!</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u> One
piece of <a href="http://youtu.be/JgyTVT3dqGY" target="_blank">evidence</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Show me one out-of-place fossil <span style="color: #990000;">(such as a
rabbit in the </span><span class="st"><span style="color: #990000;">Precambrian, as Haldane said)</span> or evidence that the
stars appear to be far away but they’re not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We would need </span>evidence<span class="st"> that you can somehow reset
atomic clocks and keep protons from becoming neutrons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bring on any of those things and you would
change my mind immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #990000;">(Once more,
Bill challenges Ken:)</span> What can you prove?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’ve spent your time coming up with explanations about the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can you predict and prove in a
conventional sense?</span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 6:</i> Outside of radiometric methods, what
scientific </span>evidence<span class="st"> supports your view of the age of the
Earth?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
The age of stars I guess?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Radiometric
dating is pretty compelling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were
attempts in the past to try to find how the earth could be old enough for
evolution to have taken place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then
radioactivity was discovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
question to me is akin to saying, “if things were any other way, things would
be different”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Radiometric dating works,
protons become neutrons, and that’s our level of understanding today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are provable facts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea that there was a flood four thousand
years ago is not provable and I think that there is ample evidence that disproves it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Ken, you haven’t addressed my point about
how the various skulls support evolutionary theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #990000;">(Bill was cut off there at the end for time,
but I think that like the last question was Ken’s stumbling block, this one
was Bill’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seemed to have a hard
time answering the question, and like Ken did, at the end he tried to divert
the topic away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Of course, </span>Bill was stating provable
fact and when you’re doing that it’s hard to keep from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just</i> doing that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think
he could have answered the question better with the fact that we use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dating_methods" target="_blank">a variety</a>
of dating methods that
all support one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you
have different sources pointing to the same relative time-frame, it makes a more
convincing argument.)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
There was no earth rock dated to get the date of 4.5 billion years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People think that, but they actually dated
meteorites and because they assumed they were the same age as the earth left
over from the formation of the solar system, that’s where that date comes from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at my slide again as proof.
There’s no dating method that proves young <i>or </i>old. <span style="color: #cc0000;">(Ken is engaging in misinformation here to make it seem like scientists don't check these things constantly. Is it reasonable to think that no earth rock has ever been dated, or that it would be difficult to just go out and do so? What Ken is disingenuously alluding to is that the <a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_scientists_estimate_that_the_Earth_is_4.5_billion_years_old" target="_blank">oldest</a> rocks we've ever found came from meteorites that are 4.54 billion years old. Earth rock has been dated to 4.47 billion years -- so yeah, 4.5 billion, Ken)</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 7:</i> Can you reconcile the change in the rate
at which the continents are now drifting verses the rate at which they must
have traveled 6K years ago to reach where they are now?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
This again illustrates what I’m talking about with regards to observational
science vs historical science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not
an expert here, but we have Creationists with PhD's and they’ve written papers
on this stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you look at the plates
today and you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">assume</i> that the rate
has always been that way, that’s an assumption and you can’t prove that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s historical science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would believe in “catastrophic plate tectonics”
as a result of the Flood and what we’re seeing now is a remnant of that
catastrophic movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #990000;">(And this is a
direct quote:)</span> “We do not deny the movement, we do not deny the plates; what we
would deny is that you can use what you see today as a basis for just
extrapolating into the past.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #990000;">(</span></span><span style="color: #990000;">I’ve made
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCsSk2jLYh4" target="_blank">a video</a> that shows Ken Ham in his own words stating that, on the one hand
you can’t assume laws worked in the past as they do today, and on the other
hand God created the laws to be unchanging and that gave us the basis for
doing science, and the writings from Creation scientists further proves this.)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
One of the reasons we think that the continents are drifting apart is sea floor
spreading in the mid-Atlantic: the earth’s magnetic field has reversed over the millenia, and as it does it leaves a signature in the rocks as the continental
plates drift apart, and so you can <a href="http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/teachers/t_tectonics/p_seafloorspreading.html" target="_blank">measure</a> the speed – that’s how we real
scientists do things.</span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 8:</i> Favorite color?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
Green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an irony that green plants
reflect green light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the light
from the sun is green and yet they reflect it, it’s a mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Science is cool!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
(points to his shirt) Observational science: blue.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span class="st">(Time for some comedic relief, I suppose. I found it telling that even though it was a lame question, Bill used it to continue his point about how science fosters our curiosity.)</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 9:</i> How do you balance the theory of
evolution with the second law of thermodynamics, and what is that exactly?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
It’s basically where energy decays to heat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fundamental <a href="http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Argument_from_the_second_law_of_thermodynamics" target="_blank">flaw</a> in this question is that the earth is not a closed
system, it’s powered by the sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
that energy that drives living things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
You can have all the energy you want, but energy or matter will never produce
life. God imposed information and a language system and that’s how we have
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before man sinned, there was decay
such as in digestion, but after the Fall things are running down and God
doesn’t hold everything together as he did back then. <span style="color: #990000;">(Ken answered this scientifically-based question with complete religion-infused non-answers. He explained entropy by saying God doesn't keep everything working like it used to! That's like saying objects float in space because God isn't pushing them down. <i>Mind-numbing!</i>)</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 10: </i>Hypothetically, if evidence existed that
caused you to admit that the earth is older than 10,000 years and that creation
did not occur over six days, would you still believe in God, and the historical
Jesus, and that Jesus was the son of God?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
I’ve been emphasizing all night: you cannot ever prove the age of the earth
using science in the present, so there is no hypothetical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can make assumptions but you can’t
ultimately prove the age of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can see there are methods that contradict the billions of years, and
as the creation scientists said in my video earlier, there’s nothing in science that
contradicts a young earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve said it
before and I’ll say it again, the reason I believe this is because of the
Bible’s <a href="http://godlesshaven.com/origins-of-the-old-testament/" target="_blank">account</a> of origins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no
hypothetical, bottom line. <span style="color: #990000;">(Ken might as well have had his fingers in his ears and going "</span></span><span style="color: #990000;"><span class="st"><span class="st">nana-nana-na</span> no it's not no it's not </span></span><span class="st"><span style="color: #990000;"><span class="st">nana-nana-na </span>I can't hear you!")</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
You can prove the age of the earth with great robustness by using the universe
around us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ken wants us to take his word
for it that his interpretation of an ancient book is more compelling than what you and I
can observe around us today with our own eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ken, you asserted that life can’t come from non-life – are you sure?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you sure enough to say that we shouldn’t
look for life on other planets, that it’s a waste?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One again, what can you predict, what can you
tell us about the future, not just your ideas about the past?</span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 11:</i> Is there room for God in science?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
Billions of people embrace science and are religious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone has a cell phone, uses medicine, and
befits from agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So if you reconcile those two things, that’s not really connected to your
belief in a higher power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see it as a
separate point, and I see no incompatibility between religion and science for
each person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem I have is that
Ken wants us to take his religious word for it in place of what we can observe
on our own. <span style="color: #990000;">(Here, Bill tried to stay away from theology. While it's true that one can believe in both God and science, the idea of theism isn't scientific. But Bill didn't need to go into all of that, and did a good job of keeping on the real point: Ken just says the bible is true, even when it is contradicted by things any person could see.)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
I think God is necessary for science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
love science here at Answers In Genesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You talked about cell phones and satellites and technology, I agree –
those are things that can be done in the present with <i>observational </i>science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to do science you have to assume the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought#The_three_classical_laws" target="_blank">uniform laws</a> of nature and logic, and where does that come from if the universe
is here by natural processes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bible
and science go hand-in-hand, but inventing things is very different from
talking about our origins.</span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 12:</i> Do you believe the entire Bible should
be taken literally?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
I would need to know what that person meant by literally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you meant “naturally”, then yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it’s history, as Genesis is, you take it
as history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it’s poetry, as in the
Psalms, you take it as poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You take
what is written in the context that it is written in and let it speak to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bible says that all scriptures are
inspired by god.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to take the
bible as a whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it’s really the
word of god, then there’s not going to be any contradictions, which there’s
not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Jesus said marriage is between
one man and one woman. <span style="color: #990000;">(Ken has a Clinton-esque "what <i>is</i> is" moment with this one. He, like many others, take literally what they want, and things they don't agree with are figurative.)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u> When the facts contradict the things you take as literal
interpretations, and then you want me to take other parts of your bible as
literal, it's unsettling.</span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 13:</i> Have you ever believed that evolution
was accomplished via a higher power? [Literally: Have you ever believed that evolution partook through evolution?]</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
Intelligent design has a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of
nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nature is bottom up design, not
top down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you found a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S4F1czs2tk" target="_blank">watch</a> on a
beach, you’d recognize it was designed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But that’s not how nature works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nature
has its mediocre designs eaten by its good designs, and the perception that there’s
a designer isn’t needed because we have model that makes predictions and
repeatable, testable claims.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
Bill needs to show some new function that arose that was not previously
possible from the genetic information that was already there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no new information or function that
can be added to a kind via evolution, and there is no example that you can give that shows
this.</span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 14:</i> Name one institution, business, or
organization (other than a church, amusement park, or the Creation museum) that is
using any aspect of Creationism to produce its product.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
Any scientist that is using the scientific method is using Creation!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re borrowing from a Christian worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because, in a naturally arising universe
there can’t be logic and you couldn’t trust the laws of nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of scientists in the past were
Creationists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if we don’t teach our
children about this, they’re not going to be innovative or come up with inventions
to advance our culture. <span style="color: #990000;">(Ad hoc arguments, appeals to authority, and general misunderstanding of real science from Ken here. I find it hilarious that he claims we couldn't trust the laws of <i>nature </i>in a <i>natural </i>system. That's precisely why they're the laws of nature! And if they changed all the time, they wouldn't be <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_law" target="_blank">laws</a> -- which are descriptive, not proscriptive, Ken.)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason I don’t accept the Creation
model is because it has no predictive quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many people are religious, but not all of them share the same religious
views as you do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What happens to those
people? Are they doomed? <span style="color: #990000;">(Oh Bill, don't get into grade-school theology here. Stick to holding him accountable for claiming books trump eyes.)</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 15:</i> Since evolution teaches that man is
growing smarter over time, how can you explain the numerous evidences of man’s
high intelligence in the past?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
Evolution doesn’t say we’re getting smarter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Survival of the <i>fittest </i>doesn’t mean those who are the most physically
strong or the smartest will survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means
those that <i>fit</i> into the environment the best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, our
capacity to reason has taken us to where we are now, but if the right germ
shows up, we can be taken out. It has nothing to do with smarts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
I remember one of my professors at university was going to give us an example
of evolution, and he showed us cave fish that are blind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, 'look these fish have evolved not to
see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re evolving because those who
are living in this dark cave had ancestors who had eyes and now these ones
don’t', and I said, 'but now they can’t do something that they could do
before!'<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They might have an advantage in
this dark cave now, but it could be that those who had eyes got a disease and
died out and those with a mutation to have no eyes survived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #990000;">(Direct quote:)</span> "It’s not survival of the fittest; it’s
survival of those who survive."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re
not getting new information or new function.</span></div>
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<b><span class="st"><i>Question 16: </i>What is the one thing, more than
anything else, upon which you base your belief?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Ken:</u>
The bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the most unique book out
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no other religious book
that talks about an infinite God, the origin of the universe, the origin of
matter, the origin of light, the origin of darkness, the origin of day and
night, the origin of the earth, the origin of dry land, the origin of plants,
the origin of the sun/moon/stars, the origin of sea creatures, the origin of
flying creatures, the origin of land creatures, the origin of man, the origin
of woman, the origin of death, the origin of sin, the origin of marriage, the
origin of different languages, the origin of clothing, the origin of different
nations – it’s a very specific book with a detailed account of history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if that history is true and so is the
rest of the book, then that means man is a sinner, and he needs the saving power of Jesus Christ who died for you so that you can live forever with God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this book is true -- and has no contradictions, which it <a href="http://bibviz.com/" target="_blank">doesn't</a> -- it should explain what
we see in the world today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a
global flood; yes, we see fossils.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
was the Tower of Babel; yes, we have different languages
around the world, and they have flood legends and creation legends very similar
to the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjp_wET1pfs" target="_blank">prophecy</a> you can
look at as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bible says, if you
seek God, you’ll find him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Bill:</u>
Science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I base my belief on the
information and the process that we call <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2008/03/but-how-do-you-know.html" target="_blank">science</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It fills me with joy to make discoveries, and
to know that we can even ask the questions and pursue the answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s astonishing to think that we are one of
the ways for the universe to know itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are created from the universe, it’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk" target="_blank">in all</a> of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we want to know if we are alone in the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the process of science that will help us
find this another other things out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we abandon all
that we’ve learned through science, if we stop using it and stop looking for the
answers, we as a nation will be out-competed by other countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to keep science education in science
classes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<span class="st"></span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span class="st">###</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="st"><span class="st">So that was the other half of the debate. It was very telling and reveled the positions of both sides a little better than their illustrated presentations were. Here are some of my final thoughts:</span></span></div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span class="st"><span class="st">Bill said a lot by his facial expressions during the times Ken was answering questions. Bill kept things very formal, and did a good job of sticking on point, only getting off into the you-can't-be-serious-how-is-your-religion-true avenues once or twice. But you could see on <a href="http://thefunniestpictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/8eY69xH.jpg" target="_blank">his face</a> at times, he wanted to. You could see him saying to himself, "oh really?" and "you've got to be <i>kidding</i> me!"</span></span></li>
<li><span class="st"><span class="st">You could tell Bill Nye doesn't debate these people often. He had questions that were rudimentary and didn't use answers that are <a href="http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Main_Page" target="_blank">generally</a> presented, some of which I pointed out in my comments.</span></span></li>
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<![endif]--><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Creationism
is a thought process that is “almost there”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
Creationists </span>agree that science works…<i>but</i> you can’t make assumptions that things
worked in the past just because the do today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And they agree that evolution happens…<i>just </i>not enough to make one thing
so different from it’s "kind" that it becomes <a href="http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#speciation_stages" target="_blank">something</a> distinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that the genes for a life-form to have
incredible complexity are all already within it, apparently eschewing the mechanism of mutation.</span></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<br />
See other Creationist questions from the audience <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981973262" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-88913302287824740932014-02-19T09:23:00.000-06:002014-02-19T13:42:01.764-06:00Seek and You Will FindIn <a href="http://infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/bias1.html" target="_blank">both</a> Luke 11:9 and Matthew 7:7 of the bible one can read the words, "seek and ye shall find". For every one who asks receives, and whoever seeks finds, and whoever knocks is admitted. It means if you go looking for a god, you'll find it.<br />
<br />
And I believe it's true. <br />
<br />
<b>Believe First, Then You'll Know</b><br />
I get told time and again from believers in God, if I would only accept the signs that their particular deity exists, I'd be able to believe it. If only I would believe first that mysteries could be answered with "god did it", then I can know "god did it" when I get have questions.<br />
<br />
Ken Ham said several times in his recent debate with Bill Nye that he starts with the bible, and if you do that, you can claim you know:<br />
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<br />
He and many others who belong to this faith chant that same mantra: believe in god, and seek him, then you'll know god exists.<br />
<br />
The reason we shouldn't do this should be obvious simply by looking at the logic in that statement, but we can further illustrate it with a little experimentation. If you first believe that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oveXCII3w30" target="_blank">fairies</a> exist, then you should be able to see evidence of them. You'll probably one day be missing a sock, or the remote, or your car keys. <br />
<br />
That's evidence of the fairies.<br />
<br />
Have you ever been wondering where you sat that thing you were holding, and asked aloud, "now where did I put that"? And then you have a gut feeling to look in the very place you find it?<br />
<br />
That's evidence of the fairies -- you just have to ask and they blow invisible dust on you that draws you toward the object you desire. It's similar to siren magic, only not as potent.<br />
<br />
Ever known who was calling before you looked at the phone? Or how about when you almost choke on a soft drink or a piece of candy, but then you don't. <br />
<br />
That's evidence of the fairies.<br />
<br />
<b>So Open-Minded Your Brain Falls Out</b><br />
We can even have different factions, similar to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Christian-Proselytizer-Allen-Gates/dp/1601450893" target="_blank">differing religions</a>: maybe it's not exactly, fairies. Elves? Maybe spirits of dead relatives? It works with anything, but the point is, see how far down this rabbit hole we can go? At this point, we have no explanatory power -- we're explaining with mysteries. If you look at some of the arguments made by those who believe in "higher powers", it see something very similar. If you would only first believe that there is an infinite creator god trying to speak with you, you'd see evidence of that in rainbows and babies eyes. Just like if you would only first believe that there are fairies who want to help you find your car keys, then you'd see evidence of them when such an event happens.<br />
<br />
Turn on the TV and find a preacher -- I'll guarantee you at some point he'll tell you to seek God. From local youth pastors to your religious grandmother, you'll be told to read your bible, trust in God first, then you'll gain understanding of him. But then don't <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM5n8jESUEk&list=PL1DA0C8985FAE1C22" target="_blank">question</a> that belief, or the whole thing falls apart because it's all built on simple <i>belief</i>.<br />
<br />
It happens in religious contexts because theists base everything on a
certain perception, a certain preconception, a starting-point that is
taken for granted. Instead, we should start with a blank slate, and build only on top of things we can <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hOaQ68_trk" target="_blank">demonstrate</a>. Block by block, we move higher and higher into better understanding. When we make jumps in that stepladder of understanding by <a href="http://ojotaylor.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/then-a-miracle-occurs-cartoon.jpg" target="_blank">inserting appeals</a> to unexplained or unexplainable things, we don't do justice to the institution of knowledge.<br />
<br />
Those of us who don't believe things without first having a reason to are often told we are being "close-minded", that if we would just allow for the possibility of [insert whatever supernatural or metaphysical thing you wish], then we would be able to see what they see.<br />
<br />
Translation: believe first, even if just a little, then find things you can claim as evidence to grow your belief.<br />
<br />
Further translation: seek and ye shall find.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
-STA
STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-46283462226515846072014-02-18T13:48:00.000-06:002014-02-19T00:11:43.524-06:00Atheism Offers Nothing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]-->Due to recent conversations, I've been challenged to provide
an answer to the religious-based question: "What could atheism ever
provide?"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
I can only answer this question for myself, because there are no tenants to
<a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2007/09/atheism-101-knowledge-and-belief.html" target="_blank">atheism</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not a structured worldview,
a philosophy, or a religion itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has no creed or set of values. It is simply a rejection of theism. That said,
what has atheism provided me with?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">An afterlife?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not for me,
anyways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like I said, the only thing
that it takes to be an atheist is a lack of belief in gods (just like all it
takes to be bald is to lack hair).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
that, anything goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people who
don’t believe in the existence of a god still hold to the idea of an afterlife,
either through reincarnation like Buddhists, or by some other supernatural means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But atheism doesn’t offer that
to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A sense of security?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m secure in
the idea of reality; I no longer fear death or other natural processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't become wracked with moral turmoil when a loved one experiences a life-threatening illness. Religion offers a false sense of security…the
idea that God is watching over you and will protect you from harm, and has a
grand plan for your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be scary
– but humbling – to understand that there’s no ultimate creator being that has the
whole world in its hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTvx_QA6gIc" target="_blank">Julia Sweeney</a> said, it’s terrifying to realize that the earth is
just spinning around the sun all on its own…you wanna run outside and catch
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do, however, feel secure in
reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s comforting to know that
all is “as it should be” more or less, and that you’re not some chess piece or
plaything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> There's no script for you to follow, with consequences good or bad for failing to follow it. </span>It’s nice to know that death and suffering isn’t caused by the will of any all-powerful consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I would find it more
frightening to think that a God neglectfully lets bad things happen to good
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be scary to lose that false
sense of security, but it makes you stronger when you open your eyes to reality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Absolute morals?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s another
thing that religion offers, not atheism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Without a god to give us morals, we come to them on our own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We realize that as social creatures, humans
must be cooperative and beneficial to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We also have brains that evolved the power of empathy. Therefore, any society that contains members who act against the general welfare won’t or even can’t function properly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It's obviously more complicated than a few sentences, but the end result is simple: we don’t need a God to be good – we just need each other. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A sense of community?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least, not
in a formal, structured sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Atheism
isn’t a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pwwvBygoFA" target="_blank">religion</a>, but as a collective group (grouped only by our lack of
theism), atheists can create communities on their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are several <a href="http://www.atheistnexus.org/" target="_blank">online</a> communities and several physical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_secularist_organizations" target="_blank">organizations</a> that promote atheism and give the
nonbeliever that sense of community that is often lost when they reject their
faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can still be social and have
meetings or events together, and share in the fellowship of like-minded people, but this is something any individual can achieve for any reason they desire; it's not granted by atheism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b>Ultimate answers?</b><br />
Nope. There are no answers given simply by rejecting the demonstrably false ones of others. Too often I'm asked what boils down to, "if not God, then what?". And a great deal of the time, the answer to that question is, "I don't know". Whatever the answers to life's ultimate questions, it's probably not a supernatural father-figure that cares about what cloths you wear.<br />
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<b>Removing the Cancer</b></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Atheism isn't meant to "provide" anything. I often liken it to asking: after you remove a cancer, what do you replace it with?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While religion was a disease I carried for
many years, when I left it behind, I suddenly realized that my pre-packaged
beliefs all had to be re-examined and re-evaluated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s what learning to think for myself made room for:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Reality</i></b><br />
Since becoming a nonbeliever of any gods, I've been able to see the world for
what it truly is. All aspects of nature and natural processes shine
brighter than if they were just “made” by some powerful creature. I have
more of a respect for the <a href="http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/wonders-with-brian-cox" target="_blank">universe</a> and my place in it than I ever had thinking
it was all made for <i>me</i> or <i>my kind</i>. I no longer hold to a false sense of
security or a false sense of knowledge. What I observe and experience is
no longer colored by a religious worldview. When I see a mountain, I
think about the natural processes and all the time it took that led to its
formation, about where it's been and where it will go...I don't think about Matthew 17:20. I see reality as it really
is.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Respect for Life</i></b><br />
I no longer think that I will survive my own death. I do not believe in
an afterlife, and therefore every second I spend alive becomes <i>infinitely</i>
more valuable and precious. I can't afford to waist time on silly ideas
such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6ILZAaAMI" target="_blank">prayer</a> or religious rituals. I have a greater respect for all
life in general. I am no longer afraid of death. I cherish every
breath I have to spend with those I care about and to learn about the universe
around me. I have to make amends to those I hurt now -- I don't get a
second chance. I have to say what I need to say to people, and spend time
with those I need to, now.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Hunger for Knowledge</i></b><br />
It's funny how thinking you have the answer is vastly less fulfilling than
actually honestly searching for the truth. When the hollow-feeling “knowledge”
was gone, I began to fill the void with <i>real</i> knowledge. I started craving
an understanding of how the world works (if God isn't holding the world up,
what is?), and I started to actually understand science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Religion sought to provide me with an answer
to everything, and I didn’t even have to understand the answer to accept
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sought knowledge backwards: first
accept something as “truth”, then go and find evidence to support that
conjecture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After truly understanding
what knowledge is and <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2008/03/but-how-do-you-know.html" target="_blank">how</a> it's obtained, I began to crave the answers of the universe.<br />
<br />
<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Higher Standards of Love</b></i><br />
I once thought that I was loved by people in my congregation out of the
goodness of their hearts, but after denouncing my faith, I find that some
people only "love" someone if they think God tells them to.
Obviously, God doesn't want his disciples to listen to the "lies" we apostates
spew, and therefore we are not to be trusted or cared for any longer. And
I was guilty of the same thing. I claimed "love" for my fellow
believers simply because they believed like I did, and didn't conflict with my ideas. It was more of an
in-group, tribal thing than actual love. Many religious people claim a
feeling of absolute <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrqLV4yeiw" target="_blank">love from God</a>, but it turns out that it's more a projection
of what they hope to have -- a sense of being looked after and cared
about. Since leaving the faith, I've felt a love greater than any God could grant.<br />
<br />
<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">True Peace and Happiness</b></i><br />
Being a believer carried a lot of baggage with it. I was expected to be
oppressed by nonbelievers and stalked daily by the Devil. I was expected to
always struggle to live "in the world, but not <i>of </i>it". I had to
ask God for anything and thank him for everything. I had to rationalize
any event to either be a work of God or a plan from Satan. My life was full of tests,
tribulations, and leaps of unquestioned faith. I had to pray for others, as their
lives (and after-lives) were my responsibility. I had to feel guilty for
being human, guilty for thought-crimes, and always subject my worthless self to
a Supreme Judge and beg for pity at the throne of my Master.<br />
<br />
After throwing off the shackles of faith, I realized that none of that was
true. Feelings of guilt and torturous thoughts were burned away by the
light of reason. I learned to let life in -- to experience it fully and
completely, the good and the bad. And I am happy. No longer do I
lay down my faculties of reason in the place of blind obedience to anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After you are brainwashed and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXgnpuKoWhU" target="_blank">mentally abused</a>
by a mindset as vicious as religion, you realize after it all just how bad it
really was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure we can all relate
to being young, then getting older, looking back and realizing just how dumb
you were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s similar with religion…I
can’t believe I believed some of things I used to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know now that I should have known better, and I’m
happy that now, at least, I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m truly happy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Atheism didn't provide me with anything, but it opened the ways that were blocked by the dogma of theism. A lack of belief cannot provide you with positive beliefs --
you can't get from "I don't believe in any gods" to <i>anything</i> else without adding some new facet.<br />
<br />
Each atheist must decide on their own about <i>everything</i>. We're not handed
a prepackaged set of beliefs, morals, arguments, or tenants. In short, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RzD_RE2yQY" target="_blank">atheism
offers nothing</a>, but it opens the world up to you. We each must make
up our minds about life, the universe, and everything.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STA </div>
STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-56463016629463417292014-02-14T08:01:00.000-06:002014-02-19T14:04:12.375-06:00Relationships Need InputI'm often encouraged by my opposition to "seek a personal relationship" with the deity they espouse. And indeed, that sounds like a good idea to someone who is curious about a particular god. Despite the fact that I was a tongue-talking Christian for a lot of my young adult life, I'm implored by the religious to get into a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_HAYTehtqc&list=FLEroIhQhGdcu-Zq_GySKYVg" target="_blank">relationship</a> with their savior.<br />
<br />
<b>1 John 4:8, 1 Corinthians 13:4, Exodus 34:14</b><br />
But what exactly does that mean? A relationship has at the least, two people. Unless a "personal" relationship is akin to the way a stalker feels about his victim. And since I'm hard-pressed to find a theist who believes their god is a physical person, it seems like the latter is the direction one has to go in.<br />
<br />
In an actual relationship between two people, each party grows, changes, and effects one another. Each <i>participating</i> member benefits from the others' involvement. It is possible to be in a relationship and not contribute to it, and those relationships don't <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41kPS2K_8kA" target="_blank">last long</a>. I realize that from a theistic standpoint, one can hope to change and grow "in God" or "in Jesus" or "in Minerva", but that really only proves the case for a one-sided relationship.<br />
<br />
What can a changeless, all-powerful, all-knowing god hope to gain from a relationship? Gaining something itself implies a lack of something in the first place. If the god knows all in the future, no excitement or surprise can come, so there's no benefit there. Such a deity can't change, can't grow, can't be effected.<br />
<br />
I realize at best I'm arguing for deism here, and I don't intend to. Let's turn the focus back to the idea that each worshiper has their own "personal relationship" with God. I don't think I can do a better job of illustrating the flaws with this idea than what has already been done by YouTube user <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStampCollector/videos" target="_blank">NonStampCollector</a>:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/kLBDFe3mDtk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Put simply: there wouldn't be so many differing views on the wishes of a (supposedly) singular entity if all those who profess to engage in a personal <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtrE5RBB2gk" target="_blank">relationship</a> with said entity <i>actually did so</i>.<br />
<br />
Happy <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slzot_xyTAA" target="_blank">Valentine</a>'s Day everyone. Find someone -- a real person -- with whom you have an actual, personal relationship with, and spend some time with them.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-54286564170338166182014-02-12T15:41:00.001-06:002014-02-12T15:41:36.737-06:00Happy Darwin Day 2014In honor of Darwin Day this year, I wanted to take a little time to encourage those of you who haven't given creationism or evolution much thought to do so. Picking a side isn't the point. It's a bit like voting: both sides have a stance on something. The "winner" of the argument will go on to affect change in your world. Therefore, getting to know the <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977334360" target="_blank">stances</a> of both sides helps you to make informed decisions about things that will effect you, and aid you in realizing in what context information in the future is being presented.<br />
<br />
<b>On A Lack of Substance</b> <br />
If you've never really thought much about the Evolution vs. Creation discussion before, I encourage you to take some time to look into each side in as much depth as you can. Maybe you're on the fence about which side you agree with. Maybe you're a Christian or a spiritual person and think that necessarily means you must be a Creationist.<br />
<br />
Evolution has nothing do say about any God. To accept the fact that things change over time doesn't mean you have to not believe in a Supreme Being. Evolution doesn't talk about how life began, only how life changes.<br />
<br />
The biggest arguments against it as an means of explaining life boils down into these <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/search/label/logical%20fallacies" target="_blank">fallacies</a>:<br />
<br />
<i>#1: God of the Gaps</i><br />
All throughout human history, there have been things we don't understand. Even still, there are lots and lots of things we don't yet fully understand, and even more things we have no clue about at all. The problem is that these <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-of-gaps.html" target="_blank">gaps</a> in our knowledge are a great fit for God. Any time we can say, "I don't know" or "I can't explain it", a believer in some kind of deity will answer with their god, even though that explains a mystery with an even bigger mystery. Where our knowledge ends, religion and god-belief begins. <br />
<br />
<i>2: Personal Incredulity</i><br />
If you've never really thought about <a href="http://www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/75602950791/molecularlifesciences-top-5-misconceptions" target="_blank">evolution</a> before, you might be thinking, "I can't imagine how that works". This is a common starting point for a lot of Creationists, and indeed before Charles Darwin uncovered the method in 1800's, it was the starting point for all of humanity. But simply not being able to understand how something works doesn't make the thing nor its explanation any less valid. That's like saying, "I just can't believe people could build a rocket ship!" is a valid refutation of the 1961 orbit by <span>Yuri Gagarin</span>.<br />
<br />
<i>3: Not Enough Time</i><br />
When it comes down to it, a lot of Creationists today accept evolution -- they realize things change over time. They just stop before one thing changes into another. That is, given enough time, an organism can evolve into a separate species. Yet Creationists claim that no one "kind" of animal changes into another "kind". The problem they have is simply with time. Evolution works given enough time, but due to a human's relatively short time to live, this idea makes it harder to put into perspective, because we don't see change occurring fast enough. And since the hard-core Creationists believe the literal interpretation of the Bible and only allow for 6,000 to 10,000 years, they don't allow for the millions or billions of years such a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewtw_nZUIDQ" target="_blank">change</a> needs.<br />
<br />
The Parnell Building at the University of Queensland, Australia, houses the world's oldest continually running experiment: a funnel of tar pitch (bitumen) sits inside a glass case at room temperature. The pitch looks solid (and in fact it can be shattered with a hammer) but it actually <i>flows</i> at an extremely slow rate. It takes about a decade for it to drip. The experiment was set up by a physics professor in 1927, and it as dripped eight times, and is due to drop <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/01/25/pitch_drop_experiment_tests_viscosity_and_patience.html" target="_blank">very soon</a>. The rate is very slow in our perspective. The continental drift of Australia is ten times faster than the flow of this stuff.<br />
<br />
A Creationist looks at the time it takes for evolution in much the same way as someone who, for example, could have taken the pitch-drop experiment home with them, lived with it, perhaps got a <span class="st">Ph.D</span> in something along the way, and every day looked at it and concluded, "it doesn't drip".<br />
<br />
We can't generally see evolution occurring because it takes generations to work. We do, however, see it occur in bacteria because they go through generations within a matter of hours. Following the <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html" target="_blank">evidence</a>, we see that Earth is millions of years old, 4.5 <i>billion</i> in fact. Even without the evidence for evolution (fossil record, comparative biology, DNA, etc.), it should be easy to see that small changes over a time on that scale could result in great diversity.<br />
<br />
<b>Dig For Yourself</b><br />
This blog post by no means should convince anyone of anything. Its purpose is to encourage you to start looking into things for yourself. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth" target="_blank">Read</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBs-CkxGXy8" target="_blank">watch</a> all that you can on both evolutionarily science and Creationist information. Ask critical questions of everything you find. Try to falsify, try to debunk, try to dismantle every argument you hear.<br />
<br />
Think for yourself.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-25199105045671635632014-02-06T07:33:00.003-06:002014-02-22T03:36:40.667-06:00Slurping Ken Ham's Solipsistic Soup<div class="MsoNormal">
In the first <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCsSk2jLYh4" target="_blank">video</a> of my series reviewing the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate, I summarized an argument Ken made with an illustration of a falling pen. According
to Ken, we can’t assume the rate we measure an object (such as a pen) was the same 100 years ago or 5000 years
ago. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Well, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can </i>assume it, but Ken would call that "historical science".</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He claims that it depends on your starting point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Observations we make are filtered through the
lenses of the perspective we start from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He freely admits several times that he’s starting from the belief that
the bible is true and accurate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
claims Bill and the rest of us are starting from the belief that evolution must
be true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then both sides find evidence
to support their “historical perspective”.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPdJSi2sPGeE_htSKDQWi69JnaBlkI5ulvnZjPtBEgjgrxJD8uF2h0LTz-_GH0jOWSrNVGL3Ok8ufEg9EH7z3RIBaQ25FRxpr-L6LR-5xlATYZBHMBsZ1UdOgWxTAjAcsX8MWWSzr3aov/s1600/historicalscienceBS.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPdJSi2sPGeE_htSKDQWi69JnaBlkI5ulvnZjPtBEgjgrxJD8uF2h0LTz-_GH0jOWSrNVGL3Ok8ufEg9EH7z3RIBaQ25FRxpr-L6LR-5xlATYZBHMBsZ1UdOgWxTAjAcsX8MWWSzr3aov/s1600/historicalscienceBS.png" height="194" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s simply not true.<br />
<br />
It's true for Ken Ham and others like him who admit (just as he did several times during the debate) that they start with the Bible being true. But that's not how rational, reasonable, scientifically minded people do things.<br />
<br />
We don't start with the idea that evolution is true. We observe things in the world around us -- fossils, DNA, comparative biology -- and that evidence points us in the direction of the truth. There is no "historical science vs observational/experimental science"...there's just <i>science.</i> The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcavPAFiG14&feature=related" target="_blank">method</a> is the same even when it comes to history. We make assumptions and inferences by how things work in the real world.<br />
<br />
Ken's starting with the "the Bible is one hundred percent true", and in doing so, he misses the first step. I've covered how the Bible isn't accurate many times on this blog over the years, and you can find a lot of great sites out there as well, so I won't refute it here. This post is about making sure people realize that if you're just going to hold to a solipsistic idea like, "we can't know things weren't different in the past", then claiming pigs flew 3,000 years ago is just as valid as claiming people lived to be hundreds of years old just a few generations ago. At that point, everything is on the table and we can't make sense of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu67S1g05Vo" target="_blank">world</a>.<br />
<br />
Luckily for us all, we don't hold to such ridiculous beliefs. The fruits of science that each of us uses is based on the idea that nature has laws. If they changed radically, they wouldn't be laws (not to mention we probably wouldn't be here in the first place).<br />
<br />
-STA </div>
STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-12195053756213808812014-02-05T07:02:00.000-06:002014-02-11T17:45:26.416-06:00Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham: First Thoughts<div class="MsoNormal">
There's a new video up on my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCsSk2jLYh4" target="_blank">YouTube</a> channel in which I discuss the recent Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye creationism debate. In fact, I’ll probably be making it a small series so that
I can review the various facets of the debate, parse it out, and give my
thoughts on it.</div>
<br />
First off, what is it good <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI" target="_blank">debate</a>?<br />
<br />
Well, I thought it was a good <i>thing</i>. It wasn't really a debate, and to his credit Bill Nye didn't engage a lot of Ken Ham's bungled rhetoric. It might have been better (and certainly more entertaining) to watch the two debaters address each other's points directly, and though they both did on occasion, the format didn't really make for that sort of thing.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know a few people have reviewed it saying it was amazing
and the best they’ve ever seen. I don’t agree. I
think the Science Guy did a decent job of stating, "science works, so kids, go
learn it" and Ham’s main point was "the Bible is 100% true, can't tell me otherwise".<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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I think it was good for the public to get a refresher in science. My favorite parts were when Bill
explained <i>how</i> we know <i>what</i> we know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
think that for debates like these -- especially where people are advising against debating creationists or conspiracy nut jobs because it makes them
appear on equal footing when they’re not -- a good thing for the public in general. <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/hunterschwarz/14-things-americans-think-about-the-bible-in-2013" target="_blank">Look</a>, 31% of people in this country say that their faith directly influences how they vote. And the percentage of people in this
country who believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God: 22%. So when you have a debate like this, where you’re at the
creation museum and perhaps a large percentage of the audience is fundamental
theists, when you explain how science works and how we <i>know</i> the facts we know,
it’s likely the first time a lot of them are hearing it, and it can sway a lot
of minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bill didn’t do that often, he
just assumed people would look things up and stated them as fact, but the few
times he explained, those were my favorite times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lawrence <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw7v6EzJDNM" target="_blank">Krauss’s talk</a> at FreeOK 2013 was awesome and I realize Bill
couldn’t possibly give a complete science lecture, but it might have been
better if he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just give a quick
remedial science lesson to the room and recap here’s why we believe the Big
Bang, here’s why we believe Evolution, <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2008/03/but-how-do-you-know.html" target="_blank">here’s why</a> we trust and use the
scientific method.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because again, I
doubt many people really understand these concepts because of how poorly science is
taught.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know I didn’t fully grasp it
when I was in high school because it was presented as, science is a
collection of facts and figures along with the other subjects where you just
memorize and parrot back. Here’s how long division works, here’s how cellular
mitosis works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s how a circular saw
works, here’s how volcanoes work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
was never any emphasis on the <i>method</i> and how we use science as a tool, it was
just about, "Here’s the way the world works, if you’re interested in it, go into
a scientific field"…much like, "Here’s how a lawn mower engine works, if you’re
interested in that, become a mechanic."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t intend this to be a full review, just a few
bits on what I thought about it overall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least it was good to get the
scientific point out there again (it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPJ6ece-rII" target="_blank">seems</a> we need to do that every few years), Bill didn’t really have to do anything other than
state facts and let Ken Ham destroy himself with statements like “I’m starting
from a viewpoint that the bible is a true account of history” and “there is no
hypothetical situation in which he could be wrong”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, at that point you can’t do anything
to debate against that besides what Bill did, which was state
scientific fact and tell people, we know these things,
now go learn about it before the United States gets left behind!</div>
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-59309391439795568102014-02-03T20:01:00.002-06:002014-02-03T20:02:01.578-06:00Grand DesignsSince I've decided to make a new effort to blog again, I've been reviewing some old drafts and talking points that have been accruing dust. Yesterday, I came across a post that I never got around to finishing. It was written when Ray Comfort called into the Atheist Experience show near the end of March in 2011. I just heard that Matt and Ray are supposed to debate again this coming Friday, and since this is the eve of the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham "<a href="http://debatelive.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">debate</a>", I thought it fitting to finish up the post for you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Bananas!</b><br />
As I press play on <a href="http://blip.tv/file/4943508">a video</a> of the Atheist Experience TV show, I find myself reaching for a stress ball. This is a special episode in which evangelist Ray Comfort calls the program. I'm <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2009/10/today-from-ray-what-have-you-been-doing.html">familiar</a> with Ray and his favorite arguments for the god of the bible, and I'm more than certain he's going to use one that falls into the category of PRATT (Previously Refuted A Thousand Times).<br />
<br />
Sure enough, Ray began his <i>argument from design</i> right out of the gate. In Ray's view, anyone who has a brain and eyes should be able to look around at the world and see design. How this <a href="http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Argument_from_design#Ray_Comfort.27s_divine_painter">apparent design</a> points to his particular god is still a mystery, but the flaws to this argument are not.<br />
<br />
And while you might think I'm about to list all the reasons why this argument is flawed, I'm not (you can <a href="http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Argument_from_design#Counter_arguments">find those</a> on your own). Instead, I'm actually going to -- for the sake of this post -- concede that <b>nature has been designed</b>.<br />
<br />
"<i>STA, have you lost your godless mind?!</i>" No, no yet anyway. But if we analyze this "designer" vis-à-vis its "design" we can examine the aptitude of this being. It's irrelevant if this designer is the god of the Bible or the Qur'an, Zeus, Baal, FSM, or shape-shifting lizard men from the Andromeda galaxy. If we assume that whoever created and/or designed life as it exists on our planet was indeed a conscious designer (or group of designers) that has a mind either dependent or independent of a body, we can examine its work and know it, as Matthew 7:20 states.<br />
<br />
<b>I Don't Need No Proof</b><br />
I'm a somewhat musician and I love to sing and strum to a variety of songs, several of which come from a band called Live. (At the time of writing, Live has disbanded and apparently the lead singer has now fully <a href="http://www.mariacelina.net/jotter/ed-kowalczyk-alive-2010/" target="_blank">embraced</a> Christianity.) My guitar-playing buddy and I used to cover one of their songs entitled <i>Heaven</i>, whose chorus lyrics are:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
I don't need no one to tell me about heaven<br />
I look at my daughter, and I believe.<br />
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth<br />
I can see the sunset and I perceive.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have to admit that once I truly became aware of <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2007/09/am-i-atheist-or-agnostic.html">my disbelief</a> in a god, I could no longer perform this song -- even though <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Kiss#Story_of_the_Song">I still perform</a> many songs that reference ideas about heaven, god, angels, etc. This song embodies the argument from design (in some ways a subset of the argument from ignorance) so completely that I can't bring myself to perform it for people. It's still a good song in its own right, with a great hook, catchy melody, and it's well performed as many of Live's songs are. But the narrator of the song (and now the actual singer, apparently) believes that God exists because things like sunsets and babies are beautiful.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Pay No Attention to the Flesh-Eating Bacteria</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This kind of argument is put forth almost every time I ask a theist to give me reasons why they believe in god. The response usually goes something like, "Look at the trees, birds, and the magnificence of a baby's eye and tell me how you <i>don't</i> believe in a god!"<br />
<br />
But what about the very unpleasant in the world: ichneumon wasps, childhood leukemia, necrotizing fasciitis<span id="search">. It's always amazing to me that I have to point out this bald-faced cherry picking of nature. They might say, "look at this wonderful flower! Only a God could have made it!" and then I turn over the flower and find ten kinds of bug that can kill you ten different, horrible ways. Where's the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0RdsQwGqpw" target="_blank">credit</a> go then?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Were we to examine the enumerations of our world's supposedly grand designs, we would see that a better design could be easily proposed. Neil deGrasse Tyson said it well:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oEl9kVl6KPc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
As Mr. Tyson points out, the world doesn't seem designed with us in mind. Indeed, even our own bodies are lacking when it comes to functionality. There are a myriad of ways to die without the aid of external forces, such as choking to death. <br />
<br />
The theistic claims generally rest upon the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing designer, and the fact that we, a supposedly fallible and broken creation, could suggest a design that is better than "perfect" should be a red flag.<br />
<br />
It is not hubris to claim that the designer could have done better. For the "designer" is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok_tcAEbHHw" target="_blank">blind</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>The Blind Watchmaker</b><br />
Nature has been designed -- by nature <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism" target="_blank">herself</a>.
The puddle of rain was not designed for the divot in which it rests.
The hand was not designed for the glove. Creationists too oftentimes
put the cart before the horse. Had enough metaphor yet?<br />
<br />
The "designer" simply used the <a href="http://pandasthumb.org/sims/" target="_blank">tools</a> that were available, molding and shaping fauna and flora by jerry-rigging haphazardly working with what it has. It's like giving a child a set of blocks and telling him to build various things with them. Whereas the child is given only a finite number of blocks, a truly omnipotent designer wouldn't have to stick with the pool of resources to create, it could simply create from nothing the parts it needed.<br />
<br />
Only in reality, the "designer" is mindless. There is no direction or
goal to the design. It's not a true design in the sense that we know it, and
that's one of the main problems with the watchmaker
argument, a favorite of Ray's. But we can look around and easily see how much of the universe isn't designed for us. We can examine ourselves and discover problems with our parts and systems as a whole. We see design because life <i>works</i> and we're used to thinking that things can't work unless they are created with a goal to do so.<br />
<br />
If a designer made nature, it could have done better. Fortunately, we have found that by putting the evidence first -- not the conclusion that we are designed -- we find life changing and evolving without the need of a designer. The results look designed, but only in the same sense that the puddle looks designed for the hole it lands in.<br />
<br />
<b>I Look At My Daughter</b><br />
Even if evolution were to somehow be <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2008/01/monkeys-from-nothing.html" target="_blank">disproved</a>,
some kind of intelligent designer wouldn't automatically win the top
spot for explanation. Instead it must be proven on its own merits that
this designer made things like trees, birds, cholera, and eyeballs.<br />
<br />
Since the time of this writing, I have had a daughter. The first time I saw her, I was filled with emotion and love. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Now, looking back at this post, I'm reminded of those lyrics in the song. I don't need anyone to tell me a god designed us. I look at my daughter, and I perceive the little shifts that life took, over millions of years, to "design" such a wonderful thing. To claim that a god <i>poofed </i>her into existence is to deny <a href="http://www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/75196198192/molecularlifesciences-top-5-misconceptions" target="_blank">facts</a> and evidence we've gathered through diligent study, not reading from a book. And we I look upon a sunset, I believe that humanity can and will learn more through the use of science and the eschewing of religion and ideas of intelligent designers.<br />
<br />
But I'll admit my version's not as catchy.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STA</div>
STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-37233095859457375852014-02-02T13:34:00.000-06:002014-02-02T13:34:00.694-06:00RebirthWow. Nine posts in two years? And the last one, in 2013, didn't even mention the <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/2012-the-end-of-the-world/" target="_blank">end of the world</a>?<br />
<br />
Sad, I know. But life has found a way to make me put down my mouth-peace to the world. I've been raising my first child, and we are expecting another any day now. I haven't forgotten about you though, and I peruse the news feeds and videos almost daily, but have found that I like playing outside with my daughter more than face-palming to the latest theistic nonsense. Taking care of a child is hard work, and like I said, I'm about to start the entire process all over again.<br />
<br />
However, I've been entertaining the idea of jumping in again. Slowly at first, mind you...but part of me misses the communities, camaraderie, and combat here. So expect to see a few more posts from me in the very near future. But be warned -- I'll likely be suffering from lack of sleep. Brace yourself for louder-than-usual rants.<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-51434813251102110522013-03-31T21:17:00.000-05:002013-03-31T23:46:16.983-05:00Day in the Life: An Unexpected OutingHello again, all. I apologize for not posting lately, but I'm hoping to start back up soon. I just wanted to let you all know that everyone here's doing fine, and today was a special day. No, not just <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2010/12/reason.html" target="_blank">Zombie Jesus Day</a> -- today, my wife <i>came out</i> to her family (specifically, her mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa)! <br />
<br />
There's only so much a person can take around holiday get-together with elderly people and their narrow-minded views, and she spur-of-the-moment told them that she's an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/uFJeQ25-aY4" target="_blank">atheist</a>. They didn't shun her or ask too many questions either, and now that the announcement has been made, we can expect it to get around the rest of the family and open the doors of conversation -- and hopefully, understanding. At the very least they won't spout off things like, "it's the <i>atheists</i> who are trying take Jesus out of everything because they <i>all</i> hate him".<br />
<br />
So congratulations my dear. I love you.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-7698245644585998432011-12-16T20:18:00.002-06:002011-12-16T20:18:26.747-06:00A Horseman FallsLife is keeping me busy and while I do plan to make future posts, I'm not entirely certain when.<br />
<br />
Tonight I just wanted to put up a small, mournful post regarding the death of <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201" target="_blank">Christopher Hitchens</a>. I'm not sure what I could add to the outpouring of remembrance posts that have flooded the internet since his death last night, except to say that I'm sorry I never got to met him. Hitch was an extraordinary influence on me during the time I began my road to recovery, as it were. He had such a captivating grasp of language and could craft a sentence that made my budding intellectual mind hum with intrigue. I've always wanted to be able to spontaneously generate such cogent strings of words like Hitchens could. Not only was he a great speaker, his arguments were -- are -- among the best presently available, and I doubt a similar figure will appear in my lifetime. I'm thankful to Hitch for being in the right place for me at the right time, and for delivering a wealth of counterpoints and kernels of thought that I'll can always go back to and study. We'll always have his work.<br />
<br />
So tonight I'll raise a glass in remembrance of Hitch, an eloquent speaker and a wonderful human.<br />
<br />
-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-43932613787833320392011-05-21T18:11:00.016-05:002011-05-21T18:11:00.390-05:00The Fat Lady is SleepingWell, it seems the "end of the world" has <a href="http://www.armageddononline.org/conspiracy_list.php">once again</a> come and gone. While the faithful are busy trying to rationalize their cognitive dissonance, reality continues -- as it always does -- forward. I am both enraged and saddened at Harold Camping for <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/while_harold_camping_sits_safe.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29">the casualties</a> left in his wake of fear-mongering, and simultaneously filled with schadenfreude for the dumbfounded scratching their heads in disbelief.<br />
<br />
Let's face it, none of raptor-ready halfwits are in any kind of "shock" right now. When the mind is addled with such a lack of critical thinking, it can come face-to-face with <a href="http://www.update.uu.se/%7Efbendz/library/cd_impossible.html">contrary</a> or antipodes information and <i>still</i> assume it was right all along. The double-think involved is seen any many other areas of theistic ideology...it's like a staple or a necessity for it. In fact, I'd be amazed if I could find one of these May 21st people who would say, "I truly believed the world was going to end, and when it didn't I realized there was something deeply <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/Evid3nc3#grid/user/A0C3C1D163BE880A">wrong</a> with my thinking."<br />
<br />
One can wish. Next up to get bitch-slapped by the world when it sticks around: the Mayans.<br />
<br />
<br />
-STA<br />
<i>(Typed while listening to Ænema) </i>STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-16346136833038622632011-03-29T09:50:00.002-05:002011-03-29T09:50:00.278-05:00The Molestation of PachydermsI was recently offered an old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant">Indian</a> parable by a theist as an attempt to befuddle me into accepting that different religions are all part of the same god. You know the one about the three blind me (or men in the dark) who are asked to describe what an elephant looked like by feeling it. The first man feels the leg and says an elephant is like a tree. The second man feels the tail and proclaims it to be a length of rope. The third feels the tusk and decides this long and sharp object must be a spear. You've probably heard it differently; there's many forms of the story. But the point is that this argument was presented to me as an attempt to show how we all see the same thing in reality, just from different perspectives. This particular theist was using it to further illustrate how science is just another blind man feeling around in the dark. The analogy may sound flowery, philosophical and convincing, but it is fundamentally flawed.<br />
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<b>Religion is Blind</b><br />
The point that was lost on my theistic friend was that religion <i>is</i> like those blind men. It feels around for something and immediately sticks to it's interpretation of what it finds (demons cause disease, anyone?). But science <i>keeps going</i>. It doesn't just proclaim "it's a spear" or "it's a tree trunk". It says, "well, this part resembles a tree trunk, but we need more data". Religion gives up. It has <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkkcsOglYjI">no reason</a> to continue searching or to keep asking questions because it thinks (nay, <i>knows</i>) it has all the answers. <br />
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Another point the analogy makes is that the blind men are <i>all wrong</i>. Not only do they get the description of the elephant wrong, but they get the animal itself wrong as well (if you follow the version that is asking the men to describe what they're feeling). Religion says, "yep, it's a spear alright". Science says, "it might be a spear, or spear-like, but we don't yet know".<br />
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My theist friend failed to realize that the parable was not meant to be about how religions are the same, but instead about how religion knows <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_REEdvxo">nothing</a>. As John Godfrey Sax's poem about it ends:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><i>So oft in theologic wars, </i><br />
<i> The disputants, I ween, </i><br />
<i> Rail on in utter ignorance </i><br />
<i> Of what each other mean, </i><br />
<i> And prate about an Elephant </i><br />
<i> Not one of them has seen! </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i></i></div><br />
<b>Not The Same</b><br />
Further points can be made against the New Age view that all religions are parts of the same whole. While this view is relatively harmless, I don't see it as intellectually honest, and would rather argue on the side of religion for the sake of religious integrity (however frail that may be). As my friend Todd Allen Gates points out in his book, <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyLQ0q-3lLA">Dialogue</a> with a Christian Proselytizer</i>, the reasons for thinking "all religions are one" fall into five categories.<br />
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First, perhaps different religions fill different needs. God made all the world's religions, but he modified them to suite the needs of different regions. This might sound at first to be well and good, but flaws appear after a few moments pf thought. Does this mean that people who, say, travel to India, should observe the caste system? What about people whose divine directives say they should kill all who practice witchcraft? What happens when they travel to a country where the practice of witchcraft is believed to be a commandment from god? The bigger point here is: where do you go for guidelines? Who writes the standards for which doctrine gets observed when overlaps or contradictions occur?<br />
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Second is the "corrupted message" view that we see conflict in religions because God's original True Word(TM) has been corrupted by humans. This boils down to, as Gates says, something of a CEO who is too inept to keep unauthorized subordinates from editing the text and -- even worse -- a CEO who stands by idly when the corrupted messages are forged and spread even more widely than the original, true message. This give a contradictory view of God; he's powerful enough to create the universe, but can't seem to keep his mission statement from being tampered with.<br />
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Third is the "paradox hypothesis". God made different religions to confuse us on purpose, because those bewildered by conflicting doctrines will reap the benefits of expanded spiritual perceptions. This idea that God purposefully confused us might be supported by a small number of people who feel their spiritual lives have benefited, but when we look at the history of violence and bloodshed caused by this confusion, it makes a caring Creator who wishes such bloody disorder look <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrxt3SxjEOA">inept</a> and not so caring. As Gates so eloquently puts it, "it makes little since to believe that such a deity who could so successfully calculate the different respiratory needs of gills versus lungs, would have so badly calculated and miscalculated the effects of inspiring consecrated contradictions".<br />
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Fourth is the "emanation hypothesis", that the Creator of the universe didn't set out to inspire any religion, but holy truth simply emanates from it, and different humans in different time periods tap into these emanations. The idea is that there's one divine source, people just pick up on that source in different ways depending on their culture. This too falls into the same basic contradiction-quagmire as the previous two categories: that an all-powerful, all-loving being cares enough about us to want us to be delivered, but offers no way of preventing us from making up our own mind about which is the True(TM) way, however wrong it turns out to be. This deity continues to emanate truths without care as to how those truths are being interpreted and what violence it begets. This position may not exclude a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUC3F6PnCYI">deistic</a> god, but it certainly discredits a personal one.<br />
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The fifth and final way in which New Agers claim "all religions are one" is that even though we humans perceive differences and contradictions in religions, that's only due to our limited, finite, or broken human understanding. But this cop-out answer is not the sole property of New Age spiritualists; fundamentalists will use this same rationalization to nonbelievers in their religion. Any difficulty can be explained away by it, but how is it that "we don't know" something can turn into "therefore we know"?<br />
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<b>Can't We All Just Get Along?</b><br />
It would be nice if religions were all parts of the same elephant. Even though they're not, those who wish peace between religions can only want a good thing. The bigger point is this: we don't need <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0vggXUcWaU">religion</a> -- <i>any</i> religion -- to have a peaceful, loving, and productive coexistence. We're better off putting aside religion, or at least cutting out the "love your neighbor" bits and throwing away the rest. One thing is for sure: we're all in this boat together, and we're all a little blind.<br />
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-5433428312624023992011-03-23T12:54:00.003-05:002011-03-23T12:54:00.943-05:00Reasons for EverythingMy mother is fond of saying, "Everything happens for a reason." I agree with her, but not in the way you'd think.<br />
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She, unlike <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFJeQ25-aY4">myself</a>, is a theist. The "reason" she attributes everything to ultimately boils down to nothing short of a divine plan authored by some all-knowing being. As a loud, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtDsaLWcFEI">snooty</a> man on Fox News is fond of saying, "the sun goes up and comes down", and that's enough to ascribe an invisible father figure to it all.<br />
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I'm somewhat of a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Goodness-Without-God-Metaphysical/dp/1420802933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300688028&sr=8-1">determinist</a>. Now I don't think there's an ultimate plan for anything -- I'm no fatalist. But I do think things happen for reasons we can either explain, or can't (yet?). Say, casting a handful of dice. Natural forces determine how the dice will fall; everything from the strength and angle of your hand, to its height above the table, to the material makeup of the dice and the surface, to air pressure, to the tilt of the earth, and any number of other factors. But that does not mean that it's written somewhere ahead of time "On March 21, 2011, STA will throw a 2, 4, and 5 on 3d6." We can't really process all the factors in a seemingly random event, like a dice throw -- that's why we use them to determine random outcomes. If we really could process it all, it wouldn't seem random.<br />
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Therefore, I don't really believe in <i>randomness</i>. We might not know or understand all the circumstances for an event, but I don't think we can accurately say a thing just randomly happens. Even <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzhlfbWBuQ8">quantum</a> mechanics might have some extenuating circumstances that lie beyond a certain complexity boundary for its seemingly random goings-on. I see randomness as a label that we put on too-hard-to-calculate events.<br />
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Sure, things happen for a reason. But those reasons have reasons themselves, and they've nothing to do with gods or magic. There may be a reason for everything, but it's just a whole lot bigger than you or I can comprehend...<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory">without</a> the need for God.<br />
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-7434173184634866612011-03-22T18:34:00.005-05:002011-03-22T18:57:28.613-05:00More Pointless BS from DC<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.CON.RES.13:">H.Con.Res. 13</a> is up before the House of Representatives. This proposal, with 66 co-sponsors, seeks to allow government buildings and public institutions (including schools) to be plastered with "In God We Trust". Let us see what is in this very much needed proposal, shall we?<br />
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The overall goal is stated as, <i>"Reaffirming `In God We Trust' as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions."</i><br />
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Here's their confounding arguments why:<br />
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<i>Whereas `In God We Trust' is the official motto of the United States; </i><br />
Not before 1956. How short-term is this right-wing pundit memory of theirs that we have to keep reminding them of that fact. The <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/pledge.html">injustices</a> of the McCarthy era weren't justified then, and they're not justified now. These days, instead of a big "fuck you" to Russia and the scary Communists of the world, they want to give the finger to Muslims and us non-religious types. It may be "official" but that doesn't make it <i>right</i>. Besides that, do you really need to be reminded that you trust God so badly the phrase be everywhere?<br />
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<i>Whereas the sentiment, `In God We Trust', has been an integral part of United States society since its founding; </i><br />
What this issue (and all <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977226526">the others</a> like it) really comes down to is the incorrect assumption that the God of our deist founders equals the God of the Christian bible. As I've explained <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2007/10/us-of-j.html">many times</a> before, many of our founders didn't believe in a personal god, and they certainly didn't believe in Jesus's Daddy. The vagueness of the word "God" makes it easier to spread this religion, because it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg">generalizes</a> the idea of deities. Thus, if a man 200 years ago says something about "God", people 4000 years from now can interpret it by the God of their understanding. Simply, our <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977270380">founders</a> weren't talking about YOUR god when they referenced "our Creator" (read: nature).<br />
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<i>Whereas in times of national challenge or tragedy, the people of the United States have turned to God as their source for sustenance, protection, wisdom, strength, and direction; </i><br />
In times of great strife, people turn to whomever they can to seek help. But let's look at the facts: God didn't send people into the burning World Trade towers to get people out. God didn't send food, medical supplies, and water to Sudan or New Orleans. God didn't send aid to Japan, and God didn't take down the Tucson shooter. However you want to define it, "God" hasn't helped with any national challenge or tragedy. People have. <a href="http://www.atheistvolunteers.org/">Humans</a> provide sustenance, protection, wisdom, strength, and direction. It's demonstrable. And even though many do look toward a higher power for those things, they don't all turn to YOUR God. So presupposing that all Americans trust in YOUR God is arrogantly presumptions. <br />
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<i>Whereas the Declaration of Independence recognizes God, our Creator, as the source of our rights, `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'; </i><br />
The Declaration of Independence isn't a founding document. It could say, "Jesus Christ is the nation's Lord Almighty" and it wouldn't matter. This nation was <a href="http://www.ffrf.org/shop/nontracts/Is-America-A-Christian-Nation/">founded</a> based on secular documents meant to keep the government out of everyone's personal beliefs. But again, that <i>Creator </i>they're talking about isn't the biblical God. It's the idea of how humans arrived (again, read: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html">nature</a>).<br />
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<i>Whereas the national anthem of the United States says `praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation . . . and this be our motto: in God is our trust.'; </i><br />
The motto could be, "We are a White Nation" and it wouldn't be true nor accurate. And it wouldn't matter if it were our national government-approved motto because again, it may be official but that doesn't make it okay. That's why we try to put away official ideas when we realize they're not honorable (slavery, anyone?).<br />
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<i>Whereas the words `In God We Trust' appear over the entrance to the Senate Chamber and above the Speaker's rostrum in the House Chamber;</i><br />
It doesn't matter how many injustices they cite, they're still trying to inject religious beliefs into government -- our <i>collective</i> government. Government isn't a private business that can reserve the right to serve who they like.<br />
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<i>Whereas the oath taken by all Federal employees, except the President, states `I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.'; </i><br />
The phrase, "so help me God" is purely optional, as mandated by Article IV, paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution. It doesn't matter what imaginary being someone wants to seek help from to tell the truth or uphold an <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979146226#cid-1688849887871044">oath</a> to. And what if the "God" someone swears by are the Pseudologoi? How would you know?<br />
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<i>Whereas John Adams said, `Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.'; </i><br />
Those who would think that their God is the god of everyone in America also think that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PP5RZTSNq4">morality</a> comes from God. Morality isn't the property of, nor authored by, religion, and it certainly holds no monopoly over it. It's demonstrable that non-religious people are quite capable of being <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Goodness-Without-God-Metaphysical/dp/1420802933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300832539&sr=8-1">moral</a>.<br />
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<i>Whereas if religion and morality are taken out of the marketplace of ideas, the very freedom on which the United States was founded cannot be secured; </i><br />
Our Constitution makes it clear that government is meant to stay out of religion for the sake of freedom. Do you really want the government to start endorsing religion? It might seem great, but <i><a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2008/08/failings-of-pascals-wager-which-belief.html">which</a> </i>religion? You can't get members of the SAME CHURCH to agree on everything, so how do you propose we get government to do it? How free do you think we'd be if, say, they started plastering buildings with Mormon ideals (like God punishes people by darkening their skin)? Even if they keep the vague "God" sense, there comes a point when <i>their</i> God isn't <i>your</i> God anymore, but government's claws are in too deep. I'm an atheist and don't think religion is a good thing, but I wouldn't want my government telling a religious person how to worship. Freedom is the distance between Church and State, for ALL OUR SAKES. I see this Whereas as saying "if you don't have God then you don't have morality, and we can't guarantee your Freedom of Speech or your protection under the Fourth Amendment".<br />
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<i>Whereas as President Eisenhower said and President Ford later repeated, `Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor, an American way of life.'; and</i><br />
<i>Whereas President John F. Kennedy said, `The guiding principle and prayer of this Nation has been, is now, and ever shall be `In God We Trust.'</i><br />
It wouldn't matter if the <i>current </i>president said, "Those who have no God should be shot". If these clowns would read the Constitution and the words of those who helped <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-47a0EHz_hw">create</a> it, they'd see the reasons for keeping religion out of a secular government.<br />
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So to recap:<br />
<ol><li>"God" doesn't always mean <i>your god</i>, and for our government to assume so makes us all look like asses.</li>
<li>Government is meant to be kept separate from religion. You don't want Washington telling you what prayer to use over dinner, and I don't want my public school to feature a prominent statue of Brahma.</li>
<li>Presidents and other members of government can be as religious as they want, as long as they leave their religion at the door when making policy that affects our nation (roughly sixty million of which aren't Christians).</li>
</ol><br />
The House needs to kill this bill. <a href="http://www.house.gov/">Get in touch </a>with your representative today and politely let them know -- even if you're a Christian -- that this type of legislation doesn't' belong in a government of our kind, and that you support everyone's right to see God how they want to.<br />
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If you want to go further, write them a <i>snail mail</i> letter (sometimes more effective than an email) and tell them how you would instead like to restore "E Pluribus Unum" as our national motto, because it more accurately reflects America: "Out of Many, One".<br />
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-74984196067602899072011-03-17T13:12:00.001-05:002011-03-21T14:29:40.035-05:00Atheist Ruins Another Christian HolidayToday is day when we collectively mark the remembrance of Ireland's <a href="http://www.infidels.org/kiosk/article272.html">patron saint</a>. He spent nearly forty years converting Ireland to Christianity, and today is his feast day...<br />
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And I'm gonna ruin it!<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><object style="height: 390px; width: 640px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oax3cUFsBSw?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oax3cUFsBSw?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object></div><br />
That's right, I'm not going to remember St. Patrick for his spreading of religious dogma. I'm not going to attend church service, and I didn't practice Lent, so I don't have this day of lifting restrictions to cherish. No, just like every other Christian holiday (and those <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-back-to-true-meaning.html">they think</a> are theirs), I'm going to celebrate it without celebrating the religious meaning behind it. I'm going to do what a majority of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day#Customs_today">Americans</a> are doing. I'm going to dress in green, pinch those who aren't, and drink<span style="color: #cccccc;"> <span style="color: #6aa84f;">GREEN BEER</span></span> (or perhaps beer from green bottles):<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.harrysamericansportsgrill.com/images/dl/wall-rollingrock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.harrysamericansportsgrill.com/images/dl/wall-rollingrock.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>God bless the Irish! <br />
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-72039502927839742872011-03-16T15:16:00.117-05:002011-03-21T14:34:58.816-05:00For God So Loved The World<b>...He Stood By And Watched</b><br />
The recent crisis unfolding in the island nation of Japan is frightening and heartbreaking to <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/pictures/110315-nuclear-reactor-japan-tsunami-earthquake-world-photos-meltdown/#/japan-earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-unforgettable-pictures-wave_33291_600x450.jpg">witness</a>. In this age of hand-held computers and instant communication, we are able to see first-hand the destruction our planet is capable of. We can use our phones, netbooks, game consoles, and other devices to offer monetary aid and coordinate relief efforts.<br />
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Yet, there are many who use this technology to do something that is a lot less helpful. Twitter tweets, YouTube videos, and Facebook comments have exploded with droves of <i>prayers</i>. The religious-minded in all countries have looked at this tragedy and in lieu of lending money or a helping hand to clean up, have instead turned to -- in their mind -- a deity who has all of this under <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq27q7-V8Mc">control</a>.<br />
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As an atheist, I get <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFt9F6gk7go">laughed at</a> when I ask the simple, "Where's your God now?" questions to theists. They don't seem to appreciate the logic and instead take it as an emotional attack. But I'm serious...where was God when the <span id="search">Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami slammed Japan, killing 20,000 and washing away entire villages? You'd think that for a being of unequaled love, keeping that way of reaching the shore would be a no-brainer. If <i>you</i> could have stopped it, would you? I know I would, and yet an All-Loving being is supposed to be <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrX__ILDd3w">overseeing</a> -- or at worst, <i>planning out</i> -- this kind of destruction. </span><br />
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<span id="search">And yet, religious people everywhere seem to perform backbreaking mental gymnastics to rationalize to themselves that the All-Powerful creator of the universe has His/Her/Their reasons for not intervening. Free will and mysterious ways are high up on the list, for not only things like earthquakes, but also rape victims, or those afflicted with childhood leukemia. For an All-Loving God, he seems to be on the <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977354950">sidelines</a> a lot.</span><br />
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<b>...He Commanded Hatred</b><br />
Since I'm in the bible-belt of America, I'll address what I hear most about this "God" thing everyone seems so keen on sharing. More importantly, I'm to aqueous to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_89017476">His </a><i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-DoKwyAjZo">love</a> </i>for me and my fellow man, and "trust only in Him". But love and trust are earned, and so far God's track record does not show a loving being. (It actually shows a world operating without such a deity, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)<br />
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The testament to this God's supposed love is found in the Holy Bible. A book where, even a cursory read should show <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2010/01/unholy-word-slaughter-infidels-rape.html">atrocities</a> that would anger a rational person. Genocide, mass murder, and other forms of hatred are not only committed by God, but are commanded by him. If God loved the world so much, why did he drown nearly every living thing in it?<br />
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<b>...He Created Atrocities</b><br />
But many of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg">religious</a> will holler, "That's not my God!". Indeed, many theists don't profess the <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewVideo.action?id=11821949021866090">bible</a> has any bearing on the nature of their deity -- even if they do call themselves "Christian" or "Jewish". But even if your god is a Magic Hamburger in outer space, you probably subscribe to the idea of a deity who created the world. This deity created rainbows, gravity, puppies, and the laughter of babies. But this deity would then also have had to create <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNiTsYCkyI8">birth defects</a>, cancer, and scores of viruses that can kill us in ways that would give you nightmares. Perspective again seems to be lost on the theist.<br />
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<b>...He Never Existed At All</b><br />
So instead of falling victim to a <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2008/03/fallacy-friday-sharpshooter-fallacy.html">fallacy</a> or wearing yourself out trying to jump through the hoops it takes to make a 100% Good God do evil things, instead comfort yourself with the thought that there was never any divine plan for it in the first place. You'll see that the universe wasn't made for us, but we have <a href="http://talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/">what it takes</a> (so far) to be in it. You won't have to try to come to grips with why God won't heal your dying mother of cancer, something that is truly comforting. It's <a href="http://www.crackle.com/c/Penn_Says/Atheism_is_a_Solace/2280592">nice to know</a> that no one's intending for bad things to happen, or that someone is deserving somehow for the ill that befalls them.<br />
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We're in this boat together, and it's up to us -- not any gods or magical creatures -- to do what's right, to help, and to provide. Please, <a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/japan-earthquake-tsunami-relief/">give $5</a> to help the people of Japan, or <a href="http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html">find other ways</a> to help. We don't need God, we need you.<br />
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Happy 3/16 <br />
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-34923523707159807512011-03-01T16:33:00.000-06:002011-03-01T16:33:17.039-06:00The Future Looks BrightGreetings friends! Due to enumerable setbacks, including family emergencies, computer trouble, house-hunting, and the preparations for a new addition to the family, I've been unable to contribute anything of value as of late. But do not fear...family members' members are mending, computers have been upgraded, and houses have been located, and after a few more days I will be able to post more, make more <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/smalltownatheist">videos</a>, and continue to <a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977369232">educate</a> and discuss all things atheist-related. Thanks for your patience and understanding, and don't forget to read the back-catalog to keep yourself sated on STA.<br />
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And here's a fantastic video to ease your sorrow:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sNDZb0KtJDk" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">-STA</div></div>STAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-76907118196405954102010-12-15T13:13:00.008-06:002010-12-18T03:59:32.172-06:00The ReasonIt's that time of year again, isn't it. The time when we come together as family and friends and express our love and appreciation toward each other. Many of us celebrate family traditions of one type or another in a festive and happy atmosphere. There are some, however, who are frothing at the mouth and angry over how others choose to spend these several weeks in the middle of winter. They are the ones who rant about "the reason for the season" and how everyone is ruining the "<a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-back-to-true-meaning.html">true meaning</a> of Christmas".<br />
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What these folks fail to realize is that most of what they believe constitutes the "true meaning" is actually an aggregation of many different traditions and rituals from multiple religions, pagan customs, and secular sources.<br />
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<b>Deck the Halls</b><br />
Take for instance, the iconic Christmas tree. The practice of cutting down a tree and bringing it indoors during the cold winter nights is derived from several solstice traditions. The Romans decked their halls with garlands of laurel and placed candles in live trees to decorate for the celebration of <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-back-to-true-meaning.html">Saturnalia</a>. In Scandinavia, apples were hung from evergreen trees at the winder solstice in remembrance that spring and summer will come again. The evergreen tree itself was the special plant of their sun god, Baldor. In fact, the <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2010:2-5&version=KJV">Christian bible</a> expressly forbids believers to practice this tradition or act like the pagans do. As late as 1800, devout Christian sects like the Puritans forbade the celebration of Christmas because it was thought of as a pagan holiday.<br />
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Mistletoe, another iconic "Christmas" tradition, finds its roots as an ancient Druid custom during the winter solstice, complete with the concept of kissing underneath it. Mistletoe was considered a divine plant and it symbolized love and peace.<br />
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The Scandinavian solstice <a href="http://atheism.about.com/od/christmasholidayseason/p/SecularChristma.htm?nl=1">traditions</a> had a lot of influences on our celebration besides the hanging of ornaments on evergreen trees. Their ancient festival of Yuletide celebrated the return of the sun, during which the Yule log (the center of the trunk of a tree) was dragged to a large fireplace where it was supposed to burn for twelve days.<br />
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<b>Oh Holy Night </b><br />
The "birth of the sun" was an integral part in ancient times, because the concept of year-around food was unattainable. The hope of an early spring and the return of long days of bright warm sunlight were things anyone eeking out a meager existence in freezing cold climates with no central heating would wish for. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN134kc1xo8">The early Christian church</a> was tired of trying to get the pagan believers to stop celebrating the birth of Mithras, the Persian sun god (a deity of light and truth). So in 320 C.E., Pope Julius formally selected December 25 as the official birthday of Christ, to circumvent Mithraism. If Jesus was born at all, it would likely have been some time midsummer.<br />
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<b>Santa Claus is Coming to Town</b><br />
Even our traditions of Santa Claus have little, if nothing, to do with Christianity. The 14th century St. Francis of Assisi is the likely model of Santa, a benevolent character who is popular for giving gifts to the poor and needy, mainly women and children. The name <a href="http://www.christmascarnivals.com/santa-claus/">Santa Claus</a> is derived from the Sinter Klass, which is the Dutch pronunciation for St. Nicholas, who is said to be the patron saint for many groups of people including children, orphans, thieves, sailors, students, pawnbrokers and countries like Russia and Greece. He did a lot of work to spread Christianity among the people of Rome. This may be part of the reason why Santa Claus is <a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2009/12/claus-and-christ.html">similar</a> in nature to the stories of Jesus, and the legends and myths that expound from such historical events can easily become pseudohistory for those who do not wish to investigate it. Flying reindeer too likely come from Norse legends of Thor flying through the sky in a chariot pulled by magical goats called Gnasher and Cracker.<br />
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<b>Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire</b><br />
The Roman celebration of Saturnalia provides a large part of our modern traditions, including large feasts and gift-giving. The pre-Christian holiday of merriment honored Saturus, the god of seed and sowing. The festival was marked by the exchange of good-luck charms and other gifts, and great feasting in which even the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFI66E12sU">slaves</a> would be allowed to participate. God bless us, every one indeed.<br />
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<b>The Reason</b><br />
Many of our current traditions began more than 4000 years ago, and even their beginnings were more than likely the result of other superstition and traditional beliefs that came before them. So the next time you hear about how Walmart or atheism is destroying the meaning of Christmas, remember this: the SEASON is the reason for the season, not a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oli0DTmPmGU">bronze-age myth</a> that has been formed out of the debris of myths that preceded it. After all, you're not a Celtic who takes to animal sacrifice to ward off evil spirits, right? So why celebrate Halloween? And, you don't hunt colored eggs or eat chocolate bunnies to celebrate the fertility and advent of springtime in honor of the Saxon goddess Eostre or the Norse equivalent Ostara, do you? So why celebrate Easter? And even if you don't want to celebrate the birth of America, having a reason for picnicking and shooting fireworks is enough to party on July 4, isn't it?<br />
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For whatever your holiday, for whatever your reason, at the bare minimum you should acknowledge it as a time to be close to the one's you love, because we're all only here for a little while. Have a great solstice, everyone! And may the New Year bring you joy, peace, and <i>reason</i>.<br />
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191380472360707995.post-50206625025134001532010-11-29T03:00:00.001-06:002010-11-29T03:01:41.007-06:00Season's GreetingsI just wanted to stop by and wish everyone a festive and happy holiday season. I've got a lot on my plate, not counting the additional stress/workload of the holidays. I'll be writing again before long, but in the meantime have a look through some of my past holiday blog posts, like<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2007/11/thanks-for-grub.html">Thanks for the Grub</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2009/12/claus-and-christ.html">Claus and Christ</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thesmalltownatheist.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-back-to-true-meaning.html">Get Back to the True Meaning</a></li>
</ul><br />
Be safe, be happy, and take care of each other. I'll talk to you soon.<br />
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-STASTAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585311563930689905noreply@blogger.com0