Bible gets another F in science - seeds die

1 Corinthians 15:35-36

But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?” What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first.

The great apostle Paul compares putting a seed in the ground with burying a dead person. He says a seed has to die before it can grow. In fact, if the seed did die than the plant would never grow. The Bible a perfect book - FAIL. Yet another sign of the scientific ignorance of the Bible. Any wonder its believers are equally ignorant?

Perhaps Paul understood this scientific principle and if you bury a dead person they will remain dead forever and he was just another evangelical charlatan.

For others click on Bible - lack of science

666 Proofs there is a God

Hundreds of Proofs there is a God

Here is a sampling

ARGUMENT FROM BEAUTY, a.k.a. DESIGN ARGUMENT (II)

(1) Isn't that baby/sunset/flower/tree beautiful?

(2) Only God could have made them so beautiful.

(3) Therefore, God exists.

MORAL ARGUMENT (II)

(1) In my younger days I was a cursing, drinking, smoking, gambling, child-molesting, thieving, murdering, bed-wetting bastard.

(2) That all changed once I became religious.

(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM MISOGYNY

(1) I enjoy treating women like dirt. It makes me feel powerful.

(2) I find some justification for it in the Bible.

(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM CREATION, a.k.a. ARGUMENT FROM PERSONAL INCREDULITY (I)

(1) If evolution is false, then creationism is true, and therefore God exists.

(2) Evolution can't be true, since I lack the mental capacity to understand it; moreover, to accept its truth would cause me to be uncomfortable.

(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM GUITAR MASTERY

(1) Eric Clapton is God.

(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM NONBELIEF

(1) The majority of the world's population are nonbelievers in Christianity.

(2) This is just what Satan intended.

(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INCOHERENT BABBLE

(1) See that person spazzing on the church floor babbling incoherently?

(2) That's how God's infinite wisdom reveals itself.

(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INSANITY

(1) No sane person could have thought up Christianity.
(2) Therefore, it must be true
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF EYEWITNESS (I)

(1) You weren't there to witness abiogenisis/Big Bang/etc.

(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM STUPIDITY

(1) Man is stupid and causes disasters.

(2) God made man in his own image.

(3) God causes disasters.

(4) Therefore, God exists.

German Jesuit report shows years of abuse cover-up

(Reuters) - A Jesuit investigation cited 205 allegations of sexual abuse against priests at its schools in Germany on Thursday, revealing decades of systematic abuse and attempts of a cover-up by the Roman Catholic order.

The new allegations threaten to further undermine the German Roman Catholic Church, already accused of hushing up hundreds of sexual and physical abuse allegations in Church-run schools that have come to light recently.

"In the name of the order I acknowledge with shame and guilt our failure," Father Stefan Dartmann, Germany's leading Jesuit official, said in a statement. "I ask for forgiveness."

"There was a widespread mentality in the order, and perhaps still is, that the primary concern was the reputation of the institution and its fellow brothers," Dartmann added.

The report also cited a further 50 allegations of abuse relating to other, mostly Catholic institutions.

The abuse scandal also has put a spotlight German-born Pope Benedict and his handling of the crisis. Benedict was archbishop of Munich at a time when a priest in the archdiocese undergoing therapy for sexual abuse was returned to work.

The Vatican denies Benedict was involved in the decision.

The allegations by predominantly male victims in the Jesuit investigation focus on 12 priests, six of whom are now deceased, from several schools and youth facilities in Germany. Solitary victims cited a further 32 church figures.

The order would continue to examine the allegations and talk to victims, Dartmann said, noting it was still open whether state prosecutors would become involved in the investigations.

The German report, commissioned in January after 25 students came forward alleging abuse at the Jesuit-run Canisius Kolleg in Berlin, details harsh corporal punishment and sexual abuse stretching back as far as the 1950s.

Since then, media reports have documented more than 250 cases of abuse in Catholic schools, prompting the government to set up a round table to address issues of abuse in Germany.

Cases have popped up across Europe and bishops in Ireland, Belgium and Germany have been forced to step down.

Nearly 50 people at three schools said a priest -- given the alias of Father Bertram -- beat students in a "sadistic sexual" way on their bare or clothed buttocks in the 1970s and 1980s.

The report details how Bertram underwent years of therapy. Before leaving the order, he confessed in 1991 to having suffered emotional problems that led him to beat children.

Father Bertram wrote in a report that year: "From 1957 to 1990, I beat several hundred children and adolescents of both sexes on their exposed buttocks, in nearly painless, symbolic acts of punishment."

Though allegations of abuse in Jesuit schools surfaced in January, Dartmann admitted that Father Klaus Mertes, director of Canisius Kolleg, informed him about the problem in 2006.

(Writing by Christopher Lawton; Editing by Michael Roddy)

See article at Reuters-May 27, 2010

Not in any sense a Christian Nation

There is confusion among fundamentalist where they think the Founding Father's set up the United States as a Christian Nation. These guys had seen lots of misery in Europe where governments where based on religion. This document clears it up. They decided on a secular nation even though some where believers. Today's fundamentalist want to destroy what the Founding Fathers set up.

US Treaty with Tripoli, 1796-1797. See article 11 below.

Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

Annals of Congress, 5th Congress

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

The death grip of faith at work

Angela Wright had a heart attack a couple of months ago. Her husband Dwight doesn't want the doctors to act though you can clearly see in the video that they are caring for her. He and his friends and family continued to pray and she has had 5 more heart attacks. When will he wake up? Delusional faith is one scary thing. Torturing his wife for his faith.

P. Z. Myers sums it up brilliantly

There can be no happy ending here. If she dies, her family is going to blame the doctors for interfering with their magical treatment of happy thoughts and shouting into the ether; if she lives, the family will blame the doctors for any reduction in the quality of her life afterwards.

Article On Praying Instead

Church and Lying like a horse and a carriage

Look how the Church loves to keep it's lies. This shroud was carbon dated meticulously by 3 independent laboratories. They all placed it in around the 14th century in which it suddenly appeared. But the Pope like a snake-oil seller continues to prey on the credulous.

TURIN (Italy) - POPE Benedict XVI all but gave an outright endorsement of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, calling the cloth that some believe is Christ's burial shroud an icon 'written with the blood' of a crucified man.

During a visit Sunday to the Shroud in the northern Italian city of Turin, Benedict didn't raise the scientific questions that surround the linen and whether it might be a medieval forgery. Instead, he delivered a powerful meditation on the faith that holds that the Shroud is indeed Christ's burial cloth.

'This is a burial cloth that wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospels tell us of Jesus,' Benedict said. He said the relic - one of the most important in Christianity - should be seen as a photographic document of the 'darkest mystery of faith' - that of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.

The 4.3-meter-long, 1 meter-wide cloth has gone on public display for the first time since the 2000 Millennium celebrations and a subsequent 2002 restoration. Kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case in Turin's cathedral, it has drawn nearly 2 million reservations from pilgrims and tourists eager to spend three to five minutes viewing it. The Shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping from his hands and feet, and believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen's fibers at the time of his resurrection.

Benedict focused in his meditation on the message that the blood stains conveyed, saying the Shroud was 'an icon written in blood; the blood of a man who was whipped, crowned with thorns, crucified and injured on his right side. 'The image on the Shroud is that of a dead man, but the blood speaks of his life. Each trace of blood speaks of love and life,' Benedict said.

The Vatican to date had tiptoed around the issue of just what the Shroud of Turin is, calling it a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering while making no claim to its authenticity. Benedict's meditation - delivered after he prayed as if in a trance before the shroud - appeared to imply that in the end it doesn't matter what science says about its authenticity. -- AP

It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is a musician and poet. His music was inspired and help me growing up in the turbulent late 60's

This song, It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), is his best lyrically. In a 60 minutes interview he said he didn't know how he came up with lyrics and certainly couldn't write lyrics like than again. The words were truly inspired. I seem to find new meanings in them each time I listen.

He took many stabs at organized religion. I like the part where he says through pride and security they defend what they cannot see. How true.

Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade, the child's balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon

There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn

Suicide remarks are torn

From the fool's gold mouthpiece

The hollow horn plays wasted words

Proves to warn

That he not busy being born

Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door

You follow, find yourself at war

Watch waterfalls of pity roar

You feel to moan but unlike before

You discover

That you'd just be

One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear

A foreign sound to your ear

It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall

Private reasons great or small

Can be seen in the eyes of those that call

To make all that should be killed to crawl

While others say don't hate nothing at all

Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Made everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It's easy to see without looking too far

That not much

Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the president of the United States

Sometimes must have

To stand naked. - after Watergate his audiences cheered here.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged

It's only people's games that you got to dodge

And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you

Into thinking you're the one

That can do what's never been done

That can win what's never been won

Meantime life outside goes on

All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear

You suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand with nobody near

When a trembling distant voice, unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody thinks

They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit

Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy

Insure you not to quit

To keep it in your mind and not fergit

That it is not he or she or them or it

That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority

That they do not respect in any degree

Who despise their jobs, their destinies

Speak jealously of them that are free

Cultivate their flowers to be

Nothing more than something

They invest in.

While some on principles baptized

To strict party platform ties

Social clubs in drag disguise

Outsiders they can freely criticize

Tell nothing except who to idolize

And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire

Gargles in the rat race choir

Bent out of shape from society's pliers

Cares not to come up any higher

But rather get you down in the hole

That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault

On anyone that lives in a vault

But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs

Limited in sex, they dare

To push fake morals, insult and stare

While money doesn't talk, it swears

Obscenity, who really cares

Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see

With a killer's pride, security

It blows the minds most bitterly

For them that think death's honesty

Won't fall upon them naturally

Life sometimes

Must get lonely. - Christian pride

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards

False gods, I scuff

At pettiness which plays so rough

Walk upside-down inside handcuffs

Kick my legs to crash it off

Say okay, I have had enough

What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

All the good videos were removed recently, but here is one that remains for now.

Ezekiel's God as portrayed by Samuel Jackson

Here is Samuel Jackson delivering his famous Ezekiel 25:17 line in Pulp Fiction. But only a small part of it is actually from Ezekiel, the rest is embellished. The rewrite in the movie is actually much softer because he says blessed are those who help the weak for he is truly his brother's keeper. No such sentiment is found in Ezekiel. But his expression of anger Ezekiel would be proud of.

Ezekiel 25:15-17

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘Because the Philistines acted in vengeance and took revenge with malice in their hearts, and with ancient hostility sought to destroy Judah, therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to stretch out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Kerethites and destroy those remaining along the coast. I will carry out great vengeance on them and punish them in my wrath. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I take vengeance on them.’

God is a dope

What did Israel do wrong to so upset God according to Ezekiel?

Surprisingly there is a lack of specifics by Ezekiel, leaving you with the feeling like a wife saying you know what you did wrong and I don't have to tell you. The few specifics are done in an allegory and not stating this is why God was punishing Israel.

• Worshipping different pagan gods
• Pride
• Facing the east with their back to the Temple
• Filling the land with violence
• Filing the land with injustice
• Not following God's laws and decrees
• Conforming to the standards of the nation surrounding them
• Rebelling
• False prophets saying things will be OK
• Women sewing magic charms on their wrist and making veils of various lengths
• Killing people who should have lived and letting people live who should have been killed
• Eating at mountain shrines
• Oppressing the poor and needy
• Robbery
• Not returning what was pledged to return
• Usury and excessive interest
• Failing to keep the Sabbath holy

But what does the God of Ezekiel offer as a punishment to these things they have done? To send armies to starve them, rape them, destroy their towns, to bring disease upon them and to scatter them.

Exactly how does that help the poor and needy?

Exactly how does that help the person who was robbed or hurt?

How can you tell a mugger from God? Was it God who sent someone to rob you or was it someone just robbing you?

This God is a dope.

May 20th - Draw Mohammed Day

Mohammed Picture Archive

Facebook Draw Mohammed Day

Here is a couple of good ones.

Definitive proof there is a God

The book of Ezekiel makes an amazing claim. It repeats 76 times that you will know that there is a God and specifically the God Ezekiel knows. Well, this is quite outstanding and THE book to read. Some say it is faith, but Ezekiel makes it quite clear that he knows God and you will know as well.

Ezekiel writes God will inflict punishment Himself on Jerusalem because they have worshipped idols. It will be so bad that it has never happened before and will never happen again. The disaster will be so bad fathers will eat their children and children will eat their fathers. He will scatter the Jews. A third of the people will die of a plague or perish by famine. A third will fall by sword. The other third will be scattered to the winds and followed by the sword. (ed note: We know that stuff like this has happened. World War II only should be enough evidence - Biblical prophecy fail again).

Ezekiel 7:5-9

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Disaster! An unheard-of disaster is coming. The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. It has come! Doom has come upon you—you who dwell in the land. The time has come, the day is near; there is panic, not joy, upon the mountains. I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you; I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. I will not look on you with pity or spare you; I will repay you in accordance with your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that it is I the LORD who strikes the blow.

To summarize all the things God will do so that you, dear reader, will KNOW THAT HE IS GOD are these things:

• War
• Famine
• Plague
• Hailstorms
• Violent Winds
• Torrential rains
• Earthquakes
• Sending wild beasts who will eat all the children and make this place desolate

Why does he have to use a third hand medium to punish? Why not come down himself? Why does he use another nation to punish Israel? (Then later he punishes the other nation for thinking they were above Israel)

Doesn't that sh*t happen all the time anywat? I should write a Bible book and predict such things. Boy, this prophesizing is far easier than it looks.

Anyway, science has dismissed these. We know why disease happens, micro-organisms and can get a vaccine or anti-biotic to destroy them. So, is that nullifying God's intended punishment? We understand our earth is not entire stable and how the tectonic plates shifting causes earthquakes. We know the fault lines and generally where earthquakes are likely to happen. Does God move people to these areas when he gets ready to punish them? The lightning rod controls the bolts from destroying a building and channels the energy into the ground. Could God have foreseen that? He must have been quite frustrated when Ben Franklin and Václav Prokop Diviš discovered it. We know war happens because men are religious. We know famine occurs because of poor agriculture, disorganized governments, poverty and war. We know that winds are caused by the Sun heating the earth and the hot air rising from the land. A hailstone is a product of the updrafts and down drafts that develop inside the cumulonimbus clouds of a thunderstorm, where supercooled water droplets exist. Maybe the definite proof is the wild beast eating children. This truly is a God of Love.

Ezekiel's flip-flop

Ezekiel cannot make up his mind regarding why his God kills people. He originally hears from the voice in his head it is because they don't behave.

First the righteous will live

Ezekiel 18:4-9

For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.

“Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right.

He does not eat at the mountain shrines or look to the idols of the house of Israel.

He does not defile his neighbor’s wife or lie with a woman during her period.

He does not oppress anyone, but returns what he took in pledge for a loan.

He does not commit robbery but gives his food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked.

He does not lend at usury or take excessive interest.

He withholds his hand from doing wrong and judges fairly between man and man.

He follows my decrees and faithfully keeps my laws.

That man is righteous; he will surely live, declares the Sovereign LORD.

This is a couple chapter argument. It repeats itself regarding the above guy's son doing the opposite and how he will be punished. Then it flips the argument supposing the son does good and the father does not. Then only the father is punished. Why is the argument made? Because heretofore the Bible is fairly repetitive on children suffering the sins of their fathers. So, Ezekiel contradicts God's Word in the prior books of the Bible.

Exodus 20:4-6 - the third commandment of the 10 commandments

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Ezekiel repeats the righteous will surely live.

Ezekiel 18:19-20

“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."

Then Ezekiel flip-flops. God will destroy the righteous

Ezekiel 21:1-5

Then this message came to me from the LORD: “Son of man, turn and face Jerusalem and prophesy against Israel and her sanctuaries. Tell her, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am your enemy, O Israel, and I am about to unsheath my sword to destroy your people—the righteous and the wicked alike. Yes, I will cut off both the righteous and the wicked! I will draw my sword against everyone in the land from south to north. Everyone in the world will know that I am the LORD. My sword is in my hand, and it will not return to its sheath until its work is finished.’

Apparently, Ezekiel just could not defend his concept of God very well. He was hoping to scare people straight and some must have done so. However, cause and effect didn't work as he thought. So God must be on a different plan or rather life didn't show him clear evidence of what this voice in his head was telling him he said f*ck it, "You ALL are going to DIE"

God's Ego Problem

Ezekiel speaks for God (snicker) saying God was ready to kick the sh*t out of His chosen people but then became concerned about what others might think.

Ezekiel 20:21-22

But the children [Israel] rebelled against me: They did not follow my decrees, they were not careful to keep my laws—although the man who obeys them will live by them and they desecarated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and spend my anger against them in the desert. But I withheld my hand, and for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

Ezekiel 36:22-23

Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.

God is rubber and you are glue

The Bible has a real image problem with it's concept of God. After Ezekiel's long tirades against God's chosen people he has to make a statement like, "I am rubber and you are glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you".

Ezekiel 18:25-29

“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die. But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die. Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?"

Does God get off on punishing people?

Ezekiel 18:23

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?

Very rarely do you find a statement like this in Ezekiel. How telling it is put into a form of question. After reading through the book I am inclined to answer the first question with "Absolutely" and the second question "Actions speak louder than words".

It reminds me of Bob Dylan's song "All I Really Want To Do". All the Bob Dylan versions have been pulled from You Tube ($$$) recently. This guy below did a good version. The song reminds me of Ezekiel because Ezekiel says all the bad things God will or could do, but all he really wants to do is be friends with the Jews.

I ain't lookin' to compete with you,

Beat or cheat or mistreat you,

Simplify you, classify you,

Deny, defy or crucify you.

All I really want to do

Is, baby, be friends with you.

No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you,

Frighten you or tighten you,

Drag you down or drain you down,

Chain you down or bring you down.

All I really want to do

Is, baby, be friends with you.

I ain't lookin' to block you up

Shock or knock or lock you up,

Analyze you, categorize you,

Finalize you or advertise you.

All I really want to do

Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to straight-face you,

Race or chase you, track or trace you,

Or disgrace you or displace you,

Or define you or confine you.

All I really want to do

Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to meet your kin,

Make you spin or do you in,

Or select you or dissect you,

Or inspect you or reject you.

All I really want to do

Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to fake you out,

Take or shake or forsake you out,

I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me,

See like me or be like me.

All I really want to do

Is, baby, be friends with you.

Ezekiel 18:32

For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

YEAH, RIGHT

God needs to go to therapy

God's methodology doesn't work. Mr. Perfect Plan. Create a perfect couple who will fail. Then berate them, scold them for doing so. He keeps repeating this insane behavior expecting different results. He punishes his people and even murders them and yet they still fail to follow. Hello? Wake up, your Righteous Dudeness. It ain't working. Somehow Ezekiel doesn't point this out to God or could it be that Ezekiel is the dysfunctional person using God to control others? Hmmm.......

Ezekiel 3 (written about 593 B.C. for bible believers)

God tells Ezekiel to say to the people of Israel (triangulation anyone?) who are not listening. "I am not sending you to a foreign people whose language you cannot understand. No, I am not sending you to people with strange and difficult speech. If I did, they would listen".

Uh, God why don't you talk to the people who will listen? Are you thick?

God continues "But the people of Israel won't listen to you any more than they listen to Me! For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn. But look, I have made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are. I have made your forehead as hard as the hardest rock! So, don't be afraid of them or fear their angry looks, even though they are rebels."

So instead of making Ezekiel's head as tough as a rock why doesn't he make his people soft and robotic? It really sounds like a major set up. He picked people who would not listen to him over a people who would. Doesn't that sound like a dysfunctional person?

Ezekiel 11 - (written about 592 B.C. for bible believers) the promised return of the people to the holy land after being killed, starved and scattered.

“They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God."

Oy Gavalt ! This designer really takes the long route. Create them, beat the crap out of them because they won't listen. Then change them to behave. How horrible to the His chosen people.

Background:

The Northern Kingdom of Israel has been hauled off to Assyria (722–721 B.C.) because of their sins and the Southern Kingdom, Judah, is in the queue to be hauled away to Babylon. Ezekiel with a number of Jews were taken in 597 B.C. Finally, the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem in 588, and in July, 586, the walls were breached and the city plundered. On Aug. 14, 586, the city and temple were burned.

Wordle - The Book of Ezekiel

Click on the picture below and check out the most significant words in the book of Ezekiel, one of the books of the Old Testament.



Luke 6:45
Jesus said: The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

They say that God is Love. Ezekiel didn't use that word even once. He does use

• Detestable 43 times
• Wicked 41 times
• Wrath 34 times
• Desolate 29 times
• Destroy 24 times
• Anger 22 times
• Doom 5 times

After reading his book these are adjectives I would use about Ezekiel:

• angry
• unimaginative
• tedious
• needlessly verbose
• boring
• judgmental
• controlling

Over the next few days I will present Ezekiel, a real fundie example, a Pat Robertson favorite. Hmmm...I might use the above adjectives about him as well.

George Rekers hypocrisy

"I am not a homosexual". George Rekers, a member of NARTH, National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuals who believe it is a sin and a choice. Rekers apparently believes in saving gays by sleeping with them.

Baptist minister George Rekers hypocrisy

NARTH Responds to the

Recent Media Coverage of Dr. George Rekers

May 6, 2010 -- The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is a professional scientific organization with hundreds of academic, research, and clinical members dedicated to assisting individuals dealing with unwanted homosexual attractions. While NARTH is focused on the science of homosexual attraction, personal controversies often deepen the existing cultural divide on this issue. Such is the case in the recent news stories concerning one of our members, Dr. George Rekers.

NARTH takes seriously the accusations that have been made, and we are currently attempting to understand the details behind these press reports. We are always saddened when this type of controversy impacts the lives of individuals, and we urge all parties to allow a respectful and thorough investigation to take place.

At this difficult time for the families and individuals involved, we extend our sympathies. We also wish to reiterate our traditional position that these personal controversies do not change the scientific data, nor do they detract from the important work of NARTH.

NARTH continues to support scientific research, and to value client autonomy, client self-determination and client diversity

"unwanted homosexual attractions"?

Why does that sound like unsightly hair removal?

Also this incident doesn't change their scientific data. How much you want to bet their science is only found in the Bible?

JC on Comedy Central and Fox News

Let the father explain

Kenneth Miller on Intelligent Design

This is a two hour video on ID by Kenneth Miller who is a biologist and he was a part of the Dover trial to stop ID from being taught in school. He speaks for under an hour and than takes questions. Lots of great information and he shows clearly how underhanded the Intelligent Design people are. They want to destroy science using politics. If successful we will go back to the Dark Ages and other countries will take the lead away from the U.S.

Ken Miller's talk on Intelligent Design at Case Western University around 2006.

Ken Miller states "I am a Roman Catholic, a theist, but do not believe in a deceptive God." He is a strong evolutionist, and argues strongly against Intelligent Design. But I haven't heard him say what part he thinks God plays, perhaps in the vein of Spinoza.

At 1:25 he is asked how he can be religious and be a scientist. He responds but doesn't resolve it to my satisfaction. He believes and other scientist also do about 40%. However, he honors skepticism.

He identifies himself as a Republican and especially liked Goldwater. He believes the Republican party is the better party to save science and thinks the Democrats are wishy-washy on it.

Put The Clock Back On The Wall

Here is a cheeky video from the E-Types, a one hit wonder band from 1966.

Happy Birthday Brahms

Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897), was a German composer and pianist, one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period.

Brahms is hit or miss for me, but I do enjoy his Hungarian Rhapsody.

I see Mark Twain in this video. That would be so cool to have met him.

Brahms and Religion

Although Brahms's religious views are not perfectly clear, it is certain one of his musical influences was the Bible. His "Requiem" employs biblical texts to convey a humanist message, omitting words about salvation or immortality, and focuses on the living rather than the dead. On the one hand, author Walter Niemann declared, "The fact that Brahms began his creative activity with the German folk song and closed with the Bible reveals...the true religious creed of this great man of the people." However, others see Brahms as more of a cultural Lutheran who embraced the cultural aspects of his upbringing but may or may not have adopted the religious beliefs. When asked by conductor Karl Reinthaler to add additional sectarian text to his "requiem", Brahms responded, "As far as the text is concerned, I confess that I would gladly omit even the word German and instead use Human; also with my best knowledge and will I would dispense with passages like John 3:16. On the other hand, I have chosen one thing or another because I am a musician, because I needed it, and because with my venerable authors I can't delete or dispute anything. But I had better stop before I say too much."

There is reason to believe that Brahms was a religious freethinker. Being a star of his age, he would frequently say deceptive things to the public. This means that the most reliable accounts on Brahms's innermost feelings may come from the people in the close circle around him. Among these, you have the pious Antonín Dvořák, the closest Brahms ever would come to having a protégé. In a letter, Dvorak disclosed his concerns regarding Brahms's religious views: "Such a man, such a fine soul—and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!"

We are both atheists

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

- Stephen Henry Roberts

The Cassowary

The Cassowary is a flightless bird that has been around for 100 million years. Encounters with them makes it obvious their dinosaur heritage.

They lived in the land of Gondwanaland. Voted the 'most dangerous bird on the planet' by the Guinness Book of World Records, is the largest land creature found on the Australian Continent and in Papua New Guinea; it is also the third-largest bird in the world, the first two being the Ostrich and the Emu. Since it is an inhabitant of Rain Forests and Rain Forests are rapidly shrinking, the Cassowary is high on the Endangered Species list. Their average height is between 5 to 6 feet and they weigh around 150 pounds. They become sexually mature around 4 years and live to about 60. They can run as fast as 30 miles as hour and jump as high as 5 feet.

The female is the player. After mating she lays a clutch of 3 to 8 greenish-blue eggs. The male bird is the one who builds the nest, incubates the eggs for about 50 days and then rears the chicks for a year.

Creationism - Eyes wide shut

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages.

Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species representing changes through time.

Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species.

Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together.

Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "Does not!"

- anonymous

Excellent quote swiped from Darwin Killed God blogspot

"Your comments are evidence yet again, though it isn't needed, that religions only survive because of the invincible ignorance of their practitioners. Not just ignorance of biology, and physics, and geology, and cosmology, but ignorance of history, and of anthropology, and sociology and psychology. An ignorance that enables the individual member at one particluar time and place to imagine that they, uniquely, have the truth, and that all of the other billions of humans who live now, and lived in the past, didn't. What extraordinary arrogance and ignorance. Encouraged, indeed demanded, by the leaders of every religious cult, for various motives that have nothing to do with any supposed reality of an imaginary second life. And everything to do with power, and wealth, and misogyny, and xenophobia."
-- David Horton http://tinyurl.com/29ubsnp

Watermelon Man - Green on outside, social justice inside

Bible - message in a bottle

The early am is when my mind is most active. I don't know how the thought joined but the Police's song Message in a Bottle and how God supposedly communicates to the world linked. God could easily - being God and all - talk to us directly as this supposed loving parent to his child, but no he cast a bottle on the water and it lands up on the shore of the Middle East first, then Europe and later the U.S.A. Countless shores it doesn't reach for millennia. There are some shores it hasn't reached yet, but not for crazy humans trying. If that doesn't show the lack of care of a perfect God I don't know what would. Such a lonely Guy.

I'll send an S.O.S. to the world

I'll send an S.O.S. to the world

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

Message in a bottle, yeah

Message in a bottle, yeah

Einstein and Religion

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

Letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, January 3, 1954

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

- Albert Einstein, responding to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein's question "Do you believe in God?" quoted in: Has Science Found God?, by Victor J Stenger

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

- Albert Einstein, letter to an atheist (1954), quoted in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffman

During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world.

- Albert Einstein, quoted in: 2000 Years of Disbelief, James Haught

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

- Albert Einstein to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God.

- Albert Einstein, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffman

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.

- Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray; quoted in: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffmann

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an independent cause of natural events.

To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with the natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal.

For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress.

- Albert Einstein, Science and Religion (1941)

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.

This is somewhat new kind of religion. I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic.What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.

My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver. Especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.

To assume the existence of an unperceivable being… does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world. I don`t try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.

Albert Einstein

Einstein got much flack for his views on god. It shows the people at the time understood his non-traditional views. He did not believe in a supernatural god.

The Founder of the Calvary Tabernacle Association in Oklahoma wrote to Einstein:

Professor Einstein, I believe that every Christian in America will answer you, 'We will not give up our belief in our God and his son Jesus Christ, but we invite you, if you do not believe in the God of the people of this nation, to go back where you came from.' I have done everything in my power to be a blessing to Israel, and then you come along and with one statement from your blasphemous tongue, do more to hurt the cause of your people than all the efforts of the Christians who love Israel can do to stamp out anti-Semitism in our land. Professor Einstein, every Christian in America will immediately reply to you, 'Take your crazy, fallacious theory of evolution and go back to Germany where you came from, or stop trying to break down the faith of a people who gave you a welcome when you were forced to flee your native land.'

Insanity versus Religion

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity.

When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.

— Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values)

How cute is it when a child has an imaginary friend? How disturbing it is when an adult has the same?