Advocating Reality

I wrote this in response to a theist making the assertion that we don't need God to prove himself to us because we have the Bible.  I was so happy with it that I figured I would share it here as well, slightly edited to make contextual sense. The fundamental flaw with the Bible is when it is considered the official record of who and what God is.  First, the reports within the Bible are conflicting and contradictory; Second, the authorship of virtually every word of text is questionable (at best, and it is even mentioned in the Bible itself that forgeries of some letters and books do exist), and was most certainly written by humans; Third, the Bible in it's current form was decided on by a committee called the Council of Nicaea, made up also of only humans, who literally picked and chose which documents would be considered 'canon' and which ones would not - this is particularly interesting because there are several 'scriptures' which are referenced in the Bib...

This is an excellent blog post and discussion regarding the Pope's most recent pronouncements.  I agree with Don an most of his points here, except that on point 1 it is mentioned in the comments that this is pretty unlikely - these priests don't care about the original ban on condoms, and they already know that condoms can do this.  They just rationalize it. Posted by:  Don Baker Is is just me, or does pretty much every news story about the Pope's latest emanations annoy you, too? No matter what he has to say, the media is there like hungry puppies eager to lap it up and puke it out in your local newspaper or TV news program. There's usually a whole series of puff pieces trying to add drama to his latest moral pronouncement. Rarely is there any real balance to the stories and the Pope is held up as some great expert on whatever he chooses to blather about. Read the rest here.

Suppose for a moment that you are a high-level Microsoft technician.  You understand servers, networking, clients, backups, etc. and you have excellent customer relation skills.  You are well-spoken, well-educated, confident, and competent. What difference does it make what type of clothes you are wearing?  Does your outfit somehow change your skill set, or your ability to do your job? If someone does not like the way you are dressed, are they justified in assuming that you are somehow incompetent? Is comfort or personal preference a factor at all?  If not, why the hell not? Someone might argue that your clothes tell people certain things about you.  If this is true, then choosing to wear particular clothes in order to send a particular 'message' would be considered dishonest, wouldn't it?  On the other hand, someone who wears the clothes that they prefer or that they consider to be 'comfortable' is the one person being honest (and is the person who...

The dietary laws in the Old Testament are often said to have been God sharing important knowledge with mankind, and that science has proven these laws to be useful and healthy.  I contend that anyone who says this does not actually know what the dietary laws are.  I will not outline each and every law, but I want to touch on the ones that don't seem to make sense. Deuteronomy 14 14:6 "You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud." Except camels, rabbits, or 'hyrax', or pigs (14:7-8) 14:9-10 "Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales. 10 But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean." 14:11-18 "You may eat any clean bird. 12 But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon, 14 any kind of raven, 15 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 16 the l...

Got an interesting question - the Bible is generally considered 'divinely inspired' or whatever, and obviously we can all agree that God did not directly write it.  My question is this:  Why didn't Jesus write anything himself?  We have stories which were allegedly written about him and/or his followers, but no letters or love notes or postcards from the man himself.  He was obviously literate, as he read the 'scriptures' all the time.  I realize that this doesn't mean that he could write, but if he was God that would be a silly argument.   This is sort of an extension to the idea that a perfect 'God' would be able to write a Bible that would never need translation/interpretation/faith (because he's perfect), but it goes a little deeper - if I am right about the Bible being a collection of stories, myths, and constant re-writes, then why wouldn't anyone have bothered to just make up a story coming from Jesus himself?  It is possible that such...

I don't know if there just isn't enough debate, or if we just don't pay enough attention to it, but either way there needs to be a change. Have you ever seen a debate over, for example, gay marriage?  I've heard people speak against it, and I've heard it mentioned briefly in debates, but I have yet to see a true debate on the matter.  Perhaps the reason is because of how little actual data the anti-gay marriage side has (aside from bible verses, which should not be used when discussing a legal matter such as marriage). In general, though, what's the deal?  Internet forums, though you have to dig to find them, tend to contain excellent, well-written assertions and responses.  However, these are obscure, long, and wordy, and are not feasible to present to a mass audience, such as through television.  Televised or recorded debates provide bite-sized chunks of useful information with the potential to reach a far larger audience.  These days, however, televi...

The Atheist Experience™: My God is an awesome God a whiny little bitch Excellent email and response, the argument from the theist is a little 'different'. Good read, and the comments are pretty great too.

This series of blog posts is in response to a common Christian argument that the teachings of Jesus are good and noble and beneficial to mankind.  I will be exploring the character of Jesus as seen through the eyes of the authors of the 'Gospels':  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  I am of the opinion that anything beyond John can be safely ignored for the purposes of this perspective, as those books refer to the followers of Jesus and not Jesus himself.  Also, any mention or 'appearance' of the character of Jesus outside of these 4 books tends to be objectively different from the Jesus of the 'Gospels'.  Besides, the teachings of Jesus in 'his own words' should be more than sufficient for the purposes of this series. I will not be going to any outside sources for clarification of any point - this is purely about the teachings of Jesus and whether or not they are useful and beneficial now .  The quoted material is taken from the 'New International V...

Original Story This is absolutely tremendous .  This may mark a new trend in skepticism, and it makes me wonder:  What happens when every country in the world has at least one organization doing this, every one using the same standards?  What happens when every single supernatural claim is met with "Oh really?  Go get your million(or whatever) dollars(or whatever)!" This seems like a pretty big deal to me, and I am anxious to see what they report in the future.  So far, there has yet to be a single applicant.  Nice to see that people all over the globe are getting tired of the BS.

The Minnesota Family Council is pushing for a statewide referendum in 2012 to place a ban on same-sex marriage. GLBT - Constitutional ban on gay marriage hits the fast track -  http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2010/11/constitutional.php If it passes, Minnesota Republicans will have proven that promoting discrimination, division, and hate is more important than working on solving problems.  It disgusts me that so many people are so quick to disparage same-sex marriage when there has never been a single good reason to do so. It seems to me that all of the arguments against same-sex marriage tend to boil down to religious beliefs.  Doesn't that make a ban like this un-Constitutional based on the protection of the First Amendment?  Perhaps we will have a 'Kitzmiller v. Dover'-esque thrashing of BS with evidence.  I can dream, can't I?  *EDIT:  There may be reasons why this doesn't happen more often  - in Iowa, three state Supreme Court ju...