Advocating Reality

https://www.facebook.com/darklighterdesigns/posts/10154601688925593?comment_id=10154607863580593&offset=0&total_comments=152&notif_t=feed_comment Just a few points that I really want to clear up.  I've edited the list down extremely and these are the most important things, I think. "Unfortunately it seems to be impossible, either by intelligent design or evolution, to eliminate the possibility of evil choices."   Please show your work.  Since you have exactly one (1) observable reality from which to draw your inferences and nothing to compare it to.  I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion.  Also, and I know I've harped on this point, but Intelligent Design only suffers from that problem if the designer  is not omnipotent .  An omnipotent designer would not be preventable from creating such a reality by definition, regardless of the way that things seem to be in the reality we're in. 'By definition "free will" includ...

I recently shared a link to a great little article by The Atheist Advocate on patheos.com in which Christians are challenged to wear an Atheist t-shirt for one week, in order to learn about what persecution  means, due to the apparent misunderstanding which is often spread by Christians. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/04/25/challenge-to-christians-wear-an-atheist-t-shirt-and-gauge-reactions/ Pretty good idea, no? Now, I know that '____ Challenge' is currently extremely cliche, but would a good name for this be 'Persecution Challenge'?  Too emotive maybe? I may have found a taker, and I think it would be a really great experience, probably for both of us.  You see, she's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I would be required to wear a Mormon t-shirt for one week, while she would be required to wear an Atheist t-shirt during the same time.   If we both agree on this, how should we document eve...

Just a quick addendum to my review of 'God's Not Dead', and also a comment about the current state of Apologetics. The Problem of Evil, simply put, is the idea that an All-Powerful 'God' would be able to abolish evil and apparently has chosen not to do so. To many, this idea of a 'God' is evil itself. Imagine, if you will, a grown man raping a 2-year old toddler. Now imagine that an all-powerful bearded man in the sky is watching this unfold, yet doing nothing. For myself, I consider this being to be completely immoral. If it were a human watching this happen, with the power to stop it yet not doing so, we would never hesitate to call the person completely immoral. Why is it so different for a 'God'? Well, according to the movie and to current Apologetics, the solution to the Problem of Evil is 'Free Will'. By abolishing evil in this world, such a being would be abrogating human 'Free Will'. This seems to make sense on the surface...

Evolution is often decried as 'theoretical' because the term 'theory' is attached to it.   Scientists use the word 'Theory' in a very different way than other people do.  It is much more similar to a mathematical 'Theorem' than it is to the traditional use of the word 'theory'. Hopefully you remember high school geometry, but in case you don't, here is a refresher on the Pythagorean Theorem: On any right triangle (a triangle with one 90 degree angle) the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, and this is reflected in the formula a² + b² = c². No matter what, each and every right triangle abides by this theorem.  Every time it has been tested, it has given the correct result.  The theorem would be easily falsified (proven wrong) if a single right triangle was found that did not exhibit the dimensions predicted by the theorem.  Of course, this is entirely unlikely, if not impossible, so ...

" That all men are created equal." I find this to be a fascinating sentence, don't you? From the absolute beginning, the United States have built a country upon double-standards and racism.  The 'Founding Fathers' was a group of slave-owning white men who decided that they shouldn't have to abide by the laws and decisions handed down by a faceless tyrant from 3000 miles away because nobody asked them their opinion.  So what do they decide?  They decide to create a government where the only people who have any power are white male landowners, and they built this government on the rotting carcasses of the Indians, Blacks, and British who stood in their way.  What's worse is how they went about it - they made grand gestures and impassioned speeches about 'Freedom'.  "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.."  The Declaration of I...

Major Themes of this film: Martyrdom Martyrdom Atheists are awful Martyrdom Muslims are awful Martyrdom Martyrdom Academics are awful Big Business people are awful Oh, and Martyrdom.  Did I mention Martyrdom? Actually, scratch a lot of what I said before.  Anyone who isn't Christian is awful, and some people who 'claim' to be Christians are also awful. This movie can be summed up as 3 logical fallacies: Arguments from Emotion Arguments from Ignorance Arguments from Authority First, just like with the TV appearance of Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, this movie most certainly is NOT persuasive in regards to the existence of God. Virtually every stereotype which could be played, was played.  The abusive Muslim who disowns his daughter when he learns that she is a Christian.  The scenes with the Academic crowd show them all to be vapid anti-theists.  Every student in the philosophy class, save one, simply go along with the anti-religious n...

When many Christians, particularly Catholics, talk about the 'Biblical Prohibitions' against masturbation and birth control, they all seem to refer to a single story in the Old Testament.  Interestingly, none of these people seem to know what the verses are referring to. Genesis 38:7-10  New International Version (NIV) 7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death. 8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also. Catholic.com Entry:  (Source:   http://www.catholic.com/tracts/birth-control ) "The Bible mentions at least one form of contraception specifically an...