Advocating Reality

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...

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...

Brian Dalton is the producer/director/main character of the popular web show 'Mr. Deity', a series of web shorts (usually 5 minutes or so) consisting of thought-provoking and hilarious glimpses into the satirical day-to-day life of Elohim, the God of the Bible. Common themes include the origins of good and evil and explanations of why things are 'the way things are'. Visit http://mrdeity.com/ for episodes, swag, and more! If you enjoy the series, the cast and crew would be eternally grateful for donations/subscriptions, which can be done through the above site. This is my interview with Brian Dalton in its entirety.  I hope that you enjoy it, and please feel free to comment below! Chris:  Mr. Deity is a unique show as far as I can tell, there isn't anything else quite like it. Can you tell us a little about how you came up with the idea to make a comedy/satire show about 'God’? Brian:  The initial idea was simply a script I’d written for myself — a m...

I often question myself when I argue with religious people and other believers in the supernatural - not necessarily my own position, but the manner in which I assert it.  It has been pointed out to me that I tend to be brisk and sarcastic in my arguments.  I agree that this is true, but I think there's more to it than that. Any time I respond to someone, I read my own post over and over again, often times long after posting it, just to look for any possible holes in my argument and to observe how I responded to particular comments.  Time and time again, I find that the real sarcasm doesn't begin until I start to get exasperated with the same argument over and over again.  I also find that it happens when the other party starts asserting what my beliefs are or makes other assumptions about me or my position.  In short, I keep it to a minimum, but it does happen. I have always held strong convictions, but for many years I maintained a strict habit of keeping...

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...

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...