How not to indoctrinate children

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-WHzHy87tk&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

thanks Brian G!

The Survivors’ Voice

 

Survivor's Voice

I have a Twitter friend named Jess. I’m quite positive she and I don’t have similar religious views. That’s fine. I don’t have similar religious views with just about everyone I know.

 

We share one common interest, and that’s a passionate disgust for human suffering. We desperately want to improve upon the human condition and to fight injustice that is expressed in unfair treatment of people. When I hear stories about how certain people are actively doing, actively spreading awareness for the greater good of humanity, I get a knot in the back of my throat, and I have to catch myself from grinding my teeth. I get that way, physiologically, because I can’t stop myself from imagining why they feel this way.

It really (REALLY) pisses me off to hear about people who are hurt, raped, fondled, touched, accosted, maimed, etc. by someone who is so unintelligent, so stupid, so deliberately ignorant to think that evil behavior is okay or forgivable in the 21st century.

Jess has impressed me from day one. She is compassionate, outgoing, and gregarious. As I’ve learned more about her, she impresses me more. She’s been blogging on facebook, but now she’s exploring her goals by launching a blog on blogger.  So go over and check out her blog The Survivor’s Voice. Maybe by creating a place of  Survivors’ Voices, we can turn it into a vocal symphony of life’s loving and supportive voices.

Let’s edge out, marginalize and get rid of that which prevents or hinders happiness.

Mrs. Betty Bowers: Less is Mormon!

“Less is mormon.” That’s classic.

The “Morality” of Child Sacrifice Encourages War

In a pretty recent post, I talked about Lot’s contribution to godly morality. God considered Lot righteous enough to keep the story in the bible (a.k.a. the ultimate book of morality). Maybe there’s a reason for including Lot’s story of offering his daughter’s as sacrifices to deity. Perhaps we missed what was didactic about such a story.

No, I don’t think so. Lot’s story ended when his ignorant, horny daughters drugged him and raped him to get themselves pregnant because they couldn’t find any local fellows to marry.

Lot died.

His righteous legacy lives on.

Wow! What an awesome code for moral conduct. Top notch. I’ve tried bringing this up to many Christians. They do the typical wave of the hand through the air. “No, no, no, this isn’t part of the moral code,” they say.

This is one of those passages that gets Tina’s blood boiling so badly she wonders how anyone could grow up in the environment that I grew up in. I’m not sure what gets her angry most, the passage about Eve as helper (See Creation Museum; search for word “helper”) or Lot’s disrespect for women, including his own daughters.

Me? I can’t figure out how women could agree to become “christian”. The “christian” tradition is so one-sidedly testosterone heavy and patriarchal, why would a woman want to subscribe to an unnaturally oppressive male culture?

It’s truly something to explore. Maybe it’s that …

Gotta/Wanna/Coulda Whole “Lot” of Love

Let’s read the bible!

At the end of Genesis 11, “Moses” introduces the world to Abram (eventually Abraham), his wife Sarai (eventually Sarah) and Lot (eventually paternal douchebag of the millennium). As you know, Abraham is the father of the three main world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This happens right after the Tower of Babel where God confused languages (evolution is so screwed!)

I’ve studied Genesis in great detail. So if you want to go read the Abraham story, I’ll wait here for you to finish. Go ahead. It’s chapters 11 through 24 or 25.

Show me the intermediate fossils!

- Nebraska Vignettes #1 – Richard Dawkins

Will Durant

 

Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Look Magazine Photograph Collection. Call number LOOK - Job 61-9343

I’m loving that Renee posted a Will Durant quote at her blog. I’m most drawn to the last line: ”As long as there is poverty, there will be gods.”

 

The rest of the quote speaks of how science threatens religion. There’s a line that says, “The masses will never accept science until it gives them an earthly paradise.”

I wholeheartedly disagree with this line. Life now is closer and closer to being paradisiacal. I’m not saying it’s fully paradise, but holy cow are we advanced compared to even 20 years ago. There may be pain and the poor may be among us, but think about how far we’ve come and it has made no dent in the science vs religion debate. Durant’s prediction for the future from the 1920s was wrong.

The entire quote Renee posted is below the fold:

Every Disciple Was at One Time Atheist toward Jesus

Recent conversations have me rereading through Shane Claiborne’s “The Irresistible Revolution“. Claiborne is a christian author and activist. My brother Jon recommended the book to me a couple years ago. My brother is a Christian singer song writer (see Creamy Velour) and THE coolest Christian on the planet. If you wanted to take notes on how to bridge the gap between belief and non-belief in rich, invigorating and effective ways, give him a shout.

Rereading “The Irresistible Revolution” has re-sparked the idea that before Jesus, the 12 disciples were in some way atheist toward Jesus as God. They didn’t sociologically receive him as the common theology and christian culture requires. They were likely very un-educated, illiterate poor guys (I know Matthew was a tax collector and Luke was a “doctor”, slow down and Mark could write words! “We have his words!” you say, “That means he wasn’t illiterate!” Give him a cookie).

I’m (quite) sure these guys weren’t doing calculus or studying world history through the age of 22. I was writing words, sentences even stories at 10 years. I’m sure Mark was a genius by 2,000-year old Jewish standards. They certainly didn’t have the glut of information about world religion, history, science or ideas we have today.

(Relax and take a breath. Now continue).

Thank You, Kirk Cameron

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM0oBuhTLRI]

A couple people emailed me this video and asked, “what’s up with this?” I’ve posted about the controversy before about Ray Comfort printing “The Origin of the Species” with a foreword that he “wrote”. There are now accusations flying around that he ripped off the introduction from Internet sources.

I could care less.

My point is this, Christian web sites, forums and blogs are more likely than secular ones to filter out comments and censor. If you click the video twice, it should take you to YouTube, where responses are filtered out. In fact, the info says, “**Only friends comments will be automatically approved.**” I have a hard time believing that after 100,000 views of a severely controversial subject as evolution versus creationism debate that only 23 people have responded.

Really?

And rating the video is disabled?

Really?

Ray Comfort has only 23 friends?

Awesome!

In fact, click on any number of Comfort’s bullshit videos, no comments are allowed. Why? Probably because he kicks atheist hornets’ nests, and atheist blather offends Christians, so they pull it all or censor. Or whatever. Christians can’t stand to have anyone oppose them. They would reach far more people if they were open and honest. Jesus wasn’t picky about his company. I bet the disciples swore like sailers and acted like idiots. Could you imagine 12 testosterone-filled, gruff and tough dudes not acting like morons?

To their defense, I had to ban someone this week. I’m not talking about the details, because it’s being taken care of by the authorities. It sucks though. I didn’t want to do it. I really love the Christian response to my blog. Call me a “vile bigot” all you want. It’s great. It validates my view of Christianity and it lumps people who are good, upstanding Christians into a mired bin of wackjobs.

To be fair, there is some crazy lunacy in the atheist camp, too. I’m not proud to say I’m an atheist all the time. I met some kids at CreoZerg who are complete nutbags. There was this one super annoying college student who I heard tell the same story to three different people. Each telling, the fish got bigger and the Christian got uglier.

That’s not cool.

Atheists need to be careful not to fall in the same beguiling mysterious language as Christians do. When we talk about the “facts” that we read in a book, make sure not to spout off as if you were the one conducting the research. Give your references a fair shake and an honest citation. The worst thing you can do is act like everything you’ve read is the end-all-be-all to back up your perspective. I know we have strong arguments, and we think we’re all right, but for fuck’s sake, we don’t have to be pompous ALL the time. Hemant Mehta has given us a pretty damn good gold standard. So mix it up. Be Dawkins or Hitchens some times, but not 24/7.

I <3 Lee Strobel and you responded with WHAT?

The Best PR

Republicans help the Democrat’s cause more than they ever think. Don’t they know that bad news is great PR? Hmm, maybe that’s why the Catholic Church bemoans all their criticism, they know how well it works for them.

I love this picture I just got from my Dad (Senior Witteveen). Conservatives should cash in on Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. It’s great, and this sign is creative and funny.

Somewhere in the back of their thick skulls, surely conservatives are scratching their heads about Obama’s peace prize. I mean, yeah, it’s bizarre. It’s a great thing to poke fun at. There’s nothing more whorishly cheap than saying, “Let’s make the Nobel Peace Prize something you can get while exiting Walmart from a quarter machine next to mega bouncy balls and super stellar sweet tarts.”

Facts are facts. The Nobel Peace Prize is still retaining its international respect. The international community — that isn’t reported about on FOX news — still has high expectations and proud regard for Obama.

Deep down, conservatives are staring at it, after they stopped laughing and kvetching about the whole shenanigan, thinking, “Wait, how can we get one?” They have to be thinking, “Obama did something to garner international attention. Maybe being rewarded for certain behaviors, idea sets and actions is something we could live up to.”

Or maybe not. Progress isn’t in conservative vocabulary. So while they’re all orgy loving on glory days and how things were so much better yesterday, we progressives will march forward into the century with our technology and ideas that make the world a better, peaceful place.

What a prize.