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 ❤ Lee Strobel and you responded with WHAT?

Take my last post for example. There are Christians who have responded in great detail. One guy was a former sorcerer who says that he has literally seen the face of god. He also pulled the Pascal’s wager card and went into great details about his life. Thanks!

“youngearth” admitted that he wouldn’t ever read the bible as false, because that’s not faith. He also quoted a lot of scripture that proved his points. Awesome!

And my soon-to-be BFF zdenny explained how Christians are superior, because their faiths are superior and it gives them superior good feelings that inferior atheists could never fathom understanding. He also says that 75% (seventy five percent? That is money!) of new testament scholars agree that Jesus was seen by eyewitnesses. He says there is empirical evidence that Jesus existed, died and rose again because Lee Strobel told him so. EIEI-O. And Bingo was his name-o.

These are all wonderful people with good things to say.

The weird thing is, not one of them gets it. Quoting scripture or saying the bible is true because it says it’s true, it’s not going to work.

If you’ve seen the face of god, go see James Randi, he’s got a million dollars in a suitcase with your name on it.

Telling me you don’t ever doubt, because that’s not faith, that’s just pathetic. Everyone doubts. If you don’t, you’re superhuman and congratulations. You are better than everyone else.

I’m scratching my head though. I published the most balanced post advocating Christian books to Atheists, and what do they say?

What’s that? I can’t hear you. Speak up.

Nope, I didn’t get a bunch of Christians thanking me for recommending people read Christian literature. I got a bunch of people telling me how wrong I am.

One Hundred Percent Bullshit. What will it take to make you people happy?

“Revel in Mockery” Tires; Good for 3,000 years or 2 Gazillion Miles, GUARANTEED!!!

Paul had some AMAZING foresight when he wrote that bit about be happy when you are mocked. There’s so much to poke fun of at with some christians. It’s frightening.

I have a feeling none of these people have read Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus” or spent some time poking around the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. Rightly so, these are things that contradict their faiths. And faith is not to be contradicted.

I’m not trying to be controversial here. I’ve given Jesus a fair shake. And if you don’t think I have, I don’t care. I’m not trying to convince you that Jesus doesn’t exist. I’m not trying to tell you that a flying spaghetti monster exists. I’m not trying to convince you that bacteria are really demons or that god or allah didn’t have his hand in creation. Most importantly, I’m not using a fear device like hell to convince you you’re wrong. I’m not secretly trying to decrease the future population of heaven! Every time you use that fear device, it makes you look crazy.

I know, you want that. You’re welcome.

Maybe you have given “atheism” its fair shake. That’s great. I’m happy for you. Next round’s on me. Cheers.

Christians, you’re all winners! Wait, what happened to love your neighbors as yourselves?

You get the prize. Yay! Heaven is yours. You want everyone to enjoy that prize with you, because you wouldn’t want us to burn in hell. We get it. We really do. These beliefs define you. When you say you love someone in Christ or “god bless”, there’s always going to be a veiled demonic threat in your voice, because there is always that concept of hell in the back of your mind.

Short of grappling my hands on each of your shoulders and shaking you so hard your head wobbles back and forth while screaming, “THAT’S NOT LOVE!!!” I don’t know what else to do.

There is deep, mysteriously beautiful satisfaction in being godless. There is deep glorious satisfaction in walking down the street not thinking that an un-identified sin I haven’t asked forgiveness for will cause the whimsy of god to send a car in my path, strike me and cause me to live the rest of my life in a wheelchair. There is deep satisfaction in the idea that my friends of all stripes, christian, muslim, buddhist, atheist, et al will stand by my side in the event that I was bound to a wheel chair. There’s immense deep satisfaction that the intuition of science and people power have engineered an awesome place to live and work and play.

Go ahead. Think the supernatural personally constructed it all and he hears you when you cry at night for all the unbelievers. You’re not helping anything. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong, because you’re right. Bridges aren’t built on such petty, juvenile forms of debate.

Tina made the best metaphor after I told her that I’ve gotten several responses trying to convince me I’m wrong. She said, “That’s like someone serving you a big juicy steak on a golden platter. You look at it and smell it. Even though you smell the stench, and you see the green mold growing on it, the christians are still trying to convince you it’s a great piece of meat by repeating, ‘Nah, man, it’s good. Eat it. It doesn’t smell. It’s tasty! Don’t question it, just eat it.'”

Let me remind you, you came here by choice. Be a dear, let me enjoy my meal.

Bon appétit.