Day: February 26, 2010

Could I offer you a glass of bubbly? In other news, Happy Friday

~ Jeremy ~ 9 Comments

This weekend is going to be relatively busy. Tonight I’m roasting fish (haven’t decided what kind) with a salad. We’re eating light before trekking to the gym. After that we’re going to my buddy Ryan’s art opening. If you haven’t checked out Ryan’s work, you should do it here.

Tomorrow we’re having lunch with a gay couple who own the dogs Tina and I dogsit from time to time. I say “gay” because I’m bragging that I have a token set of gay friends.

Saturday night we’re eating dinner with Tina’s best friend and husband. They are a hetero couple. I say “hetero” because I’m kidding about the above gay remark. Har har. Funny, I know. Try not to laugh too hard.

We’re probably going to do Indian food. Which is not a joke. We have a great Indian population here in Chicago, and some of the places come standard with prayer rooms and mats facing Mecca.

And on Sunday, we have our regularly scheduled date with Tina’s brother Michael and his partner Jason.

I meant to ask you the other day. I should be able to call my brother in law’s partner, my brother in law, right? I mean, they may not be married by state law, but a 14-year relationship and rings on their fingers … that makes them common law married in my mind. What do you think?

Also, what the hell are you doing this weekend? If it’s nothing, don’t spare any details. I want to know what “nothing” means, even if it’s a trip to the john with a porn and a smile.

Clinky clinky … beers and bubbly!

cheers.

Siegel: How Tides Work

~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
Ethan Siegel

Ethan Siegel is my favorite theoretical astrophysicist. He blogs over at Starts with a Bang.

He recently was asked how tides worked. You should do yourselves a favor and read the post, and bookmark the blog. Siegel is top notch when it comes to describing science in ways even little ol’ me can understand.

You may have studied tides before, but Siegel goes into details that I hadn’t read about before. Go take a look.

Here’s a cool graphic from the post. Enjoy.

Le Café Witteveen gets radio time, Christians show again they don’t cite their sources

~ Jeremy ~ 8 Comments

Talk about poor Christian ethics.

Regular reader and blogger Glock21 let me know that audio for a Dinesh D’Souza interview on a show called “Sound Rezn [sic]” with Alex McFarland is online. On the show, they discussed the Loftus debate, and McFarland read a quote from my blog about the debate, but he didn’t cite the source. Here’s the original review.

As they say in Chicago, what a fucking jag off.

If it wasn’t the trend with Christians to not cite sources (see any one of my reviews of Dr. Werner’s book “Evolution, the Grand Experiment“), it wouldn’t be a problem. But come on. McFarland demonstrates his lack of intelligence in the first 3 minutes of the show.

Perhaps they didn’t want listeners looking it up themselves to see that I wrote that D’Souza’s arguments were demonstrably false, but a person would have to research his answers to find that out. Or perhaps they don’t want to steer Christians to the places where they could engage with atheists. Or maybe they didn’t want anyone seeing that I criticized average American Christians for not accepting science, which D’Souza demonstrated he does … something I praised him for.

I guess it’s just because we atheists have “dangerous” ideas, right? Yawn.

For the most part, people don’t search or research. A Christian at that debate would never go verify D’Souza’s information. I have reread that review, and it stands. Do I stand by everything I wrote? No. But it’s done. It’s what I wrote at that time. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.

Although, I have seen many instances of atheists searching out answers and relaying them to Loftus so that he can be more equipped next time. I’m neither here nor there on this. That’s what the Internet is good for. There is a conglomerate of minds online that want to do well with these things. Loftus would do well to listen.

Now that I’ve had a chance to read more about “Sound Rezn [sic]”, they are a bunch of noisy buffoons. They are the OPPOSITE of sound reason (probably why they don’t spell it correctly).

I’m more convinced that the reason they wouldn’t quote me is because of what I wrote about D’Souza’s positive points. Notice this post from their deplorable excuse for a blog:

The Bible On Homosexual Behavior

Biblical passages that speak against homosexual behavior

Genesis 19
This is a lengthy passage relating to the destruction of Sodom.

Leviticus 18:22, 24
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things

Leviticus 20:13
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Deuteronomy 23:17-18
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

1 Kings 14:22, 24
And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

1 Kings 15:11-12
And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father.
And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

1 Kings 22:42-46
Jehoshaphat was thirty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. . . .
And he walked in all the ways of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of the LORD: . . .
And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.

2 Kings 23:3, 7
And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

Romans 1:26-27
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their woman did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And like wise the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another: men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Hebrews 13:4
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

The Bible clearly teaches no same sex marriage.

Biblical References in the Old Testament

Genesis 19; Judges 19:14
Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13
Deuteronomy 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7

Homosexual References in the New Testament

Romans 1: 26-29
1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:9-10, Jude 7

Biblical Arguments Against Same Sex Marriage

1. God lists “homosexual offenders” among “the wicked” (1 Corinthians 6:9).

2. God lists “homosexual offenders” among those who He determines will “not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9).

3. Historically, homosexuality has incurred God’s destructive wrath upon an entire city (Gen. 19:4-5, 11-13).

4. God’s word defines the men of Sodom as “sinning greatly” because of their men having sex with men (Genesis 13:13; 19:5).

5. God calls Sodom’s sin “sexual perversion” (Jude 1:7). Societies that remain in perversion (Sodom, Rome…) are on the road to destruction.

6. God’s word identifies husband-wife relations as “natural relations” and homosexual relations as “unnatural ones” (Romans 1:26-27) and “perversion” (vs. 27).

7. God’s word also rebukes those who “approve of those who practice” homosexuality (Romans 1:32).

8. Jesus declared that God had made them “male and female … a man … [and] his wife” (Matthew 19:4-5).

“Sound Rezn” and Alex McFarland, you are clearly vile and an abomination to humanity. While you hold up these verses as wise or reasonable, why is it that you ignore the verses around them that call for everything from stoning children, raping women, avoiding certain food, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam?

Again, you cite all the sources that support your inept agenda, but you don’t cite all the places that also make your religion outrank Islam in awful.

It’s because you haven’t advanced enough to have sound “reason” so you stick with the juvenile “rezn”. And — because you drag your collective “Christian” feet — the rest of us have to suffer under your fists of stupidity.

Grow a pair … a gigantic pair … and help lead your followers away from these Bible verses, just as you have chosen to ignore SOOOOOOOOOO many others*.

Come on. You can do it. Put your back into it.

*Someone should do a study on how much of the bible Christians ignore.


~ Jeremy ~ 6 Comments

Steele: The Constitution Doesn’t Guarantee Health Care


The only thing leadership is showing at this point is how stupid they are.