We can choose to become a pedophile, a fornicator, an adulterer, or a homosexual.

I just don’t know what to say. Ray doesn’t even try to hide it. He’s straight-up, plain-as-day, clearly equating homosexuality with pedophilia.

“Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 9-10).

Notice how this actually says nothing about pedophiles? Apparently, being gay is bad enough to warrant special mention in the Holy Book itself, but raping children isn’t. Yet, Ray is equating one with the other, saying both are abominable sins in the eyes of God. How can he make that statement? Obviously, being gay is much worse than being a pedophile.

After publishing this, and quite expectedly receiving a substantial torrent of comments pointing out his bigotry and “Christ-like” hatred of people who aren’t exactly like him, Ray added a postscript. It reads as follows:

P.s. After reading this post, some have asked if I would endorse the killing of homosexuals–quoting Old Testament verses, from Hebrew civil law. Of course I wouldn’t. Why would I (living in the United States in 2010), advocate the sentence given under the civil law of nation that existed 3,000 years ago?

Pedophiles do have rights. They have the same rights you and I do, and they lack the same rights you and I do. Pedophiles, as disgusting we all think their affliction is, are still people. They have the right to, and deserve, all the help they can get to cope with their problems.

Also, I have a question for those of you who were obviously angered by what I have written. Why have none of you suggested that pedophiles are born that way, and they have rights, etc.? All I have done is given you the biblical perspective, and warned you of who will not enter the Kingdom of God. Again, if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother.

Oh, I know you care, Ray. The question isn’t if you care, it’s what you care about. Apparently, you care so much about people around you loving other people that you have to write a blog post specifically to condemn such “sinful” behavior. You care so much that you will compare statutory rape and child abuse with consensual sex between adults, and claim they’re both just as bad. I’m sure the Ku Klux Klan “wouldn’t bother” with the sheets and burning crosses if they also “didn’t care”.

This being the somewhat incendiary topic it is, Ray felt the need to add a second postscript:

P.P.s. Individuals have responded with: “Pedophiles don’t have rights because they are CAUSING HARM. They are harming children. Consenting adults HARM NO ONE. Again, it’s pretty clear cut.” “Said act harms children. End. Of. Story.”

Therefore pedophiles that have pictures of semi-naked young children on their computers are okay? No one is being harmed. Why then is it illegal? The “I was born like it . . . it doesn’t harm anyone” doesn’t cut it in civil court. Neither will it on Judgment Day.

Again, Ray is tripping over himself in his eagerness to portray homosexual men and women as “sinful” and wicked. Again, it’s not a crime merely being a pedophile. If a person had pedophilic tendencies but never acted on them, “I was born like it, it doesn’t harm anyone” is perfectly good defense. It’s so good, there isn’t even a reason to accuse him of anything to begin with. Is Ray suggesting that civil law start punishing thought crimes?

Ray can add all the postscripts he wants. It won’t change the fact that he is a sad, bigoted, hateful joke of a man.

My apologies for not posting parts 3 and 4 of the eye opening short series with Sye and I…which is exactly what this argument is to the Atheistic world view, Cyanide.

While, I suppose, somewhat originally phrased, this is something that’s been heard for decades now. You can rest assured that atheism isn’t going anywhere, that neither Eric or Kent Hovind, nor anyone else, will present anything remotely like “cyanide to the atheistic worldview”. But thanks for capitalizing Atheism though, even if there’s no reason to…

You see, the only internally consistent worldview is the Christian world view. Every other worldview will implode with an internal critique.

The mindblowing arrogance continues. Does he really believe Christianity is that much different from any other religion based on supernatural beings and events? What’s his basis for making this claim? I am well familiar with the arguments that supposedly prove how “true” or “real” Christianity is, but no one’s ever heard an argument like that that couldn’t be used equally well on _any_ religion. Heck, exposing this fact is the main purpose of the Flying Spaghetti Monster scenario.

Episode #3 of this series deals with science. Did you know that the only way to do science is based on what is known as the “uniformity of nature”. This is the assumption that tomorrow will be like today. However, this is an assumption. What is its basis?

Ok, so the way they’re “proving” Christianity is by attacking science? Has attacking science ever proved any religious point before? Why should it do so now?

And yes, Eric, science does assume that “tomorrow will be like today”. So do you. So does everyone, and they have done so for as long as anyone could reason enough to put forth a thought to that effect.

What he’s also forgetting, of course, is that science also has methods for adjusting to when tomorrow is not like today, which Christianity does not.

His last argument is really the most hilarious, so I’ll do him a favor and print it bold and in large print, just to make sure no one could possibly miss this incredible insight of Eric Hovind’s:

The only world view that can logically make sense of this idea is the Christian world view.

Eric Hovind, “Proof that God exists Part 3“

If the government (society) says homosexuals marrying each other is good, it moves from one generation believing it is evil and it becomes good and acceptable.

…and then another.

If the government says it’s okay to kill blacks, Jews and homosexuals because only the fit should survive, what is morally evil changes to that which is morally good in their eyes.

In the first example, homosexuality is portrayed as something bad, something that one generation “believes” is actually evil. What Ray sees as a decline in moral integrity is the fact that homosexuality is more and more tolerated (and, as we all know, tolerance has no place in Christianity!). In the second example, he describes a government that sees black, Jewish and homosexual people as “unfit”, taking care not to insinuate too obviously that he could think the same. I suspect that the only reason homosexuals are even in the list of people that it currently is immoral to kill, is that not even Ray has the balls to wish those who disgust him dead publicly.

In essence, Ray has no problem calling homosexuals downright evil, but he draws the line at actually killing them for that reason alone. How noble of him.

Now, let’s discuss his premise of good and evil, shall we? Ray is under the impression that society or governments are free to define anything they wish as moral or immoral, on opinion alone. This is far from reality, as with most of Ray’s rabid rantings. His first example of something that is today “bad”, but in tomorrow’s Godless society would be “good”, is abortion. Abortion (or “killing babies”, as Ray so colorfully describes it) is never a “good” thing, and I don’t know anyone who’s ever made the claim that it is. It is, and always will be, an “evil” in the traditional sense. However, modern, intelligent people are able to realize that sometimes it is a necessary evil, a negative act that can sometimes lead to good and positive results. A young girl, impregnated against her will, can be allowed to live instead of being sentenced to a horribly cruel and painful death. It will likely never be a “good” thing to take a life, in any way, shape or form, but it might often be necessary.

Equal rights for homosexuals is one of those hot-button examples that everyone uses just to get attention. However, being gay or lesbian has nothing to do with morality. One has to wonder why homosexuality is so prevalent in society today, but among those who think it’s disgusting or immoral, not a single person identifies as gay themselves. Statistics alone almost conclusively proves that it’s more about self-hatred and fear, than actual Christian values or morality.

Lastly, the killing. Not the killing of blacks, Jews or homosexuals specifically, but killing altogether. Has anyone ever claimed that murdering another person was “good” or “moral”. Even Hitler? Again, I maintain that killing another human being (or even another animal, for that matter) is always a bad thing – evil, but sometimes nonetheless necessary. Not in the sense that it’s necessary to ethnically cleanse human populations, but in the sense that we often allow killing in self-defense and as capital punishment, and we allow the killing of animals for sustenance.

So in conclusion, this is another straw man non-issue, a made-up argument from Ray Comfort to refute something that doesn’t exist. Secular nations have no problems with morality, and in fact, the numbers rather show a correlation between secularism and increased tolerance and decrease in violence. Apparently, being good doesn’t mean anything to Ray unless you’re also Christian, which I suspect is really the heart of the problem: It’s not morality and goodness that is on the decline, it’s religion. It’s Christianity. It’s his particular faith that is losing in numbers, and that’s what scares him.

Oh, and those damn gays, of course. Mustn’t forget them gays…

Imagine a father tells his beloved son that he was going to buy him a bike for Christmas. The father carefully explains that it would be a red bike, with gears, high tech wheels, and that it would be extremely light-weight. He explains to the boy that it’s completely paid for and says that he will get it as a gift first thing on Christmas morning. What would you think if the son says, “How do I know this will happen?” Such a question would be an insult to his father’s integrity. It means that he doesn’t trust his own father.

Ok, let’s compare God with bicycles, since this is apparently what Ray wants us to do:

• A bike is something man has constructed, using engineering and knowledge of basic physics, whereas God is a concept that is proposed to exist somewhere, but can’t be shown or explained in any possible way.
• A bike is a physical object, that can be verified to actually exist in our universe, whereas God is ethereal/invisible/a force/hiding/extra dimensional/beyond time and space… Just pick whatever makes you most comfortable.
• A bike has observable properties, like the fact that it’s exterior reflects light in the red spectrum, that the material it is made of is a kind of metal and that the wheels really do spin when force is applied, whereas God is… Well, no one even knows, so there’s nothing to observe or test against.
• The promise of the bike existing can be easily falsified by simply waiting for Christmas day. If you receive a bike, you know it exists. With God, however, you must wait until after you are dead and lifeless, making any observation meaningless for everyone but yourself. A dead witness can testify to absolutely nothing. Thus, for those of us still alive, the problem remains.

By this logic, if I promised that I would give you a trillion dollars next week, you would have to be thankful towards me. Anything else would be… Well, Ray explains it as well as always:

Even the most sinful of us is offended when a person doesn’t believe something we tell them. When we don’t believe someone it means that we think that they are a liar. They are devious, and they are therefore not worth trusting.

So, there you have it. Whenever someone doesn’t believe me, regardless of what it is, I have a right to be offended because the other person obviously thinks that I’m “devious” and “not worth trusting”. It doesn’t matter if what you promise is to buy back a beer on the next round at the bar, or eternal life in the heavens with almighty father God. It’s all the same to Ray.

[youtube]5wV_REEdvxo[/youtube]

Today was a dreary, drizzly Sunday. Wet, cold and raw, it decided. I lounged in the house, eating breakfast, completing my easy homework assignments, looking outside at the rain, wondering about a good time to get a run.

Hours went by and the rain went on, unrelenting. Unbelievable, I thought. It cannot last much longer. It can’t! I have to go running. Running is the only thing that can remedy a spell of smashed asshole syndrome (SAS), which is what I felt like.

Eventually, the rain subsided into a mere sprinkle. I figured, Ah, it’s going away. I better run for it and take my chances before it’s too late. So I put on running pants, my black hoodie, my Nikes and my mp3 player and took off in the rain.

Pretty soon, I realized it was coming down harder than I thought. Fuck! It’s too late. Can’t turn back. I’m already running, and I’m only doing four miles. About two miles in, it really starts coming down, soaking my shoes, saturating my sweatshirt heavy. God! Cock! Shiiiittt!

This makes no sense. It was raining all day and then it lets down to make it seem like it’s going to stop. Then I decide to run and when I’m too far out on my route to justify going back, it begins pouring worse than all day. What the hell? What’s your god damn problem, God? Huh? Are you enjoying this? You slimy omnipotent turd!

This is what was actually going through my mind at the time. I really and truly felt as if there were some mocking entity out there doing this to me, if for only a brief moment. For that fleeting time, Descartes’ evil prankster was doing this to me.

Thankfully, a moment later, I remembered that I don’t believe in God. I’m a semi-Christian turned agnostic turned militant atheist. After I realized this, something remarkable happened: my anger evaporated, like steam off my hot face. There was nobody doing this to me, no reason to be angry; there is only apathetic, negligent mother nature—god bless her. There is no reason to take anything personally. It wasn’t my fault or anyone else’s; there is only circumstance, like everything in this world.

It was during this time I insighted why people believe in God. They believe in him because it is so fucking easy. It is automatic. It is so natural when feeling pain or hate or any strong emotion, to attribute human qualities to anything, even when it doesn’t make sense. It feels incredibly, extraordinarily good to personify things. We see faces in everything, in clouds, blankets, even three dots—two on top, one of the bottom—can make us think of a face. Our cars, computers, or anything that requires our input, has a “personality.” In a highly emotional state, cognition is hijacked by more primitive and dominant neural pathways, which negotiate social interaction. Personification reflects this regression or crosstalk of circuitry.

Much of our nature is defined by the environmental significance of the other. Our brains in particular, have evolved so quickly and to such great heights largely to accommodate for language ability, so to better anticipate and manipulate the other. Our brains are wired to understand the other and the extent that we do this is nothing short of remarkable.

Our brains are, thus, specially configured to understand phenomena in terms of humans. Of course, then, there is a God!

written by assfly0

How would you react if you were guilty of violating civil law, and your dad loved you so much that he sold his house and spent all of his hard–earned savings to pay the massive fine, so that you could get out of prison? Would you point at your father and accuse him of some sort of crime? How perverse would that be? If you did that, you would not only be despising his incredible sacrifice, but you would also reveal something horrible about your own character.

Ok, so let’s break it down:

First of all, Ray will jump between severe criminal law and punishment, and misdemeanor or purely civil case law whenever and however it is most convenient. Usually, he’ll liken regular, decent people with pedophiles, murderers and rapists, to emphasize that we are utter scum, and we don’t even deserve to exist. However, in this case, he wants to lower the impact of what the father, in this example, does for his son. To make it sound reasonable, the “crime” in question is merely a speeding ticket, and the “sacrifice” is the guy’s father having to take a loan to pay for it.

Secondly, the problem isn’t really with the perpetrator, but with the victim. If we take Ray’s example and imagine a father paying his son’s speeding ticket, the only thing that matters is that the fine has to be payed. There’s not even really a victim to speak of, it’s a perfect example of a victimless crime. This isn’t at all like the situation with God and Jesus that Ray describes. If it were, the son would be accused of something much more serious, like murder, adultery, theft, etc etc. In short, he would be guilty of essentially everything. Rightfully sentenced to death (ironically, Christians seldom seem have a problem with capital punishment), his father would then offer to be executed in his son’s place.

With a crime that isn’t victimless, and where you yourself were the victim, would you accept this switch? Would you think it fair that someone else took the punishment that was personally set for your attacker? What if the person who offered himself in the sentenced man’s stead was a man who wasn’t a man, and who would be resurrected three days after his execution? How would you, the victim, feel then?

This is my problem with Jesus and his “taking of our sins”. It’s a racketeering game, where humans are born already guilty of the crime of sin, and where Jesus has already decided to take your place at the execution, regardless of what you yourself want. Not only that, but for that you are also required to be thankful. Imagine that.

While Christians describe Jesus as the most loving man ever in existence, I can’t see his sacrifice as being anything other than completely selfish. He doesn’t care what we want, he doesn’t care what we feel and he did it all for himself – he was really God in mortal form, after all. He set a trap for humanity, and proceeded to create us already caught in it. Is that an act of love?

I am reminded of the many people in the world who are victims of spousal abuse, and who repeat to themselves that “he really does love me” or “she really does care about me”. They don’t, but they like to think the do. Just like God likes to think that we’re grateful to him for forcing us to worship him.

Taking the opposite of Ferguson, I hold that Dawkin’s forum is hosted using computer systems, software systems, and communication systems, each of required utilize encoded design specifications, controlled energy systems, and controlled material processing systems to be assembled. Each person participating in Dawkins’ forum furthermore uses other software, computer, and energy systems to participate on that forum. Each of these in turn are only known to occur by the explicit cause and design of intelligent agents. There is no known process by which the four forces of nature has been scientifically proven to form any of these measures. Consequently, I hold that Dawkins’ forum evidences “Intelligent Design”.

Not only does this suggest that that which he argues is “creation” is, in all ways, perfect when it is clearly not (weak, soft bodies, prone to disease, suboptimal design of limbs and organs), but he uses the age-old argument that because humans can create things, someone must have created us in turn. However, what’s fun about this argument is that humans are simply intelligent enough to make more complicated tools. Certain apes and monkeys are perfectly capable of using simple tools as well, but they’re far from creating computers, cars or nuclear power plants. Is the fact that these apes and monkeys can not create complicated design evidence to the fact that there is no intelligent design of the world? I mean, if humans can be used as evidence for, then all other animals can be used as evidence against. Unless you’re also a religious Christian who believes that humans are special and apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, proving once again that religion and Intelligent Design are far too closely connected.

If you really want to present an argument to prove creation, then let me help you along:

1. Show evidence that God exists.
2. Show that our universe is, in fact, a creation
3. Show that it was, in fact, God who created it

It is imperative that you do these things in this particular order, lest you will fail to prove anything whatsoever. “Creation” is a description of something that can be shown to have been created by someone. You cannot simply call anything you like a “creation” and use that to prove the act of creating as well as the creator himself.

This is where the fun stuff happens. Adam and Eve, using some of that splendidly glorious free will that God explicitly made sure to put into their heads, ate a single fruit off of a single tree, the one and only tree in the entire garden of Eden that God told them they couldn’t eat of. The ironic part is that this fruit came from the tree of knowledge of right and wrong. Yes, boys and girls, God told Adam and Even not to do something that he would think was bad, before they had the ability to tell bad from good, right from wrong. They also used their free will, something God probably put into their heads to be used, not ignored.

So what happened? Oh, we all know what happened, don’t we? God punished Adam and Eve for doing what they couldn’t possibly know not to do, since they couldn’t know that what they did was wrong and God himself made them capable of choosing whether to obey or disobey, thanks to free will. But he didn’t settle for punishing those that wronged him, nooo… He punished all of mankind, forever! Because, apparently, that’s a fair punishment when you’re God.

The ridiculousness of the Christian creation myth isn’t what bothers me the most. All old cultures and religions have their own explanations for things that they, at the time, couldn’t understand. What bothers me is how they ignore the complexities of choice, morality and free will. They think it’s all black and white because their book says it is. They think that automatic damnation for each and everyone is a fitting punishment for doing, well, what you were made to do. I don’t see how God can have created us, and therefor alone bear all responsibility for how we turn out, yet punish us for doing exactly what we were supposed to do.

God, infinitely omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent as he is, could have created the world without choice, without free will. Had he done that, we wouldn’t have disappointed him by making the “wrong” choice (which he already knew we would, omniscient as he is) and both of us would have been happier today. After all, we humans are only aware of the choices we know about, so we’re still blissfully ignorant of all the choices we never knew about. Imagine how blissful we would have been without the knowledge of any choice whatsoever!

Ok, I began this post with an actual point, and I’ll try to make before sending all of you to sleep. The mythical story of the vengeful God that punishes man for something he made us do is one thing, but the more modern apologetic interpretations of the implications of God’s actions in that myth are completely senseless. They go against all logic, reason and evidence, and is maintained purely for the sake of scripture and people’s own sense of satisfaction. People want the ability to choose, but want to blame God’s “mysterious ways” whenever something goes wrong. They want to have “absolute” morality, but still want to be saved from the inevitable punishment. It bothers me that they don’t understand how oxymoronic it all is, that they don’t even want to understand. Ignorance is one thing, and defensible, but willful ignorance is, in my opinion, unforgivable.

Believer: I can give you irrefutable scientific proof for the existence of God!

Skeptic: I’m listening.

Believer: First, if you will indulge me, a small preamble (Trust me, this argument is going to knock your socks off).

Skeptic: Go on.

Believer: Your house… do you believe that someone built it?

Skeptic: Well, I met the contractor, observed some of the construction process -

Believer: So you do believe there was a builder?

Skeptic: I don’t think “believe” is the right word…

Believer: Excellent! On to my next question; Your car… do you believe someone built that?

Skeptic: Ah, judging from the manufacturer’s information… Okay, I think I can see where this is going. With your ham-fisted Socratic Method you seem to be reaffirming Paley’s “watchmaker” design argument. I’m sure this was much more convincing two hundred years ago, but it hasn’t aged well.

Believer: Paley? No no no, you don’t understand. You see, in the same way that houses and cars have builders…

Skeptic: I understand perfectly. Homes have builders, paintings have painters, blogs have bloggers. All this succeeds to prove is that human artifacts are made by humans. I knew this already. If you wish to conclude that things that appear designed were designed by some other intelligence (namely God), then that is purely conjecture and does not constitute proof.

Believer: But a creation must have a creator! That is scientific proof of God’s existence!

Skeptic: Now you are just playing word games. The universe was only called a “creation” on the presupposition that God created it. You can’t use that fact as proof of God’s existence. You may as well rename the universe “God’s House”, and conclude that God must live there. It’s just semantics.

Believer: [pause] Why do you love sin so much?

Skeptic: [exasperation]

This is exactly how I perceive every single “creation proves a creator”-type argument. “Creation” is a word of one of the many human languages, not an objective property of the universe. Without the human mind existing, no one would be calling it a “creation” to begin with, and thus it wouldn’t be one. Therefore, “creation” only “proves a creator” under the circumstance that you’ve first proved that there is, in fact, a “creation”, to begin with. Since no one has ever managed to do that, this particular argument is immediately rendered moot.

This second one is just as good, hitting at exactly what I feel every time I speak with a True Christian™:

For your amusement, I have distilled a typical dialogue between opposing viewpoints:

Believer: Why do you doubt God?

Skeptic: I have no good reason to believe such a being exists.

Believer: But God is the creator of all that is good, he is the source of all righteousness!

Skeptic: That’s funny, because the way you have previously described him, he seems like kind of a jerk.

Believer: Well, it only seems that way to you because you have no concept of divine justice. God’s wrath is necessary punishment for our sins.

Skeptic: Justice? Your God creates a moral code so rigorous that no human can possibly follow it, then awards eternal condemnation for the slightest infractions. Sounds more like despotism to me.

Believer: Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. For you see, God will commute your sentence if you only believe and follow Him.

Skeptic: So God disregards justice in favor of the abject devotion of his subjects? I would call that corrupt.

Believer: What? No, well… Hey, if you don’t believe God exists, why should you care about what kind of God he is? Aha! Now I’ve gotcha!

Skeptic: I could make the same observations about Emperor Palpatine, but I don’t see millions of people devoted to worshipping him. There’s nothing inconsistent about a hypothetical judgement of a fictional character.

Believer: Right… Well look man, you better cast aside your pride and put your trust in Jesus. Otherwise death and unending torture await you!

Skeptic: [sigh]

Sigh, indeed. Circular and/or fallacious reasoning won’t work with us, no matter how many times you repeat it. If Christians understood this, that would be a great first step towards further enlightenment and understanding. Unfortunately for us, True Christians™ aren’t interested in enlightenment, nor understanding. They are blissfully ignorant by choice.

On that note, I’ll end this post with another quote, but not from Prestor John this time…

You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

- Author Unknown