I wish we didn’t have to defend atheism as a point of view

Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist linked to this article to poke some fun at the poor writing, as well as the poor arguments. I’ll pick out a couple other pieces:

From all the evidence I’ve seen, read and have heard from talking with atheists, many of them are not even interested in knowing the truth.

This is because we’ve all heard the arguments before and can discount them all as unprovable and unlikely. Your “truth” is a state of mind that suits where you are in life. Atheists are somewhere else, seeking verifiable truths about people, the world, and the universe at large. In some points we’ll find we are in agreement with religious points of view. In others we won’t be.

Given a method for them to honestly seek and find the truth about Christ Jesus the atheists I have encountered could care less and mock and scoff at it.

This is a common boo boo. You mean we couldn’t care less. If we could care less, we would try. Many of us do seek the truth of Christ and find the bible lacks a lot in the way of verifiable fact and history. The whole Christmas miracle thing has bundles of holes, as does the whole resurrection section. Hey, that rhymes! We are not content to pick a gospel at random and believe it without question. Nor will we believe anyone else who believes without question.

To me, their mocking and scoffing seems proof enough to me of their refusal to believe that God exists thus they deny, that God exists and that they freely choose to not even find out the truth for themselves.

I think a comma has been sacrificed for the greater stupidity here. I freely admit that I don’t think any gods exist and I don’t think there is any “fact” that could be tossed my way that would prove otherwise, no matter how true it may seem to the believer.

Many of the atheists I’ve encountered could care less if God truly exists or not because these atheists are only interested in not having any rules to follow and they have focused their attention solely on themselves in their own desires.

How many atheists has this person encountered? I’m getting the feeling that it will never matter how many people we don’t kill, how many laws we don’t break, how many children we don’t molest, how many dollars we raise for charity or how many churches we don’t burn down. People like this will still insist we must be anarchists. I’ll pull a few pieces from the American Atheists Aims and Principles page now.

American Atheists, Inc., is organized

* to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices;

* to collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough understanding of them, their origins, and their histories;

* to encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in relation to society;

* to develop and propagate a social philosophy in which humankind is central and must itself be the source of strength, progress, and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity;

Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a life-style and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.

Not every atheist knows about this group, nor would every atheist want to join it. It’s great to see it exists, though. Many of us agree with these principles and promote them in our own way already, either with blogs, or by joining other groups with similar goals in mind.

They in their denial are overlooking the fact that their main focus in lacking a belief in gods is opening them up to a huge problem in that their primary repudiation is focused against Christ Jesus. Yes, they say that they lack belief in any gods yet to their denial is focused squarely upon on the one true God, Christ Jesus.

I’m pleased to see someone knows how to use a thesaurus. Why say “reject” when you can use “repudiate” instead? Atheists reject all religions and all gods. We say they are unnecessary for living a moral and ethical life and to prove it we live moral and ethical lives without crediting deities for our good fortune or blaming demons for bad luck.

As an atheist, your apathy to not seek and find the absolute truth is a choice you make for yourself and you alone bear burden of on your own. For you to demand evidence from someone of God’s existence is showing just how much you do not want to know nor experience the evidence of God’s existence.

I could use Kirk here again, but I think I’ll just point out that if we’re demanding evidence, it’s because nobody has shown us verifiable evidence of experiences that can prove gods exist. All we get are miraculous marvels delivered by word of mouth, and video footage of clouds or trees or windows or water stains that are vaguely people shaped. Holy Pareidolia, Batman! They’re everywhere! Does this really mean God is everywhere, or is belief so strong in some people that they’ll jump to ridiculous conclusions rather than look for sensible explanations? I’m going out on a very sturdy limb here, and saying it’s the latter.

Again, this is a choice you make to want to honestly know God or not and not my or anyone else’s responsibility to take for you.

And for that, whatever that means, I’m grateful. (I’m also grateful to Live Granades for loving Star Trek enough to LOL my most favourite episode! Thanks and big hearts to you!)

Jack of the lantern, an exploration

Since Halloween is approaching, it’s probably worthwhile to look at reasons we follow bizarre traditions when celebrating it. What’s the purpose of a Jack O’Lantern besides lighting the steps so little kids don’t fall?

According to That’s Right Nate, it’s all about how the Irish wanted to keep Christianity alive in Ireland.

One of the stories, atheists don’t want you to know is the story of the Jack O’Lantern.

Proving you wrong right now, buddy.

In Ireland, Christians were persecuted for many centuries. One of the reasons that St. Patrick was celebrated for driving the snakes from Ireland is because they used to feed Christian children to the snakes. Christians were kept poor and not allowed to hold jobs. Their possessions were simple, but their faith was mighty.

Patrick is considered a Catholic saint not because stopped real snakes from biting Catholic children, but because he helped Catholicism and Christianity in general spread in Ireland during the early 400s, which allowed priests to take over where Druids left off. As one who went to a school named after the man, you can trust me on this. If you don’t want to trust me, read this instead.

Familiar with the Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish. (Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. When this is considered, it is no surprise that the story of Patrick’s life became exaggerated over the centuries-spinning exciting tales to remember history has always been a part of the Irish way of life.)

Sun worship, Son worship. Easy peasy. But back to Nate’s “history”:

As the Irish traveled along the countryside at autumn harvest time looking for work picking crops, they were frequently met with signs that said Christians need not apply. Even a non-Christian who hired a Christian to pick his crops faced persecution from the Irish King. The Irish needed a subtle symbol to let others know that they welcomed Christians and that the light of Jesus shined within them. They came up with the idea of taking a pumpkin and carving a smiling face on it. They then placed a candle inside the pumpkin and placed it in the window.

Pumpkins are indigenous to America. When Irish settlers got here, they were pleased to discover they were easier to hollow out for lamps than the turnips (aka swedes) and gourds and beets they used to use back home.

The pagan Irish had Samhain and a belief system ripe with spirits of the dead walking among us some nights. With Patrick and other missionaries adding Christian mythology into their spirit soup, it’s no big surprise that folklore would develop about some of them, like the many stories surrounding Jack and the Devil.

One story (from that turnip link above) goes that Jack was a prankster and a drunk who tricked the Devil into climbing a tree and trapped him up there with crosses. The Devil had to promise he wouldn’t take Jack’s soul before Jack would let him down. So, when Jack dies, and Peter at the gates tells him he was far too rotten to even think of entering heaven, the poor bugger has no where he can go. The Devil finds this hilarious and tosses him an ember from hell and Jack hollows out a turnip to carry it and wanders forever. People follow suit because a lump of coal in a vegetable (candles came later) somehow kept Jack away, but welcomed good souls back.

Another version goes that Jack and the Devil were boozing it up one night and Jack refused to pay up. The Devil turns into a coin, knowing the stingy bastard won’t pay his tab with it, but winds up dropped in the pocket Jack keeps his cross so the Devil is somewhat stuck that way, until he promises not to collect Jack’s soul later. Story ends the same as the first did.

Nate again:

The Irish named this pumpkin Jack of the Light or the Americanized version, “Jack O’ Lantern”. Nowadays, pumpkins are carved into the most grotesque and hideous shapes imaginable and the original meaning of the Jack O’Lantern has been lost. This Halloween if you carve a pumpkin with your children I hope you’ll tell them the story of how the Jack O’Lantern saved Christianity in Ireland–one of the most Christian nations in the world today.

Many Irish names are contractions of “of the” because it’s a holdover from the years of Celtic clans and Gaelic ancestry, by and large. Rob of the Grady clan – Rob O’Grady. Jack of the Lantern Story – Jack O’Lantern. Same deal.

This morning I asked Nate where he found his information and he replied sometime today that it’s out of an old children’s book called Why God Loves the Cactus by a Rev. E.E. Sloan.

I can’t find a reference to it anywhere online so I wonder how old it is, and where Sloan got his information. There seems to be no history I can find that supports any of it. Ten minutes worth of hunting found more than enough to refute every claim provided, yet Nate shills it like it’s God’s honest truth.

Now, this isn’t a flaw only found in the Christian mentality; the “belief without proof” thing seems to be an issue across humanity. Whether it’s of “supernatural” origin, or alternative health care or a bridge for sale, there’s no limit to the zany things people will buy without questioning legitimacy.

Something to work on, dontcha think?

Random Acts of Poetry – Baudelaire’s Vampire

Le Vampire
de Charles Baudelaire

Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,

De mon esprit humilié
Faire ton lit et ton domaine;
— Infâme à qui je suis lié
Comme le forçat à la chaîne,

Comme au jeu le joueur têtu,
Comme à la bouteille l’ivrogne,
Comme aux vermines la charogne
— Maudite, maudite sois-tu!

J’ai prié le glaive rapide
De conquérir ma liberté,
Et j’ai dit au poison perfide
De secourir ma lâcheté.

Hélas! le poison et le glaive
M’ont pris en dédain et m’ont dit:
«Tu n’es pas digne qu’on t’enlève
À ton esclavage maudit,

Imbécile! — de son empire
Si nos efforts te délivraient,
Tes baisers ressusciteraient
Le cadavre de ton vampire!»

(Pick a translation, any translation)

Friday Night Frights (One Minion bathes in Baron Blood!)

“I don’t know what to think of this project Minion’s taken on. Is she in need mental aid?” the Stegosaurus wondered. “After last week’s crazy Aussie innkeeper killers, I think I’d rather be deaf than listen to more ham acting. No offense.”

“None could possibly be taken,” Cow replied, feeling pained. “Ham comes from pigs.”

Minion always came home from work with several DVDs and Cow was tired of hearing Stegosaurus grumble about the quality of them. She didn’t like Minion’s taste in entertainment either, but it did no good to complain. And besides, what could they do about it anyway? They were squeaky toys Minion picked up at a Dollar store for goodness’ sake.

“So, what is it this time?” asked Stegasaurus.

“Why do you even ask me?” Cow replied, testily. “You know I can’t read.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Stegosaurus said without a hint of sincerity. “You know what I meant. It was a retro oracle question.”

Cow thought about that for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “You mean rhetorical.”

“I mean whatever. What are we in for?”

“I think I remember Minion saying it was a movie about a crazy Austrian castle killer this time,” Cow supplied.

“More Aussie crap?”

Cow let out an exasperated sigh. “Austria and Australia are two different places.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Now, would you shut up? Minion’s ready to start watching Baron Blood.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Stegosaurus whispered.

Random Acts of Poetry – hump day edition

Can you tell I like poetry? At least, I like some of it. I like everything I write, usually. heh. Here’s one I thought up today while I was supposed to be sticking barcodes on CDs:

They said they’d dedicate the day to Odin
To give their god His due.
And as such, they were beholden
To stay forever true.

But we’ve changed the name to Wednesday
A word as bland as all the others.
So now we’ve lost the message sent
By those forgotten brothers.

Natural sleep paralysis or evil demon? You decide…

Chris French has article in the Guardian about the nature of sleep paralysis and the feelings of utter horror the experience often creates for those afflicted. He mentions Dr Stephan Matthiesen’s new book, The Normality of Altered States of Consciousness but French writes mostly about his study of this strange phenomena and the sufferers.

One of our students, Peter Moore, used to suffer from sleep paralysis on a regular basis. One night, for example, he awoke to find himself unable to move and with a strong feeling of tension across his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. He could see his bedroom and managed to tilt his head, only to see an evil-looking black cat sitting there hissing at him.

But what was most terrifying about this vision was that the cat’s white skull was inverted and dripping some sort of black goo. By a huge effort of will, he finally managed to break out of his paralysed state with the intention of attacking his visitor, only to find himself delivering a right hook to thin air.

Other people in the study have suffered from the same sleep disturbances. Hallucinations that turn the ordinary into extraordinary monstrous things, the sensation of paralysis, a feeling that one’s body is vibrating, or having difficulty breathing. Another student claimed to have some ability to control the experiences, and some of them could be relatively pleasant with sexual or floating sensations taking the place of hideous creatures wearing dirty laundry. Says Jeremy Deane,

“Common images are bearded, goblin-like demons laughing or whispering sinister speech, a faceless girl (usually covering her face with hair, moving around in bed moaning and feeling my body), hands appearing from the wall and attempting to strangle me. A hung man talking in the corner of the room, and some of the most bizarre experiences may include up to a dozen ‘critter’ entities (think Gremlins movie) laughing and talking about me. The environment tends to feel like a holographic dollhouse, the experience peaks and then the hallucinations mysteriously vanish when I regain control of my body.”

As weird as all that is, sleep researchers have had some luck in figuring out why the brain fucks with us so bad when we’re trying to get some rest.

During the dream cycle of REM sleep, the body is fairly paralyzed anyway, at least in terms of acting out dreams. But some people experience this sensation more lucidly than others, and a few of those wind up hallucinating all kinds of weird shit to explain it. French’s team at the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit has been able to confirm earlier surveys of how common this is – up to 40% of people could suffer from some form of sleep paralysis, and of that bunch, one in 20 might report sightings.

Sufferers can be just as terrified by the experience even if the episode does not involve any ostensibly paranormal content, sometimes experiencing their unwanted intruder as a burglar, a murderer or a rapist. Even sufferers who are well-informed about sleep paralysis and do not experience the more florid symptoms described above still experience intense fear unlike anything they experience in waking life.

And for the people who truly believe demons exist? It must be an experience worthy of The Exorcist. Indeed, many cultures seem to prefer blaming some supernatural element (hags, unbaptized souls, ghosts) to the feeling, rather than swearing at their own brains.

In our study, we are interested not only in the degree to which such high levels of belief affect the tendency to interpret the experience in supernatural terms but also the degree to which pre-existing belief systems can affect the content of the hallucinations themselves. Sleep paralysis offers an almost unique opportunity to study the reciprocal interaction between biology and culture.

It seems likely that the core experience has itself played a role in the development of belief systems relating to the spirit world in many cultures and that those very belief systems, once elaborated upon, are then capable of influencing the hallucinatory content of sleep paralysis episodes in subsequent generations.

Good luck on the work, Professor French. It sounds fascinating and will hopefully provide some people with a measure of relief. And now I’m going to count my lucky stars because this stuff never happens to me!

Friday Night Frights (One Minion visits the Horror Hotel!)

The dark case compelled her, almost as if she were under a spell. She noticed how the photocopied cover managed to look cheap, yet darkly sinister. She look around discreetly but noticed no eyes upon her, so closed her own and pried open the case. She tried to ignore the tremor in her hands.

When she risked opening her eyes again, her heart skipped a beat! There was nothing on the disc, save the title!

She gasped, barely stopping the case from dropping from her suddenly chilled hands, somehow knowing that the loud clatter of plastic hitting tile would bring trouble her way. She clutched the case to her ample bosom and hurried toward the front desk at the library to check it out. Would they remark upon her odd choice? Call the police to pick up a jittery weirdo? No, nothing! Her card cleared the scanner and the movie was hers! Hers alone! Oh, the shameful delight of a cheezy movie night was hers! Hers at last!

Upon reaching home, she quickly but carefully rescued the disc from its plastic prison. But the disc only knew freedom a moment, as the drawer she placed it upon quietly hissed back into the dark recesses of her computer tower. The play button was only a click away…

Is there some Zeus fetish I don’t know about?

No doubt I’ve missed few searches for the old lightning tosser that hit my search results, but look at this list:

Statue of Zeus hands (3)
Statues of Zeus (6)
George Washington Zeus (17)
George Washington Zeus statue (14)
Artemisium Zeus (7)
The father okay Zeus
Satan and Zeus
Zeus with baby out of his head (2)
Zeus having sex
Symbols of Zeus
Zeus missing part
Zeus’s blue thunderbolt (2)
Gay Zeus (2)
Rape of Europa Zeus
Zeus Leda/Swan (7)
Paintings of Zeus (4)
Zeus open hands (4)
Zeus and flood (4)
Europa and the bull (4)
Zeus is Satan (5)
Zeus satan (10)

That dude’s way popular. Thanks Dan Brown, for getting people interested in art, by the way. I see now why so many people are pairing up George and Zeus.

A statue done by Horatio Greenough featuring the Prez as a god was meant to sit in the Capitol rotunda when completed, but George’s state of dishabille caused more than a little consternation and he got moved a couple times before finding a good home. Now, he’s viewable on the second floor of the National Museum of American History.

I wonder if people still find his lack of a shirt disturbing…

Just finished rereading Gift of the Magi

I don’t think I’ve read O. Henry’s classic Christmas story since grade school, actually. The copy I have on hand is nicely illustrated by P.J. Lynch.

Story in a nutshell – Della and Jim are not well off. It’s a day before Christmas and all Della’s got for gift money is $1.87. So, she sells her long, luxurious hair for $20 and with the dollar she had already, can afford to buy her husband a platinum chain for his gold heirloom watch. Fast forward to when Jim gets home and sees her hair lopped off; he’s a little shocked by her sudden short style because the gift he got her turns out to be a couple fancy hair clips. Nowhere in the story does it say how he afforded them but when Della gives Jim the watch chain, he doesn’t take his watch out to put it on. Instead, he tells his wife that the gifts are too beautiful to use right now anyway, and besides, it’s time for dinner.

So, the moral of the story here is, no matter how grand a plan you have, a loved one can screw it up in a heartbeat. Okay, not really. Actual moral – it’s the thought that counts. She gives up something she values to get her husband something practical yet stylish. He gives up something he probably also loves to get her something practical yet stylish. Ain’t love grand?

The magi reference has to do with the wise men who supposedly brought gifts to Christ when he was born. It’s a fanciful tale but likely didn’t happen anywhere, let alone in a manger, in a stable near the shortest night of the year. But it is a nice enough story for all that.

Dan Brown lost faith because he loves science?

I’m finding out about it via Uncommon Descent of all places. Clive Hayden, author of the piece (I hesitate to call it journalism) quotes a bit from the original Parade article about Brown’s discovery of scientific theories and how they didn’t mesh with the Genesis tales his Episcopalian church was peddling:

It’s six days of creation in Genesis, not seven days. He should read Gerald Schroeder’s book The Science of God.

I’d like to ask our wonderful commenters to contribute other stories of notable people who have lost their faith as a result of materialistic/evolutionary presumptions in modern science.

I’m not going to include his link to Shroeder’s book but the emphasis on SIX was worth putting back in there. Yes, how dare Brown forget that god apparently rested after that long work week. Sucks to be him. I always get two days off.

I do not, for the life of me, understand how people can prefer that silly buggery over real honest to reality knowledge about the world and the universe. I don’t get it.

Puts me in mind of Emerald City. Don’t look at the man behind the curtain. There is no man. There’s a wizard. A magic man looking out for all of us. Better than a man in fact…Never mind that the wonderful wizard is merely a fabrication of a people who’d rather believe that than discover the very real fact that some little dude got lost on the way to somewhere else. Why he never corrected them, I’ll never know. Ignorance is bliss?

The world of Oz was a very funny place…

but we live in the real world. Science is here, not wizards. Scientists make it their life’s work to pull curtains back and see what’s hiding behind them. They don’t nail diplomas to their heads to show how smart they are. They earn them from a school of hard intellectual knocks. I’d trust their peer reviewed results before anything written down in that bible.