The true root of all evil, part 1 (maybe)

The religious would like you to believe that we need to be “saved” from things: From ideas, from other people, from dark or sinful thoughts, from this existence itself. In truth, salvation is a concept that only works for people who feel there is nothing else to bring them up from their dismal lives. After all, what in a normal American’s life is there that’s actually stable and enjoyable?

We go to work for 8 hours per day, which is a full 1/3rd of waking hours. If you are to make enough money to live a decent life, you are most likely working arond 40 hours per week. This is the American standard that not many people are able to escape from. Add on 1-2 hours per day getting ready and traveling to that job, and anywhere from 5-9 hours of sleep per day depending on preference and need, and you’re left with… not much. We work more than we enjoy ourselves.

When coming home from this working cycle, I know from personal experience that all I want to do is something that isn’t work. I want to play video games, I want to play with my cat, I want to get drunk, I want to watch a movie… I want to do SOMETHING that removes me from the world I almost regretfully exist in. Why is this? Isn’t this the way humans are supposed to be? The entire world is doing it, so we all have to follow their example, right? It’s easy to distill why we go through the working cycle.

Why are you working? To make money.

Why are you making money? So I can pay for things.

What are you paying for? My home, my electricity, my water, my food, my entertainment, etc. These things are important.

Why do you have to pay money for these things? It’s the only way to get these things in a reliable fashion anymore.

Why is there no reliable way to get these things anymore? Because someone else owns or owned my home, electricity powers almost everything in our homes, safe drinking and bathing water is hard to come by elsewhere, most forms of entertainment rely on all the other things, etc.

This all means that one resource is valued over every other one: Money. Money makes things happen. It motivates, it sustains, it sets us apart from each other in a constant competition of financial upkeep. It is said that competition drives growth, but what’s growing? The amount of money that goes into someone’s pocket. Nothing else is growing except other’s debts. The whole system of national currency causes us to lose out focus on what is truly important in our lives.

I can’t speak for other people, but I can tell you what I truly love in life. I love my girlfriend and my penniless interactions with her. I love playing games (video games or whatever, just games in general). I love my cat and spending time with her. I love getting together with people I know and like to participate in events. I enjoy fresh, flavorful food and I love sleeping. I love exerting myself physically in sports (games), workout, or even mindless exertion. If you look inside at what you really like doing, does it cost money? Is that money due to travel costs? Enjoying some event with people? People putting on a show? Being competitive? Being casual? I bet if you thought about it, you could imagine a life without money being required for things.

Let’s start with the home. I’m not necessarily speaking of a house, but a house is a home to many people. Apartments, caves, tents, benches, the wilderness… anything can be a home to someone or something. Why are you paying for a home? The world automatically creates resources to create something (wood to build a house, sticks and twigs to make a nest, earth to burrow into, ground to lie on, etc). Why then are we paying for things that are readily available? The land you call your home existed before “ownership” was even considered. Instead of one human claiming a legal right to monopolize an area, these areas were wide open to anyone and anything to use. At some time, people in America traveled across this land and staked claims… legal claims that they owned what was previously unowned. Human society has grown to accept that ownership is normal and staple concept for establishing a society in the first place. I mean, if people didn’t own anything, people would live in anarchy!

Anarchy is bad because there are no rules in place to keep everyone’s ownership separate. People would riot, people would steal, people would kill, people would be uncivilized towards each other because we are naturally immoral beings that can’t police ourselves individually. I don’t disagree that this would happen, in fact. There would be deaths over disputes on who wants something more, not who owns it. Stealing wouldn’t actually be a problem because you wouldn’t own something in the first place. Similarly, a lion who makes a kill and doesn’t defend its food from others will go hungry. Humans without the power to protect the food or tools in their care would lose these things if stronger individuals.

The above actions are normal for living things and it’s how things should work in the world: Naturally. The world produces good food naturally. The world produces other animals for meat, tools, and other uses naturally. We have a desire to eat, sleep, and play… naturally. So why then do we all choose to be a slave of money, even after realizing what kind of a sad, pathetic existence we live because of it? It’s circular logic or “begging the question”. Why do you make money? So I can be more comfortable when I’m not working. Why do you work? So you can make money. This logical fallacy needs to stop. Once it stops, we will be able to go back to being a community, having fun with the resources at hand instead of using money to get anything we want (at an extremely high expense to the world). When will YOU AND I decide we’ve been through enough and really start living a life of comfort without the need for money?

Religion, the largest proxy in existence.

I just started reading the book of Deuteronomy (what the heck kind of name is that?). I’m on chapter 4, and it really is amazing what kind of God is leading the Jews. DO WHAT I SAY OR BE PUNISHED. Often, the people do not do what God says. This is understandable. Remember, God isn’t talking to the people. He’s talking to Moses, the prophet of the Jews. Moses relays the information he receives to the people. I don’t know about you lot, but if there is a divine being, I want to hear him myself, not hear some prophetic relay. Looks like a lot of the Jews had the same idea.

This is another reason for why Christianity has the upper hand over other religions. Christianity promotes being able to have a PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ, the son of God. Not with God the Father or the Holy Spirit strangely enough, just the son. By calling Jesus “God”, Christianity attempts to make people feel like they are really communicating with their source. However, in all honesty, this is just yet another proxy to the true God they supposedly worship. The saints are a proxy. the supposed “Virgin” Mary, mother of Jesus, is a proxy. Priests are a proxy. Preachers are a proxy. So here’s a true question for Christians: Why is it necessary to go through a proxy?

The proxy system here serves as a barrier between you and God. Unlike proper digital proxies which route digital information, these analog proxies slow down the connection process, causing a lot to be lost in literal and figurative translation. Is God really involved with his people that he loves and created to love him, or is he more of a paper pusher behind a desk in a high rise office building? You would think that an omnipotent God wouldn’t require all these proxies to do his job. We’re talking about the most powerful entity out there, the one who exists on a higher plane, is the creator of all things in the universe, the master of all energy. With that in mind, why does he not make himself known, instead relying on proxies to spread his existence? Considering he made all of life in its current form, how can it be a sin to act like ourselves and be skeptical of things that seem too good or just too amazing to be true?

Leviticus: A good reason why the Old Testament shouldn't be related to Christianity.

I plan to cite sources and add this to my “book” post later on, but I thought this was important enough to post on its own.The Book of Leviticus is a perfect example of why we should be wary of religion gleaned from the Bible.

Leviticus teaches us that we men should not “lay with men as with women”. I think a very simple comeback to this passage is that it comes from such a disgusting book like Leviticus. Do you really think that this one passage holds true along with passages describing the slaughtering, disemboweling, and burning of animal sacrifices? Passages that instruct that for birds used for sacrifice, the head of the bird needs to be twisted off and its blood spilled on the altar? Passages that say these sacrifices will allow God to forgive us for our sins?

Once we acknowledge that modern Christianity still believes that these laws were given by their God, we can then look objectively at the New Covenant in comparison to the Old Testament’s Old Covenant. God is love, God is compassion, and God will forgive your sins if you repent. The Catholic church allows its flock to confess to a Priest to forgive these sins. Other denominations claim that you must do good deeds and “proclaim the good word” to be forgiven. Yet others belive that you just need to believe and all will be forgiven (but a few good deeds don’t necessarily hurt). How then can it be justified that those laws of animal sacrifice to allieviate sin only applied to the Jews? There’s no explanation from God as to why only the Jews were supposed to follow these sacrificial rituals. Even the Jews themselves stopped this barbaric practice after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korban#The_end_of_sacrifices)

When we critically analyse the difference between these two covenants, it doesn’t appear that we’re talking about the same God. The God who passed down laws to the Israelites and the God that people claim Jesus is one with are structurally and morally different. Some may argue that God is beyond our understanding and thus put faith in his flip-flopping nature, thus proving that people have less faith in John Kerry, a living human being, than they do in a hidden almighty entity that might as well be part of a fairy tale. We often look down on Scientology and other religions, beliefs, odd sexual preferences (Furries? Oh my.), etc. But how are these things any less strange than an omnipresent being who created everything, puts humans at the center of all affairs on this planet, allows wars and massively destructive technology to be produced to destroy everything on this planet, yet loves us and put us here as a test? This belief is absurd and actually less acceptable than deviant sexual desires and lifestyles that are so often demonized simple because they’re different from the norm.

We should continue by examining the nature of God philisophically. We may not reach a hard truth, but it may put things into better perspective. Can a God be a dynamic, emotion-driven entity who changes over the course of at least 3000 years from a bloodthirst and violent God to an all-loving and compassionate being? A well-rooted reason that so many subscribe to a form of Christianity over tradition-based Judaism is due to having a much more attractive belief structure. It’s very difficult for Judaism to attract new new believers, instead generating most of its followers through the traditional passing on of information to their children, infecting these children with a religious meme from the earliest impressionable age possible. It can easily be understood that the passing on of cultural information to children had significant benefits before globalization came about. The information wasn’t necessarily just religious, but also information on how to survive in their environment and in their community. However, this practice is losing its initial purpose, and much of the information passed on these days do not translate effectively to our current social system.

In an era of increasing unfulfillment and unrest at our place in the world, religion helps people focus on something one might refer to as “otherworldly” or “God”. This distracts them from the real world problems and their consequeces, instead being content with blaming current social problems on immorality and demonic influence. There are so many problems with this. With “God” being the focus, their eyes are averted from physical truths. Their eyes are instead focused primarily on spiritual truths, somehow gained through reading a physical (and poorly translated) book, full of physical facts and details. They are thus unable study and accept the true reasoning for our social problems. Science should be pursued by most of the population as a primary source of truth, but encounters difficulties every day by right win, superstitious, Bible-thumping Christians who don’t even read the Bible that they thump. Even my mother, a very strong believer in Jesus, doesn’t recall any of Leviticus. I told her I was going to read all of it, and that she should read it again, too. She agreed. I want to talk to her about it later and hear her thoughts on what her Bible teaches. Hopefully this is the start of something good.

An apology.

I’ve been skimping, I know. There are maybe half a dozen people who know this exists, I know. I haven’t been writing, but I have been coming up with more subject matter. I have showed the homosexuality work-in-progress post to a new gay friend of mine, and he liked my questions and conclusions. I’ve landed a job, so that’s taking up most of my time. And Borderlands is a fun timesink.

Upcoming...

I’m working on… a book? Maybe not that important yet, but I’m doing quite a bit of research and critical thinking to try and first and foremost… invalidate the old testament to the point where Christians will only be able to argue from the New Testament from now on. What would Christianity be like without the Old Testament?

Parental Roles: Yo, back off already!

Excuse me for not updating recently. I haven’t decided to put aside the time to update this blog due to various factors, especially the multiple sources of depression I’m living with. One of the largest sources of stress that I am STILL dealing with is my girlfriend’s parents, especially her mother. Just as a reminder, I am currently together with a 16 year old girl. I am 24 years old. Yes, I know what I’m doing, am completely serious, and am very sane. After all, if I wasn’t serious, why would I have stayed with her for this long? Happy 15 months starting today, Mari~

That said, there has been a new fiasco in my relationship that I don’t get. Mari’s been around the internet for a long time, and is more than familiar with the adult content it harbors. She even enjoys to draw some of that adult content herself. The problem is one or two of these images were found out by her mother. Her sister invaded her privacy, started clicking around, and found a couple of images she drew. While they are sexual in nature, they are not overly explicit. They’re pretty mild in all honestly.

Upon discovering these images, her mother and father have blown up. I had no hand in the images which were drawn in the first place, and yet I was completely and totally blamed for them. Why? Because my domain here, instantairdash.com, was hosting the images. To these internet commoners, this must mean that I commissioned the drawings in question, then uploaded them to my website. Sounds plausible? Hardly. Mari has her own FTP account with this host which I setup for her. I don’t monitor everything she does with it. However, now I am to blame for the very creation of these images. Did these people go to college? Did they take a class which taught them what logical fallacies are? Do they care? I doubt it, and if they did learn these things, then they intentionally forgot them.

So, once again, I’m not allowed to spend any personal, quality time with my girlfriend. This is very frustrating to me. I don’t need any sort of sexual release at this point, but I do have a need for intimate contact. I want to cuddle and feel safe and happy. I imagine most people want that kind of safe feeling. The problem is, when we first met, we were pretty much free to do as we pleased 2-3 times per week during the summer of 2008. Now that her mother doesn’t want this to happen anymore, life feels very empty. You get used to a feeling, and when it’s taken away, it hurts twice as much.

So here’s the fucking deal, Gabriela. You let me start coming over to see your daughter again in April. I decided to be on my best behavior to make sure that nothing could separate us again. However, in your delusional mind, I have wronged you somehow. Fuck. You. There is no reason for me to do something so stupid as to encourage Mari to openly draw porn before she’s 18. There is no way I would do ANYTHING to endanger our relationship. The fact that you are unwilling to talk to the parties involved about any of this and instead jump to conclusions and point fingers shows just how much of a weak person you are. I almost hope you see what I have to say here so you understand I mean business.

I have your naughty emails. I have the email transcripts between you, (removed for safety), and people like (removed for safety) and (removed for safety). IF YOU WANT RESPECT, YOU’LL HAVE TO EARN IT. IF YOU, AS A PARENT, WISH TO CLAIM ANY AUTHORITY OVER YOUR CHILDREN, YOU WILL NEED TO BE TRUSTWORTHY. You are a married woman, married to one Arturo Garcia. You were married to another man in Mexico before you divorced him and left the country. You had CYBER SEX with people on the internet for reasons unknown to me. You cheated on your husband. I know your relationship with Arturo is terrible. I laugh with irony that you in your perfect and unmovable parental wisdom could somehow marry two different people and fuck up on both of them. You need to back off. Mari doesn’t want your “help” as a parent. You’re a bad example. You not a respectable person. Your priorities are all wrong. And you know what? Even if you hound your daughter for the next 20 months, it won’t change the fact that she will leave your home for good once she is of the proper age to do so.

REPENT NOW. UNDERSTAND YOUR FAULTS. THIS ISN’T MEXICO ANYMORE. YOUR DAUGHTER’S LIVES AREN’T YOUR STOMPING GROUNDS. MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE YOU KNOW, YOU NEED TO GET A LIFE AND START ENJOYING YOURSELF AGAIN INSTEAD OF RAGGING ON YOUR CHILDREN. COME ON, YOU EVEN HAVE A 20 YEAR OLD GIRL STILL LIVING AT HOME WITH YOU. HOW CAN YOU BE A GOOD MOTHER IF YOU CLAIM YOU CAN’T SLEEP UNLESS YOUR 20 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER IS HOME AND IN BED ALREADY? FUCK YOU, YOU CLINGY FAILURE. LET GO OF YOUR CHILDREN ALREADY AND LET THEM GROW.

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God I’m angry at this situation. Pent up frustration from not even being able to get close to what I want. I’ll probably discard this topic for a while unless something juicy pops up. I want to write two movie reviews next. The first is for a movie called “God on Trial”, the second for “The Man Who Sued God”. Both are excellent films and really illustrate the problems with the current claim on a divine creator as he was originally understood (that is, misunderstood).

The Fear of Death

From what I gather, atheists for the most part do not fear death. It isn’t a core belief or standard of atheism (as all atheism entails is to not believe in theism), but it is an opinion held by many. We are biological beings, not spiritual entities with an eternal soul. We exist to be in this world, not in any other. Many atheists are content with this opinion. Instead, atheists hold a fear of dying. How it will happen. Death is a part of life, but often death is viewed as an unpleasant circumstance.

Theism, on the other hand, generally has their followers working towards the single goal of salvation. This salvation often occurs after death, at which point nothing can be proven or disproven on the subject. That seems very convenient. But this post isn’t about proving the afterlife wrong or right. I intend to look at what makes people believe such things. I don’t have any sources or research prepared to back this up. I’m sure a more well-known atheist has conveyed this in a book that I have yet to read.

Theism thrives on the concept of salvation. There is something wrong with people’s lives fundamentally, so religion is present to save people. People need to be saved by death. For most people, it seems that because they learn this concept at a young age by being indoctrinated into the same religion as their parents. As we know, young minds are very impressionable and are eager to learn. If we teach children this idea of salvation, it’s possible that it will stick with them for the rest of their lives. They will grow up scared of the world, scared of dying, scared of living freely, just because they are not sure of where they are going. Heaven, hell, or purgatory? Good afterlife, or bad afterlife? Awesome afterlife, or mediocre afterlife?

Humans do not need to be saved. They do not require any sort of salvation except what is wrought through their own efforts. So what is there to live for? Atheists are obviously hedonists who do not understand spiritual importance. Theists are obviously less vain, less proud, less influenced by the world than those hedonistic fools, so theists must be the better group. There is a very important difference between these two that should be apparent by now. Atheists live because they are alive, theists live for the afterlife. Everything dies, afterall. It’s what you believe in when you die that matters.

So why are theists so content with living for the afterlife? Using Christianity and a number of other religions as an example, surely it isn’t because they really look forward to singing God’s name in praise for the rest of eternity while in heaven with him. If this were the only pull for living a good life and being nice to people, not many people would buy into it. “There’s this guy in the sky, and he loves us, and if you love him and follow his teachings, he’ll ALLOW YOU to sing praises to him in heaven for the rest of eternity”. This isn’t a very convincing argument on its own. Not many would believe that. There has to be consequences. Thus the concept of hell is introduced.

Hell is a place where souls who commited evil deeds during their human lifetime are sent. Instead of a purification process (which is why purgatory is supposed to exist), hell is meant to eternally punish all those who did not follow God and his teachings. While Catholics believe in purgatory, a place of purification to prepare good but unworthy souls to enter the “kingdom of heaven”, most religions do not support this intermediate state. There is no grey area. Either you are worthy enough for paradise, or terrible enough for eternal punishment. Purgatory is to be feared, too, as pain is a terrible feeling for most. Fear of pain, punishment and possible rejection changes people. It changed them to think that they must follow the teachings of their religions fully in order to escape a terrible fate the moment death arrived.

What I’m getting at here is that people are motivated by fear. People are religious because of fear. People are calm and courteous in public because of fear. People don’t resist police all the time because of fear. People are have a pretty standard set of morals because of fear. Imagine. You’re surrounded by fear. Four walls. A box of fear that you can’t escape. The walls extend high into the sky. There’s no way you could climb that wall of fear. You just need to live your life according to a set of rules. That way, your body will be left, but your soul will be able to rise up and escape when you die. This is the obvious solution to most who accept what they are told and what is immediately around them. People who accept boundaries limit themselves. Dig under the box’s walls and break out into freedom. That wasn’t so hard, was it? But freedom is scary. It means you have to work harder. Think harder. Learn more.  And what if you dig down a little and you fall straight into hell, just as you feared? That’s enough to stop most people from exploring options, digging deeper, making their escape from the fear that binds them. But just think of all the things you’ll find on the other side. Other people have done it. It can’t be that bad, can it?

The story of the turtle and the hare fits into this very well. The hare decides that he will go half the distance to the finish line. When he is halfway, he goes half of the rest of the distance to three-fourths of the way to the finish line. He continues to divide his the remaining distance by half. The turtle, however, goes at a slow and steady speed. A deliberate pace to pass the finish line. No matter how fast or how many times the hare divides the remaining distance in half, he will never pass the finish line. The turtle, on the other hand, has his sights past the finish line. Even at his slow speed, he will pass the hare and win the race… and then keep on going. Religion will never be able to cross the finish line. It will always be content running along between the starting line and the finishing line. Atheism and evolutionary theory has been developing slowly for a very long time, and has passed the finish line, yet keeps going on to discover new things.

Are you stuck in a box of fear, or are you truly living your life?

The irony of our global situation.

By remembering what the rest of the world has forgotten, you can find out how humans were living before society got started in its modern form. Before the agricultural revolution 10,000 year ago or so, all of man used low-scale agriculture, hunting, gathering, and herding to get their daily sustinence. There was no one “right” way to do things. Different tribes did things differently, and they were happy that way.

Survival of the fittest applied to these people just as much as anyone else. The impressive thing about survival of the fittest is that it has been shown in humanity and nature in general that similar species can band together for protection to better ensure survival. This is why you often see humans together, apes together, wolves together, etc. All three know that staying together ensures more protection than if one wolf, one human, one ape was working alone all the time. I like bringing this up because of Ken Hensley’s little stunt of throwing a female student to the ground during a college lecture and taking her seat, then telling the professor that he was merely practicing Darwinian theory. Sorry, Ken. You’d have to read and understand the theory to do that conciously. Because you do it in your daily life. You claim that morality is from God, and that humans have no innate sense of morality or justice. This is true, but through learning from their peers, they gain this knowledge. Stealing (when you have a sense of property) isn’t “bad”, but if you get caught stealing from your own, it is bad because you are hurting your tribe for personal gain. Personal gain, while great, alienates you from the community around you.

This holds true in the present more than ever. We live in great comforts. Air conditioning, electronic devices that do amazing things, connectivity throughout the entire world. The price, however, is great. Not the pricetag, but the global price. The problem is everyone is forced to do the same thing. No one is allowed to decide how to live and creature their own society or culture. They are born into society, and if you are not going to be a contributing member of society, you can fuck off and die. YOU DON’T LIVE LIKE US, SO GET OUT. Well, that would be fine for diversity and all, but the problem is there is no where to run. The main parts of the world are now under totalitarian agriculture. The world is ours to conquer. We’re looking to conquer space and the stars if we can look beyond our own planet. This is folly.

The irony comes in here. In the world, living things proper on other living things. Plants grow from the bones and flesh of dead animals and from other plant matter. Animals like on other animals or plant matter, sometimes both. So now we have a situation on our hands. Human expansion is leaving less and less space for the citizens of nature to survive. Humans, at their current rate of expansion, will take over most parts of the world very quickly in the centuries to come. So in a world where we live on plants and animals and they live on us, I find it incredibly ironic that our global society is attempting to SAVE THE WHALES or SAVE THE RAINFOREST or SAVE ENDANGERED SPECIES, or GIVE ANIMALS THEIR RIGHTS. When our main focus as a species is to protect our species (which we do too much in our current global setup), why are we working so hard as ensuring other species’ survival? This is shortsightedness at its worst. Stop working at fixing the problem, and go to the source of it: Rapid human expansion, a global culture that states we own the world, and food produced on a massive scale to feed humans and “livestock”, a fancy name for enslaved meat.

When are we going to learn, and what can we do?

Trichotillomania (I'm disorderly)

Through a bunch of personal conversation, Mari and I have found out we have the same disorder. It has manifested itself in different ways, but the underlying disorder is the same. While I’ll let her explain her condition in her blog, my condition mainly consists of picking at my skin and pulling out nose hairs. I hunt for blackheads and blemishes on my arms, head, shoulders, and chest all the time. Removing a bunch of small things or a big nasty thing from my skin gives me a sense of great accomplishment. Sometimes, this accomplishment makes me feel awesome for hours on end, where I remember back to the awesome thing I picked out, what it looked like, how I discarded it, and how powerfulllll I feel. Awful, isn’t it? It’s not something that I want to give up completely since it makes me feel good AND it cleans out my skin, I just need find a better place to do it.

Wikipedia entry on Trichotillomania

Trichotillomania Learning Center

Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders: Trichotillomania

Do you have this?

Oh, and I’ll post my absurdity of atheism rebuttals again at the top of the blog once I get them done completely.

mari and i are debaters! (okay she stole this from me)

milkylazy:

Received:

Hmmm… Evidence… Let me tell you something. Smart people are actually really dumb! (I found that out a long time ago). You see, scientists use their authoritative power in order to tell lies that disprove God. The theory of evolution has been a great debate for years, even though it was proven false many times over. To make this bloody battle short, scientists use the theory as an alternative to Creation because that would imply that God exists, so they kept it out of textbooks and such. Why? So that they wouldn’t have to obey “rules of God” and thereby living “freely”. Basically, scientists don’t always tell the truth.
Also, do you need evidence to believe in something? Isn’t faith the reason why you believe, not evidence? Hopefully, you will think about this matter. Of course you can completely disregard this conversation as well.

Replied:

So, okay. You’re saying that people who try to find answers beyond faith-based ones are dumb. You then dive into a conspiracy theory that because scientists have harnessed the power of the world, they lie to the world to “disprove God”. Again, nothing factual, just an accusation with no backup.

“To make this bloody battle short” - as in you don’t want to dive into details. Why not?

Scientists use evolution because it has the most amount of documented evidence supporting it. Evolution does not rule out creationism in its basic form, but it does mean that the 6000 or even 10000 year old creation myth cannot be the true start of the world unless you want to admit that God planted the fossil records in the earth just to confuse us.
Creationism is kept out of textbooks because it is not science. If it were to be proposed as an alternative theory to scientifically researched theories, then if you’re GOOD you could fill up 5 minutes of class time. “The Theory of Intelligent Design. It’s where an intelligent being, apparently very powerful, created all matter out there. ANY QUESTIONS?” To dive into intelligent design ANY more than that would be religious, and that is not what we need in our classrooms. You can go to Church if you want to hear about religion.
Okay, so, creationism is kept out of the science classroom and textbooks so scientists don’t have to follow the word of God. They never had to follow. According to the bible, God gave us free will. We can live as freely as we would like. How are the scientists not telling the truth about -science-? Science is knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws, especially as obtained and tested through scientific method. Science has tested God to no avail. It’s sure is convenient that creationists claim he cannot be tested because he is all powerful and knows what we are up to. The fact that you never see TRUE miracles (such as the regrowing of a limb or something equally astounding) is very suspicious, for example.
And yes, we need evidence to come to conclusions. Faith is not the reason to believe, faith IS belief. You can believe that gun control is wrong or right, but you can say with 100% certainty that if someone’s heart stops pumping blood through their body, they will die. We have plenty of evidence that shows that people die, so it is presented as fact. God has no evidence. Things you can attribute to God can be reimagined and reattributed to other things. It will seem silly, but here is an example of an alternative creation theory that holds just as much weight as your own: http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

And that’s all I’ve got.

~The Absurdity of Atheism~ by Ken Hensley, disc 1 (An Atheist's Review)

In the beginning and in the end, Atheism is a very simple concept: The lack in the belief of theism. This is not to say that it is impossible to have a creator. This is not saying that atheists “believe” in Evolution instead of Creationism. It means that we do NOT believe. It’s the absence of belief. It’s not antitheism, which would indicate that we believe that there is no god or gods in the world, no creator of anything. By the different definitions of these words, Atheism is truly very much akin to what I used to call myself. I used to call myself a follower of “agnostic atheism”. By the nature of these two words put together, it indicates some sort of belief system. “I do not know for sure if gods exist or not, but if they do, there is no proper evidence in them, so I will not believe.” This isn’t exactly a belief in itself, but the connotations of calling oneself an “agnostic atheist” doesn’t exactly go over very well in debate with Christians. Instead, I will simply refer to myself as an Atheist, and from there, I can properly explain what atheism means without creating an unnecessary atheistic subculture in someone’s head.

Ken Hensley says this is how Christians generally try to convince people of their point of view: With evidence, with rationality, or presuppositionally (assuming something IS true to support your argument). He will be focusing on the third point because obviously, the evidence-based and rationality-based approaches always fail. Hands down. However, I will debunk all of this man’s claims based on this approach. Ken’s suppositional arguments for the existence of God contain circular logic (which leads nowhere), accusations that make no sense, and arguments that have very simple answers. If he did his research and was not a totally hopeless religious bigot, maybe he would realize this.

Right from the beginning, he is admitting that he will be saying that the CATHOLIC version of God’s existence will be argued for on this lecture set. The Catholic church chose the books in the Bible, the Bible is what he believes in, so thus his arguments will PROVE that the Catholic side of Christianity is correct. Oh, this will be a fun ride.

Here’s his argument’s key standing point: “God exists, and if you deny God’s existence, all kinds of impossibilities are going to follow and you are not going to want to accept them.”

He goes on to state that any atheistic worldview destroys morality, meaning (I assume he’s talking about our purpose in life), and knowledge. I’m on track two, 2:41 minutes in at this point. To back up why he should argue presuppositionally, Ken is referring to the Bible itself for his foundation. Note that by basing the entire argument on his holy book, he is setting himself up for petitio principii, “begging the question”, or a “circular argument”. Right from the START Ken is screwing things up. Your basis or foundation for an argument needs to be strong so it can support your other ideas. You build on top of your foundation. Ken is going to be arguing against atheism. Atheists generally deal with science and evidence-backed studies and arguments. Because you are basing your argument on a biased source that proves very little about the true history of the times, your entire structure comes tumbling down. Any intelligent atheist who knows WHY he’s an atheist will see through this right at the beginning.

Ken is now raging against epistemological relativism. He sets this up with a quick explanation, and then states that every viewpoint should be respected except Christianity. This man is BITTER. Christianity attempts to prove itself as 100% true via scientific evidence these days. They fail. Why does Christianity continually get less respect? Because they are saying things are true which are found to be not true. When you claim something has a foundation that is supported by scientific evidence, then you open yourself up for scrutiny. If it turns out you are wrong, well, then you won’t be respected. Your viewpoint is allowed respect in the social setting, but don’t try to bust into science if you’re not willing to accept the consequences. Also notice Ken’s bias by not mentioning any other religion. Whoops, now he’s back to supporting his claim that epistemological relativism with quotes from the Bible. You foundation is quicksand, stop trying to build on it. But will he stop? Nah, this man is determined. He’s a MACHINE. And what the HELL is a “heart of hearts”? He uses this term throughout the entire lecture series. This is a phrase that the Christian may feel means “soul”, or one’s god given feelings inside their heart, or something to that nature. This is a feel-good phrase, nothing more.

A story Ken presented about “Survival of the Fittest” consisted of him walking into a classroom, picking up a weak female student from her front row seat, and throwing her away from it so he could take this seat. When angrily questioned why he did this, he responded that he was merely carrying about survival of the fittest, because that’s what evolution is all about, right? With a clouded mind, this could seem like a valid argument. There are many points here that need to be made. What does getting the best seat in the classroom do to enhance your survivability? Was that woman a threat to you? When you are part of a collective (such as a tribe, a pack, a herd, a society), then doesn’t working together with your fellows ensure better survivability of your species? Ken demonstrates misguided human interpretation very clearly, but it doesn’t debunk evolution or “survival of the fittest”.

Gone for a bit!

Regardless of the terrible social anxiety I suffer, I am about to go out and fill out an application for an interview. Seems kind of silly that they let you submit a resume online, but you have to voluntarily visit their corporate office to actually fill out an application. You have to fill one of these out if you want to get a potential interview. /sigh. That’s some damned stupid unnecessarily tiered process. Lord, I’ve been up all night. Hope this goes okay!

What the hell is up with my Unemployment money, too? I thought I fixed everything over the phone, but now I have six entries that I haven’t been paid because I’m not ready for full time work? How many times must I tell them I’m ready for full-time work before they believe me? $4700 waiting for me to collect over the next 20 weeks and they’re /taunting me.

Rage aside, I spent most of the day watching movies, anime, skilling up my summoning skill in FFXI, and fighting avatar battles. I can now summon, err, Carbuncle, Titan, Ifrit, and Shiva. Ramuh, Garuda, and Fenrir will follow tomorrow I hope. If I have enough gil for my potions and ethers.