Poe's Law

Poe's Law:

"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

Is the following video real?  Or parody?

Education

So this is kind of awesome...

2 Peter 3:5 says "But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water."

So there you go.  "Atheistic evolution" claims that "matter evolve from nothing."  Not only that, but scientists are all part of a conspiracy where they know the trust, but choose to deny it.

Newtown Part 2

Another point of view from a Christian minister:

Newtown Shooting

If you were dropping off your child at their school, and you saw a shady looking character with a couple guns walking around and starting to shoot at innocent children, what would you do?

It’s a tough question.  Would you duck and run for cover?  Would you attempt to tackle the guy?  I find hard to know how I’d react.  I like to think that I’d act heroically, but I also know there’s a good chance I’d just duck and run for cover.

Now, what if you somehow magically were granted knowledge that you wouldn’t get hurt in the incident.  Then what would you do?  I think it’s probably safe to say that we’d take out the gunman as soon as we possibly could.  Any decent person would, right?

What if you had absolute, airtight knowledge that this event was going to occur before it actually happened?  I think any decent person would call the police or otherwise get the authorities involved before it happened, right?  That’s a no-brainer.

If you accept that an omnipotent and omnipresent god exists and watches over us, then we must accept the fact that he ALLOWS these events to happen, while having the power to stop them.  I think this is referred to as “the problem of evil”.

On a very surface level, we could say “God had the power to stop this event, and he didn’t.  Therefore, God was complicit in the crime.”

This is a simplistic view, and there are some responses to this:

1)  We have free will.

I don’t buy this argument.  Every description of the Christian god that I’ve read compares him to Santa Claus.  He knows what we’re thinking, and whether we’ve been bad or good, and what is “in our hearts”, whatever that means.  He also, apparently, has the power to influence people and to make actual changes in the world.

So while we might have free will, God also supposedly has power and influence over us.

2)  Evil exists as a test or lesson to humanity

A few evangelicals have come out and blamed the shooting on our godless society.  Mike Huckabee said:

“And since we've ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn't act so surprised ... when all hell breaks loose.”

James Dobson said:

“…but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us.  I think that’s what’s going on.”

So there it is.  Gays, abortions, and atheists make God angry, and therefore he allows innocent children to be slaughtered as a punishment.

Or this jackass:

The implication here is that God is spiteful for being kicked out of public schools, and therefore allowed the shooting to happen as a response.

Do people really think that?  I can’t see how anyone would want to worship a god who would do such a thing.  If God had a problem with gays or abortionists or atheists and did something SPECIFICALLY to punish those people, that would make a little more sense to me.  But allowing innocent children to die and putting their families through agony and torture as a result of the sins of someone else doesn’t make any sense to me.

But then again, punishing someone for the sins of someone else seems to be central to Christian dogma.

3)  “Part of a bigger plan”

Another possible response is basically “We don’t know why this happened, but we have faith that it must be part of a bigger plan.”  This, in my opinion, is just giving up any rational thinking and succumbing completely to faith.  Like me, they can’t comprehend how something could happen, and just have to assume that God is in control and things will work out ok in the end.

There is a final response, which is the “hands off” God, who created the universe and set it into motion and then let things progress how they may.  Mentally disturbed people do bad things.  Good people do good things.  People live and day and life happens as it may.  I submit that a “hands off” God is indistinguishable from God not existing at all.

As an atheist, how do I approach the shooting?  Obviously with horror and disgust.  So much so that I’m actively not following the story too closely as an act of informed ignorance.  Reading about the children who died, and looking at their little faces is painful to me, and I don’t believe that it will change my behavior or teach me anything I don’t already know.  I already love my daughter and tell her that every day.  I can’t possibly hug her more than I do.  I don’t think this shooting has changed my stance on guns, violence, religions, or school safety.  Looking at raw statistics, the number of people killed in mass slayings is far outnumbered by death by car accident, not wearing a bike helmet, and other poor decisions that are very preventable.

In the end, it just sucks. 

Coughing

If I designed people, I wouldn't put the mouth-hole and the breathing-hole in the same place.  Jeez.

Praying on Survivor

I’m a big fan of the game that is played on the TV show Survivor.  One thing that has been interesting in the past few seasons are some of the more religious people that have been on the show.  There was one lady in China who won a trip to go visit some sort of Buddhist monastery, but walked out of a “non-religious” ceremony that involved bowing.

Then, most recently, there was a big event that was going to change the course of the game.  Before the event, some players got together to pray.  They didn’t pray for anything specific to happen, and in fact one of them said that she was the not the kind of person to pray for her football team to win.  Instead, they just prayed to God that his will would be done. 

It struck me as so odd.  There they were, eyes clenched and holding hands, earnestly asking that whatever was going to happen, please let it happen.  I mean, if you pray for something specific to happen, that makes some sense to me.  “Please heal my grandmother, who is dying of cancer” or whatever.  But if you pray for anything and everything to happen the way that it would EVEN IF YOU DIDN’T PRAY, what’s the point?

It seemed to make them feel better, though.  And for the record, the plan they hatched (but didn't specificially pray would work) didn't work.  The guy they were hoping to blindside won the event and was safe from being voted out.  Perhaps if they'd just prayed a little harder.

This clip wasn't on the show, but references it:

I also heard about someone mentioning this, and did some Googling around.  There is a movement called “Pray Until Something Happens”, or PUSH.

From the top website:

The way to get real-life results in prayer is to seek God with an attitude that says, “No matter how long it takes, or whatever I have to do, I will not be denied”. This is not arrogance, it’s Godly hunger. It is not about pushing God, but about pushing yourself into God. This is not praying for the sake of praying. This is praying to see the hand of God move. This is desperate hungry praying. This is the type of prayer that gets answers.

So, if I want to get “real life results” about something, I should pray for/about it.  And if I don’t get an answer?  Keep praying, "no matter how long it takes".  Is that really good advice?  I wonder how long people actually keep this up before they either change the prayer to something more reasonable, or accept whatever reality is facing them, or just give up.

Perhaps I pray for some extra money, because I’m struggling to pay bills.  I pray earnestly every day.  Then one day I find a dime in the street.  That might not be the intent of my prayer, but I could see someone thinking it was the work of God and teaching some lesson in humility or something.

What if I prayed earnestly and constantly for the ability to fly?  Or for my amputated arm to grow back?  Is there really any reason why God couldn’t answer those prayers?

What if I prayed for someone’s cancer to go away, and they end up dying?  Did I not pray correctly or hard enough?  What if they end up living?  Would I then be stronger in a belief that prayer actually does something?

It kind of makes my head spin.  I just don’t get it.

Yoga in School

There's been a big hubbub recently about yoga being taught in local elementary schools.  I've found it fascinating how some parents have come out against it for fear of their children being indoctrinated into Hinduism.

What's I find really striking is how much I agree with them, if for different reasons.  I'm sensitive to any whiff of religion being taught as fact in the classroom.  That is a job for parents.

The people I've seen quoted in the news, however, are against it because they think their children are being "indoctrinated" into a "false religion".  In my mind, if you follow what I consider to be a false religion, the worse thing you are doing is deluding yourself.  In their mind, they are at risk for real eternal problems.

So what defines yoga?  Is sitting quietly in a room and stretching a bad thing?  What about paying attention to your own body?  What if you say "namaste"?  Where is the line for what is dangerous flirting with a religion and simple healthy living?

One comment I heard was that you should be spending your time with your thoughts on God.  And yoga teaches you to focus your energies inward, rather than outward.

My thoughts are a little muddled, but it's all so fascinating to me.