The Blog of Lon

The Christian believes that X equals Z and that Y equals Z, despite the ease in showing that X is not equal to Y.

The atheist believes that A equals B, but claims that B is not equal to A.

In the first case, consider that a Christian theoretically follows the teachings of Jesus. Many of them also believe that the entire Bible is error-free, a literal “word of God”. Now contrast the portrait of God presented by Jesus (a loving father of all mankind) with the God who massacred 42 children because they called Elisha bald. If Jesus was even partially truthful, most of the Old Testament and various parts of the New Testament are lies. [See my "Deprecate the Old Testament" post for more]

In the second case, many atheists insist that “My disbelief isn’t a belief, it’s simply a lack of belief”, despite the fact that it doesn’t require a triple-digit IQ to realize that saying “the coin is heads-up” is synonymous with saying “the coin is tails-down”. [See my "Arguments against God, pt. 2" post for more on this]

It seems to me that both sides of this argument need a bit more rational thought applied to their positions. That one side of the argument seems to think they are in sole possession of rationality and critical thought, well, fans, that’s what we in the business call “delicious irony”.

Losing My Religion asks if there is a stand a Christian should take on politics:

We have this huge political race down in America and it seems to me most Christians want to vote Republican - again. Meanwhile we take a look at either sides platforms and I have to admit - you take the good with the bad on both sides - but neither of them are reflective of the gospel message and honestly, at the end of the day, they are the same one’s when in power whom we will also oppose on many an issue.

This post triggered several thoughts in my mind: We allow our politicians to lie to us, our politicians increasingly act in ways that are antithetical to the definitions of the conservative/liberal labels applied to them, politics and religion shouldn’t be mixed at all, and that Christians very rarely display any competence whatsoever at selecting leaders. (more…)

From a semi-recent posting on Very Important Stuff, I see that a Republican strategist, Christine O’Donnell, made a claim on The O’Reilly Factor that scientists were “cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains”.

The scary part isn’t that some random talking head on a political show misunderstands current scientific research (especially that particular political show), although it should be noted that Christine is a product of the same educational system as millions of the people who heard her speak. A system that quite obviously doesn’t instill any level of critical thought to be applied to things you hear. One doesn’t have to be the sharpest tack in the box to realize that even if one could put human brains in animals, there’s a little space issue going on with the human→mouse thing. But this isn’t a rant about education in the USA.

The scary part isn’t that someone involved in career politics is this clueless about science, although there’s plenty there to be afraid of. The sins against science under this administration are Legion, and we absolutely cannot stand for this demon to continue to possess our government. But this isn’t a rant about politicians’ ignorance of science.

The scary—and exciting—thing is that given time, this isn’t as laughable as it sounds, and humanity as a whole is preparing for a long period of moral issues that makes things like the death penalty and abortion seem quaint. (more…)

Once again, I have a miscellaneous collection of various things I’ve found on the net which are interesting, but I either don’t have time to write an entire post about or think that they warrant their own post. (more…)

It’s Christmastime again, as if anyone who has been in a store since Halloween doesn’t realize it. Due to my recent rant about Advent, all my readers know that I’m prone to object loudly to things that are prone to disrupt my celebration of the birth of Jesus. You might think that if I work myself into a froth over the mere mention of the “blood of Christ” during a Christmas service, I’d certainly go full-metal-jacket crazy when considering the commercialization of Christmas. But you might be surprised. (more…)

Steve Sensenig over at Theological Musings has written a neat little list of things that indicate if one is possibly misrepresenting God. Here’s a few of my favorites:

• If you think that sickness, financial problems, hurricanes, broken bones, auto accidents, and terrorist attacks are all tools of God “to teach you something”, you might be misrepresenting God.
• If you believe that only “properly authorized leaders” are capable of serving communion or baptizing others, you might be misrepresenting God.
• If you think that the Father doesn’t speak to his children in various ways, you might be misrepresenting God.
• If you think that the only legitimate way to articulate one’s belief in God is found in a 4th-century statement, you might be misrepresenting God.
• If you believe that one’s beliefs about baptism, bible translation, rapture timing, tongues, or a particular interpretation of Genesis 1-2 are absolute essentials to salvation and/or fellowship, you might be misrepresenting God.

I’m not as diplomatic as Steve. I want to take that entire list and perform a ‘s/you might be/you are/g‘ operation on it (Give yourself a cookie if you understood that. For the non-computer-geeks, that means “substitute the words ‘you might be’ with the word ‘you are’ in the entire text). (more…)

Take a moment to review this painting (click for slightly larger version):

How does it strike you? Do you see it as an expression of Truth, or do you feel the artist was sorely mistaken? If you’re Christian, are you offended? In my opinion, one’s opinion of this painting is a good litmus test of how well one understands Jesus’ message, and the story of this painting is proof that many who claim to be followers of Jesus don’t. (more…)

So much to blog about, so little time to blog. Here’s a roundup of interesting links that I’d considered writing about, but they’re beginning to back up (I’ve currently got 21 firefox instances running on my computer, each one having 4-8 tabs open). So here’s the latest roundup of stuff to frustrate, annoy, enrage, and enjoy:

• First, here’s a very cool list of frequently confused words. Wish the schools taught this stuff.
• Google’s Blogger has a neat little thingy called Blogger Play that will threaten to consume too much of your time; it’s basically a website which presents random photos from the blogs they host. Very addictive.
• Which way do you see the dancer spinning? I see her spinning clockwise, and can’t for the life of me see it in any other way…even after utilizing the spinning dancer hack site, which includes helpful lines drawn for perspective. A fun experiment, even if Scienceline.org discredits it.
• While poking around for good Christmas/Advent messages on the net, I encountered a piece by Marcus Borg on beliefnet.com, entitled Christmas in the Present Tense.
• The government is at it again, looking to avoid the need for pesky search warrants, and pressing civil servants, in this case firemen, to report people who express discontent with the government. Remember kiddies, thoughtcrime is bad.
• The putrid debate over teaching creationism in the schools reached a new low as the Texas state director for science curriculum is forced to resign simply because she forwarded an article thought to be critical of creationism.
• A new report arrives saying that Iran suspended the nuclear weapons program four years ago. A dismayed GW Bush says it doesn’t matter.
• Christopher Hitchens continues to prove he’s atheism’s smartest evangelical prophet a rhetorically skilled idiot by assuming there’s only one meaning to Hanukkah and using his dimwitted interpretation to bash the entire concept. Fortunately, in stark contrast to my last post on this blog, he gets called on it.
• What is it with Texans? My theory is that since some of the prettiest girls in the USA are grown in Texas, it makes everybody turn into blubbering fools. Anyway, an Austin police officer, in accordance with his departmental policy, refuses to taser an elderly man. His reward was to get fired.

I often make a point that one of the reasons the Christian religion gets a bad name is that we/they allow such incredibly ignorant, stupid, crazy, and/or hateful people to form the general public’s perception of Christians and Christianity as a whole.

Recently on The View, we get an prime example of the laughingstock that we’re allowing Christianity to become. They were discussing Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher who lived three hundred years before Christ. One of the hosts of the show began talking about Christians, arguing that Christ came before the ancient Greeks and that there definitely Christians around in Epicurus’ time. See for yourself:

Society raises a big fuss about role models for women; you can bet cash money that if a skinny fashion model was an anchor on a show like The View, the airwaves and blogosphere would be clogged with high-pitched righteous indignation about her being a poor role model for women, regardless of how intelligent she happened to be. But we evidently have little problem with allowing ignorant and stupid women to anchor TV shows marketed as intelligent discussion. There is no excuse for Sherri Shepherd obtaining even a high school diploma at her level of ignorance, let alone being selected to be on the panel of an “intelligent” TV show. She should’ve stuck with comedy shows. (more…)

Next Sunday marks the beginning of Christian season of Advent. One would think that I, as a follower of Jesus, would enjoy enhanced fellowship with other believers in what should be the most joyous of occasions…the celebration of the miraculous birth of a divine persona, arriving here to save us all.

Given my phrasing above, most will wonder why I’d possibly not be able to whole-heartedly celebrate and worship in any given Christian church during this season. After all, don’t all Christians believe that a divine Saviour was born under miraculous circumstances?

My problem is twofold: First, the celebration of the birth of Jesus isn’t enough for most Christians; the beautiful nativity story comprises a mere half of the definition of Advent. Secondly, I have markedly different views regarding the exact nature of the miracle in question, as well as how exactly Jesus “saves” us. (more…)