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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
This surfer, Dr. Lisi to you, has spent the past several years using his doctorate in theoretical physics to perfect his skills at surfing in Hawaii and snowboarding in the mountains near Lake Tahoe. The newspaper stories say he’s fairly poor, a believable claim given that a PhD in theoretical physics isn’t exactly a path to riches even when one does have a university affiliation. Which he doesn’t, mainly due to his not being able to stomach the pressure that mainstream academia places on one to toe the line regarding string theory. His varied selection of employment, such as being a snowboarding instructor, has given him enough spare time (another benefit of not being affiliated with a university) to pursue his hobby of searching for the holy grail of physics, which he might just have found.
Theories of everything are quite in vogue nowadays; it seems that everyone has one. The problem is that most, like string theory, are more similar to religion than they are to science. What makes this one interesting is that it is simple (for suitable values of ’simple’). It’s beautiful, as one would suspect that any theory for our universe would be. And even better, it might even be real science. Read the rest of this entry »
Although I wholeheartedly agree I’m interested to know how you would square this up with a mainstream Christian who’d see this as something akin to blasphemy. “All scripture is God-breathed”, etc, etc.
I decided to make this a post in itself, as I was getting lengthy in my comment reply and want a separate comment thread for this notion. Let me toss a little prophecy out here. When you begin to see Christians starting to adopt this view, it will mark the beginnings of a glorious reformation of Christianity itself as it transforms from a religion about Jesus into the religion of Jesus. New and improved, with a lot less woo. Read the rest of this entry »
I sometimes wander around the net, peeking in at various blogs of preachers, pastors, priests, and other clerics. Once in a blue moon, I’m rewarded with someone’s sermon which shows that rare combination of good writing skills, an inspiring message, and a minimal showing of the various doctrinal errors which, in my mind, pervert Christianity at a fundamental level.
If anybody is has a similar interest, allow me to introduce Emily Hunter McGowin, a seminary student in Texas Ohio. I originally found her via a link on Rodney Dunning’s blogroll, and have, over the course of the last few weeks, been reading some of the sermons she’s writing as part of her coursework as well as her other posts.
Verily, I say unto you, this chick has got a high spiritual coefficient; she has a light that shines so brightly it pierces through the fog that the Southern Baptists call a theology. Read the rest of this entry »
Any discussion of common arguments against God needs to address the use (and misuse) of the various forms of Bertrand Russell’s famous mental exercise typically called the Celestial Teapot. Originally devised to illustrate the obvious idea that when positing something, the burden of evidence and/or proof is upon the person who is making the claim, it is a positively wonderful analogy, simply and irrefutably demonstrating its premise.
The current problem with the Russell’s teapot arises when people expand and twist the meaning and intention of it. Rather than being presented as an illustration of who has responsibility to show evidence for a theory, it is frequently presented as an example of an absurd, random hypothesis in an attempt to claim that theists are idiots. Interestingly, the people who most frequently lack comprehension of the analogy also like to call themselves “brights”. It can be argued, however, that they are more likely to qualify for the definition of athiest in the Encyclopedia Dramatica. *cough* (Sorry to my friends who are atheists, I couldn’t resist. Note that the same source also has offensively funny descriptions of theists as well). Read the rest of this entry »
Continuing with the some of the typical arguments against God, we come to the “God is not necessary to explain the universe” line of thinking. For suitable definitions of “universe”, I agree wholly. You see, I fully subscribe to the line of thought which is summed up with the statement “Science explains how, Religion explains why”. This, however, I have to take as an article of belief/faith, because I can’t really point to any evidence that religion is even working on the question of why, let alone providing us with an adequate reason. But just because I see religion as being derelict in its duties doesn’t negate the fact that it is indeed its duty.
The physical universe obviously exists. There are physical laws by which it operates, and those laws obviously exist whether or not it was created by a God or Gods, whether it is a simulation ala the Matrix, or whether it just is. When one is trying to figure out how gravity works, it is quite irrelevant whether God decided to create gravity specifically, if it was simply a side effect of something else God decided, or if there wasn’t even a God. At this level, we’re not concerned how gravity got here, we’re concerned with figuring out how it works. Yes, this specifically means that I believe that people should keep God out of science classrooms, just like I believe that religious classrooms should avoid claiming to have figured out how old the earth is.
The problem comes when atheists attempt to use this as a justification for their disbelief in God. The fact that God’s presence isn’t necessary to explain what we can see in the universe doesn’t provide justification either way. “Occam’s Razor”, they chant in sycophantic unison, properly realizing that one should strive for the simplest explanation possible. Read the rest of this entry »
I keep trying to avoid writing a lot about religion on here since I’ve decided to set up a separate blog to cover that vast topic. Whenever I get the urge to attempt to teach someone about God, I simply write it in a notepad for future use on that blog. Why? Well, for one reason, I intend to try to hold myself to a higher degree of civility in the discussions regarding religion. This blog tends to be me in my “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” mood, a place where I can vent my frustrations at the world as I see it now. Unfortunately, I can’t resist a good religious discussiondebate argument, and the rest of the world doesn’t have the courtesy to wait for my nuggets of truth and understanding which I will be authoritatively presenting on the new blog. *grin*
Case in point: Over on Very Important Stuff, Dr. Dunning has a recent post addressing some of the most common atheist arguments. This post isn’t really a response to his, which is itself personal opinions in a post inspired by someone else’s post on their personal opinions (God bless the blogosphere!), but rather a convenient excuse for me to make another post for which an arguably suitable response is tl,dr. Despite that these supposed arguments against God are nothing new, and I’ve got reams of material already written to attack these arguments, I find myself compelled to jump in with my own opinions. People who know me just chuckled at that last phrase, probably saying “that’s nothing new either”. Anyway, without further ado, let’s get down to the four main arguments: Read the rest of this entry »
Despite that these supposed arguments against God are nothing new, and I’ve got reams of material already written to attack these arguments, I find myself compelled to jump in with my own opinions. People who know me just chuckled at that last phrase, probably saying “that’s nothing new either”. 