I love the snow! Thus I hate the Ozarks. It rarely flippin’ snows here. I was born and raised (mostly) in Colorado. I have snow in my blood! And in SW Missouri, some years you can count on one hand the number of times it snows that Winter. Any precipitation (aside from just plain humidity) [...]
READ MORE »Monthly archives for January, 2005
Murderous God
The God of the Old Testament was a heartless, murderous psychopath, in my opnion. Just look at this one chapter, Joshua 11 Skeptic’s Annotated NRSV NIV This verse is quite nice: “For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them [...]
READ MORE »The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.html Wow! Fantastic. An excellent source for pointing out, verse by verse, the contradictions, injustice, intolarance, and absrudities of the Bible. And there’s a LOT of them! Now I don’t have to rely on just the ones I remember: The two different orders of Creation, who and what was found at the open tomb and [...]
READ MORE »America Founded on…What Values?
So many loudspoken, er, outspoken people fighting to turn the country into a fundamentalist theocracy (see: Taliban and Afghanistan) make the claim: “America was founded on Christian priciples!” or like the former Judge Moore “Our Constitution has the 10 Commandments as its base.” Our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves. Most were Deists, Freethinkers, [...]
READ MORE »Fear of Hell: Just Good Policy?
As I continue to read, late into this night, I find more Web thoughts that are nearly identical to my own, to whit, this essay on what is hell: http://universist.org/fearofhell.htm ‘And what is Hell, anyway? According to Wikipedia’s entry on the subject, the Christian concept of Hell or “Gehenna” comes from “Gehinnom,” a Hebrew word [...]
READ MORE »Universism
I plan on talking more about Universism more in my “Statement of Personal Belief” to come later. But here’s some thoughts I wanted to share now. I actually just discovered Universism this evening while do more research on Deism (more on that later too.) Intriguing…very likely not a direction I want to focus too much [...]
READ MORE »Deism
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the [...]
READ MORE »Immorality in the Bible
Sadly, I’ve been on an acute anti-religion kick the last 24-48 hours. =/ Well, I’m anti-religion in general anyway (again, religion and faith/belief are two very different things.) But I found this today to be interesting: Instances of God ordered acts of immorality in the Bible. Also, based on that but a different topic altogether, [...]
READ MORE »Theory vs. Belief- a Film Critic’s Take
Whoa. Nice timing. While my brain is snuggly entrentched in a theory/belief issue phase, I read this review of James Cameron’s “Aliens of the Deep,” by Roger Ebert. (The only film reviewer I ever read, because he’s the one closest to my own opinions, even if that’s only 75% of the time.) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050127/REVIEWS/50114003/1023 “‘Aliens of [...]
READ MORE »A Quote From Commenting on Quoting
(This is a comment I made on a blog somewhere, where they posted quotes as truth. I felt it made for an entry for mine on its own.) “One who claims to be a skeptic of one set of beliefs is actually a true believer in another set of beliefs.” – Phillip E. Johnson A [...]
READ MORE »Avoid These Fallacies!
I recently commented on a blog that included some line of reasoning taken from a book. It was kind of fun to blast it, although unfair. After all, it was just a snippet from an entire book! But, I didn’t blast the book, in general anyway, I just focused on the line of reasoning it [...]
READ MORE »Facts versus Common Sense
OK, watch this Flash video. Watch it carefully, read all you can, think about it. Whatever your political slant and belief, watch it all. And then be sure to come back here when you’re done. Watch it twice even. Here it is: http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php Did you watch? Interesting, huh? Pretty convincing even. Or at least, maybe [...]
READ MORE »Science and Religion, Can’t We All Just Get Along?
My bringing this up will add fuel to the misconception that the “battle” between science and religion is two-sided. It’s not, or at least, it shouldn’t be. While religion tries to battle with science because people who base their worldview on religion fear that somehow their life as they know it will utterly change if [...]
READ MORE »49% Of America Disagrees
“President Bush said that the public’s decision to re-elect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold anyone accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.” –The Washington Post, Jan 16, 2005 Oh my god. First he refused to admit any [...]
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