FIREBLIND.COM

I found this link today via Fark:

The Mountain Of Sin That Threatens To Destroy America: Pornography, Abortion, Sexual Sin, Divorce, Murder, Greed, Torture & Child Abuse

Before providing links to back it up, the author has this to say:

America was once the greatest country in the world. We were wealthy, we were civilized, we were cultured, we were generous and kind-hearted, we loved others, and we tried to follow God.

But now we have seen decades of moral decline. Men of God have gone across this nation warning that the huge mountain of sin that America is building will bring the judgment of God.

But has America listened? Has America repented? No! Instead America has treated God’s patience with contempt and has indulged in ever increasing sin year after year. Now America is absolutely loaded with evil and wickedness…..

I want to address two things. First, America has never been a nice nation, and is probably more moral now than at any time in its past. Second, I want to logically follow through this whole judgment thing to show how stupid the idea is.

Regarding this:

America was once the greatest country in the world. We were wealthy, we were civilized, we were cultured, we were generous and kind-hearted, we loved others, and we tried to follow God.

I have my own list:

Slavery, rape of slaves, fornication with slaves, 3/5 compromise, genocide against the Indians, lynching innocent blacks, child slavery and labor, witch trials, segregation, Jim Crow laws, dehumanization and abuse of immigrants (e.g. Irish, Chinese, Mexican), subjugation of women as second-class citizens, support of cruel foreign dictators, legal disenfranchisement of poor people, the Tuskegee experiment, debtor’s prison, sexual abuse by priests, and so on.

There has never been a golden age for American morality. If anything, we’re living in it now, as scary as that is to say. So-called Christians of the past have been far more evil to their fellow man than the average evil-doer of today.

Now, as for this judgment thing: what does that mean exactly? Obviously, this person means god will judge America in the physical sense, as I doubt there’s an actual country in Heaven called Los Estados Unidos. Since it’s in the physical sense, it means god will either kill us, or cause us to suffer in some physical way. And, since we all die anyways, who cares if god smites the unrighteous? Christianity teaches us that god decides when we die, so is judgment just saying that god is moving up the date a little bit?

If god does smite “America,” does that mean he smites the righteous along with the unrighteous? If so, it just sounds like everyone dies like we do anyways, so so far judgment pretty much means nothing.

If god doesn’t kill us, does judgment mean we’re all going to suffer terrible boils and junk, or only the bad people? If everyone, well…I guess it pretty much sucks to be Christian too, as that doesn’t earn you much favor. If only the bad people, why do the Christians care? Let the bad people get evil pubic lice. Maybe then we’ll be more receptive to the loving god who killed our firstborns or gave our young daughters horribly painful skin lesions.

If he’s not going to actually physically punish us, maybe he’ll make the US like the second best nation on earth. Or worse yet, maybe we’ll become like one of those backwards black nations and become poor. The bible doesn’t promise that believers will be financially successful, so again, how is this judgment any different than normal life? Millions upon millions of American children already eat wholesome meals like ketchup soup and live in abject poverty, so have these innocents already been judged for all the abortions they’ve performed and all the gay sex they’re having? If ketchup soup is a sign of god’s “patience” and his “love”, he can pretty much go screw himself for all I care.

I really don’t understand what this judgment thing means. Of what concern is it to our everlasting souls if the US is a rich nation or has cool swag like LCD TVs?

Basically, it sounds like god is going to kill people, or he is going to give us all painful diseases, or he is going to take away our Playstations. In 100 billion years when all these Christians are sitting on a cloud playing ping pong with Jesus, what possible f’ing relevance could all this punishment have to do with anything, and why would god go out of his way to kill us all when he’s got us at the Last Judgment in a paltry 70 years anyways? Moreover, isn’t he the very one that lets good ol’ Lucifer run around and tempt us all?

Anytime you follow this lunacy through to its logical extent it makes no bloody sense. I swear to Zoroaster, god is like an over imaginative 12-year-old who got rejected by some other ugly 12-year-old. His books are full of dragons and invisible sword fights and punishment for the evil doers, not to mention father-daughter incest, naked women taking baths, donkey penises and young girls’ breasts being fondled. Seriously? That’s the best god can do?

There are times in life when things become clear without you expecting them to. It is indeed a strange feeling to understand suddenly how big things really are, how little we really are. It is a surprise to find that your living room is an immense space, and that your body is simply a point inside of it. You can virtually hear the sound of the air swirling around the corners of a remote control, or experience the blinding darkness that a candle smoke eclipse throws across the enormity of the table it rises upon.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are sitting in the farthest upper deck corner of the largest baseball stadium you have ever been to. It is only you and the blowing wind. In the very opposite corner of the field, lying in the grass, is a grain of sand. Look across the field from your seat and try to imagine how incredibly small that grain of sand is from your position. Now imagine the billions of atoms that makeup that grain of sand. You, my friend, with relation to the size of the universe are even smaller than a single atom on that one grain of sand viewed from the farthest corner of the world’s most enormous baseball stadium. Of what possible concern are you to the universe?

I hate to say it, but there is no plan for you. There is no imaginary sky wizard sitting up in the clouds gazing down upon you. When your tiny little atom gets cancer, there is no man in the upper deck that takes a tiny little syringe and casts an itsy bitsy little magic spell on it to heal your even teeny tinier cells. When your little atom prays before a basketball game, there is no giant man that reaches down from the cosmos to guide your tiny little basketball into the tiny little rim. There are no guardian angels with bird wings, no demons with swords, and no god that smells your lamb sacrifices. There is no god bigger than the enormous universe that would turn himself into an atom-size man and try to impress the world by changing a tiny little jar of wine into a tiny little jar of water. A jar of water!!!! The creator of the universe, so enormous that countless planets are still smaller in size than a grain of sand, made himself that small only to try and impress us with a goddamn jar of water!!!

A god that oversees a universe in which you are smaller than the smallest atom on the smallest grain of sand would not waste his time parting oceans on a planet smaller than an atom, killing men for ejaculating on the floor, telling you to cut open the neck of a pigeon to drain the blood out in order to atone for your sins, or anything so ridiculous. He would pulse and the universe would forget about your speck of a planet. He would not look down from his upper deck seat, point to your invisible little atom and order you to strap on a tiny little belt to go blow up people who think differently from you. A cracker does not symbolize a god larger than the universe. Dipping your baby in water is not visible to someone so enormous. Does a universal god really care that you cut off the foreskin of your child? Employing a tiny little angel with a flaming sword to guard a garden that is invisible even from the next planet over makes no sense. Having a person smaller than atom thrown into a lake of fire because that person didn’t properly repent for a talking snake smaller than an atom tricking a woman and a man smaller than an atom into eating an apple smaller than atom makes no sense in any possible reality anywhere. If this is your god, he is the lamest possible god I could ever imagine. He blinks and a universe comes into existence. He shrugs and galaxies sputter out. He yawns and a billion planets cease to exist. And yet, he somehow manages to find time to come down to little ol’ earth and get flown around by the freaking devil.

You know what’s real? Not this tripe. What’s real is the curled fingers of your child across your neck as you carry his sleeping form to bed. What’s real is you and the person you love, pressed face to face with eyes open and soft breath on each other’s skin. What’s real is you standing by the bed of your spouse as they take their last breaths, knowing that of all the things in this enormous universe, the only thing that matters are the unspoken words of eternal love that move between you.

The miracles of the universe are not found in the Bible or the Koran, filled with their ridiculous nonsense of flying horses and Samson hair. Real miracles are things like two people—smaller than atoms on atoms in the face of the universe—bumping into each and knowing that they are meant to be together. Get out of church and go live your life. When your candle blows out, there is no heaven of atomic sized angels playing atomic sized banjos and trumpets. You return to the earth to be forgotten by the universe. If you live your life right, however, you will not be forgotten by those whom you loved, and those who loved you.

My cousin is smart. Really smart. One of the smartest guys I know. So it was a surprise today when he remarked, offhandedly, that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. For those cats in the know, this is a creationist fallacy that is repeated frequently but is without merit.

Before I continue, I should mention that the following blog contains science content, and if you’re not interested, you may just want to dip out now. Pretend you’re going to the restroom or something so I don’t get my feelings hurt. Also, just so that you can feel like you took something away from this anyways: monkey banana raffle.

Creationists misrepresent our friend Mr. Second Law, and often state it as something like “a system will tend towards disorder rather than order.” In terms of evolution, they state that higher order organisms like humans represent more order, and therefore ye olde second law is being violated. This is not at all what the law states. The law concerns the amount of energy (heat) in an isolated system, and for our purposes is more appropriately stated as “a system without outside energy influence will tend towards a state of lower energy.” Note, however, that this is still technically incorrect, but it’s a fairly practical adaption of real-world circumstances.

For example, let’s suppose that you put some fresh water in a box and drop it to the bottom of the arctic ocean. As you can guess, the water in the box will likely freeze, dropping the energy of the molecules in the water towards a very low state. Unless something acts on that water to heat it up, the water will stay frozen. We can then say that it went from a state of high energy (liquid) to a state of low energy (solid), and will remain this way unless something changes the closed heat state of the water inside the box.

In the case of the surface of the earth, HUGE amounts of energy are being fed into it all the time. We get large amounts of energy from the sun, and we also get some from the molten core of the earth which radiates heat upwards, occasionally erupting and melting thousands of god-fearing believers in a horrifically painful way that only a benevolent god could devise. The surface of the earth is in no way a closed system at this point in time.

If, in 10 million years, the core of the earth cools down and becomes solid and our sun burns out, we can probably say, for all intents and purposes, that our world will have become a closed system as relates to biological processes. There will likely not be enough outside energy to allow for life, and evolution will stop. But, if our closed system suddenly got an outside energy source, it could become “open” again, and we’d be back in business. Well, not you, because you’ll be dead, but I’m assuming that I’ll probably rise from the grave because I’m pretty much the best thing to happen since always.

So as you can see, evolution doesn’t violate the second law at all, since the law doesn’t really have anything to do with biological complexity. If we want to frame it in terms of biological complexity, however, the law might be this: genetic complexity will be allowed to increase so long as there is sufficient outside energy introduced into the biological world. Once that energy flow ceases, the systems underpinning biological processes will lose energy until a period of equilibrium is reached,and life stops.

It’s as if creationists are telling you that you can’t make apple pie because you don’t have enough oranges. They’re completely unrelated.

If you want to read a great writeup on the real science behind the law, check out this link. Note, however, that if you thought this blog was boring, you’re in for pretty much a worse ride over there.

It’s like, 1 million a.m. and I’m unable to sleep. Rather than roll around on my mattress padded with the unrealized dreams of poor children, I’ve opted instead to write about an annoyance I have with people who believe on faith.

It seems to me that you have to have at least some basic empirical reason to believe in something. For example, maybe you feel that your prayers have been answered with an alarming regularity, and this leads you to believe that god is listening to you. Or, perhaps you’re smart enough to understand the improbability of prayer answers, and look to ostensibly fulfilled prophecy. Or, maybe it’s even simpler than that; maybe when you pray you feel like you’re connected with something, and that’s proof enough.

People of religious stripes will often say that you can’t use science to prove god, but the fact that you rely on something of at least a very minor physical nature to derive your faith implies that you are, in fact, using science to prove your faith, even if it is weak science. You’re saying, in effect, that you have a theory that you feel or believe the way you do because of some stimulus. What’s more, because you’ve described that stimulus, it’s theoretically possible to falsify it, making it scientific.

I have a problem with using such weak evidence as a reason for faith, but these things don’t bother me much. At least the mind is pointing to something tangible to derive faith from. The thing that annoys me is that most of these people think it’s wrong for us to ask for more proof for the fantastic events they defend than the very personal, very subjective kernels of faith they rely on. It is so strange that the human mind can so easily go from “feeling good when we pray” to “I believe that an omnipotent god larger than the universe converted himself into a tiny human in order to kill himself and bring himself back to life and then magically appear to hundreds of select individuals separated by many miles of space in order to settle a debt made by two unrelated people thousands of years earlier.”

A while back, I commented on a Christian’s blog concerning a post he/she made on an atheist’s blog which stated that there really is no sound historical evidence to support the idea that Jesus even lived. The gospels conflict with each other, one of them doesn’t even pretend to be a first-person account (Luke), all are written at least several decades after the purported life of the Christ, and Jesus’s most fervent evangelist never even met the man (Paul). What’s more, the gospels and the works of Paul make incredible claims that should be well documented elsewhere (like dead people coming out of their graves and walking around), and yet we have no non-apologetic sources to confirm them. In the case of Matthew 27:52 and 27:53, there’s never even a mention of these zombies again. Dead people are wandering the streets of Palestine—perhaps one of THE most important events in human history—and the event is only given 30 words of text in the entire Bible. Boy, I’ll jump right on believing that one.

In any event, I pointed out that we have no contemporary sources period (since the gospels are several decades post-Jesus, if he existed), let alone any non-apologetic contemporary sources (the earliest non-Christian source is approximately 60 years after Jesus’s death). You know what this person’s reply was? Basically, it doesn’t matter, because word of mouth was how “they” used to do it in the old days, and therefore the objection is moot.

Granted, there’s some truth to this from a pragmatic perspective. Much of what we consider to be “true” ancient history has no primary source to vouch for it, and is often construed by historians from conflicting or significantly post-dated sources. If I remember correctly, there are conflicting stories about Hannibal crossing the Alps, for example. Even so, it’s pretty much accepted that he and his army did make the crossing in some manner. The problem with using this as an analogy to Jesus, is that we know armies moved and invaded other countries, but we don’t have expectations that people walk on water, raise others from the dead, or die, go to hell, and then come back from the dead. Armed invasions, unfortunately, are a common occurrence even in the modern age, so we don’t require extraordinary evidence to believe they happen. Resurrections are not, however, and so we should require extraordinary evidence. And yet, we have none.

To paraphrase from someone else’s writing:

Suppose we hear a story of a man named Mustafa who’s a runner in the Middle East. As I type each sentence below, ask yourself whether you would believe the claim at face value without increasingly more concrete evidence.

• Mustafa can run an 8-minute mile.
• Mustafa can run a 6-minute mile
• Mustafa can run a 4:30 mile
• Mustafa can run a 2-minute mile
• Mustafa can run a 2-minute mile while running backwards
• Mustafa can run a 2-minute mile while running backwards, and can knock down solid concrete walls in his way without slowing down
• Mustafa can run a 1-minute mile, and can pass through solid walls without knocking them down
• Mustafa can run a 1-minute mile and pass through solid walls, but no one alive has ever seen him do it, and he refuses to demonstrate it now.

As you can see, as the claims get more outlandish, your willingness to believe the possibility of them being true diminishes. Is it really that hard to understand why we don’t believe what religions say when the claims they make are even more outlandish than Mustafa running a 1-minute mile while passing through solid walls? God doesn’t perform any of the types of miracles purported in books like the Qur’an or Bible in the modern age. People don’t rise from the dead, snakes don’t talk, men don’t part seas, prophets don’t ascend to heaven on winged horses, and so on. Sources conflict with each other. Sources are written and codified generations after people live. And all the proof religious people have for these incredible events are books that are based on circular reasoning (I’m god, and I say the Bible is true. I know god is telling the truth, because the bible says he’s god and the bible is true).

I ask for more evidence than an ancient manuscript and I’m the one who can’t run for President? What about the guy who thinks an invisible man in the sky is listening to his telepathic thoughts and rearranging the course of human events to answer these thoughts? Who seems more rational and poised to make reasonable decisions? Oh man….

Alright, I’m out. This post is long enough and I have a big kid meeting in the morning.

For the first time in my illustrious career as the 4th most highly paid employee at fireblind.com, I’m going to steal someone else’s post. Actually, I’m not technically stealing, since I’m giving you links to the source over and over, but I am reprinting the entire thing without the author’s (Joseph Meert) permission. The fact that the guy hasn’t updated in a year makes me nervous that his stuff might go away. So, I want to make sure the post survives into posterity, as I think it’s brilliant. So without further ado, “Is Science a Religion?”

Science explores the natural world and makes predictions, retrodictions and constantly tries to falsify itself. Very few religions make daily attempts to falsify themselves. Very few religions (certainly not Christianity or Islam) spend day after day trying to refute the very fundamental tenets of their beliefs. If we use Christianity as an example, Christians accept on faith that God is a holy trinity and that one of the godhead came to earth as man, died as a man and rose again as a god. That tenet is not tested, it is not testable and it is not science. When most people say that ’science is religion’ most of the time they are speaking of evolutionary biology. In extreme cases it means everything from geology to chemistry to physics, but I find that extremists generally don’t understand geology, chemistry and physics. Instead they view those sciences as supporting evolution, and they then reject them as religious.

What I find particularly odd is that the assertion ’science is religion’ is actually used in the pejorative. It’s not elevating science, it is denigrating science. That we all know, but how many of use pay equal attention to the fact that when calling ‘evolution a religion’, they are also denigrating their religion. The mocking tones are really saying ‘evolution is stoopid’ (to paraphrase inmate Kent Hovind). But if evolution is a religion and it’s stupid, then aren’t Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism etc all ’stoopid’ as well? In calling science a religion, creationists are shooting themselves in the foot. Read these two sentences and tell me which one is more likely to be defended by a creationist.

(1) If science is a religion, then why should I believe evolution?
(2) If Christianity is a religion, then why should I believe Christ rose from the dead?

They will try to separate these two statements and convince you that you should believe in Christ even though it is a religion and should not buy into evolution because it is a religion.

And again, here’s that link: http://scienceantiscience.blogspot.com/2007/07/is-science-religion.html

After lurking for a while, I decided to dive in to the Religion and Spirituality section of the Yahoo Answers website. A few of the questions are pretty good, but most of them are not really questions or are intended to raise the ire of a particular group.

I came across a “question” today, in which a young woman beseeches people to pray for her sister, who is going to church for the first time tonight. Ostensibly, the holy spirit will come into her “heart” and her sister will be saved.

Basically, she’s asking people to send telepathic messages to an all-powerful, invisible god in the hope that said god will change his mind about this girl’s path, send an invisible messenger into her body, and rearrange her invisible soul such that she now believes that the same invisible god sent part of himself to earth in human form only to let himself be killed, and then to resurrect himself three days later as penance for original sin committed 6,000 years ago by a man and woman swindled by a talking snake.

Christian theology basically teaches us that right now, standing next to us are invisible angels and demons fighting over our very souls. I’m wondering what they’re doing, exactly. Do both of them have their hands inside of my brain, actively rearranging neurons that control my emotions and feelings about god? Is my soul a tough guy, able to fend for himself against ninja demons? If I’m in a saloon, is there a spiritual, parallel saloon where the angels and demons are like throwing each other through the plate glass window, or sliding the kind of nerdy angel down the bar until he hits the angel barkeep who is innocently standing at the end?

Why should someone have to “believe” anyway, as if a leap of faith is good measure of human focus. Is god so worried about his deposit on the place that he has to throw humans into everlasting torment because we leave a few beer cans on the floor? I can’t think of a stupider and more needlessly complicated way for a creation to have gone south, and for a supposedly all-powerful god to let man redeem himself. If god were a contestant on the Gong-Show, he would have been the first jackass out of the joint.

I received this in an e-mail today:

What Happens in Heaven

This is one of the nicest mails I have seen and is so true:
I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels.

My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, “This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.”
I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.
Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, “This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them.”

I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station.
To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. “This is the Aknowledgment Section,” my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed “How is it that? There’s no work going on here?” I asked.

“So sad,” the angel sighed. “After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments.

“How does one acknowledge God’s blessings?” I asked.

“Simple,” the angel answered. “Just say, “Thank you, Lord.”
“What blessings should they acknowledge?” I asked.

“If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. “If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

“And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity.”

Also …..

“If you woke up this morning with more health than illness …. you are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day.

“If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation .. you are ahead of 700 million people in the world.

“If you can attend a church meeting without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.

“If your parents are still alive and still married .. you are very rare.

If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you’re unique to all those in doubt and despair.”

Ok, what now? How can I start?

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Attn: Acknowledge Dept.: Thank You Lord! “Thank you Lord, for giving me the ability to share this message and for giving me so many wonderful people to share it with”.

First off, I love how the original author of this says that it’s “so true.” Which part, exactly, is true? Angels printing prayers on parchment or angels packing prayer answers into boxes for distribution? *sigh*

It is unfathomable to me how daft people are that send this stuff around. Aren’t they missing the incredibly glaring problem with this? Besides the stupid bright blue uniforms the angels are probably wearing, the fact that the “acknowledgement” angel lists all of those hardships points to the fact that god is apparently stamping a bunch of those requests with a big “DENIED” stamp.

The angel should have taken them to the pain and suffering room, where little starving children’s prayers for some food are printed out and put up on the cork board and drawn on with fake mustaches and goatees. Or, what about the angel break room, where the angels bitch about child support and the genital itch they got after going to that sweet high school party in their ‘75 Corvette?

In all seriousness: if “answered” prayers are proof that god loves you and is out there listening, unanswered prayers should legitimately be considered as evidence against the existence of a benevolent god. If, at some point the answered prayers outnumber the unanswered prayers, then cool, I’ll let you have your proof. What the above e-mail demonstrates, however, is that this supposed benevolent god put those poor and suffering people in the lives they have, and he has the power to alleviate their suffering. Rather than doing so, he has some pussy “acknowledgement” angel sitting in a room by himself listing off all the reasons god sucks (”you’re lucky, you don’t have crippling diseases LOL”).

For reals people: either god is capricious and arbitrary, or there is no god. The illusion of some benevolent grandfather resting on a cloud and shooting down material goods has got to embarrass you by now.

Since my last attempt was so successful, I decided to try my hand at another play (pretty much stolen from The Most Dangerous Game). This one is meant to highlight the strange Christian notion that despite a completely unfair set of handicaps and unending torment if we choose wrong, god loves us. It’s a bit long, but I give the performance of my career, so I think you should read it all.

The part of Tom Selleck will be played by god, Jonathan Winters will play Tom Selleck’s manservant Ivan, and the part of the kidnapped homeless guy Steve will be played by me, a crazy homeless guy.

Scene opens with Steve asleep on a bed, bloodied up a bit. He slowly wakes up as though drunk, and looks around at his surroundings. Ivan is standing over him.
	Hello? Who are you? Where am I?
	That will be explained to you later. Please get dressed and join us for dinner.
Steve gets dressed and the curtains close. The curtains open again to see Steve seated at a long table in a luxurious dining hall across from Ivan. Tom Selleck enters the room in full military dress, looking quite elegant.
	Hello Steve. I hope you are doing well tonight. I know that you are tired and homeless and your weener often hurts. Would you like to live here in my mansion with me? Everything you could ever want is yours, including weener medicine.
	Sure, that’d be grand. But, what’s the catch?
	Well, I need to make sure you’re the right kind of fellow to live here. You see, I love my fellow man. I want him to be happy and to be free of pain and suffering and to live here forever. However, just because, I want to measure your character before I let you in. Therefore, I propose a game.
	Ivan claps, excited at the prospect of a game. He likes games, especially Hungry Hungry Hippo.
	In my back yard is a large forest. I propose that you run around it, and if I’m able to shoot you and capture you within 24 hours, I’ll let Ivan hold you over a roaring flame and poke your weener with a warm hanger that he might also use to roast marshmallows on. Forever.
	I thought you said you loved your fellow man? What kind of game is this? I want to leave. I didn’t ask to be put into this situation.
	Ah, but you’re missing the big picture. If you win, and can avoid me for 24 hours, you can live here until you die, along with all the other people that I let live here for free without having to go through the same thing as you. I call them my angels, and they live upstairs. They’re pretty stoked to be here, because they don’t have to play the game.
Steve thinks about this. His cardboard box does pretty much suck, but he’s never been a fan of marshmallows. He proceeds cautiously.
	So it’s just you and me, and if I can hide for 24 hours, I get to live here forever?
	Yep, that’s how much I love you. Oh…actually, there is one more thing. The last guy who was here peed all over himself, and ruined some of the upholstery. Oh, what was his name? Adam? I can’t really remember. Anyways, it doesn’t really matter. I’m still pretty steamed about it, so I think I’m going to stab you in the leg to make it harder for you to hide from me.
Tom Selleck stabs Steve in the leg with a large knife.
	Ow! I didn’t pee on your chairs. Why’d you stab me?
	Well, I know you didn’t, but the other guy kinda looked like you, and now I feel like I should punish everyone else who decides to play my game.
	But I didn’t decide to play your game, and now you make it harder for me to win because some other guy before me messed up your stuff? I thought you loved me?
	I do love you, and that’s why there are no more catches. Oh wait, except there is one more catch. Ivan is going to take my dog Lucifer out into the forest after you, and they’re going to harass you and make it harder for you to hide. But beyond that, it’s pretty much fair and square between us. All you have to do is choose to survive for a day, and you’re in, my boy. You’re in! How great is that? Can’t you see that I really do love my fellow man?
Steve may be a crazy homeless guy, but he still has some sense of logic.
	So, what you’re telling me is this: you brought me into this game because you love me. But, because some other guy messed up his Huggies, you stab me in the leg to make it harder for me to win? And, in addition, you are going to let another guy enter the game with the full intention of making it harder for me to win? I’ve already been stabbed; can’t you at least keep Ivan and Lucifer out of the game?
	Sorry mate, I can’t do that. I need you to demonstrate to me that you don’t want to choose Ivan and the blood-thirsty Lucifer. Maybe you’d like to live with them instead, and let them poke you in the weener with a red-hot hanger.
	Steve looks around for help, but finds none. Nervously, he says, I choose you though! Can’t we just abort the game now and I can just live here with you and not have to go hurt myself in the bushes?
	Sorry friend. Even though an abortion of the game would allow you to live with me sooner, I really did go to all this trouble to bring you into my world without you asking me, and I think it’s only right that you should have to run around in the wilderness for a day with your crippled leg and Ivan and Lucifer chasing you. Remember though: I love you, and I want you to make it back here so we can live together with my angels in happiness and free of weener pain. So be a good sport and run along, ok?
Steve tries desperately one last time.
	Wait! It’s not like this is McDonald’s and I came by after hours and demanded to be let in to eat some tasty McGriddles. You brought me to this, punished me for some other guy’s mistake, and have let your manservant and his dog Lucifer chase me down. How is it my fault if you are able to catch me and shoot me, and then let Ivan torture me?
	Quite simple, my boy. I created all of this, so it’s my rules, which are all very fair. And even though a guy who looked like you peed all over my chair, I’m going to let you live with me if only you and your crippled leg can survive my harsh forest and Lucifer chasing you. It’s all very fair, and wouldn’t be otherwise, as I love you very, very much. Nevermind that I brought you here and didn’t ask you if you wanted to play. That’s just the kind of guy I am. I’m gracious like that.
	He loves you Steve, and don’t you forget it, or I get to torture you for the rest of your natural life.

fin

Yesterday, I saw a sticker on an expensive Land Rover that said “Prayer Changes Things.” Everyone knows this, of course, as god is aways deciding the outcome of major sporting events. Then again, I thought to myself, does god help out anyone other than professional sports athletes? Is this bumper sticker trying to impress me by lying?

I continued on my merry way, past some homeless people and an impoverished Mexican family crammed into a beat down truck. It occurred to me that only two types of people would believe this sticker’s bold assertion: the uneducated, and people from wealthy countries.

It goes without saying that uneducated people are the people most susceptible to superstition. My guess is that Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein do/did not engage in voodoo, or beseech the gods to grant rain in time of drought. On the other hand, the uneducated might see a one-to-one relationship between their prayers to god and deeds on earth and the response god gives them. The mysteries of the universe will always be mysteries, with the reasons beyond their reach. They move within serendipity, looking at coincidence as evidence of action by something bigger than themselves. They pray for rain, and if rain comes, whomever they prayed to listened and took pity. If rain doesn’t come, it doesn’t mean that someone isn’t there, it simply means that someone has decided against them. Prayer changes things, and sometimes it doesn’t. That is the philosophy of the simple-minded.

People from wealthy countries, even the stupid among them, understand that even if they can’t grasp the answer to something, there is probably an answer somewhere, written by someone smarter than themselves. They cannot, however, see a bigger picture to this knowledge even when Science does not have an immediate answer. We may not know exactly how to treat cancer yet, but we know that when people live or die from it, there is something in the gentics or the treatment that effected this result. Those of us with some sense do not immediately forget all the books underlying the knowledge only to lift our heads to the quiet heavens and give thanks. People in wealthy countries are so used to the surroundings of technology that they forget quickly that all of it had some measure in the success of someone living through a terrible ailment. An MRI machine or 100 million dollars poured into new chemotherapy research is forgotten by their sullied religious minds, as though these things were merely a bush on the edge of a witch doctor’s land. Prayer changes things to the wealthy people because they don’t realize how good they have it. They are not in the middle of an African steppe, pleading with the sky to save the gangrenous leg of their beloved child. They are in a hospital, surrounded by a billion dollars of equipment and thousands of years of learning painfully extracted from life and death by countless men and women who now rest in the earth.

Close friends of mine find miracles in many things, including the salvation of their loved ones from death. Their earnest prayers obviously saved this person, as if god had made some mistake and decided at the last moment to seal his beast back into its cage. What about everyone else who has ever uttered a prayer? My aunt died from leukemia in her 70s, begging Jesus to grant her some more time on this earth. What of Christian slaves in the antebellum South? Did god intervene to save every one of them from brutal rape, whippings, beatings, and starvation? Do children not cry out to the great Eternity to fill their stomachs, only to find themselves in the belly of some vulture days later?

The poor and uneducated think prayer works because there can be no other solution. Technology will never save the life of their loved one or bring the rain to save their crops and their families. Either prayer is answered, or it is not. Either way, whomever turns the earth upon its axis hears them. They fail to see that their prayers are answered by timing, not intelligence.

The wealthy, by contrast, are too stupid to realize that every step they take in their world is supported by technology at all levels, whether it be plumbing, medicine, or electricity. Their prayers are answered every second of every day; it’s just that they’ve grown so accustomed to the slavery with which we’ve bound the universe that they don’t ask the prayers any more. When they do pray, they are answered by technology and Science, and like their poor brethren, are too blind to realize that their prayers also fell on proper timing. Had they made the same prayer 10 years sooner, we might not have had the machines we do now, or the ambulances with expensive medications around every corner. Prayer does not change things. It falls onto the deaf ears of a churning universe that knows nothing of our presence. When coincidence intervenes and someone is saved, the rich ignore their surroundings and their education and praise the skies. It is as if god is their servant, and can be made to work the weekend by a little tearful bribe. If god knows all things before their time, of what consequence is prayer? It seems unlikely that we can change the knowledge of an infinite god by sending thoughts in his direction.

At least the poor people see god as like them. He is fickle and can be persuaded. The god of the rich confirms their arrogance as to why their society is elevated; they are the best, the brightest, and of course god has blessed them with riches. He is all powerful and his dictates final. What blissful confirmation of this arrogance it is to suggest that they can change the mind of an unchanging being. They want whatever it is they’re praying for, therefore it must be the right thing. God is no fool, and delivers. Then again, sometimes he doesn’t, but we ignore the silence and tell ourselves that the answer was “no.”

Maybe a better sticker would say “Prayer Changes Things, if We Only Pretend the Non-Answers Never Happened.”

There’s a website called “Why won’t god heal amputees” that’s been around for a while. As you can guess, the central question is: if God can do anything, why are there no documented cases of human amputees regenerating limbs?

Religious people of all stripes see god and his miracles all over the place, whether it be an unexpected check that helps pay the rent or warming up the entire Vermont wilderness to keep an autistic teen safe.

That I’m aware of, there’s no doctrinal basis in any of the Abrahamic religions to suggest that god can’t regenerate limbs; indeed, if the author of the entire universe can’t put a leg back in place, he needs to get his money back from whatever community college he went to.

I had one friend tell me that god doesn’t heal amputees because “humans aren’t lizards”. Of course, this makes no sense. The Old Testament is full of miracles in which god overturns the laws of physics, including stopping the sun. He created Adam from dirt! How hard can it be for him to put a limb back onto a deserving individual? I see no reason to treat limb regeneration as any different than healing gunshot wounds or curing someone of rabies or cancer.

My guess is that most believers would doubt their faith if they actually sat down to pray in earnest for an amputee. More to the point, I’d guess that very few Christians would actually pray for an amputee, as they know that nothing will come of it. What use is prayer if god arbitrarily and automatically discards certain categories of it? What if you’re drowning on a Tuesday and that happens to be the day he doesn’t help drowning victims? Maybe Thursdays are the night he helps NBA players win games, so he ignores prayers asking for help saving your wife from being raped. Who knows?

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that god won’t heal amputees. Rather, it says repeatedly that prayer will be answered, and that through prayer, all things are possible. Once you start jotting down exceptions to the rule, don’t you have to throw away the entire promise?

Many people will probably say something like “god just hasn’t found a reason to heal an amputee yet.” Given that god has busted out billions of miracles since the start of the universe, isn’t there room to give one person back a limb?

Jesus says the following in Mathew:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Tell this to an Iraq war veteran with a missing leg, or an African who’s arm has been hacked off with a machete. I’m willing to bet both of them see a big asterisk on the end of that quote.