FIREBLIND.COM

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 swear to allah, by the amount of religious vitriol pouring out against gay marriage in California you would think gays were going around legally punching little kids in the face and then sodomizing them for good measure, all to spite Jesus and his Jesus-loving dinosaurs.

I don’t know that I would put the fight for gay marriage on the same level as I would black civil rights from a generation ago, but the comparison between the two is obvious, if for nothing else than the raw hate that some people are putting forth. I’m reminded of a section in To Kill a Mockingbird where young Scout wonders how her teacher can cry over the persecution of the Jews by Hitler, and yet get frothing-at-the-mouth mad when a black person asks for a little more out of life beyond a crappy shack and second-rate food for their kids. I know very few Christians who are this way about gay marriage, but the protesters I’ve heard are not sad for these gays; they’re out there to settle a score that comes from a place of pure hate. Rather than cry for their souls, you can tell they get cruel satisfaction from shouting “you’ll burn in hell” at people. This is not unlike the visceral hate blacks put up with during the civil rights movement (and still put up with in many parts of the US). It is not Christian love; it is malice, pure and simple. It was for blacks, and it is for gays.

It seems to me that if god exists, he can probably take care of himself. He doesn’t need John Q. Redneck painting up some glitter signs and standing outside a courthouse making gays feel like physical harm is coming their way. Do they really think Jesus is standing up in Heaven saying things like “hell yeah, did you see Steve sucker punch that stupid fag in the face when he wasn’t looking? Oh man, what I wouldn’t give to tie some gay kid to a fence and just beat the crap out of him.”

Seriously people, god can take care of himself. If gay people want to get married and suffer a life of monotonous monogamy and tax liabilities, how does it really affect you? If god rains vengeance upon the US and you and your family die as a result, aren’t you on your way to Heaven anyways? I honestly don’t see how you lose in this deal, so stop acting like someone has insulted you personally for a minute, and learn some of the humility Jesus wanted you to have. Let god be insulted if god wants to be insulted. He created the universe; I’m sure he can deal with a little buttsecks.

P.S. Dear gay men: I know you shouldn’t have to do this, but I would encourage you to put away the hot pants and the glitter and the makeup and the fairy-ass rainbow floats and parades until after the vote in November. It’s your right to do this if you want, but I honestly believe if most gay men acted like straight men you wouldn’t be in this mess. That is, it’s not homosexuality per se that people are reacting to, it’s the fact that you have so blown up what it is to be an American man that really rubs people the wrong way. I could be wrong, but having lathered up men in leather dancing around in public probably won’t help the amendment vote.

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.

If you’ve regularly followed this website (and I hope, for everyone’s sake, that there’s not more than like 3 of you), you know that I don’t talk about politics much in a direct sense. I seldom use the words “Republican” or “Democrat.” I prefer to talk about politics from a more indirect, moralistic point of view. When it actually does come to voting and supporting politicians, I vote my conscience. If a Republican is the better man or woman, I vote for them. Likewise if it’s a Democrat. I usually prefer third-party candidates, but I’m pragmatic and know that I’m pretty much throwing a vote away. I voted for Bush in 2000, and had illness not kept me away, I would have voted for Kerry in 2004. I tend to lean left, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep an open mind.

So yeah, I don’t talk about politics much here. Nevertheless, I feel that it’s time to take on the Republicans a bit. For some reason, I have this vision of Americans as being loyal to parties, but more loyal to an American ideal of honesty and integrity. A man’s words and deeds are supposed to be his handshake, and a real man sticks by his handshake. It shouldn’t matter whether he’s from one party or the next, if we elected him, he owes us. Moreover, if someone from the same party as you dicks you over, it should be a bigger insult than if the other guy does something you don’t like.

I understand that there are significant struggles and trends at play in what happens in our government, so you can’t just blame George Bush for all the failures, but it seems like the Republicans, headed by Bush, have been doing a lot of failing the last few years. The national debt is through the roof, the Iraq War was based on lies and has been a disaster, civil liberties are a freaking mess, the economy is in the toilet, our international reputation was in the toilet but has been scooped out and used as part of a disgusting Internet video, and the dollar bill is worth less than a night with Paris Hilton (which used to be the other way around).

I personally care most about the civil liberties, but the other stuff sucks pretty bad too. Alas, that’s besides the point. The point is that what I’ve stated above is public record and well known. These are facts, and they’re reflections on the jobs our elected officials are doing. It’s not about being Republican or Democrat, it’s about asking our leaders to stop screwing around with our lives and futures and to do what we goddamned elected them to do.

The fact of the matter is, George Bush has been bad for our country. I’m not asking you to vote Democrat if you’re a staunch Republican, but you should at least have the balls to write your members of congress and ask them to stand up to Bush for once, and to stop being his lap dogs for secrecy and abuse. He’s your guy, and he’s screwed you over just as bad as he’s screwed over everyone else.

By the way, did you know that articles of impeachment were brought against Bush yesterday? It was more of a stunt than an actual attempt, but you’d think something like that might get more coverage than it did. So much for our media looking out for us. I don’t care how you feel about Bush, stuff like this matters and should be front and center in the public debate.

I had to go visit one of our stores today. On the route between my home and the store is a very large cemetery, and as you approach and pass said cemetery, there are probably half a dozen ads encouraging you to think about your “final plans.” Have you ever noticed that these billboards (and the commercials on TV) look like an old person’s version of herpes ads? I swear to Pedro, it always looks like the old people are just about to walk away and do it in the butt, they’re so in love with life.

Anyways…as i took my eyes off the road and daydreamed about anal sex with senior citizens, it occurred to me that the cemetery might drum up more business if they also targeted parents of stupid young people. Like so:

No, that’s not a real sign, yes, I ’shopped it, yes, that guy is drinking from 4 glasses of beer, and no, I will not date your single grandmother.

Link of the day: BBC Report uncovers billions in stolen and misappropriated Iraq spending.

I flew first class to Denver a week ago, which was a great experience. I’m going to San Francisco in a few weeks and am flying economy, which will not be a great experience.

While buying the tickets, United offered me an extra 5 inches of leg room for $19 each way. I passed, but not before considering what other upgrades I might go for.

As I was picking out my seats, I wondered what terrible neighbors I might have. Would it be the 400 pound guy that didn’t buy two seats for himself? Or, might it be the foreign grandfather with stanky-ass breath? It occurred to me that I would probably pay extra to have stats about the other people on the plane that had already booked. Would I rather sit next to a young female, or a single old guy that keeps “accidentally” bumping his leg into mine?

So I says to my brother I says, “brother, I would pay $20 to be able to see basic information about my other fellow travelers. I might even consider paying $50 if I could get a picture and more information.” Or, what if passengers could link to their myspace.com pages or something? Flying would be a much more rewarding experience if you could pick and avoid your neighbors. In any event, here’s a crappy version of what the ticket selection process might look like:

You saw it here first. If the airlines roll this out, expect to be called as a witness in my lawsuit.

Edit, 2008-06-11: I realize after the fact that such a tool could be used against people by creeps. For example, maybe a pedophile would look for tickets belonging to children. So, maybe the airlines automatically block seats held by children. And, if you don’t want people to know about you, you block your information from being shared when you buy your ticket. But, as an enticement to share, maybe the airline takes $10 off your ticket if you’re willing to share your info, assuming you’re not buying a seat that no one can sit next to (e.g. the seats next to it are already taken).

I wonder if I can patent this jazz?

So there’s a law that “sets a five-year mandatory prison term for promoting, or pandering, child pornography. It does not require that someone actually possesses child pornography.” The Supreme Court published its verdict in a case on the law, and decided that the law was not unconstitutional.

An appeals court had previously stated that it was overly broad, as it punished the mere suggestion that you had child pornography, not the actual act of transferring CP or possession CP. If a person felt that you honestly had CP to provide, you were guilty of a crime.

There is some precedent for these types of penalties, including attempted murder, conspiracy, and so on. You didn’t actually murder someone, but you had done everything just short of murdering them. I understand laws based on situations like this, as it implies that someone is in grave danger and the plotter needs to be arrested to preserve the life of the intended victim.

In this situation, the person promoting the availability of CP might not possess it, nor do they have the intent to disseminate. However, suggesting that you do have it will get you 5 years in jail minimum. 5 years for not actually possession or distributing something. 5 years for talking about an imaginary product.

Governments have been pulling this crap for years with drugs. If you’re an undercover cop and I show up with baking soda and try to sell you it, pretending that it’s cocaine, many states will send me to jail for as long as they would if I actually had real cocaine. Never mind that I never bought, transported, or provided cocaine; my imaginary bag is somehow the same thing. It’s such bullshit. If anything, the people with imaginary drugs or imaginary CP should be charged with something like intend to defraud, although one might wonder if you can “legally” defraud someone of an illegal product or service.

I agree that CP and narcotics trafficing are major problems in our society; however, it drives me absolutely crazy that we lock people up for imaginary drugs or pornography that never existed, might never have existed, and which never passed from individual to individual. People might say that someone who pretends to distribute CP or drugs is perpetuating the overall problem, and I think that’s an incredibly valid point. Even so, imaginary is still imaginary in my book, and I’m willing to let it slide when we have no proof of imminent danger or distribution.

More from the article:

In the appeals court’s view, the law could apply to an e-mail sent by a grandparent and entitled “Good pics of kids in bed,” showing grandchildren dressed in pajamas.

But Scalia said the appeals court interpretation was unreasonable. “The prosecutions would be thrown out at the threshold,” he said.

I’m not sure what threshold he’s talking about. When CPS takes your kids away? When your name’s published in the newspaper? When the police hold you without bail? Apparently, he’s never read the news. A simple Google search will reveal scores of cases in which the lives of individuals and families were destroyed over innocent situations, like taking nude photos of your own kids running around the house. (Here’s a famous example of this.) American society has gone so crazy with its “do it for the children” fetish that they will throw people in jail, confiscate houses, cars, and bank accounts, and get people fired, all before they’ve been charged or found guilty. Never mind that they might actually be innocent once a reasonable inquiry is held; their lives, financial health, and reputation are irreparably destroyed.

Even if they throw the prosecutions out at the threshold [of the court], your life is over long before your date in the same building. Way to go Scalia, you dumb ass.

I’ve been reading a lot of really amazing books lately that have made me really depressed. Books that make you realize how much there is that you’re not doing with your life, or how much horror has been perpetrated against our fellow man. I think I’m going to plan an adventure. I found a place with reasonable rates on SatPhones, so it’s just a matter of disappearing for a while….

Changing subjects: Do men still carry wallets with pictures in them? I remember that they used to about 10 years ago. I think even I had a wallet with some bent-ass pictures in it. There was usually some permanent dirt or mildew or something in one of the sleeves, making your girlfriend look like more of a horseface than she actually was. I’ll have to ask around. This is going to bother me now.