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A good friend of mine recently asked me why, if I was an atheist, I spent so much time making fun of religion. Given that I’m terrible at responding to e-mails, I haven’t told him yet. Instead, I’ll waste time writing about it here and then write back to him in a week after I do more pressing things, like organize my safety-pin collection.

At first I thought the answer should be obvious. Atheists make fun of religion because we consider religion to be silly and backwards. As I considered it further, however, I realized that I’m just kind of a jerk. Most atheists I know don’t really ponder the big questions of life all that much. They don’t believe in god, and they’re ok with that. Beyond that, they go to school or work, come home to their family, and fantasize about my wicked safety-pin collection. Existence is just existence, and there’s no reason to think too hard about the whys or hows of the universe.

Actually, I don’t think I’m a jerk. It’s hard to describe, but I feel that my atheism is a mission of morality and liberation. I’ve come to understand it not just as a rejection of the imaginary supernatural, but the rejection of all things superstitious and irrational. My interest in dethroning religion comes from the same place as outrage against racism, bigotry, and oppression of any kind. It’s ridiculous to me that someone can be against the KKK, for example, and yet provide the same kind of baseless evidence to support their own religious beliefs (which are often full of hostility towards other groups).

As another example, what’s the difference between me saying that Western Civilization means that whites are inherently better and me saying that an invisible sky wizard listens to telepathic conversations I have with him and then rearranges the rules of the universe in order to help me pay my rent (even though the next guy to ask the same thing won’t get help paying his rent)? Both of them are based on nothing. The KKK guys are retards with no idea how genetics work and don’t realize that many blacks have closer genetic ties to whites than they do other blacks. Religious people don’t seem to realize that they get the same odds with prayers to god as they do if pray to a gallon of milk.

My atheism wants to raise mankind up. I want every man and woman to be able to shake off the chains of bondage placed upon them by millenniums of corruption, self-interest, and superstition. My atheism tells me that every life on this planet is worth something, and that no amount of prayer, bigotry, or false community will ever help mankind be free of the fear and evil that these same groups and ideologies spread. I make fun of religion because religion deserves to be ridiculed along side groups like the KKK. Education and enlightenment are the salvation of mankind, not the empty promises of ancient tomes written by primitive a-holes who probably couldn’t even see the value of a world class safety-pin collection if it bit them in the goddamned nose!

As I was walking into Target—or, as I like to call it: the thinking man’s Kmart—this morning to buy some quality Tupperware, I noticed a table and tent setup outside with a large “Register to Vote” sign. There was another, smaller sign taped to the table that I couldn’t read because someone was standing in front of it. I made a mental note to stop by the table on my way out, as I probably needed to re-register as a legitimate voter this year.

After stumbling around the store for a little while, I headed back outside, cheerfully thinking of all the voting I could do once I got myself on the winning team. A vote here, a vote there, there was no election I wouldn’t be ready for! Watch out, Washington fat cats!

To my great surprise, the sign that I had been unable to read was now visible and said “Keep marriage between a man and a woman”. So that was their secret! They had someone stand in front of the sign to try and hide their craziness from me! They might as well have put up a sign that said “vote Republican or we’ll punch your mom in the nuts”. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when people punch my mom’s nuts.

I made a mental note not to go to Target in Yorba Linda in the future, and went on my merry way. As I drove, however, I began to ponder the brazenness of that sign. Despite being an atheist, I’ll admit that for a while I had trouble accepting the idea of gay marriage. This was a remnant of my many years as a Christian, and I eventually overcame this prejudice. That makes it all the more apparent to me when I witness it now.

In the modern US, there really are only two kinds of prejudices allowed anymore. The first is prejudice against fat people. How many times do you hear an insult prefixed with “big fat” or “hey lardo” or “hey fat tits, your fat man tits are getting sweat all over my baby”? In all seriousness, fat people pretty much get the shaft in our society, as I think there’s an inherent belief that people who are overweight are somehow more stupid, unable to control themselves, or are more unsightly to look at.

The second kind of prejudice is against gays. Lesbians generally get a pass because straight Christian man don’t have to worry about random lesbians putting a penis in their butts. Gay men, what with their random penis attacks and all, generally get even more of a shaft than fat people (ba-zing!). Even people who are otherwise liberal will often feel some kind of hesitancy about granting ‘mos full rights; how else do you explain surveys that frequently show a majority of people in favor of keeping marriage between a man and woman?

Can you imagine if that same tent had a sign saying something like “Keep the chinks out of our schools”, or “Stop Interracial Marriage Now”? The people in the tent would be ridiculed, if not immediately bested in a round of fisticuffs. Instead, this kind of anti-gay crap actually gets people to come over and register!!

Now, I understand why these people do this. They feel they have a mandate from the big gay hater in the sky, which I suppose is a perfectly rational conclusion if you accept the premise of a big gay hater in the sky. This in turn got me to thinking about the idea of “harming” god. I don’t mean harm as in punching him in the nuts, but I mean harm as in causing some kind of distress or insult to.

If god commands us to prevent homosexuality and to punish those who practice it, it must offend him in some way. That is, it causes some kind of emotional deficit in him that needs to be corrected vis-a-vis punishment of gays. It seems to me that being perfect and able to be insulted are contradictions in terms. If god is perfect, he cannot be insulted, as this would imply that he can suffer some kind of short term imbalance. On the other hand, if the actions of mankind can upset him it means god is less than perfect, as mankind is able to directly influence his emotions and mood, giving them power over him.

If Christians (or Muslims or whoever) want to admit that their god is less than perfect, cool. A non-perfect god could possibly have irrational prejudices. If they want to admit that god is perfect, so therefore homosexuality doesn’t bother him, that’s cool too. A perfect god would be above insult. I just have a problem with them believing that they can have their penis, and eat it too. It’s a contradiction in terms.

If god really does get offended by gays, it makes him a whiny bitch, as it makes no sense whatsoever that such a trifling action should throw the all-mighty creator of the universe off balance. If a little prostate stimulation is all it takes to get god in a tizzy, Vishnu help us if he finds out about furry fetishes.

I’m not sure why it came to mind, but I found myself pondering Genesis 38: 8-10 today as I rode my bike up Telegraph Canyon Rd. For those of you too lazy to click the link, it says this:

8 Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’ 9 But since Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother’s wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother. 10 What he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.

Basically, for not impregnating his dead brother’s wife, god killed Onan. At least god was kind enough to wait until after Onan was finished to put him down. I wonder how long god gave him? Did Onan and Tamar get to cuddle for a while first?

This passage cracks me up, as it’s another example of how obvious it is that the Bible was written by man. Or, if not written by man, how big of an indifferent bastard god really is. Seriously, think about the implications of this passage: a man was ordered to ejaculate inside his sister-in-law. He didn’t, and god killed him for it. On the other hand, men like Hitler, Stalin, Hussein (and so on) can kill and torture with impunity, and are not killed by god in the same fashion. Apparently, god feels that the ejaculatory fluids of a single man were more important than ending the lives of some of the most terrible men in world history. God can’t save the lives of children burning to death on their way home from church camp, but boy does he hate it when you pour your hot, steamy cup of DNA on the floor.

I realize that I’m skipping around the actual point. Onan was killed because he failed to do a duty to his brother as commanded by law. Even so, this is so bloody trivial as to be laughable. How important are we really when Onan is good enough to strike dead for not performing vaginal ejaculation, but your sister being touched in a “this is our little secret” kind of way by your uncle doesn’t merit so much as a broken leg? Thank Allah god has his priorities in order.

P.s. If you have no idea what the heck the title or the banner have to do with this story, peep this link.

Link of the day: A way better game than the one I linked you to last time

So tonight I find myself in a bit of a quandry. There’s a story out about a post-op transsexual that is suing a Catholic hospital because said hospital won’t give this individual fake breasts. The hospital argues that gender reassignment goes against their operating principles, while the plantiff argues that it’s a violation of California law to discriminate against her because of her sexual reassignment.

I’ve always more or less felt that individuals that wanted to have surgery to switch genders were suffering from a psychological disorder that should be corrected psychologically rather than physically. Ultimately though, I’m a live and let live kind of guy, so I’m not necessarily opposed to individuals getting the surgery if they have the money and really desperately want to.

I don’t think that anyone can argue that this isn’t a psychological problem of some sort. Clearly, there’s a disconnect between reality (being male), and what the brain desires (being female). That’s black and white. Mentally, this individual feels that they would be happier if they underwent surgery to change visible sexes (I say visible, because genetically that individual will not actually change sexes). In this case, science gives in to the urges of the mind and rearranges the body.

I’m not certain, but as far as I can remember, this is the only situation in which the medical establishment will allow someone with mental discomfort to actually modify themselves in this way. For example, there are people who have mental disorders in which they desperately want to have a limb or two amputated. Many, so I’ve read, report that they’re much happier once they do have the limb removed (via illegal channels). I can’t imagine that this is a surgery a hospital would do, or that psychologists would support.

I’m not sure then, why the amputation of the penis or the permanent destruction of the vagina are treated differently. If counseling is preferred in the case of limb amputees, I wonder why the medical establishment has determined that the two are different. Why not treat people with gender dystopia in the same fashion?

In any event, I find myself having a hard time picking a position on this. If the surgery makes people feel better about themselves (like breast augmentation for a “regular” woman might), I’m not sure I can really oppose it. On the other hand, if I feel that the medical establishment is correct in its psychological, medicinal, and therapeutic treatment of people with other mental dystopias, I’m not sure how this is any different.

I’m no fool, and understand that the mental constructs of gender are complex, to say the least. I just hate to see someone undergo irreversible surgery to satisfy a condition that would be treated very differently if it did not involve gender. Then again, what do I know?

On a different note, it would be interesting if mankind died off overnight, and in a thousand years aliens land and start exhuming bodies. I wonder what the hell they would make of all the silicon, mismatched genes (i.e. transsexuals), and so on?

Link of the day: The worst video game…ever

So…I started working on my rebuttal to Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Easter” again. The first chapter is almost done, and I should probably be working on the other chapters later this week. If you have an editing bug in you, and if you know one of my e-mail addresses, I’d appreciate feedback on clarity and brevity. Send comments to my e-mail, yo. I’ll probably change a lot of it as I continue, so feel free to wait. If, however, I find out that you have an editing bug in you *and* you wanted to edit my page *and* you waited *and* you still didn’t e-mail me, I’m not going to invite you to my Bar Mitzvah.

In all honesty, it’s not really an attempt to refute or rebut, but to point out problems with various arguments and source material. At the moment, I’m higher in Google’s search results for “The Case for Easter” than Lee Strobel’s own page on the matter. I can’t help but laugh at that. Hopefully fleshing this thing out will get me higher on the list.

Apparently, I’m mad at something this weekend, as I just can’t stop picking on the poor old Bible. I need to go on a date. Maybe that’ll lighten me up a bit.

I was reading through Leviticus today and was reminded of one the bigger problems I have with the ancient religions: they’re so bloody tedious. This goes for the writing in the Qur’an as well as the Bible. Certainly, if god exists, he can write about whatever the heck he feels like. But, I just find it amazing that he spends so much time being so petty.

If I were god, for instance, I would be talking about how I do the things I do, what kind of cool stuff people can learn, what they can find on other planets, how to make anti-gravity cars, and so on. Instead, we get page after page of god talking about foreskins saving people’s lives, sideburns and beards, what not to eat, how to handle menstruating women, whether brides are virgins, bears mauling kids, women who lust after strong ejaculatory fluid, whether women should cover their heads in church, making the Jews put tassels on their cloaks, killing people who work through the sabbath, killing people who ejaculate on the floor, and so on.

Seriously: god created the universe. He makes the planets stay in their orbit. He keeps electrons spinning around their nuclei. He controls how every cell comes into existence. He can make people rise from the dead. He controls vast armies of invisible angels that wage war against vast armies of invisible demons. Why the heck would he care if you have tassels on your bloody cloak? The idea is preposterous!

On a related note, why would god write a hard currency amount into an everlasting document? In the example above about virginity, a husband is ordered to pay 100 shekels of silver if he falsely accuses his bride of not being a virgin. Since Jews don’t believe that Christ superseded the law (like Christians do), do they still have to pay 100 shekels of silver today for such false accusations? It’s cases like this where the human writers are most transparent: they had no idea that society might evolve, and that their petty laws and penalties wouldn’t be applicable to future generations.

I realize that the above arguments can’t be used in a real debate (see argument from personal incredulity), but even so, I like to think they’re still valid. If I’m wrong, it means everyone’s worshiping a crabby grandmother with nothing better to do than make up dumb rules to make sure everyone knows who’s boss.

Link of the day: Clearing up mis-information about how the apostles died

We’ve all heard the story of the apostle Judas, who’s treachery towards Christ paved the way for Christ’s eventual crucifixion. But, did you know that he died two different times in the Bible? That’s pretty cool!

In the book of Acts, Judas buys a field with the money he received for turning in Christ. While in that field, “he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out”. Ouch!

In Matthew, however, Judas feels bad about turning in Christ, so he returns the money (”throws” it into the temple). He then goes “away” and hangs himself.

So, not only did Judas take the money and buy a field, but he also did not take the money and didn’t buy the field. And in the field that he did and did not buy, he fell over and split his belly open. But, in the other field that he didn’t buy, he hanged himself.

This page, entitled “How did Judas Iscariot Die?”, argues that the death in which Judas falls over and bursts open is just a metaphor for his spiritual death. Even if this is the case, I’m not sure why one account describes Judas taking the money and the other says that he gave it back. Or, why a parable about a spiritual death would talk about Judas purchasing a field. Kind of an odd place for a real estate transaction, don’t you think?

On the other hand, this site argues that Judas hung himself, and then a few days after hanging from the rope, his bloated corpse fell to the ground and ruptured. Acts just forgets to mention the reason why his body would have fallen and exploded. Even if this is the case, it doesn’t clear up the issue of returning the money. Note, however, that even if this is a possibility, it’s equally likely that both accounts are meant to be true by their authors and could just as easily be contradictions. Just because the two scenarios may complement each other doesn’t mean that they have to. The Bible is ambiguous on the point.

Link of the day: Pat Robertson is a nutjob. Also, read some of his nutjob quotes here.

Isn’t it odd that the Bible is one big testament to unambiguous miracles happening, and yet, no such unambiguous miracles happen today? In the Old Testament, god frequently speaks obviously and unambiguously to his followers. In the New Testament, we have several clear examples of the clouds opening and god stating that he loves Jesus. After his death, Christ appears to hundreds of people to demonstrate his resurrection, even showing them his crucifixion wounds.

In the book of John, we learn that Jesus performed so many miracles that the world is not large enough to contain the books that could be written about them. Throughout his witness on earth, Jesus is asked to visit or heal sick people constantly, and many times he actually leaves where he is and goes to the person or people. He even brings someone back from the dead.

Upon Jesus’ death, the sky went dark, the ground shook, the curtain of the Tabernacle was torn in half, and dead people rose from their graves and walked around.

In more than one place, Christ states unambiguously that he will answer prayers. He does not restrict the type of prayer one can have answered, and he states that one’s faith can literally be strong enough to move a mountain.

Given all of this, why don’t Christians ask:

1) Why god doesn’t speak to people the way he used to, by physically manifesting himself as light, sound, or via angels? Why aren’t the commanders of Israel told to slaugher neighboring enemy states like they were in the OT?

2) Why Christ used to appear to people frequently after his resurrection, including more than 500 people at one such occasion, but hasn’t appeared to anyone else since?

3) Why, in both the OT and the NT, obvious miracles are performed as proof of god’s (or Christ’s) power, and yet, no such miracles happen today?

4) Why there is no pattern to prayer “answers” greater than that of random probability? If god really did engage people because of their prayer, shouldn’t the probability of obvious answers be higher than 50/50?

5) Why, if god exists and answers prayers, unambiguous miracles like healing amputees or curing someone of Down’s Syndrome never happen?

6) Why didn’t any of the miracles from the OT or the NT leave behind tangible evidence that we could see and feel today?

7) Why are there no sources other than the Bible that speak about dead people rising from the grave, Jesus healing people, the Tabernacle being damaged, and so on? Shouldn’t such unambiguous and amazing occurrences be apparent to other observers beyond one or two gospel writers? Or, why is it that only some of the gospels know about these events, while others exclude some or all of them?

It troubles me to no end that otherwise rational and intelligent human beings can be so delusional. Then again, I consider myself to be pretty smart, and I was this way for a long time. Any believer of any religion knows that the crazy miracle magic of every other religion is a mere delusion, and yet they can’t see that the crazy miracle magic of their own is no different. The brain is an amazing organ, but its ability to metaphorically hide its head in the sand so easily is pretty annoying. Now, if only there were some way I could write my thoughts on the subject and then post them to some sort of public forum to announce my opinion….

Link for the day: Did you know that the Transformers had occultic overtones?

There’s a lot of cool news coming out of the bio-tech industry of late. Perhaps the most exciting is that scientists are on the verge of creating the first synthetic life form. They can already make synthetic viruses, and have already succeeded in creating basic forms of DNA. Next up is the insertion of synthetic DNA into a “blank” cell. What this means is that a crazy-ass world is just over the horizon. If this technology can be exploited correctly, it means an amazing future for mankind built on the backs of designer organisms.

What this really means though—assuming some mad scientist doesn’t create a super bug that kills all of us—is that eventually, we’re probably going to combine this with cloning to make a way to significantly expand our lifetimes. It might be possible to push our age into the multiple hundreds of years. What pisses me off is that we’re so busy spending our money on dumb stuff, we’re probably not going to figure it out until I’m really old or until after I die. In short, I’m going to punch your grandkids in their balls, because they get to live to like 300, and I get to die like a normal sucker.

I know you’ve all heard a phrase that goes something like “our brave soldiers fighting for our freedoms”. I can’t recall if I heard it used around the time of the 1990/1991 Gulf War, but it’s definitely made the rounds since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. Each of you reading this have also seen the sundry patriotic e-mails that expand on the theme.

In any event, I’ve been pondering this expression of late, primarily because it’s starting to anger me. This is not because good hearted Americans use it to describe their respect for the American military, but because for too long it’s been used as a tool to stifle legitimate debate on the policies of our government. Before you start calling me a pinko or something, hear me out.

Militaries around the world and throughout time have been used for different purposes. In many cases, soldiers have been used for the personal benefit of a ruler, whether it be Alexander the Great, or crabby ol’ Yahway of the Old Testament. If I’m a despotic ruler and I use my military to invade a defenseless neighboring country so that I can capture its queen and take her for my wife, I think you would have a hard time convincing people that my invading soldiers are fighting for anyone’s freedoms. Similarly, if I’m a Muslim ruler who invades a Hindu country simply for conquest over another religion, discussions of freedom are out the door.

Suppose that my purpose in invading another country is to take it over and rule it, and that I intend to treat the citizens harshly as I consider them to be barbarians. I want to lock everyone up in shackles and only give them a small portion of bread and water each day. Should the citizens of that country decide to fight my military, it’s pretty clear in this example that they are, in fact, fighting for their way of life, including their “freedoms”.

I suspect that during the Vietnam or Korean wars, few proponents of them argued that American soldiers were fighting for American freedoms. Rather, the motives were probably seen as something like stopping the communists, or perhaps preserving the freedom of our Vietnamese/Korean allies.

I write all this because I’m trying to show that, as far as wars go, there are a spectrum of motivations, some being more moral than others. Or, more specifically, we can understand that some wars are not fought at all over issues of freedom.

We can thus ask the question, are American soldiers in a given conflict fighting for American freedoms? Even more to the point, are Americans killing others and being killed themselves in order to protect American values?

My honest assessment of the invasion of Iraq is that no, American soldiers are not fighting for American “freedoms”. Keep in mind that I’m a political independent, and that my graduate studies centered largely around the relationship of Islamism and terrorism to the Middle East, in particular to the interests of Iraq, Iran, Israel, and the US. I’m not just some yahoo blogger this time.

It may very well be that our soldiers are being used in the interests of a larger American policy that will benefit Americans in the long run, but I find it severely disingenuous to pretend that this is the same thing as “fighting for freedom”. Fighting for freedom seems to imply that the dark-skinned barbarians are literally at the gates, ready to pounce on every small-waisted blond mother. You can just see her now, loving her freedom while she washes her dishes and cherishes the freedom of her two blond, freedom loving children playing in the front yard.

I’m joking of course, but my point is still valid. Expressions like “fighting for freedom” seem like good, safe patriotism, but in reality this is not the case. When we reduce such an enormously complex conflict like our invasion of Iraq into a cute phrase like this, in actuality this is where we’re giving away our freedom. We give up our freedom to challenge our elected officials on good policy, and in the way in which we want them to use our fighting men and women. We’ve let the spin-doctors win, because they’ve been able to hide all the difficult questions underneath a soft blanket of blue-blooded patriotism. Instead of legitimately discussing the ugly truths involved in the conflict, they’re wrapped up in a faux-patriotism that can be used as a weapon against anyone who dare challenge the “rightness” of “fighting for our freedoms”.

I’m not interested in arguing here over whether the invasion of Iraq was or was not the right thing to do (maybe another time), but if we want to truly honor our men and women in uniform, it’s time to quit with the bullshit phrases and all the fake patriotism and really talk about what’s going on in the world. If you had to sit a young soldier down and tell him that tomorrow you were going to send him into a firefight in Falluja and that he was most likely going to die, don’t you think you owe him something better than a trite, condescending phrase? At that moment, he’s fighting for himself and his family. Most importantly, he’s trying to prevent bullets from ripping through his young face. He’s got a job to do—whether right or wrong—and he wants to do it and get out alive. It’s simply insulting to tell this young man that the reason he is never going to see his daughter again is because Saddam Hussein wanted to take his freedoms away.

Support the invasion if you want, I don’t care. Just don’t do for some bullshit propaganda. Do it because you think it’s the right choice for everyone in the long run. Do it because you have a brain to decide that it’s a tough decision, but it might be the right decision. Don’t do it because you get a warm feeling forwarding along an e-mail, or because you put a goddamned bumper sticker on your car. You are quite literally telling every American soldier that you’re willing to let him or her die because this war is that important. If this is the way you feel, at least make their death count for something. Getting all warm and fuzzy over a country song doesn’t count.