6 posts tagged “god”
I have been thinking of starting a new blog, and I need help with a name. You see, I'm going to try to make this a snazzy blog with its own domain name, so it has to be something short, clever, and easy to spell. (Before you suggest it, I would use Vox, but I want to have more control over user registration and commenting than Vox currently allows.)
The new blog will be targeted at folks who are searching for information about the evolution vs. creation debate, and will present the scientific side in a simple, easy-to-understand, non-confrontational manner. In my Internet perusing, I often find that the scientific viewpoint is misrepresented or omitted by creationists and intelligent design proponents, and I would like to contribute in some small way to addressing these gaps in their arguments. Evolutionists are often guilty of simply dismissing creationist arguments without actually addressing them, which just makes us seem arrogant and doesn't provide any basis for the average person to make an informed decision about what to believe, as they don't have balanced information from both sides. I would also like the blog to be a forum for a respectful discussion of the facts by readers on both sides of the debate.
So, with that said, do you have any suggestions? It would ideally have 'sci' or 'science' in the name somewhere, and maybe also a reference to design or faith or god or something of the sort. Please help!
Sorry for my absence in posting lately. I've been rather busy with school and whatnot. Not to mention that the ex-gays have been quiet as of late, giving me little fodder to work with. Although, there is the creepiest picture of Randy Thomas ever here. Very scary, that. What a creep-o.
To celebrate the rather good news that evangelical pastor Ted Haggard is, in fact, a big ol' 'mo in hiding, I offer the following video of Richard Dawkins interviewing him. People like Haggard provide us with amazing evidence of god's purported power to "change people." Or, at the very least, with amazing evidence of the power of self-delusion.
Randy Thomas today talks at length in a comments thread on his blog about how to block "trolls or nuisance commentors [sic] [or gays]" from commenting on one's blog. You just click a picture, and, apparently, "BOOM! Done. Their whole presence disappears from your blog; every comment, every private message ... like a vapor!" I don't know how he knows it's like vapor, though. Seems to me like it might have more to do with shuffling electrons around, and maybe magnetic bits on a hard drive somewhere (silly science!). And of course there is nothing to make disappear if you ban someone who has never commented on your blog or had any contact with you whatsoever. He totally fails to mention that. Randy also claims he's only ever used this feature twice, but, well, yours truly finds that hard to believe.
To top it off, he has the balls to say, "And if those stinkers [I'm gay, Randy, not smelly!] ever decide to not be mean..." If *I* ever decide to not be mean?? You get paid for work whose sole purpose is to deny my existence by passing laws restricting who I can marry/leave property to/visit me in the hospital/raise a child with/kiss in public. How dare you, of all the terrible people in this world, call me mean. When *I* decide to not be mean????
As someone somewhere has probably already said, you need to check yourself before you make yourself sound like a total fucking ass.
I still can't believe that Randy has banned me from commenting on his blog. I find the whole thing childish and totally shocking (the whole thing = the fact that I had no contact with him whatsoever and he banned me from commenting). I'd really like to comment on his most recent post, where he goes on and on about how he and Shirley Phelps-Roper don't "serve the same god" (Shirley Phelps-Roper is a member of the Westboro Baptist Church of 'GOD HATES FAGS' fame). And that might well be true (although, honestly, even saying that kind of implies there is more than one god to serve, which kind of tosses Randy's religion out the window... He ought to watch his words). The problem is, Shirley is clearly the one who is serving the god of the Bible. Because god does hate fags. He says so, right in Leviticus, in "his word." He also hates adulterers, and people who curse their parents, or pick up sticks on Sundays. They all deserve death. About that, god is very clear.
So, what's the deal, Randy? How can you possibly (even if you have disregarded the laws of the old testament because of the new covenant) possibly blame someone for following them? Or claim that the god of the old testament is somehow "not your god"? What's that about??
(Randy won't answer this, so anyone else, feel free to explain this to me. I am totally baffled. Honestly.)
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic [quite kind, that one; I think 'homosexualcidal' would have been more accurate, if a bit awkward], racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (pg 31)
"The legal case in favour of discrimination against homosexuals is being mounted as a counter-suit against alleged religious discrimination! And the law seems to respect this. ... Yet again, religion trumps all." (pg 23)
"If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them...? ... In any case (one can't help wondering), who was God trying to impress [with the crucifixion of Jesus]? Presumably himself - judge and jury as well as execution victim. To cap it all, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of the original sin, never existed in the first place: an awkward fact - excusably unknown to Paul but presumably known to an omniscient God (and Jesus, if you believe he was God?) - which fundamentally undermines the premise of the whole tortuously nasty theory. Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn't it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant." (pg 253)
"Wise's doublethink comes not from the imperative of physical torture but from the imperative - apparently just as undeniable to some people - of religious faith: arguably a form of mental torture." (pg 287)
"Once... I was asked what I thought about the widely publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place." (pg 317)
"But I shall not be allowed [physician-assisted suicide]... unless I move to a more enlightened place like Switzerland, the Netherlands or Oregon." (pg 357)
I also especially like the following quote, taken from Bertrand Russell's 1925 essay 'What I Believe':
"Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own."
Item: I woke up this morning and reached for my phone to check the time, and it started beeping just as I grabbed it! A sign from god? You decide! No.
Item: I am currently repeating Week 4 of the couch-to-5k for various reasons, including a sick running buddy and my desire to not die when I attempt Week 5. Run 4.2 take 2 last night was quite good, probably the best Week 4 run yet.
Item: I spent yesterday having a minor fit because the season 3 premiere episode of Battlestar Galactica was not on iTunes, despite airing several days earlier. And so of course I had to check the Internets, which were all abuzz about BSG moving to NBC, and downloads from SciFi's website killing the show's prospects on iTunes and OH NO!! Fortunately I have good friends who were willing to overnight me the tape cross-country or Tibeau the thing for me. But, as it turned out, none of that will be necessary as the premiere has now appeared on iTunes! Frak yes! Thanks for the help, friends, but it turns out that I will be alright. I am a bit sad that the season pass price does not include any sort of super-rad, sorry-we-freaked-your-asses-out,-scifi-nerds discount, but I suppose I will live. (Whit: I should also say that, having caught up on season 2, the thing that I read on the Internet and thought was the big thing that happened in the finale was not the big thing, but a totally different small thing. Damn this show rules!)
I guess we know what I will be doing when this hellish, hellish day is finally over.
Update!
I have a two hour block in my schedule later that is mostly empty... Damn it will be tempting.
