update

I have gotten a job offer and I'm starting on Monday. Yay :)

my crazy life

I've got a lot going on lately, and have not recently had the time or the motivation to write for my blog at all. I've have bought a house, fallen in love, and I am yet again in search of a new job. Ironically, the reason I'm looking for a new job is because the person I am in love with is working at the same place--when my bosses (or someone up the chain of authority) found out, I was given 1 month's notice till the end of my contract (as I was working there as a contractor). Last Friday the 11th was my last day, but I can't complain. Good love has been a lot harder for me to come by than a good job. My area of expertise (C# development) is in pretty high demand, and I already have a few interviews set up for this week. The reason I have the spare time by myself to write this blog entry is because I had a job interview cancelled this morning (the interviewer called in sick). I'm cautiously optimistic that I will be working again by August.

Here is a picture of the house:

Expelled Review Part 2: Quote-Mining Darwin

Sudden darkness at midday. Judgement Day? No...

New England's darkest day (literally). Feared as a sign of God's wrath in it's day--but now finally explained over 200 years later. This is something to keep in mind whenever the 'unexplainable' happens.

May 19, 1780: Darkness at Noon Enshrouds New England

Why People Laugh at Creationists

*Not my work, btw.

Questions for Christians who accept the Theory of Evolution

Questions for Christians who accept the Theory of Evolution

Do you believe in a literal fall of man? According to the Biblical narrative as a whole, as I was taught, Christ came to reverse the curse that was brought on the world by the sin of Adam. (See Romans 5:12-21) The whole idea that god himself needed to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins was based on this idea. So, if there was no literal Adam and no literal fall from grace and no curse, how do you make sense of the idea that Christ needed to die for our sins?
Even if there were a literal Adam at some point in the history of the world, the whole history of the world before he evolved would have included death and pain and decay. So what of the idea that it was due to the sin of man that death and suffering came into the world? (See Genesis Chapter 3).
Do you believe that an all powerful, and all knowing God would use a process as cruel and arbitrary as natural selection to shape life on earth? Would god have purposely created some species only to go extinct? I personally have no moral objection to natural selection itself, but only because I see it as having no sort of conscience foresight or intent guiding it—it is a totally natural process. The Blind Watchmaker, as Dawkins puts it. But is this the route you really think an all-powerful and all-knowing, not to mention loving God would use?

I think these are all good reasons to think that if evolution is real—and we have an abundance of evidence that says it is—then the God described in the Bible could not exist and the whole narrative of Christianity makes no sense at all. But I don’t want to just assume that I’ve come to the correct conclusion about this without hearing what the other side has to say. So, any Christians out there who accept the theory of evolution, how do you reconcile the implications of evolution and natural selection with your faith? Please feel free to respond by comment or video.

Thanks.

Ben Stein Pwned!

My Review of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

I went and saw Expelled today, and I can tell you I am sickened and fired up. I’ve known all along that the Creationists, and that is what they are, are shameless, but they have really undercut my lowest expectations with this one. Well, not really, because my expectations were really that low.

The premise of this film is that within the scientific community there has been such a crackdown on intellectual freedom that for any one but anyone to challenge the theory of Darwin is for them to put their reputations and job on the line. They then show a series of about ½ dozen people who have lost their job in some academic institution or another and claim that it was because of their view on intelligent design that they were fired. All the evidence given for these claims is shots of letters where you are not allowed to actually see the whole letter (not long enough to read it at any rate) but only shown a few highlighted remarks about ID. None of these stories are reported on or examined in any sort of depth or detail. These folks just say they lost their job due to ID, and that is good enough for Stein. They do, at least, mention that the decision makers at all these institutions deny it all. Humm . . . I wonder why that is?

At some point in the film they mention the Scopes trial and how ‘Evolutionists’ consider that to be a victory. But no, it was a loss for them because the law against teaching evolution was upheld in Tennessee and Scopes was found guilty. Now, where is their upholding of academic freedom? A teacher being barred for teaching ID is being persecuted, but if a teacher is prosecuted for teaching evolution it is the upholding of the law? I smell a double standard.

After this the majority of the film is a mishmash of emotional manipulation confusing social Darwinism with the scientific Darwinist theory and basically blaming Darwin for the Holocaust. Someone Stein interviewed even said that while Darwinism was not a sufficient condition for the Holocaust, it was a necessary condition. Hold on just a moment. Is he saying that all the centuries of the persecution of Jews in Europe was not sufficient in itself? Martin Luther lived long before Darwin and you can already see serious signs of the hatred of Jews in European Christendom long before Martin wrote his “The Jews and their lies.” I have provided a links regarding this in the sidebar. I also have provided a link to the Expelled Exposed site which shoots down the “Darwin leads to Eugenics” argument. Also, check out the other material on their site—they examine the Expelled augments in much more depth than I do. At this point I’ll let the historians pick this argument apart.

There were also other little subtle things I picked up on. For one thing, Stein goes to great length to explain that all this Intelligent Design stuff is not about just about God, but in the end it’s all about God. And of course, Evolution necessarily leads to atheism. That is really what this is all about, after all. And He claims that ID has been misrepresented in the media as saying stuff like “life is to complicated so god must have done it” but a few scenes later he and his friendly interviewees go on the record as really saying exactly that! They use a cell animation to boggle the minds of their audience with the vast complexity of the inner workings of the cell and say, “this is too complicated to have come about without an intelligent designer.” Like the in the example of the Scopes trial above, they again show their hypocrisy.

Not that I expect their followers will not question anything they say. But then again, some of those followers just might question. I, after all, was weaned on creationist propaganda—even in my home school high school biology textbook. A major bit of what lead me to my atheism was learning about all the lies and shameless distortions the creationists use to advance their cause. So, to all of those out there who really think that Ben Stein and co have made some good points—don’t just believe everything they say. Read, research and find the answers for yourself. Do what Ben Stein claims he does. QUESTION AUTHORITY AND GET TO THE TRUTH!!!


http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html
http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/hitler-eugenics

1000 Cathedrals do not make a God happen

I found this vid on YouTube and I want to pass it on. I love Gothic architecture myself. Beautiful testimony to human creativity and engineering. Nothing supernatural though.

A biblical challange to any gods out there...

Fox News Sucks

"A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is still putting on it's shoes."

*Just to give credit where credit is due, I found this image at ExChristian.NET Art Gallery

Teach the Controversy

Story on NPR about atheists

Interesting take. Just thought I'd share the link.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6632129

Jane Goodall @ Hanover College, 03/27/2008

I got to go and hear a presentation by Jane Goodall last Thursday evening. Quite an experience :) The opportunity just fell in my lap when a friend of mine got ahold of a couple of tickets and invited me along (tickets were free, but there was a very limited number of seats and it was PACKED.)

Dr. Goodall spoke on a variety of topics. She started out with giving up the chimp versing of "hello" which got quite a chuckle from the audience. Then she spoke about her own career, starting as a young girl in war-time England. The most amazing part to me was that when these old respectable men could not have a girl running around by herself in the jungles of Africa, she was required to have a companion in order to stay there. So her mother actually came from England to live out in the wild in a leaky tent for about 6 months, if I remember right. LOL There is what I call supporting your kid's dreams.

Of course, she did talk a bit about chimps. But I'm not going to reproduce it all here and I would not do it justice if I did.

What seemed to me to be the most important point made was the need to live and promote environmentally sustainable lifestyles. A major point being that even if we do get the warring factions in places like Africa to put down their guns and make peace, but their environmental issues are not addressed, they will end up just picking those guns right back up again. What good is peace if your land can no longer support crops, and your water supplies are dry or polluted? So the whole idea of envronmental sustainability is a major piece in promoting peace in troubled areas.

After the presentation, my friend and I headed for the book table, where we couldn't resist getting a few books (different ones, so we could borrow off each other). Then, since I decided that I just could not buy a book at a book signing and not get it signed, we ended up waiting about an 1 1/2 to 2 hours in line. It was well worth it.

If only...

If only some religion somewhere out there has shown its god to actually know thousands of years ago what we only have found out very recently. Just something, SOMETHING!, that the human authors could not have known on their own that would have turned out to be amazingly and accurately in line with modern scientific discovery. This video displays the absurdity of all the existing religious creation stories, by way of contrast. Here is what those ancient creation myths should have said.

Why I am an atheist

This is not a comprehensive list. I just had a bit of time on my hands last night and was thinking about a time when someone, pretty much out of the blue, asked me why I was an atheist. I replied that it was because I didn't believe in God. (How much simpler could it get?) But I was thinking that next time someone asked me that I'd rather be a bit more prepared.

Feel free to add more reasons in the comments section. If you disagree with any of my reasons, mention it in the comments and I'll try to address that one in a later post.

Enjoy!

1. I do not believe in an all-powerful invisible human-like figure that controls the clouds to make it rain (or not), and I don’t believe in any such power behind any other natural phenomena either. Including the very origin of the universe (assuming the universe can be coherently said to have an origin...)

2. Because “God” means different things to different people. Vastly different things. So much that the concept of “God” is pretty much useless.

3. Because prayer to any kind of god or force makes no difference whatsoever outside of the physiological realm. If you would like to challenge this assertion, bring evidence.

4. I think it is more plausible to believe that people have lied or been fooled than to believe that any miracle story is actually true. This is why I asked for evidence in #3.

5. Whenever a new scientific breakthrough is made, the realm of the gods gets smaller. Especially stuff like the Theory of Evolution. This is why fundamentalist Christians rage against science—they may be crazy, but they are not stupid.

6. Anytime I’ve questioned a person if they say God has “spoken” to them, it turned out that they just got inspired. I’ve never been able to see what God had to do with it. Why don’t these people credit their own good thinking?

7. Anytime I’ve heard that God has worked in someone’s life, when I found out what actually happened it was usually something really mundane or total explicable by natural causes. Even with the really amazing stories, the conclusion that God had anything to do with it would have to be a non-sequitur.

8. Because “theology” is nothing but speculation—I determined this when taking Bible/theology classes during my two years at Trevecca Nazarene University. Everyone has a pet theory—but naturally no one can actually check to see if their idea is anywhere near the truth.

9. Because the traditional view of the history of Christianity (and probably any religion) does not match the actual history of Christianity. I also learned this at the Christian university mentioned above.

10. Because it used to matter dearly what version of Christianity a person followed—so much so that members of different versions of Christianity would sometimes torture and kill each other over theological differences—now people are relieved if you only just believe in some sort of higher power at all. Just so long as you are not an atheist. The church used to rip its critics like an enraged pit bull, but the influence of secular Enlightenment values and scientific discovery has knocked out most of its teeth.

11. Because any real morality and ethnics has a perfectly good secular foundation. No one bases their morality on the Bible, except maybe Fred Phelps. And most Christians I know don’t think much of people like him.

12. Because no God or any form of higher power has ever shown himself to me, even when I believed that one would.

The Four Horsemen--Hour 1

Good stuff. I found this on Google videos and thought I'd do my part to pass it on.

Expelled from Expelled

This is too funny. PZ Myers tried to go see the new creationist propoganda film, and they wouldn't let him. Oh, the irony...

EXPELLED

Padme

I have more cute cat video :) She really gets into the acrobatics when going after the door hanger toy, so I had to get some of that on video.



Besides attacking her toys, and my washcloth (I'll have to get a vid of that later) her next favorite pastime is fish watching.

I could title the pictures below "temptation". :-)