CREATIONISTS VS GLOBAL WARMING: FOCUSING ON THE WRONG FIGHT

It seems pretty obvious that global warming is actually a thing. The ice isn't ABOUT to melt, it's already MELTING. You can't deny global warming if you even glance at progressive photos of the poles. So, let's take that as a given for now. My question isn't whether there is such a thing, but why the Christian Right denies it so vehemently. If you believe the earth is only 5,000 or so years old, fine. Ignore the evidence. If you want to believe that an all-powerful God created mankind, however,I have a problem with your views on global warming. Here's why: This God of yours created Adam, right? Made Adam in His own image, etc. And why did he create Adam? To tend the Garden of Eden. If you accept these things as True, if you are true to your own philosophy, then our purpose would be to "tend" the Garden we were thrown out of. To name (and therefore care for) the animals. So, you got kicked out of the Garden, and that sucks. But since you are in THIS garden NOW, shouldn't you be showing God how well you can tend it? Or will He, like the Biblical master, come home to find that not only have you not increased your "talents" but you have burned them to the ground, scattered the ashes, and salted the earth? Be consistent in your own values, whatever they may be, that's all I'm asking. You can't, in honesty and good conscience continue to decimate this world and expect it's Owner to like that. It's no use fretting over who did what to whom so long as you are failing so miserably at your own purpose. Stop arguing and get out your hoes.

Further Recommended Reading

http:/www/evilbible.com

BEYOND RELIGION

FOR FUN: The Skeptics Annotated Bible http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/abs/long.htm

SCIENCE IV

COSMOLOGY

“From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world because, they say, one man and one woman ate an apple? And, on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world in the boundless creation had an Eve, and apple, a serpent, and a redeemer?”
- Thomas Paine

“Paine is saying that we have a theology that is Earth-centered and involves a tiny piece of space, and when we step back, when we attain a broader cosmic perspective, some of it seems very small in scale. And in fact a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the God portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much less of a universe.”
- Carl Sagan

I would add to these comments that it isn’t even one world God is concerned with, but only one nomadic people in a very small country, to the point of favoring those from a particular family line, out of only 12 tribes. How small a god is that? That he can only “appear” in Israel and Egypt (and sometimes parts of Rome?), and even that for what turns out to be very few generations when weighed against the number of our generations. Your God is small, he only cares about one people, and only for a small blip of time. When he supposedly sends his son to die and thereby change his message to “us,” even that son is sent only for the Jews. It isn’t until the very last minute that God and/or Yeshua supposedly suddenly says, “And those other guys, too.” Yet those “other guys” have defined that religion for centuries, and even used it as justification for the mistreatment of Jews!

CONCLUSION

I urge that the same logic and method we use to test any fact be used to test religion. And if all the proof isn’t in yet, let’s admit that, without glorifying the lack of proof as something heroic. And if it’s something that needs to be interpreted, let’s require proof of correct interpretation, and a sensible explanation why this is the case.

As we’ve discussed, science relies as heavily on its priesthood and interpreters as religion does. And some of their hypotheses may remain forever impossible to prove. However, the things that have been proven we have cause to believe because there is at least some method to that proof. Thus we believe in things like gravity, even though we don’t know exactly how gravity works, because scientific method demonstrates that it exists. Religion has had no method in the last two thousand years other than truths revealed to one human at a time, with no method of interpretation other than “I saw,” or “I KNOW.”

A decade ago, when eminent scientists warned us about Global Warming, many of us didn’t believe them because they could not infallibly show it to the satisfaction of the man on the street. Now that the North Pole is all but subject to tides, there is proof. Why do some of us still fail to believe? Yet if a charming–enough stranger tells us they had a vision involving God, most of us believe him; he can make millions founding his own church and broadcasting on his own TV network while collecting Rolls Royces.

Most people don’t believe in psychic powers because they can’t be reliably replicated (a requirement of the scientific method), yet we believe in the power of prayer even though it can’t be reliably replicated, either. If we were as rigorous in our religious beliefs as we are in our scientific beliefs, the Earth would be a very different place.

Of course we can’t go back and change our history based on today’s wisdom, but we can go forward from today using reason and logic. The prejudicial belief in religion over science has been proven wrong at every turn, and as I hope our logical look at the Bible has shown, religion is NOT reliable, logical, nor replicable, is NOT based on reason, and is entirely UNPROVABLE. If God is so powerful and wants us to know he exists, let him show us in a way that can’t be denied. If he is either not so powerful, or doesn’t care what we believe, then he is irrelevant to our existence. I say he is irrelevant because faith in this unproven being does not lessen the possibility of: Divorce, Addiction, Adultery, Infection, Crime (smaller percentage of atheists in prison than Christians), Homosexuality, Cancer, Autism, Mental Illness, Birth Defects, Abandonment, Poverty, War, Starvation or Death.

The religious pay tithes to their churches even when it’s clear that the money is going to the church and not to the poor. They continue to pray for peace even though that prayer has never yet been answered; would it not be wiser to DO something about it? Or are we still not that wise? Let us think, for once, what it would be wise to do. We are no longer adolescents on this planet; it's time to grow up.

STATISTICS OF FAITH AND OTHER FUN

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html/

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION (The God Who Wasn't There)To purchase the movie: www.thegodmovie.com

Listen to "Hereby Chants" for something different at: www.herebychants.com

And to wrap up with fun: www.400monkeys.com/God//
And Movie: Religulous (a Bill Maher comedy about religion in America)

SCIENCE III

SUMERIA AND OTHER ANCIENT CULTURES

Previously: “Studying the ancient stories of Sumer, some history buffs believe some Nephilim (also called the Annunaki) came cruising by from the planet Nibiru and created humans as slaves.”

Apparently the idea of a paradise, a heaven and hell, of a god and angels, a tree of immortality and even a great flood came originally from Sumeria. In fact some call the Sumerians the first human civilization, and already it was filled with these fantastic stories. They show the first evidence of a system of writing (or we wouldn’t know so much about them), had the first standing army in history, and had cities with walls around them. it appears as though they just burst full-blown onto the scene. But of course we must always keep in mind that Archaeology is barely getting started, and we’ve only dug up about 5% of the earth’s land surface – there could be father-civilizations out there still.

I once assisted with the making of a short film set in medieval times. It started out with a nursemaid telling a story to children in a castle. We decided that the children should be of every race we could get hold of. Only later did it occur to me that we were actually altering history. Children of every race did not live in European castles in the Middle Ages. It felt so right to do it that way, but it wasn’t the truth. Given the choice, I wouldn’t do it that way again, but it goes to show, I think, how astonishingly easy it is to make the story just a little more fair or pleasant or clear or just. Not only were there children of all races, they were all dressed as only princes and princesses would have been dressed at the time. I call this the 25% embellishment allowance. If you seriously consider this story-telling flaw, then extrapolate over a few centuries - think how many generations came and went before our ancient stories were written down, it’s frightening. What have we been believing? This is why so many seekers are searching for the most ancient of religions – we want to know what mankind thought before the deterioration of centuries. Sumer gives us that.

But it would be too bad if someone mistook “2001: A Space Odyssey” as a true history or as a religious teaching of our century. How can we tell Sumerian’s entertainment literature from actual beliefs? We can’t.

The fact that Sumerians “invented” writing is also to their blame – for what is oral changes with the times, but what is written can last for centuries without change. I guess that’s both a good thing AND a bad thing.

When archaeologists uncovered evidence of a kind of combination soccer/basketball court in South America, what made them decide it was a religious pastime? We’re never told. The ball going through the hoop describes the same arc as the sun in the sky? Oh, please! Can’t they have enjoyed sports? Sure, there are some murals that depict one team killing the other, but don’t we basically say the same? We’re going to murder the other team? And the Aztec bent for executions (sometimes several thousand in a single DAY) is believed to be a way of sending prayers to the gods. I haven’t seen the evidence of that (and I don’t believe we’ve deciphered their writing as yet). Is it just an archaeologists’ imagining? Of all the sciences out there, archaeological anthropology is probably the one we’d be most likely to understand, but we’re not shown the evidence, just fed the party line.

In the study of history, listen! The most difficult lesson to learn is that people of the past were NOT stupid! They were just like us. I’ve heard people laughing about some of Walt Disney’s creations, saying if a future archaeologist found them, they might think we worshipped mice. What part of that is funny? It’s probably what we’re doing now!

SCIENCE II

EVOLUTION VS DESIGN

The reason this subject is even open for discussion is not only because we can’t understand a thing a physicist or professor of math says, but also because humans our very selves are so unlikely. The evolutionists would have it that we, well, EVOLVED here. But if that were the case, wouldn’t we be some of the baddest mothers on the planet? Instead of being so frail we must cover our skin in sunlight, our feet most anywhere, have no natural weapons AT ALL – even our fingernails are worthless as weapons – they break off before they can hurt anyone but ourselves. Our teeth aren’t good weapons, we have no ability to camouflage ourselves, we can’t even outrun a deer, we’re not strong for our size (we should be at least as strong as a chimp, wouldn’t you think? But we’re not…). We can’t be left out in the rain, out in the sun, or out in the cold. If we’re from here, how is it we need vitamin and mineral supplements to survive? A creature living on the savannah, for example, won’t get much vitamin C. Yet doctors and nutritionists insist we must get more than an orange’s worth per day. What?

We are the only primate whose males haven’t a penile bone. Even though primates are shaped a lot like us, they do not have sex face-to-face as we do – nor do most other earth creatures. Earlobes are another mystery – only humans have them. No genetic advantage, they just hang there. They don’t even improve our hearing. One of the serious questions evolutionists have to face are skulls through the ages. The problem is, when you get to homo sapiens sapiens (us), the skulls (which have gradually been getting larger through the millennia) are suddenly smaller, thinner, more frail, and =thwup= have suddenly invented foreheads.

We can’t see in the dark, in the infrared, can’t hear or smell as well as a dog or hear as well as a cat. We’re puny little helpless things for several years after birth – a fact that didn’t improve our chances of survival in caveman days, unlike a cow or a camel, ready to run alongside its mother within an hour. In fact, it’s hard to think of any human survival advantage. You may name speech, and say we can therefore hand down knowledge and work together in teams – but what about before language developed among us? The ability to speak doesn’t impress a lion in the least (or any cat, for that matter).

We have no defensive weapons – nor do we have any defensive tricks. We can’t spray ink, stink or quills. It’s so easy to knock us down that we don’t even need second-party intervention; we trip over our own feet. And why don’t our females have a breeding “season?” Other animals do, because any young born in winter have a lesser chance of survival – and that was true of early humans, too. It’s not as if this has been going on only since fur coats and central heating.

Only our pluck and our willingness to work together does anything for our survival whatever. I’ve seen a cat chase away a dog ten times it’s weight and twice as vicious; that’s pluck. So it’s a Star Trek world, after all. And what’s this thing we have with art and music? How is that a survival trait? Did it get the chicks? Because if so, both Beethoven and Hendrix missed that boat. Along with Van Goh, Janis Joplin, Leonardo da Vinci, Antonio Vivaldi; it doesn’t seem that being in the entertainment industry makes one prone to more reproductive success. Nor, it seems, does science. Yet we simply burst with artists and scientists of every kind, and always have since the caves. And here’s another point – every other animal on the planet is born capable of making whatever shelter it needs, but mankind took quite a while to figure it out. How can we have evolved in a place where we’re the least likely to survive?

A very long time ago some wise men decided we must have been designed to live in a garden. Studying the ancient stories of Sumer, some history buffs believe some Nephilim (also called the Annunaki) came cruising by from the planet Nibiru and created humans as slaves. I don’t want to even discuss Scientology and its alien forebears. But if I were creating/designing a slave, I’d make him very strong – stronger than local primates, certainly, not to mention local predators! Of these two choices, the garden seems just a bit more likely. There is some evidence (albeit slight) that aliens have been (and/or are now) here. But whether we were created by a god or aliens, it would be unconscionably cruel to create a being for gardens and then toss it out into jungles, savannahs and ice floes, where Neanderthals had already claimed the territory (and yes, they were stronger than we were, and every bit as smart, plus anthropologists now believe they also had the gift of speech). The only reason I can think of which isn’t cruel is that these garden-dwellers got lost or escaped by themselves (and found they had to wear clothing in this new, crueler environment). That might just pass as an original “sin” from which all suffering flows.

I don’t believe there is an omni-present God, nor do I believe in alien intervention (though it’s an interesting possibility), nor do I quite buy evolution. I believe it’s a very difficult subject that has yet to be proven to a satisfactory degree. There have to be more than those three alternatives, don’t there?

SCIENCE

I know I spend a lot more time on religion than I do on science – that’s because I’d need a few decades-worth of college just to understand the questions in science! Whereas religion, alas, gives one all the ammo one could wish. I do believe in the scientific method, and I applaud the brave souls not only trying to figure out what’s what, but staking their reputations and livelihoods all too often on the answers.

Just, lest we rely on scientific reasoning too much, let’s remember that all the laws of physics, biology, all the ologies, really, life, the universe and everything, all apply to only 4% of the universe. Either that, or we have no idea what gravity is (with apologies to Sir Isaac Newton). And the really sad thing is, it’s true – we really know not much more about gravity than Einstein dared imagine. Even though I’m not a bizzillionaire, I’d like to lobby for getting this issue looked into! Let’s also keep in mind that science doesn’t have answers to such questions as “What is reality?” and whether everything we know of is made of vibrating strings, branes, or bits of pure information, or even, as the New-Agers would have it, of thought itself.

And pseudo-science is NOT the answer. Just because real scientists dumb down the message almost enough for people like me to nearly understand it, that doesn’t mean that’s all there is to it. The idea that our “intentions” affect reality is based on some creative thinking. Are you familiar with the question of whether light is a wave or a particle? (Yes, we don’t know what light is, either...) In that experiment, whether or not the experiment was being observed seemed to affect the outcome. Now, if the light doesn’t know whether you’ll be watching or not, it couldn’t do that, and the way I understand it, our INTENTION to observe must therefore be affecting the outcome, because it works even if we tape it and observe it LATER. If that’s not correct, I beg you, explain it to me! But this is very different than saying that anything you can conceive of can be yours (for a progressively larger fee, naturally).

That brings up science’s biggest problem today; how can scientists, who concentrate for an entire career on particles too small for us to see even with the greatest super-microscope, explain to ordinary people what they’re doing and why it matters? If they end with the sentiment that a new technology has been borne out of these experiments, that we get. We LOVE our cell-phones, our tweets and twits and magic boxes of music. Anything that makes more gadgets, we like. But how will we ever know anything if we can’t even figure out gravity? It’s not like it’s a new thing. Or light? Wasn’t that one of the first things ever to exist, in EVERYONE’S creed?

The real question is, if it weren’t for the possibility it could supply us with ever brighter toys, would sciences like quantum physics even be called science? Because science, as I understand it, is supposed to EXPLAIN things, not make them more mysterious. According to Dictionary.com, science is: “Systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.” The operative word being KNOWLEDGE, not imagination or mathematical proof.

Of course we need specialists, and I can certainly see supporting agricultural and pharmaceutical or medical sciences, whether we can understand them or not. But the truth is, in spite of our great technological strides, we don’t know what the basic components of our world are, and some of us care.

JEWS IN CAPTIVITY

It’s simply incomprehensible to me that people still believe tens of thousands of Jews were slaves in Egypt, even though Egyptian’s (who were masters of record-keeping) kind of forgot to mention that. They also forgot to mention the ten plagues, the escape of the Jews, and the death of the pharaoh’s entire charioteer corps. Archaeologists have been combing the desert for generations and have yet to come across the slightest evidence that a large group camped there for forty years.

Science has tried to provide an explanation; that there was a massive volcanic eruption which would account for all ten of the plagues AND the pillar of smoke by day and fire by night. There would also have been white flakes falling from the sky, but I hope the fleeing Jews didn’t actually eat the volcanic ash and call it mana (perhaps that would fall under the 25% embellishment rate). Science even accounts for the death of the first-born, as the eldest son was usually given night duty over the livestock, who were ill and dying. This doesn’t quite explain the death of pharaoh’s son, as I believe he had people to do that.

But another bizarrely missing piece of the puzzle in the Bible is the name of this pharaoh. Certainly they all knew his name, especially Moses who was supposedly brought up in his household. Yet it’s never once mentioned. It’s a small detail, but telling. Other things that seem strange; that God sends Moses to demand the release of the Jews, but God hardens pharaoh’s heart against Moses. Why would he do that? Another small but extremely annoying detail.

As for the parting of the Red Sea (or the Reed Sea, or the swamp), again Science offers the possibility of a tidal wave, where the water first withdraws (seemingly completely) then rushes back with incredible force. However, there’s never been a tidal wave which would allow forty thousand people and a corps of charioteers to cross the seabed (or swamp) before rushing back and drowning them. Even four hundred people is extremely unlikely. Four people might make it.

Of all of these events, we can say, “Ah, it was miraculous; God at his showiest,” or we can accept the simplest explanation; that the whole episode was caused by nature. Add to that the fact that there weren’t enough Jews in Egypt to even warrant a mention, and apparently the ten plagues weren’t worth mentioning, either, and Pharaoh didn’t have a name, no one camped in that desert, and for all it’s great holiness apparently even the Jews can’t remember which mountain Sinai is, and I think logic must guide us to dismiss this entire story.

For these reasons, I believe in the Holocaust, but I don’t believe in the Exodus. I’m interested in hearing your opinion!

DOES GOD KNOW THE FUTURE?

In the book of Job, God makes a bet with Satan that Job will remain faithful to God, even if all the good things in his life are taken away. Now, if God knows the future, wasn’t he cheating? Or did he not know the outcome for certain?

If God knows the future, why didn’t he build a fence around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Why didn’t he warn Abel? He warned Noah of the flood and Abraham of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Jews in slavery how to escape the Angel of Death, but these disasters God would have known about in advance because he was the one who supposedly caused them.

But note: “If a thing he said does not come to pass, he is a false prophet.” (Deut 18:22). God said David’s kingdom would last forever, and it didn’t. Jesus said the second coming would happen before his generation passed away, and as far as we know it didn’t. So aren’t both false prophets?

Unlike Abraham, Jephathat did have to sacrifice his child because of a promise he made to God. No angel stopped him, no ram appeared in the brush. And if God knew the outcome, why didn’t he warn Jephathat that he would have to sacrifice his daughter? And why wasn’t Lot told that he could rescue his daughters but would lose his wife? And why would he free his people from slavery only to have them wander, homeless, for forty years?

Presbyterians believe that Man has free will and choice, but that it’s all planned out, even which choice you will make. That’s always confused me, frankly. And it gives God a power of knowing the future that I don’t think stands up to the church’s own logic.

If God knows the future, isn’t the whole exercise of our existence futile? I propose that God does not seem to dwell outside of time, therefore being able to see past and future equally. His behavior seems as utterly linear as our own. And if that’s the case, then the Apocalypse won’t be the result of Satan trying to take over the world, but rather, God knows in advance only because he is the one who will cause it.

Whether or not God knows the future is important, because if he exists as linearly as we, then all these supposed “prophecies” (though they’re not made by actual prophets) and visions of an impending apocalypse are false. It’s also important because our prayers for our future have unforeseeable outcomes – unforeseeable even by God. Show me in the Bible where it says, “God, knowing the future, left the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil unguarded, even though it would cause guilt and suffering of a million generations of man.” If God knows the future, he’s a mean (and cheating) old man.

And lastly, but not leastly, if God knew the future back when there were real prophets, why no warning to rotate crops, maintain wild areas, stay away from fossil fuels, and otherwise protect the environment, when lack of that information in advance has caused many civilizations to fall, and may ultimately result in the failure of the entire human race? Strange thing not to mention, isn’t it?