This video mongers fear by insisting that if Christians don’t start having more babies and converting Muslims, Islam is going to take over the world:
Historically, both Christianity and Islam have been pretty cruel and evil when they control nations. I’d rather have neither.
Here’s what would happen if NASA embraced the intelligent design theory:
NASA, the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration, announced today the launch of the first-ever faith-based space program. The project, working-titled “In God We Thrust”, will develop and launch a range of orbital, lunar, and interplanetary space vehicles using entirely faith-based methods of engineering, aeronautics, electronics and astrophysics.
The launch of the first NASA mission developed under the In God We Thrust program, a geostationary sublime reflector, is scheduled for early 2013.
“We have a lot of faith in the new procedures,” said Dr. Helmer Mountebank, NASA’s public relations officer, “and, God willing, the mission will be an stellar success.”
NASA engineers will be basing their rocket and capsule design and space flight calculations on a Christian view of the shape, size and age of the universe as detailed in the Bible, the primary reference work for faith-based scientific initiatives.
If humans were content with faith, we would have never made it to the moon — hell, we wouldn’t have built skyscrapers, because biblegod doesn’t like them.
Thankfully, many of us are not content with mere faith!
There are few, if any, Christian churches or organizations I would give money to these days — I’ve been involved in a number of them, and I saw how the money gets spent. It’s amazing how much money people make and spend doing “the good Lord’s work.”
And then there’s fraud. For example, a pastor and his three sons are facing charges for preying on church members:
Former pastor Vaughn Reeves and his sons, Chip, Chris and Josh face 10 separate felony counts.
The Reeves operated Alanar, Inc. an investment company in Sullivan, Ind. The four allegedly ran a multi-million dollar, faith-based affinity fraud for at least five years that duped thousands of investors into buying bonds that raised at least $120 million.
The Reeves allegedly stole $6 million for themselves in the process.
When I was a Christian, I wanted to only do business with other Christians, because I knew they were “trustworthy.” Looking back, it’s hard to believe I thought that, even after seeing that Christians could be just as untrustworthy as non-Christians. Oh that’s right, I just labeled them as “non-Christians” when I found out they weren’t trustworthy. Sigh.
Unfortunately, I think many evangelical Christians end up being targets for manipulation. Many are very suggestible — that is, after all, how they got into their religion (if they were converts).
The problem is compounded by the teaching that they should be giving at least 10% of their income to their church and other Christian organizations. Some teach the more you give, the more you receive and will be blessed by God.
The solution, of course, is basic critical thinking. But you won’t find a class on that at most churches — if they teach that, they’ll lose members, because some will figure out how to apply it to their own faith.
So I guess they’ll just keep them as helpless sheep, blindly following their “God-appointed” shepherd.
Preacher man said:
And all of a sudden the table lifted off the ground. Well I say, la de da da da, Satan can lift a table off the ground.
Isn’t it interesting he just accepts the story and says Satan did it? He doesn’t even consider that tables don’t randomly lift off the ground without natural causes. I think you could convince this man of anything — except that he could be wrong about his superstitions.
How do I know Jesus is God? Have you ever seen someone working on a fence and hit their hand on a hammer and say, “Aaahh, Buddah!”…. [No,] they say, “Jesus Christ! Jesus!” Why do they call that name? You know why? Because… they want to blame God, and they call his name Jesus Christ.
That’s his reason for knowing Jesus is God? He must not know anything about swearing. The only reason we use “Jesus Christ” is because our culture holds it as something sacred. When we use it as a curse word, it invokes negative emotion, thus accomplishing the purpose of swearing. Notice that people in don’t say “Jesus!” from non-Western cultures — they have their own sacred swear words.
Or perhaps he believes their sacred swear words are God, too?
(via)
A reader sent in their story and a question for the community:
I’m a senior in college, and I’ve experienced radical changes in my faith over the last few years, starting in my later years in high school. Here’s an abridged version of my story so far. Maybe you could give me some advice after you read it.
I basically come from a heavily evangelical background in “God’s country” in the Bible Belt. I actively attended church since my parents decided that our family should go back when I was about 7 years old. I was every parent’s dream (at least in my community) — church going, top of the class, and an athlete. I’m very fortunate to have had so many things go in my favor over my short life.
My thirst for knowledge led me to study the Bible in depth. Like many evangelicals, I was convinced that the “truth” was found in the Bible. I wanted to become a “serious” Christian. By the age of 17, I had convinced myself that I was a Calvinist, and I wanted everyone to know. I still had tons of questions, and I was convinced that I could figure them out myself. I had pastors and mentors, but I wanted to find out what “true” Christianity was, not what someone else told me.
I was good at science, really good actually. Somehow I managed to fuse evolution and my faith together. I never believed in young Earth — I found it hilarious that some would. Little did I know that I was slowly becoming more and more liberal in my faith. I started to globalize myself more by reading philosophy and about current world events. I became politically active, and I strongly supporting social rights. Unforgettable political arguments with others led me down that path (don’t you love college?). From a political standpoint, I was fine with gay marriage, drug legalization, and prostitution. However, I knew that this was at odds with my faith. I had learned to separate the two.
I later took two religious courses over two semesters with the legendary Bart Ehrman (New and Old Testament). Wow, did that class open my eyes. I was still actively involved in a campus ministry at the time, and we had weekly small group meetings where we would try to refute his claims in class. Our attempts were futile. His arguments were logical. They were based on facts. Before the class, I pretty much rested my faith in the inerrancy of the Bible. I had given up on trusting any other source. That belief was shattered over the course of that year.
I’m still a member of that campus organization. Most of my friends and family still think I’m a believer. I haven’t been to church in over a year.
My question to you is, how should I go about telling people about my skepticism? More than 90% of my close friends are believers, close to a quarter of them hardcore believers (going into ministry). I’m thinking of keeping my attendance with the organization until I graduate. What I fear the most is that I’ll miss the community that comes with being a Christian. I don’t think I want to join a atheist or agnostic community right now because my conception of them is that they ridicule faiths.
Christianity has been very close to me for a very large part of my life. I’m not angry. Honestly, I would have not changed anything so far. I’ve developed a sharp eye for things and a mind that questions everything. What are your thoughts?
What’s your advice?
Everyone wants to argue effectively, and Dave Barry wants to help. “I argue very well,” Barry says, “Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me.”
There are five golden rules to being a great debater:
1. Drink liquor.
….But if you drink several large martinis, you’ll discover you have STRONG VIEWS about the Peruvian economy. You’ll be a WEALTH of information. You’ll argue forcefully, offering searing insights and possibly upsetting furniture. People will be impressed. Some may leave the room.
2. Make things up.
DON’T say: “I think Peruvians are underpaid.” Say instead: “The average Peruvian’s salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level.”
3. Use meaningless but weighty-sounding words and phrases.You should memorize some Latin abbreviations such as “Q.E.D.”, “e.g.”, and “i.e.” These are all short for “I speak Latin, and you don’t.”….Suppose you want to say, “Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don’t have enough money.”
You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say, “Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Ergo, ipso facto, case closed. Q.E.D.”
4. Use snappy and irrelevant comebacks.
You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are: You’re begging the question; You’re being defensive; Don’t compare apples to oranges; What are your parameters?
5. Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler.
This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly. Say, “That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say,” or “You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler.”
It seems our creationist friends’ secret playbook is the advice of Dave Barry! Well, except for the first one, which is a shame, because it would make them even more amusing.
Jon Stewart recently had an interview with Sojourners, a “progressive” Christian organization. Here’s an excerpt about a part on religion:
Religion makes sense to me. I have trouble with dogma more than I have trouble with religion. I think the best thing religion does is give people a sense of place, purpose, and compassion. My quibble with it is when it’s described as the only way to have those things instilled.
You can be moral and not be religious, you can be compassionate, you can be empathetic—you can have all those wonderful qualities. When it begins to be judged as purely based on religion, then you’re suggesting a world where Star Jones goes to heaven but Gandhi doesn’t.
Like anything else that’s that powerful—that is touching that deep into the epicenter of the human psyche and our fears, it can be misused. I’m probably much more responsive in a bad way to dogma and to extremism than to religion.
When people say things like, “I found God and that helped me stop drinking,” I say, “Great! More power to you. Just know that some people stop drinking without it.” It’s when it gets into the realm of “This is the only way to salvation”—that’s when I think, “Okay, now we’re getting into a problem.”
I agree — when religion helps someone overcome a problem, I’m glad they found help. But it’s not the only way to fix problems.
And if religion helps someone be a better person, I’m glad they found help. But faith isn’t a requirement to be a good person — at least for some of us!
2,200 subscribers. 7,000 daily views.
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