You know there's a problem...

You know there's a problem when the better part of society respects ignorance over education.  The excuse is faith and it's sort of like the matrix.  The more you can disbelieve, the better you are.  To have faith in God, one must disregard science.  Science which we can observe is put down for faith and people consider this a good thing.

You know there's a problem when there's an organized and well-funded movement saying that science is a conspiracy.  It's by the devil or just scientists.  One way or the other science makes up these strange lies for the express purpose of REBELLING AGAINST GOD!  Can you believe it?  The nerve to knowingly falsify data. What's more is that all of the scientists in the world have to be in this.  Everyone knows that we look out into space and God is just standing there waving to us, but those damned scientists making up those pictures of stars and galaxies and shit.

You know there's a problem when an entire political movement is based on religion.  The conservatives and more to the point, tea party-ers.  The tea party is the most awful political movement since the popularly known Nazi regime.  One of the major things which separates the tea party from the Nazis is that at least the Nazis had balls.  The tea party is every bit as bigoted and hateful.  Come to think of it the tea party is even more aggressive religiously.  No, they don't have gas chambers (yet), but they're got network TV and they're not afraid to lie through their asses to publicly ostracize anyone who disagrees with them.  

You know there's a problem when people will vote for a candidate based entirely on their religious beliefs.  If I had a dollar (inflation, ya know?) for every time I've heard "...But at least he's a Christian." I'd be in the zone.  That explains for a lot of the conservative candidates.  Who would really vote for these people?  But at least they're Christian.  Honestly though, one must publicly claim to be Christian to be elected in the U.S.A.  In seven states, the state constitution prevents atheists from holding public office.  This is a repugnant practice.

The not a stamp collector

This whole video has many errors, but I'll only get into one of them for now, this one.  I'd suggest stopping at 3:37, it's the end of what I'm talking about.

So, theists will sometimes content that atheism is a religion.  There's an argument which goes like so "Atheism is a religion in the same way as not collecting stamps is a hobby.".  That's a fair enough point in my opinion, but MrMinistryMan disagrees.  Point by point here;

"This is a terrible analogy that does not fit our situation in any way."
It's not a terrible analogy.  Bear with me for this, a theist believes in a god whereas an atheist does not believe in a god.  He makes the assumption here that an atheist believes there is no god.  The distinction is subtle, but present.  Think of it like this: you've got no evidence that there's a piece of paper in front of me, thus you may withhold belief.  You would be irrational though to believe that there certainly is no paper in front of me.  Now substitute "God" for paper.'

"The person who is merely not collecting stamps has no stance on this matter of stamps."
That is not necessarily true.  I personally don't collect stamps and I find collecting stamps to be a dumb thing to do.  I consider it a waste of time unless the stamp has monetary or historical value.  But in that case it's not just stamp collecting.  In a like fashion, I don't believe in God.  I think belief in God is irrational.  I think it's a waste of time.  It is possible to not partake in something and yet have an opinion of it.

"The only way this analogy could really fit is if they started saying "STAMPS DON'T EXIST"."
That's just plain ridiculous.  We've got evidence of stamps, we've all seen stamps.  Hell, most of us use stamps on a fairly regular basis.  Stamps are easy to observe and we've got plenty of evidence for their existence.  I then submit that you're off your rocker, with all due respect of course.

God's ultimate "Fuck you!"

So Christians claim that people have free will.  Any dispute?  Anyway, God is allowed to intervene whenever he sees fit.  We're supposed to praise him for that.  But when he doesn't intervene?  When he allows something evil or painful to happen, "Oh, God can't do that, it would interfere with free will.".  But he can help Tebow win football games according to 43% of people polled.  So free will can be used when it's convenient, and discarded when it's not.

God is also supposed to have a plan, he know all that's happened, will happen and is happening and he has a freaking plan.  Now imagine you setup people as chess pieces and they weren't allowed to talk or look around, only move how they thought advantageous.  Now imagine that you're playing the chess game.  How would you be able to hold a plan with your pieces moving in such discord?  The other issue here is, if God knows the future...  How then is it possible for it to not be predestined?  That's like me saying, in five minutes you're going to go outside and be hit by a car, but you've got free will and don't have to, but you will.  How is that different from predestination?

So free will aside, in fact taking free will into account.  God created us to be curious, and put a magic tree of death in the middle of the so-called perfect habitat for humans.  That's equivalent to putting a mouse trap loaded with peanut butted in a pet mouse's tank and expecting them not to go for it.  Then, to spike curiosity, God tells us not to eat from or even touch the tree.  So what's running through any humans mind?  "I wonder if...".  So then a talking snake appears (Maybe they'd been sampling some of the herbs in the garden.) and tricks them into eating the fruit.  God shows up pissed and curses the entire race which he loves so damn much.  So now we all have to endure sin because God in his all-knowing love screwed us over.

I erred in the above paragraph.  I said that God cursed an entire race, but he cursed an entire planet to death.  God must really like those apples.  God cursed the serpent by making it slither (as opposed to?) and "eat dust".  God set the snake against people and vice-versa.  God made childbearing painful and dangerous for no apparent reason but to be a dick.  We have to work for food now, which considering the alternatives, really isn't that bad.  But this is quite a malevolent move from a supposedly omnipotent benevolent being.

Then God has the nerve to say repeatedly that he's just.  Do any of these actions seem just?  Would a court pass this punishment?  On to Leviticus, where almost everything is punishable by death, is that just?  How about wiping entire cities off the map in various ways (not that we don't do that, but this is a loving god...)?

I then have to submit that the "God" of the Bible is probably the devil.  I mean, think about it.  God wipes out cities, dooms entire planets to death, wipes out cities, dictates the stoning of children for disrespect, the list goes on...  Does that sound like a loving god?  Does that sound like a devil?

"I realized today that I am God, I prayed and realized that I was talking to myself."

Shining intellect of YouTube 0

Person 1:
I hope you guys know WHAT JESUS DID TO SAVE OUR LIVES with that cross. Read the bible and check it out.

Thanks, that's all.

(And I dare ANYONE to cuss or insult me on this post.)

Person 2:

Shut up, cunt.

Person 3:

Typical Atheist response.

Person 2:

Atheist responses are in general very intelligent and has a good point, so I take your comment as a compliment. Thank you! :)

Person 2:

Not even close. Most atheist only demonstrate their ignorance of science, and then when shown the truth resort to name calling. The name calling part is what I was referring to as typical. Your inability to comprehend the obvious is also typical of atheist.

Me:

Yet you argue that by generalizing an entire group. While his name-calling wasn't needed, it was meant to be a joke, a defiance of the original comment. I don't know where you come across the "ignorance of science" part. By "comprehend the obvious", I assume you're talking theologically. If God were that obvious, there wouldn't be such a strong scientific refutation of his existence. If you have faith, that's your right. But don't try to say that God is an evident truth.

Person 2:

Science hasn't been able to refute shit. You would know this if you weren't so ignorant of science. Most scientist realize it's impossible to disprove the existence of a God. Show me the theory that dis-proves the existence of God. You can't. So like I said most atheist are ignorant of real science. They just like to use it as an excuse to not believe. Some things just can't be proven or dis-proven using science, like the conscious or subconscious for instance.

Me:

Maybe refute was a poor choice of wording. It's impossible to disprove God, in the same fashion it's impossible to disprove the ethereal pink dog sitting next to me. Our scientific knowledge puts God at about the same probability as garden fairies. An excuse not to believe? Sure, call it what you will. If seeing the moon is an excuse to believe it exists, your definition/hypothesis is sound. Many scientists are atheists, does that make them ignorant of science? Not really.

Person 2:

Your right, many scientist are atheist, but the majority of atheist aren't scientist, and the majority of atheist aren't even intelligent enough to comprehend these scientific theories anyways. Meaning their knowledge and acceptance of science is based on faith. A faith that puts many religious peoples faith to shame. So while you put your faith in that which you don't fully understand, I'll put my faith in the prophecies that predicted this current situation.

Me:

I contest and am slightly offended by your insistence that atheists as a group have no clue what they're talking about.

Science, by definition is evidence-based, not faith-based. Faith is belief in something without evidence.

Science does put many religions to shame, but that's a point in my favor.

The whole point of science is that we do understand it. You make no sense in this argument.

What current situation? Most of the come-to-pass prophecies in the Bible seem self-fulfilling.

Person 2:

Yes science is evidence based. But the point is that most atheist that I have come across rarely understand the theories in their entirety, and never will since a humans ability to know the entirety of all knowledge is limited. Look I accept most scientific theories, but I'm not about to pretend I fully comprehend all of them, and you are a liar if you claim that you do. You Know/understand Quantum physics? Microbiology? Do you know/understand every Mathematics proof? No? Then how do you know?

I'd tell you what Biblical evidence I have that would suggest that modern knowledge is predicted in the Bible and what we would do with this knowledge, but it would be wasted on you. It would be like explaining physics to somebody that hasn't even learned to add and subtract. Maybe read Revelations and think about what I said if you wish to see.

Me:

I don't need to know every conceivable fact to form an educated decision. Don't act like you perfectly know all of the ins-and-outs of theology.

I don't know, but the nonexistence of god is so very much more likely than god.

To your other comment.

That sir, is a cop-out. I've read Revelations and it's so metaphorical and hazed that pulling a prophecy out of them [it] and calling it truth is disingenuous. Considering things like tsunamis and earthquakes signs of the end times is ridiculous.

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That's where the discussion ends.  These are the kinds of intellects we're dealing with.

Internet discussions

I think I may start posting conversations with people I have online.  I'll obscure their name for the sake of respect.  I'll also comment more on what I was trying to say.  Could start as soon as this evening.

What a weasel, Rick Santorum cleans up the anti-Romney content on his site.  He's not yet officially endorsing Romney, but he's backed down from opposing him so strongly.  What is there really to say?

Religion quiz

After watching this video, I took this quiz.  I scored 12 out of 15, which is better than 87% and worse than 7% of the American population who participated in a previous quiz.  I'd encourage anyone to go take the quiz, your results don't affect the results on the page.