TreesNightly

When someone says "It's against my religion," I hear "It's against my superstition." The Catholic Church is completely infallible to those who own bibles and not history books. Most women would never spend money at a business with the hiring policies of the Church, yet they often give when the basket comes around. I don't get it. When met with an apologetic claim, I ask " why do you think that? " More often than not, it is because they were told to. The more debates I have with Christians, the more sure I am that they are wrong. I always think that I couldn't be more sure. "Moral perfection" doesn't equal mass killings in my book, just in the holy book. Apologists have a lot of certain knowledge about God's nature, power & motivation until a hard question is asked. Then its all mysterious. I like to think the Arthur Fonzarelli was an aaaaaatheist . Jesus preaching the Golden Rule is his validation of subjective moralit...

If I?could know that the Christian God exists, would I?worship him? Let�s explore the angles. Why I should not worship Jehovah: Regardless of apologetic talking points, the God of the Bible is imperfect. He makes mistakes and he contradicts himself. Between creating a talking serpent that thwarts his own plan and feeling the need to sacrifice himself (or his son, depending on who you ask) to change his own rules of eternity, God has done little to inspire worship. I would also have to excuse divine choices that I fundamentally disagree with--like allowing anyone to suffer infinitely for finite sins. I imagine some of those suffering I even knew in life. Complying with God�s wishes and humbling myself to him would be like a German with freshly dead Jewish friends admitting allegiance to Hitler. Why I should worship Jehovah: While their commitment to extreme punishment for those they consider distasteful is on par, God and Hitler have some major differences. God forgives and shows merc...

Usually rap has a lot of "praise the Lord" talk mixed in with lyrics promoting questionable morals. I was pleasantly surprised to hear a song with a more skeptical take from Jay-Z. Listen to Jay=Z talk a little about the sony in this promo for his new album, which I happen to like a lot.  

My latest disagreement spawned from a Two Catholic Men and a Blog post on the so-called "availability" of God and/or the Holy Spirit. I pointed out that the knowledge of the God's word is not universally available, rather it is asymmetrically available. Some people are born into areas where Catholicism hasn't spread or at least isn't mainstream, some people die before hearing about Jesus, and others are so indoctrinated into competing religions that a near insurmountable boundary is present. Basically, if the Catholic God exists, it is unfair for his word to come so easily to some and not at all to others. Further more, this God is unjust to judge symmetrically given the circumstance he put in place. Joe, one of the two guys, disagreed. Here are excerpts of the exchange: Joe: We must do our part and God will provide the rest. We who are indwelt are called to bring God's love to the whole world. It is OUR fault if some do not hear of God when they are accessi...

Consider the following boycott scenarios. I boycott my local Catholic church for covering up priest pedophiles. I didn�t previously go to church nor did I contribute to their collections. It doesn�t hurt me, but neither does it hurt the church. I boycott Chick-Fil-A for their CEO�s stance on gays and for their contributions to like-minded organizations. I really like Chick-Fil-A and spent money at their restaurants on a weekly basis. It hurts the company in losing one of their regular customers, but it also hurts me in that I am losing a favorite lunch spot. The first boycott is not effective while the second is effective because an effective boycott must hurt both the boycotter and the boycottee. From the point of view of the boycotter, the choice to punish a brand for a distasteful policy is a desirable statement that outweighs the undesirable personal consequence. However, when a potential boycott is the hardest to make, and necessarily the most effective, the potential boy...

A woman in front of me at the check out counter makes small talk with the cashier. I find her voice beautiful. For someone who is tone deaf in regards to his own singing, I have wildly specific preferences when it comes to sound. Her sound I could listen to everyday. She walks away, never to be heard from again. After attending Easter service with my religious family, I overhear a teen leaving the church who asks his parents why there is evil in the world if God is good. The kid�s dad offers a �mysterious ways� response and moves on. What do these two scenarios have in common? In both I wanted to engage someone who it was socially awkward to engage. In the case of the woman, my interrupting her exit with the simple compliment �you have a beautiful voice,� could make me a creep if she�s immediately uninterested in me, a potential mate if she is interested, and so far out of the ordinary that it�s bound to be weird regardless. To be clear, while I obviously don�t want to be a creep, neit...

This week�s meme got my thinking about Han Solo one-liners. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.  Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.  I've got a bad feeling about this. His quotes apply wonderfully to our world but I can�t quite embrace him as a skeptical role model because, in the Star Wars universe, his is dead wrong. The �hokey religion� in question, the Force, is true. Han had the right idea to doubt the Force because Jedi were inactive during his formative years making the extraordinary claims of the Force a matter of faith. He, rightly, came around when he witnessed his new friends levitating shit. Theists seem to think atheists are c...

Here�s a question for theists: Is God�s power fundamentally beyond understanding? Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark wrote �any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.� To a cave man, an iPad would appear magical. To us, an alien hologram would appear magical. Neither are magic, but both are so beyond the understanding of the viewer that any realistic explanation is out of reach. According to many theists God�s miracles are also not magic, but not because they are within our understanding. Rather it�s because they define magic as either illusions or fiction. I can�t disagree. Magic is either illusions or fiction, so I will continue to call God�s work magic until I have good reason to believe otherwise. For the sake of this inquiry, lets say there is a God and that he can and occasionally does perform acts beyond our understanding. The key word here is our understanding. We know enough to land crap on Mars and clone donkeys, which is awesome, but we don�t...