Food for Thought

Less likely

2008-09-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

I found a fascinating article in The Telegraph, a newspaper from the UK. I am sure I will offend the scant few christians that still read this blog (if any do), but if you dispute the point of the article, feel free to show us otherwise. I have given christians several opportunities to answer some of the nagging inconsistencies of the bible. After a brave start, all have nervously shuffled off (not the mortal coil, I hope). It is like what happens when I meet a christian I knew from church days and they ask THE QUESTION, "So, where are you going to church these days?" I savor the moment briefly and then simply say "I am not." The pattern is always the same. Polite conversation is made for a few minutes and I then I never hear from them again. So enjoy this article and (if you are still a christian) please, don't be offended. Prove the article wrong instead. The questions are still there.

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor, The Telegraph

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists than the national average.

A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.

But the conclusions - in a paper for the academic journal Intelligence - have been branded "simplistic" by critics.

Professor Lynn, who has provoked controversy in the past with research linking intelligence to race and sex, said university academics were less likely to believe in God than almost anyone else.

A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers.

A separate poll in the 90s found only seven per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.

The article continues on. Here is a link to the article in The Telegraph.

Some more questions - not mine this time

2008-09-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

I found this youtube video recently and I think it is fantastic. For people who are intelligent and able to reason, this video asks challenging questions and provides answers that will make sense. For the rest of you, I recommend America's Funniest Home Videos. There are a few parallels to my post asking christians to answer questions, but enough differences to make it worthwhile to watch.

I will probably start to change the format of this blog as I had hoped for a dialogue with christians and others. I have come to realize that despite frequently hearing christians claim that they want to discuss the logical discrepancies of their faith, absolutely none of them are actually prepared to do so. Presented with the questions and issues that I raise, the christians I know make a brave face of it and slink away once they realize their answers are only pathetic rationalizations that don't even live up to the claims their faith makes. This video exposes the rationalizations that keep the christian faith going.

I frequently hear criticism of atheists like Richard Dawkins, but my friends who criticize him have not read his books. They make broad statements about him without having done their homework. I often ask them to tell me which book their broad sweeping statement comes from. I have never yet had a christian friend quote the book. Those who I openly challenge to read books by Dawkins, Hitchens or others tell me enthusiastically that they will. But I don't hear from them again. They slink away unable to answer the questions raised. I can only conclude that my christian friends are afraid to read Dawkins and other atheists or that they started and given up for various reasons.

It has also been suggested that I have offended the christians I know and that's why they are not still commenting on the blog. That is entirely possible. I would add some have offended me by their ignorant, misinformed suggestions that I am angry or anti-christian. I am neither of these. I am anti-indoctrination, anti-closeminded, anti-rationalization, anti-stupidity, anti-blindfollowing and more. I am also against having imaginary friends (in adulthood). But I am not bitter in any way. In fact, I am very thankful for my time in the church as I have been INOCULATED against belief in talking snakes and imaginary friends.

I doubt very much that there are many christians left reading this. But if you are, I hope your mind is open enough to consider what this video has to say.

Fantastic - Church Sign Generator!

2008-09-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon the Church Sign Generator while surfing with Digg.com. It is pure genius and I intend to have a little fun with it. Here are a couple of 'church signs' I made. Enjoy. Try it out yourself and email them to me (glenn_k@shaw.ca). Oh and try and inject some blasphemy into the exercise. It's much more fun that way.

Here's another one I made:

The Ten Commandments

2008-09-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

My one faithful reader, thomas, challenged me to unpack why I think very little of the ten commandments. He specifically took me to task with my statement, "If any leader today were to write such a document as the ten rules for life, it would be judged to be woefully inadequate." He suggested that if Canada's Prime Minister, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named* (Harper), were to have written these ten commandments, the world be a better place (*my emphasis here, not thomas').

Let's analyze the ten commandments keeping in mind that the christian church teaches that god is omniscient or ALL KNOWING.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Think about this. A little self-centered, n'est-ce pas? How about the fact that Judaism is one of the world's "great MONOTHEISTIC religions?" Supposedly there are no other gods, but god, the one and only, makes it his first duty to make himself the priority. OK, he's god, let's cut him a little slack, here.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. What about lawn ornaments? Do they count? Smurfs? Seriously, does god not have anything better to do? There is almost no point in even discussing this one. For an ALL KNOWING kind of guy, he seems to have wasted a commandment here.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. The needle of the Dictator-O-Meter just started to spin wildly. It reminds me of North Koreans referring to Kim Jong II as 'Dear Leader.' Think of all the injustice in the world - war, poverty, rape, sickness, child labour, torture and slavery, to mention a few. But god is more concerned that somebody is going to make fun of him. So far he hasn't even addressed the needs of humans.

Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. On the Importance-Seismometer, this one doesn't ever move the needle. By way of analogy I would like to ask, "Does a seismometer register the shock waves of a fruit fly landing on the earth?" No and neither does the Importance-Seismometer register the importance of this request. When pastors preach on Sunday, are they not working? When christians all go out to lunch together, are they not creating work for others?

Honour thy father and mother. OK, not a bad one. God has a little practice under his belt and is starting to make a bit of sense. But from the perspective of an ALL KNOWING god, it's not exactly revolutionary.

Thou shalt not kill. Have any of you christians actually READ the Old Testament? God does not seem to have any problem with it. Neither do the vast majority of christians throughout history. God smites people right, left and centre. God turns them into pillars of salt and floods the whole earth to commit mass genocide when people aren't following his ways. WHAT IS THIS IF IT IS NOT KILLING? But if god had lived a life like Ghandi, it would be a great commandment. In the immortal words of the late George Carlin, "More people have been killed in the name of god than for any other reason."

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Here is how 'adultery' is defined in the book of Matthew (5:28), “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

Anyone not in a permanent catatonic state is probably aware that this commandment as defined in the book of Matthew is physically impossible. Therefore god has chosen to write a commandment that will lead to a life of guilt and sin, because no one could possibly fight against their nature so completely. God may as well have written "Thou shalt not look at the sky", "Thou shalt not breathe air" or "Thou shalt not touch the ground."

Thou shalt not steal. God is definitely making progress here. There isn't too much wrong with this one, but of course, god's people don't always follow the rules either. After the plague of the firstborn, the Israelites absolutely pillage the Egyptians. Now one could argue that they had been working as slaves and thus hadn't been paid fairly for their work. But of course, slavery didn't seem to bother god when it was other races. But I digress. And yes, I know that the plagues came before the commandments. I am just pointing out the lack of consistency.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbour. OK, I'll admit, this one's not a bad idea. Not exactly new or revolutionary, but a good commandment as they go.

Thou shalt not covet. Once again, god has written a commandment that is quite literally IMPOSSIBLE to follow. I don't believe even one person in the history of the world could make a credible claim to have fulfilled this commandment. Even Bill Gates has to have wanted to get an iPod at some point in time. For an ALL KNOWING god, he sure likes to make it impossible for his followers to do what he wants. But of course, guilt is the ideal way to control people.

Let's say I am the new grade one teacher at a school. I start off by putting a chocolate cupcake with icing and sparkles on each child's desk and then tell them they are not allowed to look at it, they are not allowed to think about it, they are definitely not allowed to eat it. You would think I am nucking futs and if I went so far as to severely punish children who broke these impossible rules, the school district would probably have me fired or suspended at the very least. But for some reason, god can make such messed up rules and we just have to accept them. Let's not even get into the whole idea of eternal punishment in hell (a major doctrine of the vast majority of the world's churches).

On a completely different level, there is also quite a credible argument in favour of the idea that the ten commandments are lifted from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a document that most likely predates the Old Testament.

Now looking at this from the perspective of internal consistency, even the New Testament does not agree with the Old Testament. In the New Testament, when christ mentions the commandments, he only lists five!

Luke 18:20 - "Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother."

Why only five, jesus? Weren't you paying attention in Sunday school?

So to end off this major post, I bring you the late George Carlin's take on the ten commandments. He whittles 'em down to two and adds one at the end. It's George Carlin - it's not family entertainment, so the video is not totally safe for work. (NSFW) But it's well worth watching!

And to finally come back to the question about Stephen Harper, I think it would be the instant end to his political career if he came up with such a list of rules for life in the 21st century.

Revised Scorecard!

2008-08-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long delayed post. I was studying French in July and working constantly. I had a full time job in August and two part time jobs so not much energy was left over for blogging.

This post is a scorecard to see how well the christians did at answering my questions*. It is worth noting that using Facebook and email, I contacted between 70 and 80 christians (other people too) to be sure that some christians would try to answer these questions. Many of these believers are people who have told me that they want to sit down with me to discuss these issues. Perhaps they do, but they were rather silent when given a chance to discuss the issues in the blog. In fact, of the dozens of people who have told me that they want to discuss why I no longer believe in god and jesus, I could count the number of people who have actually done so on one hand.

*I have revised the scorecard to count thomas' responses.

CLICK ON THE TABLE AND A READABLE VERSION WILL OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW.

So the only christian who proved me wrong was Adam. As you can see in the table, the only answer that I considered to have any real merit was Adam claiming that the many thousands killed in god's name were merely killed and god got the blame. I agree that people were responsible for these slaughters, but I differ from him in that I believe that there was simply no god in the equation. I wish that Adam had tried to answer all the questions. Perhaps he still will.

It is worth noting that several other people commented, but I didn't make note of their responses in the table because I was focused on watching to see if christians could answer these questions. My apologies to the others. I value your feedback. I urge everyone to read the comments that were posted.

And I am going to start posting more often, I promise.

Questions christians can't answer

2008-07-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Who created god? It is easy to say that all the complexity in the world has a designer. That way we don't have to try to understand a system that could produce the complexity of living organisms by natural causes. But who created god? The predictable answer that god has always existed or similar fluff reminds me of the anecdote from Stephen Hawkings' book, A Brief History of Time:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

Sadly christians are that old lady and atheists are that smug scientist. But the bottom line is that we atheists believe in evidence, not fairy tales. The tooth fairy is great in theory, but the evidence is a little lacking. (I even put my recently removed wisdom tooth under my pillow and got nothing. Yes I am bit sore about that.)

If god truly loves all people why did he slaughter so many of them throughout the Earth's history?

*Take note that God often uses his chosen people, the Israelites, as his agents of death.

Exodus 32:27-28, 35 - God kills 3000 men for dancing around Aaron's golden calf.
Numbers 16:49 - God sends a plague killing 14,700 people for complaining that he killed 250 whose offense had been that they burnt incense.
Numbers 31:1-35 - God kills over 90,000 of the midianite people including all the male children and all the females who are not virgins.
Judges 20:35 - God kills over 50,000 Benjamites for the crime of not being Israelites. He killed all the children too.

These are just a few examples of many. Are these the actions of a loving god? Sorry to say this, but if you are a christian and you can read these horrific stories of genocide and war crimes without seriously doubting the idea that god loves everyone, you have turned off your brain.

Why does the bible not denounce slavery if an ALL KNOWING god inspired the writers and similiarly, why did jesus not make any attempt to stop slavery?

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46)

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

Nearly everyone in the world would be quick to denounce the blight on humanity that is slavery (except modern day slave traders - yes, it still exists). Yet neither god nor jesus seemed to have any issue with it. This is yet another indication that the bible is a series of books written by people of that time that were in no way inspired by supernatural beings, particularly ALL KNOWING, supernatural beings.

If god is omnipotent, how does the devil have any power at all? Omnipotent after all means ALL POWERFUL. Nothing could have any power in the presence of a god who is ALL POWERFUL. The answer is this; there is no god, particularly not an ALL POWERFUL god.

Why is it that the 'god-inspired' writers of the bible were unable to recognize disabilities such as blindness and physical handicaps as just that? Even christ didn't seem to know that some people just happen to have various physical or mental disabilities. Shouldn't the son of an ALL KNOWING god understand such things?

Again it seems likely that the writers of the bible, uninspired by ALL KNOWING heavenly beings, wrote from their perspective. Specifically the perspective of being ignorant of the basics of medical understanding which we now possess. Once again, the average 7 year old these days knows enough to know that some people are physically or mentally disabled. The ALL KNOWING supreme being that inspired the writers of the bible is running low on credibility.

"If the Christian belief system is false or based on fabricated source documents - how exactly under your current set of suppositions with the Bible as the only authoritative admissible evidence, would you ever be able to detect the falsity of that belief system?" The credit for this question goes to debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com as I read this question there first. Someone by the name of Eheffa apparently asked the question. I am still looking for the original source.

The answer very simply is that you would not be able to detect the falsity of your belief system and that is why I have to have such a blog post as this.

Why is it that christians are unaware that the bible's ideas are simply plagiurized from other sources? The ten commandments were mostly adapted from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The virgin birth, the 12 disciples, the death and resurrection. It all comes from other religions. Christmas and Easter were pagan holidays until christianity 'borrowed' them.

I believe the answer is that Christians read the bible which seems to have left out the bibliography and they make a point of ignoring anything critical of the bible as heresy. And if it were still fashionable to burn people for heresy, that would still be going on. I challenged a friend to read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. He insisted that he would read it side by side with another book written by a christian that refutes what Dawkins' teaches. I wonder why he couldn't just read The God Delusion on its own. But he is a youth pastor and he seems afraid of what he might find out.

Why was the time that religion ruled the world called "The Dark Ages?" Similarly why is the time when state funded religious schools in Canada attempted to teach the aboriginal children about Christianity now considered to be the "darkest, most tragic chapter in Canadian history (according to Phil Fontaine and many others)?" BBC article

I can't answer this last question very well myself although I suspect it has something to do with the church attracting a higher than average number of feeble-minded, insecure, power-hungry types who end up playing the politics and abuse their power at every opportunity. Every church has them. The residential schools were filled with them. Think about the abuse in the catholic church, the troubles in Ireland, the infighting in every church, go back in history to the crusades and so on. And for the record, I do believe there are good and occasionally, intelligent people involved in the church too. It is just that they rarely end up in positions of power.

I encourage my christian friends and other christians to try to answer these questions. In the intellectually inbred world known as modern christianity I have no doubt that many of you think that you have intelligent answers. However I doubt very much that you will post serious answers that would be acceptable in any academic setting. My guess is that most of you will avoid posting comments in response to these questions. But if you can't answer these questions, but somehow KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that god is real and jesus died on the cross, you have been indoctrinated. In that case I suggest you get out the Jesus Riding Dinosaurs Colouring Book, prepare your rapturous red and leviathan green crayons and continue to ignore the doubts that cast a shadow on the credibility of your beliefs (see next post).

PLEASE POST YOUR ANSWERS OR COMMENTS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION. I HAVE OPENED IT UP TO EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF HAVING A BLOGGER ACCOUNT OR NOT. PLEASE USE YOUR REAL NAME OR A PSEUDONYM SO I CAN RESPOND AND SO WE DON'T HAVE 27 PEOPLE ALL CALLED ANONYMOUS. THANKS.

On a lighter note . . .

2008-06-24T15:27:00.001-07:00

This is why christianity now scares me. I don't think a lot more needs to be said, but I wish to make a few points:

* The bible doesn't mention dinosaurs at all, but we somehow KNOW that they were on Noah's Ark.

* Something that is fundamentally wrong with christianity is that no evidence is needed to hold a particular doctrine. And if there are repugnant 'truths' in the bible, the non-fundamentalist christians pick and choose the ones they want to believe in, conveniently ignoring the rest. The fundamentalists do the same all the while insisting that every word of the bible is literally true.

* This colouring book page is a good example of how self-perpetuating the ignorance of the creationist mentality is. Jesus probably rode the dinosaurs, so let's brainwash the children with this view just in case.

* On the other hand, the christian colour wheel is pretty appealing - "Gee Honey, let's do the dining room in flesh of christ."

The New Warsaw Ghetto - Gaza

2008-06-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

When we look back on the time of the Nazis and say "Never again!", we fail to realize that the atrocities committed go on on a daily basis in Palestine. Don't believe me? Watch this video to see how the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are subjecting the residents of Gaza to a constant barrage of shelling, sniper fire, bulldozed homes and more. Not to mention the IDFs policy of sniping or driving bulldozers over unarmed journalists/peace protesters.

If you care about what goes on in this world, watch this video and ask others to do so. If you are content to sit at home watching TV with your brain turned off, knock yourself out.

Israel Committing Memorycide

2008-06-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

The man pictured here is Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian. He explains in the article linked below that Israel has been committing memorycide as part of their ethnic cleansing in Palestine. He also concisely explains what needs to take place to achieve peace in the region. It is a fantastic article and it can be found on Al Jazeera.net.

For those of you that feel you do not grasp the events that precipitated 60 years of strife in the middle east, the article explains a bit about how Palestine was turned into Israel and why the international community let it happen without any significant opposition.

I look forward to comments, thoughts, questions and other relevant information.

Shades of Gray

2008-05-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

Two events took place recently that probably went under your radar. They shouldn't have, but the media seems to have an inverse relationship between the importance of an event and how much attention it is given.

Firstly on May 18th, Hamas made a public statement decrying the holocaust and affirming that their struggle is against the occupation of their lands. Those of you who may have thought that Hamas is just a terrorist group out to destroy Israel ought to read this with care. I have posted the full text and am hoping this won't get me in trouble (no one ever responds when I ask permission).

Hamas Condemns the Holocaust
We are not engaged in a religious conflict with Jews; this is a political struggle to free ourselves from occupation and oppression

May 18, 2008 By Bassem Naeem
Source: UK Guardian

As the Palestinian people prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba ("catastrophe") - the dispossession and expulsion of most of our people from our land - those remaining in Palestine face escalating aggression, killings, imprisonment, ethnic cleansing and siege. But instead of support and solidarity from the western media, we face frequent attempts to defend the indefensible or turn fire on the Palestinians themselves.

One recent approach, which seems to be part of the wider attempt to isolate the elected Palestinian leadership, is to portray Hamas and the population of the Gaza strip as motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, rather than a hostility to Zionist occupation and domination of our land. A recent front page article in the International Herald Tribune followed this line, as did an article for Cif about an item broadcast on the al-Aqsa satellite TV channnel about the Nazi Holocaust.

In fact, the al-Aqsa Channel is an independent media institution that often does not express the views of the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh or of the Hamas movement. The channel regularly gives Palestinians of different convictions the chance to express views that are not shared by the Palestinian government or the Hamas movement. In the case of the opinion expressed on al-Aqsa TV by Amin Dabbur, it is his alone and he is solely responsible for it.

It is rather surprising to us that so little attention, if any, is given by the western media to what is regularly broadcast or written in the Israeli media by politicians and writers demanding the total uprooting or "transfer" of the Palestinian people from their land.

The Israeli media and pro-Israel western press are full of views that deny or seek to excuse well-established facts of history including the Nakba of 1948 and the massacres perpetrated then by the Haganah, the Irgun and LEHI with the objective of forcing a mass dispossession of the Palestinians.

But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality.

And at the same time as we unreservedly condemn the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe, we categorically reject the exploitation of the Holocaust by the Zionists to justify their crimes and harness international acceptance of the campaign of ethnic cleansing and subjection they have been waging against us - to the point where in February the Israeli deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai threatened the people of Gaza with a "holocaust".

Within 24 hours, 61 Palestinians - more than half of them civilians and a quarter children - were killed in a series of air raids. Meanwhile, a horrible crime against humanity continues to be perpetrated against the people of Gaza: the two-year-old siege imposed after Hamas won the legislative elections in January 2006, which is causing great suffering. Due to severe shortages of medicines and food, scores of Palestinians have lost their lives.

It cannot be right that Europeans in general and the British in particular maintain a virtual silence toward what the Zionists are doing to the Palestinians, let alone supporting or justifying their oppressive policies, under the pretext of showing sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust.

The Palestinian people aspire to freedom, independence and peaceful coexistence with all their neighbours. There are, today, more than six million Palestinian refugees. No less than 700,000 Palestinians have been detained at least once by the Israeli occupation authorities since 1967. Hundreds of thousands have so far been killed or wounded. Little concern seems to be caused by all of this or by the erection of an apartheid wall that swallows more than 20% of the West Bank land or the heavily armed colonies that devour Palestinian land in a blatant violation of international law.

The plight of our people is not the product of a religious conflict between us and the Jews in Palestine or anywhere else: the aims and positions of today's Hamas have been repeatedly spelled out by its leadership, for example in Hamas's 2006 programme for government. The conflict is of a purely political nature: it is between a people who have come under occupation and an oppressive occupying power.

Our right to resistance against occupation is recognised by all conventions and religious traditions. The Jews are for us the people of a sacred book who suffered persecution in European lands. Whenever they sought refuge, Muslim and Arab lands provided them with safe havens. It was in our midst that they enjoyed peace and prosperity; many of them held leading positions in Muslim countries.

After almost a century of Zionist colonial and racist oppression, some Palestinians find it hard to imagine that some of their oppressors are the sons and daughters of those who were themselves oppressed and massacred.

Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust but find themselves punished for someone else's crime. But we are well aware and warmly welcome the outspoken support for Palestinian rights by Israeli and Jewish human rights activists in Palestine and around the world.

We hope that journalists in the west will begin to adopt a more objective approach when covering events in Palestine. The Palestinian people are being killed by Israel's machine of destruction on a daily basis. Nevertheless, we still see a clear bias in favour of Israel in the western media.

The Europeans bear a direct responsibility for what is befalling the Palestinians today. Britain was the mandate authority that handed over Palestine to Israeli occupation. Nazi Germany perpetrated the most heinous crimes against Jews, forcing the survivors to migrate to Palestine in pursuit of safety. We, therefore, expect the Europeans to atone for their historic crimes by restoring some balance to the inhuman and one-sided international response to the tragedy of our people.

Bassem Naeem is the minister of health and information in the Hamas-led Palestinian administration in Gaza.

For those of you who may not see the significance, this is a progressive position to take in a war torn land that has beens delineated by hatred and strife for decades.

But that's not all for recent earthshattering revelations

The other event of significance I wanted to bring to your attention is that former President Jimmy Carter (a president who deserves to call himself one) publicly admitted that Israel has at least 150 nuclear weapons and he also bluntly described Israel's treatment of the Palestinians as "human rights crimes" (BBC News link)

Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has said Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons in its arsenal.

The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s. . . .

He also described Israeli treatment of Palestinians as "one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth".

Mr Carter gave the figure for the Israeli nuclear arsenal in response to a question on US policy on a possible nuclear-armed Iran, arguing that any country newly armed with atomic weapons faced overwhelming odds. . . .

The US, a key ally of Israel, has in general followed the country's policy of "nuclear ambiguity", neither confirming or denying the existence of its assumed arsenal. . . .

During the press briefing, Mr Carter expressed his support for Israel as a country, but criticized its domestic and foreign policy.

"One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth is the starvation and imprisonment of 1.6m Palestinians," he said.

The former US president cited statistics which he said showed the nutritional intake of some Palestinian children was below that of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as saying the European position on Israel could be best described as "supine".

Mr Carter, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, brokered the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the first between Israel and an Arab state.

Obviously President Carter is a heavyweight when it comes to the Middle East. He is not some guy espousing conspiracy theories from his Mother's basement (Note to readers who are not my mother - I moved out of the house twenty-two years ago.)

It is my hope that people in the west will begin to view the struggle in the Middle East in shades of gray. All too often Hamas has been (fairly or unfairly) labeled terrorists without really examining the issues. Israel is assumed to be a state trying to protect their citzens partly because that is how the media portrays them and partly because we have never witnessed the oppression of a brutal military occupation and can not conceive of what goes on.

Do share your thoughts.

Every christian NEEDS to see this

2008-05-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Every christian needs to see this. It completely sums up all that is wrong with the fallacy that morals come from the bible. I was going to suggest watching it with an open mind, but I know from personal experience that this is literally impossible. Enough said. Watch the video.

By the way, I probably won't continue to post if no one responds to the posts (in the comments - not on facebook or email). So many people have told me by email or in person that they like my blog, but few get around to posting comments. It is meant to be a dialogue and I am not really interested in running this blog as a monologue.

If Americans Only Knew . . . .

2008-04-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

Having lived three years in Egypt, I am painfully aware of the suffering and oppression of Palestinians. Those of you that know me well, have likely heard my perspective. These youtube videos help to make the situation a little clearer. Those of you that are American would do well to understand that your tax dollars are going to support oppression. Please don't misunderstand me. This is not an accusation nor is it meant to offend, only inform.

I am sincerely hoping people will comment on the video and the issue of the Middle East in general. Perhaps you can come to a better understanding of the epic tragedy that Palestinians endure. Those of you that respond by pointing out that the Palestinians have suicide bombers need to consider how many decades Palestinians endured the horrible conditions of the refugee camps* and their hopeless lives BEFORE they began to strap explosives on. (*There still are millions of Palestinians in refugee camps.)

The Church's Troubled Relationship with the Truth

2008-04-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

Reading about the debacle of the new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, I was reminded about one of the things that troubled me immensely when I was a christian. Despite platitudes like "The truth shall set you free" (John 8:32) the church as a whole and individual churches have a very troubled relationship with the truth.

In fact, I no longer believe that the truth means anything at all in relation to christianity. Allow me to explain.

Let's first look at the intelligent design theorists who are behind the new 'documentary' Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Although I haven't seen the movie, I intend to. The basic idea of the film is that creationism and intelligent design are not taught in classrooms because of a conspiracy among scientists. I think we can safely assume that the vast majority of people espousing the views of ID or creationism in the U.S. are christians. Based on what I have read in the bible, I think I can safely say that practicing christians should be trying to be truthful at all times. I think that very few christians would dispute this. The people that made the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed needed to get some big names (atheists) to appear in their film. They knew that they would never be able to do so if the premise of the film were made clear. So they made up a false name - Crossroads and promoted it as a film about the intersection of faith and science. With a seemingly neutral premise, the filmmakers were able to talk Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Scott, PZ Myers and others into being interviewed. The problem is, there was no such film. The domain name for Expelled was reserved from day one and the filmmakers never bothered to take out a domain name for Crossroads. The title "Crossroads" was a smokescreen and nothing more. The question I think you should ask yourself is, Why should christians deceive others to prove their point?

Another example that hardly needs to be made is that of the Catholic Church. According to Wikipedia, 0.2% of Catholic priests have proven to be abusers. That may not sound like a lot, but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found accusations against 4,392 priests in the United States alone. Of course if the bible teaches christians to be truthful, one would expect the Catholic Church to investigate the allegations and hand these priests over to the authorities. Tragically, we all know what happened instead. The Catholic Church has done everything it can to protect these priests and cloak the abuse in secrecy. Of course, I read the news and am aware that the latest Pope (who bears a frightening resemblance to Emperor Palpatine) has made public apologies, but this can hardly be taken seriously given the gravity of the accusations and the cover up that has taken place.

I know many people over the years who have been ousted from their positions in the church. Many of them were youth pastors and a few of them were senior or associate pastors. In every case, pastors, elders, church council members and others involved in leadership of these churches lied and deceived their congregations to convince them that the pastor or youth leader in question needed to go. When my number was up at the last church I attended, I experienced lies and deceit from my pastor who had previously been a good friend of mine. His reputation and the reputation of others were at stake. The pastor tried to convince the congregation that I had not taken criticism very well and stepped down. This was a bald-faced lie. The first of many. If the truth shall set us free, why is it so rarely found in christian settings?

Several of my friends who are more progressive and I daresay a little more intelligent have realized that the bible's teachings are contradictory and riddled with errors. Although they are still christians, they have admitted to me that they don't believe the bible is literally true. My friend Adam wrote in the comments of a previous post, "Speaking of the bible. I have never assumed the bible to be infallible. I agree with you, any critical reader can see the discrepancies. . . . it [the bible] was written by people. Along with a lot of other stuff as well, and then people decided what would make up "The Bible". And then it was translated by people. Errors must have occurred at each transition." Actually, I think there is hope for people who can see through the BS and realize that the bible is just a bunch of words written by people. What I wonder is this - if we know that the bible is not literally true and that some of it is patently false, how do we know what is true and what isn't?

Ultimately I believe that christianity is an ideology. No matter which branch of the church you investigate, no matter which church you belong to, if you dig just below the surface, you will be faced with evidence all forms of lies and deceit to further whatever beliefs they are pushing. For years I thought that I was attending a "progressive mennonite church" (as the members themselves would describe it). I believed that it was different from the other churches. I was sadly wrong. The church I attended was just better at hiding the politics of deceit than others. When I look back now at the others that resigned or were given the boot, it is easy to see a pattern.

There is a church in Jonesville, South Carolina that has put up a sign saying, "Obama, Osama, hmm are they brothers?" When asked if he thinks that Barack Obama is a Muslim, Pastor Roger Byrd says,"I don't know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim ? I don't know. He says he's not. I hope he's not. But I don't know. And it's just something to try to stir people's minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody." Once again, the truth doesn't matter. This pastor has a point to make and the fact that Obama has regularly attended a christian church for many years and openly professes that he is a christian is unimportant.

I could go on and list many, many more examples, but ultimately very few christians will believe what I am writing. They don't want to and can't afford to recognize this reality. The rest of you will perhaps have a better idea why I have left the church behind for good.

History in the Making

2008-04-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Although I have been an avid follower of the U.S. political race, I have yet to try to communicate my thoughts on the primaries. Yesterday I read the Huffington Post and was blown away by Frank Schaeffer's endorsement of Barack Obama. Not only was it the most eloquent endorsement I have ever read, but Frank Schaeffer is a self described "pro-military" republican and says also that he was "too selfish and insular (too typically white, Republican and affluent!)" to be connected to his diverse country. The turning point for him was that his son who should have been going to Yale or Harvard, instead found himself enlisting in the marines. I won't attempt to retell the story, but I implore you to read the article start to finish. It is worth noting that Frank Schaeffer is the son of the theologian, Francis Schaeffer. He is a widely acclaimed author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker.

Why bother read the article? Many of you are not interested in politics or are only marginally interested. We are witnessing history in the making. I truly believe that Obama is a new kind of politician. Given that he will most likely be the next president of the United States, this concerns everyone. Although the rest of us can't vote, every country in the world is impacted by the U.S., the world's only superpower.

What I Believe

2008-04-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

Dale Friesen challenged me to share what I believe with you, my three faithful readers. Keep in mind, I don't expect you to believe what I believe and I am sorry if some of my views offend or shock you and they likely will, but this is . . .

What I Believe

People are neither inherently good, nor inherently evil - we are a product of our genes and our environment. In my opinion, the church has used the story of Adam and Eve to control christians through guilt. Leaving the church has meant I can now live a life free of guilt and it is truly wonderful.

Although we are guided more or less by the same rules that apply to other species of animals, I believe homo sapiens has evolved enough for some of us to understand there is a greater good. Thus, I believe that serving others is part of contributing to that greater good. In my opinion, those that do so are more civilized. Those who are self-centred are the bottom rung of the evolutionary ladder. On a related note, I also believe that the movie Idiocracy is probably going to be more of an accurate prediction of the future than anything Nostradamus ever wrote.

There is no one meaning of life - we create our own meaning in life. That is why there never will be a definitive answer to this eternal question. I put my two cents in on my meaning of life in the 18th comment of the first post (I guess you will have to look it up).

There is no god or creator and all life on earth is in its present form due to evolution. Humans are only one of millions (maybe billions?) of life forms on earth, but we ended up here primarily as the result of random chance. This latter idea is not frightening to me, it is inspiring.

We do not own or "have dominion over" nature. Rather we are more like one its children (albeit probably the oldest child who sometimes gets stuck babysitting). The attitude of ownership has harmed the Earth almost irreparably.

Evolution has endowed us with incredibly complex brains capable of abstract thought. We should not squander these amazing capabilities.

There is something called truth and it can be discovered through systematic experimentation, observation, prediction and verification, but we must always be willing to throw out what we 'knew' if other real evidence comes along. Beliefs and ideas that fail to live up to this standard should be relegated to history.

As we are capable of reason, we should never stop thinking, hypothesizing, questioning, and analyzing. Accepting a belief or worse yet, a belief system, simply because our parents or our priests told us to is below us as highly evolved humans (sorry Mom and Dad).

Honesty, trust, faithfulness, loyalty and many other values are right for their own sake and it does not require any supernatural being to communicate these values to us. In fact, these values predate the bible.

All people deserve to be treated with respect regardless of their gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. I am heterosexual, but I support people of different sexual orientations 100%. The majority of christian churches have engaged in what is basically the last "acceptable*" form of discrimination. That is, of course, discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation. (* It's not acceptable, but for some reason church folk often think it is.) The treatment of people who are homosexual ranges from discrimination to hate speech. Loving your neighbour is absent from the list of ways to treat people with a different sexual orientation in the case of most churches.

Religion is just a series of cultural memes that hold value as stories and mythologies. We can pick and choose the better ideas (karma, feeding the poor, the golden rule, etc.) and discard the rest.

This next point is somewhat ironic given my extensive (former) work in the church, but I truly believe that all forms of christian education for children are religious indoctrination! Sunday school, christian schools, youth groups, AWANA and others are all forms of indoctrination. Now, just before you cast that stone, allow me to explain. First of all, I believe that having (narrowly) escaped indoctrination, I can see it for what it is. Those of you who disagree were probably successfully indoctrinated. You can never and will never be able to understand unless you leave the church. But I'll try anyway. Ask yourself if you would hand your children over to a fundamentalist Islamic Madrassa to teach your children? Would you send them off to a cult to instruct them in values? You answered "no", of course, and the reason may well be because you don't agree with those worldviews, but the other reason is you know that your children are not wise enough to know what is true and what is not. They are easily coerced and you fear exposing them to a worldview that you think is wrong. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of you that disagree are indoctrinated.

Religion is the single greatest thing* holding humanity back from progress. Thinking back through the ages, try to add up all the money and resources spent on churches, temples, animal sacrifices, food left at altars and so on. Imagine if all the money that was ever spent on these things had gone into education and housing for the disadvantaged. Imagine if all the property owned by churches, temples, mosques and religious schools were turned into housing for the poor. If all the christians of the world paid their 10% into a fund for training and education of the poor, poverty and likely disease would be solved. John Lennon was way ahead of his time.

*Microsoft is a close second.

Yes, my views seem rather anti-church. They are. Some have wrongly assumed this is bitterness speaking. Quite the opposite. I have never been more content than I am now. Leaving the awesome burden of guilt behind and learning to reason without the limitation of trying to make one's understanding of the world fit an archaic belief system is the greatest thing to have happened to me.

Damn Funny!

2008-03-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

I found this on digg.com and even though it mocks Richard Dawkins who I have immense respect for, it is damn funny and you should see it as long as you can appreciate or (at least) tolerate rap and have some interest in science.

Deconversion Story

2008-03-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

The following story was originally posted on Debunking Christianity, but as I wrote it, I doubt they will mind me reposting it. For those of you who have lost touch with me or just are not that great at reading between the lines, I have left the church and the extensive reading I have done since, has worked together with my experience in the church to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no God. Yes, I am now an atheist. That may come as a shock to my christian friends, but the sum total of all my life experiences and the reading I have done, particularly the Bible has utterly convinced me that atheism is the only rational choice.

Read my deconversion story and you will have an idea where I am coming from. It was originally posted on May 11 of 2007.

Why I left the church

Growing up, I was fortunate to have parents who raised me in a religion-neutral environment. Well almost. When we were young, we said a ritual prayer before bed and before meals, but by my teens I had forgotten that we had ever done this. I attended a church service with my mother only once and was unaware that my parents had both been confirmed Anglicans. By the age of seventeen, I gave no thought to religion whatsoever. I was an insecure teenager with no discernible skills and a small group of friends, none of whom were particularly close. The summer after my grade 11 year, I began to work at a bible camp where I made a lot of friends and was exposed to the christian faith for the first time.

It was a turning point in my life and I began to go to church and read the bible. Although I was beginning to be exposed to christian values, I was still drinking to excess and behaving irresponsibly in other ways. I would add that the excessive drinking often took place with my 'christian' friends from the bible camp. Eventually, I asked God into my life and my newfound faith gave me what seemed to be a dramatic boost in confidence. At the time, I thought I had undergone some supernatural experience and was changed into a new person. In reality, I had found a supportive community for the first (but not the last) time in my life and my friendships were helping me to grow as a person. I began to attend church regularly. Meeting with longtime church members when I knew next to nothing about the christian faith is intimidating and it stifles one's inclination to ask questions revealing the obvious inconsistencies of the bible. The church's constant teaching that the bible is infallible means that you have to simply accept all the old testament stories in which whole races of people are slaughtered and many other such atrocities. When you are brave enough to question these events, you get trite responses such as "That race of people lived to show how much God loved the Jews.", "God works in mysterious ways." and other such nonsense. At the same time, you learn that God loves everyone. It must have taken a lot of 'tough love' to slaughter whole races of people.

Looking back now, I can't imagine how I bought into christianity. I went on to become a teacher and work at two different christian schools. I taught Sunday school. I led bible study groups. I was a youth leader for a number of youth groups. Ironically, teaching at a christian school was the beginning of the end of my faith. The subculture of a diverse, evangelical christian school includes people from many different branches of the christian faith. You see the best and the worst, but mostly the worst. It became evident very quickly that the people I met there were so wrapped up in their faith, they were completely unaware of problems of the world outside. They would refute evolution on the basis that there was no evidence for it, but they restricted their studies to the bible and spiritual books and could never have come across evidence of evolution in their readings or their sheltered social circles if they had several billion years to do so (not to mention five thousand or so). They supported the fact that Israel occupies Palestine and oppresses the Palestinian people in every way possible. This was acceptable to them because the Jews are "God's Chosen People." Obviously, things haven't changed much since the days of the old testament. Other christians I knew supported politicians who claimed to be christians. They knew nothing of these politicians' personal beliefs, their backgrounds or their political history. There was no analysis. We were supposed to vote for the Reform Party (Canada) en masse because some of their candidates claimed to be Christian. My suggestion to my christian friends that they should evaluate them as politicians and analyze their backgrounds were met with blank stares. Furthermore, the christian schools' approach to thorny issues like evolution, evil and suffering in a world with an 'omnipotent' god, Halloween and many other things were to avoid talking about the issues so that no one would be offended. This pattern would be repeated in other settings such as the various youth groups that I was involved in. Bringing up these issues, I was told, would alienate certain families. It would be far better to focus on other subjects. The fact that no one, including the christian scholars whose works I had been reading, could answer the questions I had, began to hammer more nails into the coffin of my faith. This process took many years. The multitudes of political battles I witnessed in the churches I attended, included behavior that no intelligent christian who has read the bible could condone. This hypocritical behavior took place at the highest levels of the churches I attended without exception. Teachers I worked with at the christian schools would go to chapel and sing songs about love and then the moment they were back in the staff room, they would engage in behavior that included envy, pride, gossip, backstabbing, revenge and other vices. No one even seemed to see a conflict. Christians have often told me not to judge god based on the behavior of 'fallen christians'. The church teaches that the holy spirit comes into your body when you ask god into your heart. Presumably if one-third of the holy trinity rests in my physical body, I should have some advantage when it comes to resisting temptation or making the right decisions. Although I am not basing this statement on a scientific study, twenty years of anecdotal experience in both christian and secular settings has taught me that there is absolutely no basis for the idea that christians behave better than atheists, agnostics and people of other faiths. In fact, if you look at the idea historically (the crusades, witch hunts, the 'Troubles' in Ireland, to name a few), it is clear that christians have committed a shocking number of atrocities in god's name. Of course, atheists have been responsible for atrocities, too. The difference is that atheists are not claiming to have the holy spirit living in them. The details of the event that led me to finally throw off the shackles of the church are unimportant. In brief, it came down to a couple of people who didn't like me or the way I ran the youth groups I was leading. Lies and half-truths led to a request from a representative of the church council for me to move on and I did. Interestingly, when it turned out that I had support from many of the parents whose children were in my youth groups, the propaganda machine was fired up and the truth began to take on several shades of grey. After many years of witnessing others experience such treatment, I realized that my turn had come.

Retrospectively, I think that it was the best thing that could have happened to me. In the church I was taught that the truth shall set us free. In fact, it was the lack of it that set me free. The fact that people were willing to slice and dice the truth, not to mention making bald-faced lies, convinced me that I was better off without the church. It is worth pointing out that it was not this one event, but literally dozens of such events involving others that made me begin to question the teachings of the church. These episodes made me wonder what I truly knew for sure. After much reflection, I realized that prayer was just what I had always known in my heart - an empty one-way exercise. Also known as talking to yourself. When I began to really examine all the 'answers to prayer' I had experienced, I realized that an answer to prayer is when you get what you want. All the times I had felt that God answered my prayers, 'luck' or 'coincidence' had resulted in me getting what I wanted. Because when you get what you want, god is answering your prayers and when you don't get what you want, God has some mysterious reason that only he could understand. The newborn baby that died. "God loved him so much that He took him up to Heaven." Perhaps such an answer would comfort a distraught and somewhat feeble-minded person, but it only fed my skepticism. The whole process of questioning my faith probably took over ten years. The final incident was the little push I needed to help me to decide to leave the church. The analysis of my experiences over those twenty years was sped up by the web of lies and deceit that marked my last experience in the church.

To those christians that may respond that this episode is sad, I would like to say at the outset that what is sad is that it took so long for me to realize that I had been duped into believing a fairy tale. It is nearly tragic that it took twenty years to learn that one can live a guilt-free life. On the positive side, I truly believe that my life is richer for having been involved in the church. Besides learning values and the importance of serving others, I also can do something that almost no christians can truly do. I can evaluate the church and the bible's teachings from the dual perspectives of an outsider and an insider. I have a rich life and am thankful that I can move ahead knowing that my future will not be clouded with superstition, but be enriched with understanding based on observable evidence and reason.

* Note: The picture is making reference to statements made by none other than Martin Luther who well knew that reason is the enemy of faith.

As usual, I welcome discussion in the comments.

Why I Never Married

2008-03-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

The Sad Truth About Relationships

For many years, people pushed, prodded and cajoled me to get married. They tried to set me up (always a dismal failure as even if I was attracted to the woman, the fact that someone tried to set me up, awoke the rebellious side of me and made me not interested in the ill-advised female). I never went down the road of marriage. In fact, I never even came close. Besides never being convinced that I was "in love" and with a person who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I never wanted to follow that heavily traveled path just because everyone else was. Eventually, people left me alone about the issue. It rarely comes up now. I live a very fulfilling life and have been very happy for a long time. Since I am now more open-minded about marriage, it is possible that I will get married one day. But don't put money down on it. I have never exactly been able to articulate what I want to avoid in marriage, but I no longer need to. Someone else has done that for me. This animated video pretty much sums up what I think many relationships are and what I would avoid at all costs.

As always, do post your opinion in the comments. So far the dialogue has been great. Don't stop now.

What is truth?

2008-03-11T21:44:00.000-07:00

I was thrilled at the responses I received to my first post. Some of the comments inspired me to ditch the post that I am halfway through writing and open my blog up to you, my three loyal readers to inspire us with your definition of truth.

So, what is truth? Post in the comments. You can either type out a quick response, post your doctoral thesis or something in between. But tell us what you think truth is. And don't forget . . . you are entitled to your opinion, even if it is wrong. Ha ha ha. Yeah, I know. I'll keep the day job.

If a Fish Flops Around . . .

2008-03-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

First Post

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what this blog should be about. I want to try something different. Of course, it will have some of the same quirky, irreverent observations about this strange world that my three loyal fans have come to expect, but I intend this blog to be a 2-way blog! Yes, I expect you to participate. I want to read your comments or get an email from you (my profile lists my email address). Unless of course, you live in your mother's basement and spend your time posting angry, caffeine-fueled comments on blogs. Sadly, I am completely serious about the comments. Please keep responses civil and be open to views that challenge what you believe.

Recent Conversation With a Creationist

I recently had a two and a half hour conversation with a creationist. The experience was strange on a few levels. At some point in my life, I held similar views, if slightly less fundamentalist. Considering where I am now in my understanding of the world, it is impossible to believe that I could have accepted the same mindless drivel that feeds the creationist worldview.

It is also strange to converse with someone who seems to be a reasonably intelligent, functioning member of society, but find out that he or she has the scientific understanding of a four year old. My apologies to any readers who may share my friend's creationist views. It is tragic that in this information age there are people who cling to beliefs that are nearly prehistoric. The problem is that the reading habits of a lot of Christians are the intellectual equivalent of inbreeding. Case in point. My friend kept insisting that many prominent scientists consider the Theory of Evolution to be rubbish. Of course, I insisted he name these scientists. After much humming and hawing, he came up with only one name - Lee Strobel. It didn't take very long on Wikipedia to come up with this highly acclaimed scientist's credentials. He has a degree in journalism, a masters in law and an honorary degree from some southern baptist university. Personally, I would prefer a speeding ticket to the latter degree. However, none of these degrees qualifies him as a scientist or gives him any credibility whatsoever.

Given the vast amount of data available, the fact that we know there are fish living today that can move around and even breathe air and given that a simple internet search could supply a person with all the evidence they would ever need to see that the 'missing links' are no longer missing, I am literally stunned to hear the same arguments that I remember from my teenage years about how there are 'missing links' in the fossil record* and that fish can't walk around on land. I have personally seen fish on Pitcairn Island flop around and spend a considerable time out of the water. Yet my creationist friends still point this out as an impossibility.
(*It is necessary to explain that there are gaps in the fossil record because some of the missing links went extinct and their fossils have not yet been found. However, enough 'missing links' have been found to render the term 'missing' comically meaningless.)

So here is my question. If a fish flops around out of the water and the creationists don't hear about it, did it really happen?