Yep, that's what I've concluded. Theirs is a faith that must dismiss the tragedy of death. It does not matter to them who dies, how many people die, or what the circumstances are when they die. It could be the death of a mother whose baby depends upon her for milk during the first few months of life. It could be a pandemic like cholera that decimated parts of the world in 1918, or the more than 23,000 children who die every single day from starvation. These deaths could be by suffocation, drowning, a drive-by shooting, or being slowly burned to death. It doesn't matter to them. Their God is good. Death doesn't matter. People die all of the time.
Hey, I'm just tooting my own horn. Why not? It sounds good to me on New Years Eve, since that's what we do. Here are the rankings:
Sometimes I lose patience when I have to respond to the same ill-informed drivel week after week that I just decided to make a post about it. It's claimed that since
Prometheus Books is an ideologically driven publishing house it's not an objective publisher and should be regarded as inferior to some other publishers. Let's think about this, okay?
Here's some comic relief by using literal lyrics to the video "Total Eclipse of the Heart." It made me laugh out loud.
It's curious to me how often most Christians just do not think about some things. Has it ever occurred to you how human beings first learned what killed us? Take lead poisoning for instance. Do you know that people had to die before we could figure it out? Then think about all of the poisonous plants and venomous creatures. People had to die from eating certain plants and being bitten by certain creatures before we knew what not to do. Take polluted water. Same thing. Read the book,
The Ghost Map and see for yourself. You see, there was no other way. None. And if a good God existed and put us in this environment he didn't do us any good. At best a good God would've told us in advance to avoid the kinds of things that will kill our daughters, fathers, husbands and wives. But he didn't. So he knew in advance people would have to die tragic and sudden deaths before we could figure it out.
Since I don't have a doctorate and the title to my blog is an attention getter some Christian scholars don't think much of me when they first hear of me. Don't misunderstand me. I do have some credentials. To see them just click on my profile page (later Dr. Hector Avalos is going to compare my credentials with those of Jim West). As an atheist I have been honored to speak at a Midwest regional meeting of the
Evangelical Philosophical Society, and was a panelist for the annual
Society of Biblical Literature last year. In February I'm debating Dinesh D'Souza at the
University of Illinois. So this should all say something I'd guess. But to those still unpersuaded let me show you the respect I have gained from some Christian scholars because of my arguments. I have regularly engaged Christian philosophers and apologists here at DC, some of whom you know.
Well, I did it folks. I bested all but two Bibliobloggers in rankings this month, the other results
can be found here. This has caused
no small problem for some Bible bloggers, since they just can't stand the fact that a Blog named "Debunking Christianity" outranked nearly all of them. Now some of them are personally attacking me.
Apparently, the list was shut down because of me,
one lone secular Bible blogger! ;-) Now they'll attack me because I'm crowing about it. But then there is no bigger rooster than Jim West who crowed about his ranking every single month when he was at the top of the list. If someone starts another list I'll be sure to apply for that one too. Whatever criteria they use to exclude me will exclude others, maybe lots of others, including Jim West himself, if the criteria is changed to say one must have an earned doctorate from a recognized accredited institution! ;-) I didn't mean to cause this much trouble. I just wanted to be included. But it has been fun to see their reaction, that's all. More later...
Yep, Christian Bloggers are upset about the fact that I bested nearly all of them this month, being ranked 4th over most all of them (maybe 3rd if we wait until tomorrow to see). Now come
the personal attacks. They'll claim it's because I crowed about this feat,
which I did, and that I attacked Jim West's
credentials, which you can see both Dr. Hector Avalos and I did, although West attacked my credentials to be a Biblioblogger first. They'll also say it's because I criticized an argument of his,
which I did. But the bottom line is that West and the rest just can't stand it. And they're censoring my comments, so in the interests of fairness I'll post what I said for you to judge for yourself whether my latest comment should be censored:
This poll was suggested to me by
Craig A. James and it's a good one. This time before starting the poll I'd like your input. I have Ray Comfort, Dinesh D'Souza (a friend of mine I'll admit), James White, Oral Roberts, Ken Hamm, and possibly JP Holding. Were there any high profile scandals I'm missing, or others you'd like to see included? Other nominees can be suggested below. Tell me why you think they should be included.
Go ahead. See what you think.
By Martin Beckford of the
Telegraph:
Can you see why atheists are so passionate about this? See below:
Why not share my little tidbits with everyone and not have to write stuff twice, right?
Then he is perpetrating a sham, trying to push himself and his work off as a credible scholar from a recognized institution. A
comment from Dr. Hector Avalos alerted me to this. Sounds like Jim "protests too much" doesn't it? Here is what I found:
Suggest them here or over at
Atheist Revolution. Jim West anyone? After all, look what he thinks of atheists:
Jim West just can't take it, 'cause that means he can't crow anymore about his monthly rankings. Sorry Mr. Bible Belt, but you just got roped in by this cowboy. Your time is over, you has-been. So now he's resorted to slamming me
not just once, but
twice. For the record, I'm now ranked in 4th place among Bibliobloggers at Alexa, coming in at 223,352, overtaking the prolific
James McGrath, who's definition of a miracle includes such a feat. No wonder they don't want to do the list anymore, 'cause who wants it known that a site called "Debunking Christianity" beat out most Bible Blogs. This is a smack down, I'd say, and I was only getting started. ;-)
Derren Brown is a skeptic who tried to get various religious leaders to embrace and endorse his spiritual powers. The episodes I recommend here have to do with Derren converting other skeptics with the touch of his hand in front of an evangelical pastor, and he pulled it off! What the hell went on here? Who are we as human beings? This stuff puzzles me to no end. Is it just the era we live in, or the human mind that has a transcendental temptation? See for yourself, especially episodes 2-4 below.
Here is what I think as I went through the archives. See what you think. It seems as though I lean heavily toward later posts because they are fresh on my mind, but then again maybe it's because I keep getting better and better! Here's the countdown:
In perhaps one respect for sure...
Here at DC I try to carry on a reasonable discussion with people who disagree with me. In the interests of fairness, what do you think of Pat Condell's approach below? I agree with him that Christian beliefs are ridiculous. And I know many Christians think atheism is ridiculous. What if both sides in this debate approached each other as Condell suggests? Many of them do.
If you want to read these testimonies you need to visit or bookmark
Ex-Christian.net. They're coming from a wide variety of backgrounds. And they're doing so for a wide variety of reasons because there are so many reasons to do so.
Here are the lecture videos from
Atheist Alliance International 2009 conference, in descending order of awesomeness as posted by Luke of
Common Sense Atheism:
Link
Is it true that because we atheists argue against God that we secretly believe? Balderdash!
Hemant Mehta has a good analysis of the recent Gallup Poll.
Check it out here.
Yep, last month I ranked
eighth place over more than 350 Bible Blogs. It annoyed them so much they decided to quit doing the list, especially since they could see I was climbing it this month! Ha!
One lone secular Bible Blogger shut it all down! They could see me coming and we can't have that, now can we? Jim West decided to do one himself anyway and among the top ranked Blogs from last month DC climbed to 6th place! Here's who made it to the top 15 (notice West couldn't bring himself to list the names of our Blogs, 'cause who wants it known that "Debunking Christianity" beat out so many of them):
Who do you think is doing this? Christians, that's who, evangelicals. This is the mind of the believer where no evidence is required except an accusation:
I can prove I'm sitting at my computer, that I have children, that I have a wife, and that I wrote a book. I can prove all sorts of negative claims with regard to these things. I can prove I am not sleeping or playing ball right now (negative claims). I can show you I'm not doing these things by having an online chat right now on my computer. I can prove I am not childless. If you ask me to prove I'm not childless, then birth certificates and DNA evidence should do the trick. I can prove I am not single. If you ask me to prove I am not single I can show you my marriage certificate, and my wife. I can also prove I am not a non-author (notice how I phrased it?). That is, I can prove a negative, plenty of them, easily.
"A debate before a packed house at the University of Hawaii with Professor of Physics Victor Stenger in which Craig and Stenger square off on such issues as the Big Bang and the beginning of time, the odds of the fine-tuning of the constants and quantities requisite for life, evil and moral values, religious experience, and many more."
She's a great gal, don't get me wrong. But as a good Lutheran with a family that's what she said over the holiday season about the religious questions I raise. She prefers to be ignorant. Ignorance is bliss, right? It's not that she isn't intelligent, because she is. It's not that she isn't educated, because she's a
Nurse Practitioner. She knows enough to know that if she were to question her faith it could lessen her faith. She knows enough to know that she doesn't have the time to investigate her faith given her busy life. She knows the struggle it would produce in her to believe. She knows enough to know that. I don't think this position is defensible at all, but at least she's honest. I wonder how many other believers have an ostrich type head-in-the-sand approach to their faith and what would happen if they all decided to become informed?
When I hear this song by Bruce Springsteen I think of my sweetheart wife Gwen. She's wonderful. She's my best supporter and my best friend. There are some Christian people who can boast about being married for 30-50 years or more. But they aren't happy in a loveless relationship. They're just fulfilling a commitment made when they were around 20 years old or so. To everyone at this season I wish you all the love I've found. If men my age only knew her the way I do I'd have to literally fight them off.
I can remember when growing up nearly everyone called July 4th "Independence Day." It wasn't July 4th so much as it had a name. When referring to celebrations on that day we didn't say "have a great 4th," we said "have a great independence day." So at this season when there is a war on Christmas let me say, "Have a happy 25th." Sure, it may not seem to have a ring to it, but then who knows what the future will bring?
I carry on various discussions via emails, blogs and on Facebook. Here's an interesting one that took place recently over at Vox Popoli that I'll pick up in midstream:
The Friendly Atheist links to one such list:
It's not just that we disagree with each other. It's how poorly some people argue for what they think. Some people do not even understand an argument enough to respond to it properly. Therefore I call upon every person who has not already taken a basic critical thinking class to
read through this entire entry. Cheers.
[Written by John W. Loftus] When I went to Bible College I was not educated. I was indoctrinated. While other believers will protest that their Christian college was different, I wonder if that's true. In order to test this let me explain my experience, compare it with what a good education is, and see what you think. Okay?
He's
against indoctrination masking as an education too. If you go there you'll see me answering some additional objections.
I've previously mentioned we're entering
A New Era for Atheism: Moral Realism. This is a follow-up post:
Since I've been recently discussing unanswered prayer check this test for God out!
The year 2009 was the international year of astronomy in celebration the 400th anniversary of Galileo's Work. Here's a great video survey of astronomy:
Here's part of what he said in the year 1897:
