Some Church Signs You'll Never See...

I had some fun with the church sign generator yesterday:

Is God A "Code Blue Junkie"?

The term "Code Blue Junkie" was coined in reference to Joseph Dewey Akin, a notorious nurse who intentionally injected patients with lidocaine, thereby causing the patient to go into cardiac arrest - a "code blue." According to the Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Akin was believed to have intentionally endangered patients so that he could arrive to rescue them and appear to have saved them. Unfortunately, this sick and twisted criminal behavior is showing up a lot in the media lately, and America's favorite deity looks to be the culprit.

It was a "Miracle on the Hudson", and all the newspapers said so. Shortly after takeoff, flight 1549 flew through a flock of birds, which killed the plane's engines, forcing Captain Chelsey "Sulley" Sullenberger to make an emergency landing on the Hudson river. "Everyone prayed," (except for the person who kept it together and actually flew the plane), and god came through, rescuing these people from almost certain death in the icy river.

However, this daring last minute rescue begs the question "why all the bother?" Wouldn't it have been easier, and safer for the passengers, if god didn't go through all the showboating, and had just diverted the birds in the first instance? Presumably an almighty god could in fact do so. And what of Ethiopian Airlines flight 961, which ran out of fuel after being hijacked, and was forced to land in the ocean, killing 125 people onboard? Did god just botch this one, or didn't he find the passengers' prayers sincere enough? I suppose second time is the charm!

Another recent event is the toddler that drowned in a pool, spending nearly 20 minutes underwater. Despite a very negative medical prognosis, prayer (and maybe a little medical treatment) helped her come out of her coma and make a full recovery.

This "miracle" recovery also raises serious questions: Did god make her fall into the pool? Did the all knowing god see that she would fall in the pool, but let her go anyway? Did god let her fall in the pool, and not help others hear her thrashing, so that she could stay underwater and get no oxygen for 18 minutes, thereby setting up the circumstances for the subsequent miracle? Why didn't the sick bastard just keep her out of the pool in the first place?

I used to think of god's perverted mechanisms, such as those in the book of Job, as akin to the bumbling evil of the Duke brothers, Randolf and Mortimer, in Trading Places. God bets satan $1 Job won't curse him, and and then they both proceed to make Job's life a living hell. You know, good clean fun! Now all I see is the desperate need for attention of a serial killer.

The Right Wing Media is Killing the Republican Party.

The right-wing media (Fox "News", Rush Limbaugh, et al.) is destroying the Republican party. It used to be a huge benefit for the party, having a propaganda machine with an iron grip on the base, but in the failure of the Bush administration, this asset has turned into a liability. The American people have seen first hand the results of conservative governance, and it has scared the shit out of them. So much so, they elected a president that can only be described as the polar opposite of Bush. The Republican party is now in a political wilderness, and its propaganda machine isn't helping.

The best way to correct error is through feedback. You try something, you learn it doesn't work, and you correct your error. However, the right-wing media has broken the Republican feedback loop. The Republican base (the 25% or so that think Bush did a good job) envelops itself in a bubble world, where America is a center-right nation, McCain didn't win because he wasn't conservative enough, and Sarah Palin would make a great president. The right-wing media slings "comfort food" stories to a base that wants nothing else. The propagandists aren't interested in changing, as their income depends on serving the demands of their audience. Coulter, Malkin, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, and the rest make their living by stirring up the base, fighting the liberal demons at every turn. Though this may line their pockets, its killing the Republican party. How can the party change when the base doesn't recognize that its wrong?

Poe was right!

From the Rational Wiki:

Poe's Law relates to fundamentalism, and the difficulty of identifying actual parodies thereof. It suggests that, in general, it is hard to tell fake fundamentalism from the real thing, since they may both espouse equally extreme beliefs. Poe's law also works in reverse: real fundamentalism can also be indistinguishable from parody fundamentalism.

Recently I stumbled across the video below posted in the Christianity subreddit at reddit.com (my home at home), and had a hard time believing that it wasn't done by an Atheist. Watch the video and let me know what you think by taking the poll below. Enjoy!

Some Thoughts on Evidence

Hearsay is a second-hand account of purported facts. It is "a friend of a friend said..." or "my cousin's brother's uncle said..." It is the basis of urban legend and rumor, and is perhaps the least reliable form of evidence devised by man. In fact, it is so unreliable that as a rule it is generally inadmissible in federal court, as well as the courts of all fifty states. As explained by the Supreme Court in Chambers v. Mississippi:

The hearsay rule, which has long been recognized and respected by virtually every State, is based on experience and grounded in the notion that untrustworthy evidence should not be presented to the triers of fact. Out-of-court statements are traditionally excluded because they lack the conventional indicia of reliability: they are usually not made under oath or other circumstances that impress the speaker with the solemnity of his statements; the declarant's word is not subject to cross-examination; and he is not available in order that his demeanor and credibility may be assessed by the jury.

So why am I boring you with arcane legal mumbo-jumbo? Because the bible is nothing more than Bronze Age hearsay. As Thomas Paine put it:

[A]dmitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.

When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence.

Carl Sagan once noted that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Certainly religion makes extraordinary claims - claims of gods and devils, of heaven and hell, and of cherubim and serpents. Despite these extraordinary claims, I have yet to see even ordinary evidence, of the type produced every single day in every court in America, let alone the extraordinary evidence necessary to lend credibility to outrageous claims of religion.

Do You Have Biblical Morals?

Take this Quiz I created. Have fun!

44 vs. 43

Any questions?