Kalvinism's Kausal Konfusion

Kalvinism's Kausal Konfusion

Paul Manata has done it again. He revealed a bit too much about his Calvinist worldview. In the comments section of this post, Manata said the following:

Just remember, no one gets deconverted apart from God's will. So, if someone is deconverted by your blog then you've been used as a means by God. God's still using you, John.

Also, you'd have to know that a Calvinist isn't afraid that you might deconvert someone who God chose to be saved. God has determined the number of the elect before the foundation of the world, and there's nothing anyone can do to change it. So, go scare an arminian with your blog.

What Manata says here regarding deconversions is an extrapolation of a more basic premise in the Calvinist worldview: that nothing exists or happens without God wanting it to. God has every intricate detail of the entire universe planned out. Every molecule that moves, every creature that is born, every star that supernovas, and every apple that is eaten, is all planned and willed by God.

According to Calvinism, God's will cannot be defied. Nothing can happen without God willing it to. Broke your leg? God's will. Millions of Jews burned in ovens? God made it so. Deconverted from Christianity? God made you do it. Born with cerebral palsy? That's God's gift to you. Tsunami ravage your village? Forget plate tectonics, it was God's work. Got nailed to a cross? It wasn't Mel, it was God!

Now let's talk about a particular concept. That concept is called "responsibility". Responsibility, according to the evil secular dictionary.com, is:

1. The state, quality, or fact of being responsible.
2. Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden.

And "responsible," according to the evil secular dictionary.com, is:

1. Liable to be required to give account, as of one's actions or of the discharge of a duty or trust.
2. Involving personal accountability or ability to act without guidance or superior authority: a responsible position within the firm.
3. Being a source or cause.

Responsibility is what is assigned to a subject that is the causal agent of a given action or situation. If I, Aaron Kinney, slap you in the face, then I am responsible for doing so. But if God is the one causing everything to happen, then it wasn't really me that slapped you in the face, and it is God that is responsible for that action.

Here is where the Calvinism gets weird. According to Calvinism, God chooses who has faith in Christ and who doesn't. Therefore, neither the theist nor atheist are responsible for their belief or lack thereof. No atheist could be responsible for going to Hell if God chose that person to be an atheist.

And here is where it gets weirder. According to Calvinism, God chooses every action that ever occurs. So who is responsible for the rebellion of Lucifer? And who is responsible for the eating from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden?

Who is responsible for giving humans original sin?

God.

So who, then, is to blame for original sin? Where did original sin originally come from? Who is the real sinner?

God.

So in light of this revelation, let's all join hands and sing a song that celebrates God's gracious carrying of the burden of responsibility:

All things dull and ugly
All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The Lord God made the lot

Each little snake that poisons
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom
He made their horrid wings

All things sick and cancerous
All evils great and small
All things foul and dangerous
The Lord God made them all

Each nasty little hornet
Each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin
Who made the sharks? He did

All things scabbed and ulcerous
All pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous
The Lord God made them all

Crossposted at Goosing the Antithesis.

Operation: Pray Dawson's Way to 20/20 Vision

In my previous blog post a commenter by the name of Tawanda chimed in to talk about her belief in Jesus Christ. Tawanda is a nice person. Our (brief) exchange was cordial. However, it felt a bit lacking in substance. Tawanda seemed unable to explain why she believed in the Christian God. What she certainly was able to do, however, was state in a dozen different ways simply that she did believe in God. The sad part is that I don't think she understands the difference between describing what she believes versus why she believes it. And I don't think she ever really thought about why she believes in Jesus either:

Aaron,

I believe in God because He is the one, true living God. God is the creator of everything and I thank God He created me.

I believe in God because He has shown me Himself in the Bible and I believe everything that precious book contains.

I believe in God because He has healed me.

At least that "healed me" bit was close to a reason why. So I gave her some follow up questions and observations, but Tawanda never came back to answer them (at least not yet).

But then things got a lot more interesting. A man whom I hold in high regard, Dawson Bethrick (aka Bahnsen Burner) of Incinerating Presuppositionalism, decided that it was time to really put the ball in Tawanda's court. I am going to re-post Dawson's comment in it's entirety. Observe the brilliance:

Bahnsen Burner said...

Aaron: "Why do you believe in God?"

Tawanda: "I believe in God because He is the one, true living God. God is the creator of everything and I thank God He created me."

Now there's a classic non-answer there. Nothing in Tawanda's response explains how she acquired awareness of something that is said to be invisible, immaterial, infinite and everpresent. She gives no instruction on how one can distinguish between what she calls "God" and what she may merely be imagining. What she describes is essentially a mood which she has personified and projected into an imaginary realm which exists behind the actual realm which we perceive.

Tawanda says: "When I call upon God, He always answers. I talk to Him and He talks back to me. God says that if I ask of Him anything in Jesus' name, He will hear and answer me."

Indeed, many passages from the gospels put some hefty promises into Jesus' mouth. Consider John 14:14, which states:

If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

Here we have a statement in the bible which couldn't be more explicit and clearly stated. Also, keep in mind that the gospels attribute many healings to Jesus involving blind persons receiving their sight back.

Now, I am not blind, but it seems that every year my eyes need stronger prescription glasses. Prayer never worked for me, but apparently Tawanda has a better relationship with Jesus-god such that it answers her every prayer. So perhaps Tawanda would ask Jesus to restore my vision to 20/20. Think of the amazing coversion this would bring: that snarling, sabertoothed atheist Dawson Bethrick abandons his evil atheist worldview and humbles himself before the throne of Christ. It would send shockwaves throughout 7 or 8 internet blogs for at least a couple days. Apologists would quickly forget about Antony Flew's reconsideration of his position (well, perhaps they already have) for now they'd have something stronger than merely stepping away from strong atheism.

So, what do you say, Tawanda? I'm game. Want to give it a whirl? I'll even close my eyes and bow my head as you say the prayer. Just let me know when I can expect to throw out my eyeglasses once and for all.

Looking forward to the spiritual alternative to Lasik surgery. Can't wait!

Regards,
Dawson

Amen, brother Dawson. Amen.

Now we get to the real point of this post. This post is a prayer request for all theists and afterlife believers to give Dawson Bethrick 20/20 vision! Whether a Christian, Muslim, Satanist, Hindu, or whatever other superstition you believe in, you are cordially invited to pray to, converse with, bargain with, sell your soul to, or by any other means necessary get your invisible sky fairy to magically grant Dawson Bethrick the 20/20 vision that he is so patiently requesting.

Don't let the derogatory references to your deity fool you; I am dead serious here. This is the perfect opportunity to win a convert for your religion of choice! Dawson Bethrick has stated that he is even willing to close his eyes and bow his head to increase the prayer's effectiveness. It's a small price to pay for 20/20 vision! All you need to do as the messenger of God is to set up an appointment with Dawson, and he will surely give the head bow and eyelid shutter at the requested moment.

And if Dawson's vision really does change to 20/20 because of your religious intervention, I have a good hunch that he will convert to your religion. I know I will! You hear that, theists? If Dawson Bethrick confirms with me that his vision has been miraculously enhanced to 20/20 because of your prayer or other negotiation with your God, then I, Aaron Kinney, will convert to your religion on the spot.

This is a grand opportunity for theists everywhere! Convert two extremely atheistic souls, and destroy two atheist blogs with one successful prayer request! It's a fucking bargain. Our souls are for sale at discount, theists. Can you cough up the spiritual dough?

Jesus Camp: Because Brainwashing Works Better on the Young

The esteemed PZ Myers has a great post about a children's camp in that well-known geographic mud puddle of ignorant tribalism, North Dakota. The name of the camp is Jesus Camp, and there's a movie about the camp that was recently reviewed by David Byrne.

"Get 'em while they're young" is the most effective conversion tactic ever used by Christoid cultists. I experienced this tactic firsthand by my own grandparents who began my indoctrination into Christianity since before I can remember. If authority figures tell your young 6 year old self that Jesus is real and that Big Brother is watching your every move (alongside Santa Claus maybe?), what reason do you have not to believe them? Children rely on authority figures for almost everything, and the younger they are, the more they rely on authority figures.

In fact, a main cause of friction between children and parents as they age is the child's growing independence. That is why it's so important to get kids into Jesus at a young age. The younger the child being brainwashed, the more they will rely on their faith as a foundation for their worldview.

Here is a snip of David Byrne's review:

Right wing political agendas and slogans are mixed with born again rituals that end with most of the kids in tears. Tears of release and joy, they would claim — the children are not physically abused. The kids are around 9 or 10 years old, recruited from various churches, and are pliant willing receptacles. They are instructed that evolution is being forced upon us by evil Godless secular humanists, that abortion must be stopped at all costs, that we must form an "army" to defeat the Godless influences, that we must band together to insure that the right judges and politicians get into the courts and office and that global warming is a lie.

Naturally, the kids being so young, there is no questioning of any kind — they simply accept what grownups Fischer and the others say — they get pumped up, agitated, they memorize right wing and Jesus slogans and shout them back obediently. They become part of a support group — a warm, safe, comfortable feeling for anyone, for any social animal, for you and me.

Scary shit. I am glad though that these kinds of activities are attracting the attention of rational adults like David Byrne, and that these kinds of activities are more controversial than they would have been 50 years ago.

PZ Myers has a rather interesting take on how to treat religion:

Maybe we should start treating religion the way we do sex: it isn't discussed in front of the kids, we have committees and institutions that police the media to block access to it, the government works hard to dun fear and contempt of it into young kids' school curricula so that they don't monkey with it until they're at least in their late teens. It seems to me that if we're able to slap sex with the label of shame for so long, without actually destroying the ability of most kids to eventually enthusiastically participate in it, it ought to be possible and fair to do the same with religion, right? We could also treat people who expose kids to Catholicism or Islam or Scientology as disgusting perverts who deserve to be sent to jail, and put them on police lists that are distributed to neighborhoods.

I'm all for it. Let's make religion something in which mature adults can consensually revel, but that we keep away from the kiddies…until they're old enough to manage the responsibility. Sounds fair? I'm sure, though, that that is the last thing the pious would want to do: remove the kids from their oily, sanctimonious grasp, and religion would die back in a few generations to a low level eccentricity held by a small fraction of the population—and those few believers would all be idiosyncratic, and not at all in thrall to the big money institutions of modern religion.

Good idea. While I am an anarchist and totally against the state in all ways shapes and forms, if the state exists today, we might as well get it to work for us, right? Or at least make it consistent in its application of force. I think the Bible has more descriptions of sex than your average issue of Playboy Magazine, and more violence in it than Saving Private Ryan. So why not get the state to regulate the Bible the same way that it regulates porn? In fact, I bet that Pornography is less damaging to children's minds than the Bible is! No Penthouse video with double penetration scenes will tell you that you will go to Hell if you don’t believe Jenna Jameson to be the messiah. No Penthouse video with a sloppy, slurpy oral sex sequence will tell you that you were born a sinning worthless wretch! No Penthouse video ever simulates a pair of daughters having sex with their father! Even hardcore porn has decency standards that the Bible walks all over!

Religious people would obviously never let that happen, because PZ Myers is right. If we kept religion away from kids like we keep sex away from them, then the percentage of faith in the general population would plummet faster than Satan falling into Hell. Within a few generations, Christianity and indeed all theism would be placed in the loony bin file right next to those Kool-Aid drinking comet chasers. Which is where it belongs, by the way.

Oh those poor kids. I can only pray (hahaha) that they will be able to open their eyes as they get older, think for themselves, and remove the yoke of religion from their minds. Unfortunately, going from Jesus lover to freedom lover is a rather emotionally painful process.

It's tough to accept that everything you were taught to believe by the adults that you loved and trusted is a lie. It's tough to accept self-responsibility after spending your whole life with the emotional comfort of having a cosmic Big Brother who gave you a free pass to eternal bliss for all your faults just for submitting to Him. Its difficult to accept that you are indeed a good person - not born a guilty evil wretch - especially after your parents, friends, and family members convinced you that you were. It is difficult to get through the pain of realizing that you were deceived and hurt by the ones you loved, and the ones who raised you. And it's also very difficult to come to terms with the fact that while you managed to open your eyes and break the spell, the friends and family that you love are still trapped by it.

While I like David's review of the film, there is one small problem with his closing remarks:

When one sees religion perverted — in the U.S. or in Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan or India, one wonders if the spiritual seeds, planted by visionaries and enlightened prophets like Jesus, Mohammed, Marx and others, are just too volatile for large societies to deal with.

Emphasis mine.

No David, my friend. All religion is perverted. That line should read "When one sees perverted religion..." but then it would merely be redundant, wouldn't it?

Frank Trigg Don't Know Nothin' Bout No Abraham

Calvinist Frank Trigg recently commented in a post at the parody-blog Discomfiting Christianity. Frank thought he was all smart, but he only exposed his ignorance of his own religion.

It all started when Frank said that Jews are God haters. I responded to Frank's "Jews are God haters" claim by saying:

A God-hating Jew, huh? Um, news flash Frank: Jews are Abrahamic theists just like you, and they don’t hate God. This Jew was secular, but was a believing Jew until recently.

Jews are closer to atheists than Christians? Again you don’t know what you are talking about. I would love to see you support THAT assertion!

Let me correct you. Jews believe in the Abrahamic God. Christians believe in the Abrahamic God + Jesus. Atheists don’t believe in any of that bullshit. So Jews are much closer to Christianity than atheism. Jesus was a Jew.

Frank would have none of it. Frank refuses to believe that Judaism is a religion of Abraham:

Well, since the jews (you're referring to) don't believe in the trinity, and since the God of Abraham was triune, the Jews don't believe in the God of Abraham, now do they?

Yes, according to the NT Jews are god haters just like atheists and Mormons. I supported this by claiming that Jesus said you're either for him or against him. Therefore, since the jew and atheist are against him, they are on one side of the fence while all those for Jesus are on the other side.

At this point, I posted a devastating comment that skewered all of Frank’s previous assertions from his mistaken claims about Abraham and his poorly applied prostitute analogy. I even threw in an ad-hominem or two. Frank was liberally lobbing ad-hominems, so I thought I would join the fun.

But shortly after I posted the comment, it mysteriously disappeared! Instead Discomfiter, the blog owner and the unknown Christian pretending to be an atheist, deleted my entire comment and posted his own sarcastic comment about my humility. I was a little bummed out to see that all my great links and analogy dissections were gone.

So I figured that I could at the least show in this post why Frank Trigg doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about when it comes to "Abrahamic religion". Frank can't draw proper distinctions between worldviews if his life depended on it.

Here is a webpage all about Abrahamic religion:

In the Torah and the Qur'an, Abraham is described as a patriarch blessed by God (the Jewish people called him "Father Abraham"), and promised great things. Jews and Christians consider him father of the people of Israel through his son Isaac; Muslims regard him as the father of the Arabs through his son Ishmael. In Christian belief, Abraham is a model of faith, and his intention to obey God by offering up Isaac is seen as a foreshadowing of God's offering of his son, Jesus. In Islam, Abraham obeyed God by offering up Ishmael and is considered to be one of the most important prophets sent by God.

All the Abrahamic religions are derived to some extent from Judaism as practiced in ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah prior to the Babylonian Exile, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE...

Christianity originated in Judea, at the end of the 1st century, as a radically reformed branch of Judaism, see Early Christianity...

Islam originated in the 7th century, in the Arabian cities of Mecca and Medina. Although not a dissident branch of either Judaism or Christianity, it explicitly claimed to be a continuation and replacement for them, and echoed many of their principles. According to the Muslim belief, the Qur'an was the final word of God and its message was that of all the prophets. As an example of the similarities between the faiths, Muslims believe in a version of the story of Genesis and in the lineal descent of the Arabs from Abraham through Ishmael, who was conceived through Abraham's servant Hagar.

Judaism, like Christianity and Islam, is an Abrahamic religion. Class dismissed.

Oh I almost forgot. Another commenter named Warrenl asked for objective evidence that societies are worse off when they believe in God. There are many studies and statistics that show this correlation, but I like to cite the work that Gregory Paul published in the Journal of Religion and Society as a convenient and recent example of evidence that religious societies suck compared to nonreligious ones. Paul's study does not claim any causation, only correlation, and I agree with that. I believe that the causal factor is education. But nonetheless, societies with more faith have more problems.

The Jesus Christ Fan Club Loses Yet Another Member

Yesterday I posted about a Jewish friend of mine deconverting to atheism right in front of me. That was a very good day. And today got even better. Why? Because I stopped by my good friend Olly's blog, 10,000 Reasons to Doubt the Fish, and found this post:

So right now, I’m watching my wife, who was raised in a traditional Presbyterian home, start to open her mind, and really question the beliefs that she has held (due to indoctrination) her entire life. She’s been starting down this path for a long time, but the reason I blog about it right now is that last night, she made the first MAJOR step: she began to reject Christ’s divinity.

Hallelujah! I am ecstatic at this news! But it gets even better:

And last night she and I sat down and finally talked about it. She told me that, what she’s come to realize, is that by letting go of the divinity of Christ, she finally feels at Peace about religion.

As we were driving around chain-smoking (our typical habit while having deep conversations), she looked at me in the dark of the car, and she said to me, with tears in her eyes, that she finally felt at peace.

Congratulations to Olly and his intelligent and brave wife for taking such a huge step.

While rejecting the divinity of Christ is a wonderful accomplishment, Olly doesn't think that his wife will reject God and the afterlife in totality:

I think my wife will always believe in God. She’s the first person to admit that she needs that comfort (she used those words herself). She will also probably always believe in an Afterlife, again she needs the comfort that is brought.

But in the comments section of Olly's post, Sean Prophet of BlackSun Journal isn't so sure about that. And if anyone knows about deconverting from superstitions, it’s Sean Prophet:

Maybe, maybe not. She’s already started down the road to freedom. Once ‘faith’ begins to unravel, where does it end? She might eventually find that the false certitudes she was raised on will lose their attraction. This is how humanity will wake up to who we really are…one person at a time.

Amen Sean, amen.

While Olly knows his wife better than any of us bloggers do, Sean knows what he is talking about when it comes to freeing one's mind. It often doesn't stop until it hits the logical end: materialistic atheism. Sometimes it takes many more years to get that far, but the unraveling usually doesn't stop until there's nothing left to unravel.

I hope that, one day, Olly's wife no longer feels the emotional need to believe in the afterlife and God. But that's a big bridge that only she can cross. While this incident doesn't count as a point for atheism, it definitely counts as a hit against Christianity and Jesus and indeed all theistic dogma. And that's half the battle right there.

Congratulations to all the wonderful deconversions taking place amongst my circle of friends, both in real life and over the Internet. The war of ideas is going well for us reality-loving types. Let's keep the momentum going!

More Afterlife Belief Has Been Killed

Yesterday a friend of mine declared her deconversion to atheism to me. I was quite surprised, and pleasantly so.

My friend was raised Jewish, but wasn't the most strict observer of the faith. In fact she has led quite a secular life, but has always up until now considered herself a Jew. While she is aware of my blogging and other atheist activities, I've never really discussed the issue of God with her.

Well I stopped by her residence yesterday, and she showed me an email she received that shows some Iranian Muslims crushing an 8-year-old boy's arm by driving over it with a car, all for stealing a loaf of bread. She was disgusted by the photographs, as was I. She made a few pointed observations about the barbarity of the Muslim religion, and then she proceeded to commit total blasphemy against God in general.

She said "I'm not even gonna call myself a Jew anymore. I don't believe that shit!" She said that God is bullshit and that the idea of being created by a God with silly rules is ridiculous. She said that she didn't believe anymore that souls are eternal, which pretty much means that she Killed The Afterlife right then and there.

But she then said that she doesn't want to call herself an atheist because of the social stigma. This statement alone obviously implies that she considers herself an atheist. She said that if anyone asks, she will say that she is a Buddhist.

And that's fine with me. She's an atheist now as far as I'm concerned. The cool part is that she deconverted all on her own, and right in front of me. I had nothing to do with it as far as I can tell.

All it took was a little photograph series of Sharia law in action to give my friend an epiphany of sorts, and kill her own afterlife. These pro-afterlifers, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other, are their own worst enemy. Their own crazy actions seen through the lens of modern, independent-thinking minds leads to a hemorrhage of adherents. Right on!

Christian Blogger Fakes Atheism to Publish Hoax List

An anonymous blogger claiming to have two PhDs attempted a smear tactic against atheist bloggers today. The blog The Good The Bad and The Ugly presented three "top 5 lists" for best atheist blogs, mediocre blogs, and crappy blogs.

Christian blogger Groundfighter76 first brought it to my attention via the comments section of a recent post at Goosing the Antithesis. Check out the comments section of that post to see my initial reaction to the list, and my eventually labeling it a pile of bullshit.

From the beginning the list seemed funny. A guy claimed to have two PhDs, one from Oxford, and one from Cambridge. He said he was an atheist who had to be anonymous because of his recent applying to a University job of some sort. Although that isn't too out of the ordinary, it is worth noting that countless atheist doctorate holders have made their views quite public; people like PZ Myers of Pharyngula for example.

The three lists he posted are a literal roll call of atheistic social clicks on the Internet. I mean, there are hundreds of atheist blogs and bloggers out there that put out a lot of work, and I am only associates or friends with a small minority of them. But the three lists this anonymous guy posted were filled almost exclusively with bloggers that I know and interact with. Dawson Bethrick, the folks at Goosing the Antithesis, John Loftus, The Raving Atheist, Ed Babinski, etc. This was too much of a coincidence for me.

This list was so insular, that I was actually listed twice! Kill The Afterlife (of which I am the sole member) was listed in the mediocre section, while Goosing the Antithesis (of which I am a team member) was listed in the bad section. How do I manage to get listed twice out of all the hundreds of atheist blogs out there? And why the hell is Dawson Bethrick in the mediocre section? His blog is anything but.

Then it got worse. The Sam Harris link isn't even a blog but an article from 2005. The Secular Outpost is just an outlet for the Internet Infidels website.

But then what happens? I notice that the 5th blog listed on the "best" list, Discomfiting Christianity, which I've never seen before (literally the only atheist blog I haven't heard of before seeing this list), gives extreme amounts of props to John Loftus, whose blog Debunking Christianity is listed last in the "worst" list. Then after reading the first few posts from Discomfiting Christianity, I realize that the blog is likely a hoax. Groundfighter76 then confirms with me in the comments of Goosing the Antithesis that Discomfiting Christianity is indeed a hoax blog meant to parody and insult John Loftus. Call me crazy, but the whole thing reeks of Paul Manata and/or friends.

So an anonymous atheist with two PhDs who seems to only read a small circle of atheist blogs puts a parody site in the best top 5 list, and some respectable blogs in the mediocre and worst of lists. Plus he throws in a site that isn't really an atheist blog but an essay from Sam Harris. He actually lists two blogs that I write for (I can only wish my name was that popular in the field of atheism). And the guy provides no reasoning or explanations as to why each choice got on the list that it did. For a guy who claims two doctorates and appoints himself as the judge of the intellectual merit of these blogs, he sure doesn't like to support his assertions!

At this point, I realized that this is very likely another hoax. I have officially called the bullshit flag. But unlike the Discomfiting Christianity blog, which is a somewhat obvious parody, this Good Bad Ugly blog is quite disingenuous. It took some research to figure out that it was a lie, and at first glance it very much comes off as a legitimate blog. I can imagine that it would fool a lot of atheists as well as theists. There is no disclaimer that I can see either. Even the Objective Ministries site has a disclaimer or parody notification buried deep within it.

Whoever created the Good Bad and The Ugly blog thought they were clever, but their little scheme only worked for about 5 minutes. I have nothing against Christians doing parodies. But I do have something against Christians lying and trying to deceive others deliberately. But of course Christians don't feel too bad about this, what with their Biblical revisionism and interpretation, master/slave moral ideology, and tendency to blindly follow the commands of their self-appointed mystics.

Christians clearly suck at doing atheist parodies. But atheists rock at doing Christian parodies. That's because atheists are smarter. Parodies like the aforementioned Objective Ministries and the infamous Landover Baptist site are brilliant in their conception and execution. If Discomfiting Christianity and The Good The Bad and The Ugly are the best hoaxes that Christians can do, then I feel pretty damn good about how this ideology war is going right now. All indicators show that atheists are the ones gaining ground, and that Christians are losing ground. By their works, we shall know them, the losers that they are.

Christian Love for FSM

Remember all the commotion awhile back about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? All of us atheists had a good laugh. But the Christians didn't. In fact, from the looks of the hatemail section of the FSM site, there are still plenty of Christians to this day who are discovering the Flying Spaghetti Monster for the first time and promptly firing off emails that so wonderfully encompass the loving nature of the Christian.

Let's peruse some of the FSM's more recent Christian hatemails lovemails!

This first one was sent today. It's great to finally see a Christian who is honest enough to proclaim the moral justice (according to their Holy Book) of eternally torturing your own creation in the hottest Hell imaginable merely for their mocking of you by imagining a spaghetti God. I wonder if this Christian parent would be consistent and throw their "small babies" in an oven when, inevitably, said Christian parent was actually mocked by his/her children?

If I was your creator and you mocked me in this manner I couldn't think of a hell hot enough for you. It is really sad to think that at Judgement you will be standing in front of God Almighty and he will look at you and say "Depart from me ye worker of iniquity, I never knew you" And to think, God let you be born, blessed you with health and love in your life and with what do you honor Him? With such vile mockeries of his Deity. I am sick to my stomach that my small babies will live in such a disgusting generation where God is no longer the source of strength and power.

The next Christian hatemailer has a grasp of logic that rivals even Paul Manata's. I sure hope I never have to debate this guy! He might get me to re-convert to Christianity:

I find your site degrading and offensive. God does not allow for the type of logical fallicies you promote on your site. For instance, why would a perfect, infanate being have to rest for three days after creation? The bible clearly establishes a maximum one to six day resting ratio for the creation of the universe by an infante being. Ok, I'll be sympathetic to your tortured logic and explain how mankind knows that the bible is the word of god. 1. the bible is infallible.

The next Christian, after "proving" the truth of the Bible with impeccable intellectual prowess, declares Bobby (creator of FSM) to be a tool of Satan, expresses a wish for Bobby to burn forever in a lake of fire, and then signs off with the line "With Love". How deliciously 1984-ish. Well maybe this is one Christian that really does love his enemies:

You are the biggest hypocrite I have ever been exposed to; throughout your page you repeatedly assert that evolution is the only "scientific" explanation of the origin of species, yet right on your front page you say that such absurd theories as the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" should also be incorporated into public high school science curriculum. So let me explain this to you nice and slow; the Bible is the answer, it is what is to be differed to at all times; the Bible is 100% true- it says so in the Bible...

...as I noticed some of you other readers correctly pointed out, if you question things your are a tool of Satan. You don't need to question, God does all the thinking for us; he actually has a degree in Philosophy. Abortion is wrong, it says so in the bible, I dare you to go look it up- you probably won't find it, but that's just because your gay, which is also wrong- it says so in the Bible. Now some of us will be wondering the justification for that moral assertion, but remember the Bible is flawless- it says so in the Bible...

...As a Christian, I follow Jesus for his teachings of love and tolerance; it is people like you who make me sick, I hope you die in a lake of fire and get your eyes pecked out by crows, so that you may go to hell and exist for eternity in a lake of fire getting your eyes pecked out by crows.

With love,

Charlie

Next comes the best one. A Christian whose email address includes the phrase "jesusmarine" sends 8 or so hatemails with threats to sue and such. But the first email that "jesusmarine" sends is the best. This guy spreads Christian love so effectively that he's just got to be a member of Force Ministries. I mean, what better way is there to impart faith in Christ than in full combat gear while wielding an AR-15 with an attached night scope?

I do believe you are a fucking retard and I hope you burn in hell. Fuck you and the flying spaghetti monster...

You obviously think life is just a big damn joke. Its all for humor and entertainment. I look forward to the day it fucks you right in the ass. Lets try this...I'm going to go very sloooooowly for you Bobby. Retarded people...like Bobby Henderson....will burn in hell unless you give your life to Jesus Christ.

Did I mention that this guy is part of the "don't ask, don't tell" United States Military program? Apparently he loves to fantasize about atheists and Pastafarians getting fucked in the ass.

But JesusMarine isn't the only Christian hatemailer who is obsessed with assplay. A Christian named Seth makes a few statements that expose a bit too much about the way his mind works:

when god asks you "Why should I let you into Heaven?" what are you going to say? "let me in because i mocked you my entire pathetic life, said there was a god better than you, made of spaghetti and meatballs. let me in." right. thats the point you go to hell. you are a stupid little guy with no girlfriend, so you're depressed. writing about your fake, gay loving man whore god. to get attention. all its gonna get you is a foot so far up your a** your gonna have ingrown toenails growin out your ears. you need to stop this stuff. all you're doing is getting yourself closer and closer and closer. to hell. not heaven. not paradise. not getting laid. not having children. not having a penis. nothing. shut the heck up already. no one likes you..except your gay friends who believe all this stupid crap. and whoever they are.. i hope they use protection with eachother, along with you. tonight. oh by the way. i am having spaghetti and meatballs tonight u little prick. i think i will just throw it in the trash cause thats where it belongs. along with your fake whack religion and fake god. so have a nice day, and hope u have fun gettin raped by your spaghetti and meatball, FAKE god.

Sincerely, Seth

Another Christian gets straight into necrophilic fantasies. Maybe this Christian got his ideas from thinking too hard about a 3-day decomposed body reanimating?

people like you are scum, I hope you die by the hands of some sick perverted guy who will skullfuck you and then use your skin to make lampshades.

The next guy is so full of drugs and hate that all he wants to do is snort lines off of dead bodies and watch everyone on the planet except for him burn in Hell forever. I wonder if this Christian frequents the Rapture Ready forums?

your a fuckin faggot and burn in hell. if i knew you personally id slit your throat and watch you suffer as i laugh and do a fat cocaine like off of your dead body. I would then light you on fire, light my cigerette off of the ashes, smoke weed with the fire and piss on the ashes. then i would take your ashes roll them into a blunt and smoke them. i hope you fuckin burn in hell along with everyother piece of shit on this planet.

Another Christian seems to think that mocking someone is worse than eternal suffering. If God is indeed kinder to Bobby than Bobby is being to God, then would that mean that God merely mocks Bobby just a little bit for his blasphemy and unbelief and then lets him into heaven?

Hopefully God will be more merciful to you than you are to Him.

The next Christian is actually frightened by Bobby's lack of fear. Yes, that's right. If there's anything that scares me in this life, it's a lack of fear! George Orwell would have a field day with this doubleplusgood nonsense:

I believe that the most frightening situation a human being can be in is to lose the fear of their Creator, fear that brings about wisdom, understanding, honor, humility, service to their family, church and neighbors. It is a fear that seeks to give their creator all of the glory, fear that acts as a boundary trying, lovingly, to prevent us from venturing into self destructive sin and choosing evil, fear that allows us to leave if we wish but desperately desires that we return if only we would so choose. It is a fear that starts with an abhorence of our disrespect, rejection of our pride, but ends in the safety and security and peace that lies deep within, and far from, the threshold and conviction we know as the emotion called "fear."

Christianity certainly has a lot of love for its enemies. That Christian love is expressed through anal rape, fear as a virtue, necrophilia, death threats, and promises of eternal damnation.

To see older FSM hatemail from loving Christians, click here.

Christoids Shout "Hallelujah!" as Innocents Die in Israel and Lebanon

Thanks to the esteemed Cay of Galileo's Dream for bringing this to my attention.

Nothing makes Christoids quite as happy as when war breaks out in the Israel/Palestine/Lebanon/Syria area of the Middle East. Their joy increases in proportion to the amount of death and destruction that takes place there. This is because the Christoids' favorite fairy tale book, the Bible, promises an escape from the hardships of objective reality (in the form of Armageddon and Rapture) when 1) blood begins to spill at about 1000 Gallons per minute, and 2) bombs begin to drop at about 1000 tons per minute, anywhere around the geographic region known as Israel.

Okay, I made up those 1000 gallons/tons per minute figures, but it is well known that the more blood is spilled and the more bombs are dropped in that region, the more likely the Rapture will occur in the minds of the Christoids. This makes them very happy, because as I've written before, Christoids worship death.

Now let's take a look at the Media Matters article that Cay was so kind enough to point out to me. Apparently, since the start of the latest hemorrhage of innocent blood in Israel/Lebanon, media outlet CNN has had two segments about the Rapture in three days time:

For the second time in three days, CNN featured a segment on the potential coming of the Apocalypse, as indicated by current conflicts in the Middle East. The July 26 edition of CNN's Live From ... featured a nine-minute segment in which anchor Kyra Phillips discussed the Apocalypse and the Middle East with Christian authors Jerry Jenkins and Joel C. Rosenberg -- who share the view that the Rapture is nigh. At one point in the discussion, Phillips asked Rosenberg whether she needed "to start taking care of unfinished business and telling people that I love them and I'm sorry for all the evil things I've done," to which Rosenberg replied: "Well, that would be a good start." Throughout the segment, the onscreen text read: "Apocalypse Now?"

The Media Matters article continues with a transcript of an on-air dialogue with Jerry Jenkins, co-author of the 63-million-sold Left Behind series of apocalyptic books. CNN basically ate up everything this death-worshipping Christoid had to say, and totally legitimized his ridiculous vision of the end of the world via gratuitous bloodletting in a tiny sand-covered portion of the Middle East. You should read the whole thing.

So why is CNN giving so much airtime to end-of-the-world superstitionist prophecy? Because CNN is a for-profit organization, and CNN knows who it's customers are. CNN knows that most of it's customers are Christoids, and most Christoids want the world to end as the Bible tells them it will. They want a cosmic dictator to sweep down and save them from a reality where object has primacy over subject; to save them from a world where people think differently than they do; to save them from a world where their own beliefs are not universally recognized as truth; to save them from the deep-down fear that their consciousnesses might cease to exist after their bodies expire.

The Christoids want all these things, and they want them at any price. They don't care how many innocent children are killed in the process. They don't care how badly the societies in the Middle East are ruined in the process. They will continue to give free Apache Helicopters and free Abrams Tanks and free Laser Guided Bombs to the Israelis as long as the Israelis keep using them to set the whole region aflame.

At the end of the CNN interview, Kyra Phillips says something rather telling about the Christoids:

Joel Rosenberg and Jerry Jenkins, you both scare me, but you both fascinate me.

Personally, I am more scared than fascinated by the bloodlust of these Christoids, but I am morbidly fascinated nonetheless. It is fascinating to see how people in this day and age can believe in, and want, such horrible things. It is fascinating to see how people in this day and age can be so rebellious against reality. But more importantly, it is scarier than shit to see these same people controlling the major events in the world today and actually bring about the murder and destruction that they so desperately desire.

It is the ideas of God and the afterlife that bring about such destruction. While humans can be destroyed with bombs and guns, ideas cannot. The only way to fight ideas is with other ideas. Our battle is not with people, but with ideas. These twisted Christoids believe that by waging war they are saving their lives, while we know that by waging war our lives are being destroyed. By definition, pro-afterlifers don't believe in actual death. But us reality-based people know better. We must win the ideological war against all the pro-afterlife superstitionists. Our very lives depend on it.

We must Kill The Afterlife.

The Foolishness of Belief

My friend Josh Brisby at The Reformed Oasis recently made a post titled The Foolishness of Unbelief. In the post, Josh quotes Dr. Greg Bahnsen:

Dr. Greg Bahnsen made an excellent statement which I think sums up the foolishness of unbelieving thought. He said the following:

“It is not a mark of rationality for a person to assert one thing, but then to live contrary to it.”

He added,

“The life of the unbeliever is riddled with such inconsistency. He will presuppose human dignity and attend a funeral to honor a dead friend or relative, even though he previously argued that man is, in principle, no different from any other product of evolution like a horse or dog. The unbeliever will insist that man is nothing more than a complex of bio-chemical factors controlled by the laws of physics—and then kiss his wife and children when he goes home, as though they share love with each other. He will argue that in sexual relations ‘anything goes’ (there are no moral absolutes)—but then indignantly condemn child molesters or morally repudiate necrophilia. He will suggest that the things which happen in the universe happen randomly—by ‘chance’—but then turn around and look for regularities, law-like explanations of events, and uniformity or predictability in the things studied by natural science. The non-Christian does not have a workable worldview, and he exposes its weakness at every turn in his life.”

Josh then finished his post with a thanks to God and a prayer.

First, a few comments on Dr. Bahnsen's straw man of the unbeliever:

1) Unbelief does not contain a moral system within it, but that does not mean that unbelievers do not have a moral system. Unbelievers have a much wider variety of moral systems to choose (or not choose) than any man of faith has. And it shows, for there are many kinds of moral systems championed by many types of unbelievers. This blanket statement by Bahnsen is just as ignorant as saying something like, "All Mexicans are Mary-worshipping Catholic border jumpers".

2) Unbelievers do not all insist that man is nothing more than a complex of bio-chemical factors controlled by the laws of physics. Many unbelievers believe in free will for example. Calvinists cannot even make that claim.

3) Unbelievers do not believe in sexual relations that anything goes. In fact, I have never even met an atheist who feels this way, and I've met quite a few atheists. Again, this is as ignorant as claiming that all Mexicans are Catholic border jumpers.

4) Dr. Bahnsen has absolutely no understanding of the concept of chance and its relation to natural predictable behavior of material entities and their respective properties. Yet he relies on these things every time he places a Bible on a table assuming that gravity will keep it there (unless Dr. Bahnsen believes in Intelligent Falling).

I definitely agree with the first statement that Josh quoted, "It is not a mark of rationality for a person to assert one thing, but then to live contrary to it." But I most definitely disagree with the rest of the quote.

Allow me to toss in my own analysis of belief in the Biblical God, based on Dr. Bahnsen's statement that "It is not a mark of rationality for a person to assert one thing, but then to live contrary to it."

The life of the man of faith is riddled with such inconsistency. He will presuppose the sorrow of death and mourn at a funeral to honor a dead friend or relative, even though he previously argued that man's ultimate destination, Heaven, is so incredibly blissful that it makes Earthly life seem like Hell by comparison. The man of faith will insist that man is nothing more than a slave to God, wholly owned by God and owing all of his being, love, and consideration to God, and then the man of faith will commit daily actions that serve no other interest but his own: buying his favorite sports car, watching his favorite TV show, pursuing the woman that he is most attracted to, securing the most profitable business deal. All of these actions are committed solely for the man of faith's own personal values. The man of faith will argue that in sexual relations 'only married sex is moral sex' but will almost certainly have premarital sex and even cheat on his spouse. The Catholic Priests are the worst of the bunch, championing marriage-only sex in the Cathedrals while putting their hands down the pants of prepubescent boys. The profession of the Catholic Priest has the highest child molestation rate in the Western world, closely followed by the Protestant preacher profession. The man of faith will state that the things that happen in the universe happen because of God, but will then turn around and take direct action to serve his own needs, clearly implying that he subconsciously knows that he must take matters into his own hands if his values are to be fulfilled, rather than -in practice- 'giving it up to God'. The Bible never said, "God helps those who help themselves." The man of faith does not have a workable worldview, and he rarely attempts to conduct his life within that worldview anyway. The man of faith exposes the weakness of his worldview every time he commits an action other than prayer or Bible study.

Clarification: I Mock God, Not Drugs

It appears that I wasn't too clear on what I was ridiculing in my last post: drugs or God. In this blog I have repeatedly equated spiritual experiences and God belief with drugs and insanity. Some of my readers got the impression that I was criticizing drug use.

While criticizing drug use in itself was definitely not my intention, looking at what I previously wrote, it is now apparent to me that I didn't clarify enough what I was ridiculing.

The reason I have compared drug experiences to God in this blog is not to ridicule drugs, but to ridicule God and afterlife belief. You see, when I do drugs, I am aware that there are chemicals in my body that are distorting my perception. I am aware that the effects of the drug are because of the drug, and nothing more. I enjoy the perspective shift that the drug brings while being aware of the source of that perspective shift.

Some people nowadays don't do that too well. And I am willing to bet that in the past, before modern science and medicine existed, many people would pop a few mushroom caps and then genuinely believe that their experiences were God-based rather than Mushroom-based.

A recent example that comes to mind is Alex Grey. Alex Grey does the artwork for my favorite rock band of all time, Tool. I once saw Alex Grey at an art and music exhibition in Hollywood (or was it Santa Monica?). I listened to a speech from him where he talked about using LSD as a creative tool for his art. That message was cool enough: Using a perceptual tool to assist one with their creative expression. And Alex's artwork is nothing if not creative (Have you seen the artwork for the latest Tool album, 10,000 days? It's fucking amazing).

But then Alex Grey got all batshit on me. His speech turned toward talk of a "oneness" that can be felt/seen/experienced through the use of LSD. Alex began to get very spiritual in his speech and alluded to this "oneness" being some kind of God or a conscious and singular spiritual power. Alex Grey, right in front of my eyes, explained how he really believed that a chemical he put in his head somehow got him to perceive an outside spiritual entity.

The lesson here is that even cool people who make art for cool rock bands (with very anti-religious messages) can still get confused and forget that what they see while on these drugs is all an illusion and inside their heads.

When I am on drugs, I am aware of the fact that my experience is an internally-based illusion. And after the drugs wear off, I reflect on that fact. But too many people seem to be unaware of this, or they at least forget it. People forget that these drugs are called hallucinogens for a reason. They make you see things that aren't there!

When you look through a kaleidoscope for example, you have to remember that those patterns aren't really there; it's an illusion brought about by the lens in the kaleidoscope that distorts your perception.

So, for the record, I support responsible drug use. And responsible drug use means understanding that you are experiencing drugs, not God, when you are trippin' your ass off.

Magic Mushrooms: A Path to God?

In a recent double-blind government study, the chemical psilocybin, which causes the "trip" effect of Magic Mushrooms, was found to cause profound mystical or spiritual experiences for it's users:

What's more, most of the 36 adult participants -- none of whom had taken psilocybin before -- counted their experience while under the influence of the drug as "among the most meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives," Griffiths said. Most said they became better, kinder, happier people in the weeks after the psilocybin session -- a fact corroborated by family and friends.

I don't doubt these findings at all. I've written before about psychedelics and finding God. The article elaborates further:

So, is this "God in a pill"? Griffiths said answering questions of religion or spirituality far exceeds the scope of studies like these.

"We know that there were brain changes that corresponded to a primary mystical experience," he said. "But that finding -- as precise as it may get -- will in no way inform us about the metaphysical question of the existence of a higher power."

He likened scientific attempts to seek God in the human brain to experiments where scientists watch the neurological activity of people eating ice cream.

"You could define exactly what brain areas lit up and how they interplay, but that shouldn't be used as an argument that chocolate ice cream does or doesn't exist," Griffiths said.

True, this study doesn't have much to do with whether or not God exists. However, this study does show that a good dose of hallucinogens will sure help you think you found God! And there's something that's just unsettling about the idea of hallucinogens convincing someone that they have a mystical connection to a psychic super space fairy.

You know, besides finding God, there's something else that Magic Mushrooms make you do: piss yourself. Yes, I'm serious. Have you ever seen a person tripping on an eighth of mushrooms? Sometimes, they piss their pants. There's something about the drug that makes your bladder want to let it all go.

In a nutshell, the same recreational tool that makes you piss yourself and see things that aren't there is the same tool that helps you find your spiritual connection to God.

This whole God/afterlife thing seems to be a two-way street. As I've shown so many times before on this blog, belief in God and the afterlife makes you insane. And now we have evidence that making yourself temporarily insane (through hallucinogens) makes you find God and/or the afterlife.

Belief in God and the afterlife is a way to escape reality, just like taking hallucinogens.