Christian minister provides bat shit crazy explanation for natural disasters

First of all, I would like to extend my condolences to the victims of yesterday's tsunami which struck Samoa and American Samoa. Those who follow this blog would know that one of the recurring themes here is how the senseless savagery of natural disasters stands as a testament to the proof that there is no God (at least in the sense conceived by Judeo-Christian religions).

The article I would like to feature for the purpose of ridicule today is by Presbyterian pastor Rev. Richard Phillips. It's called How Do Christians Explain Natural Disasters and can be found at: http://www.bmaboston.org/CC/article/0,,PTID307086%7CCHID559376%7CCIID1936184,00.html

Basically, Phillips' explanation is as follows: we are all sinners deserving of whatever natural nastiness comes our way. The only person who didn't deserve to die was Jesus Christ, God's perfect son. So suck it up ... prepare for the return of Christ because that will mark the end of natural disasters in our fallen world.

That's right ... babies sucked out of their cribs by tsunamis had it coming. If you can swallow this kind of mental bat shit, there is nothing you won't believe.

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 29

Accepting Your Assignment

I accepted my assignment to read The Purpose Driven Life from the Christian missionary da several months ago and I still have a ways to go. Thus far, the book has been pretty much what I expected. The basic message is that one's life is meaningless unless you pursue the higher purpose of achieving spiritual perfection through belief in God and emulating a Christ-like life. While I have no problem with the latter, nothing that Rick Warren has served to date has crystallized the former delusion into anything more than just that. No matter how many times you serve a piece a dung, it is still going to taste like a piece of poop.

This chapter is all about my mission on earth to serve the big Guy. Rick tells me that I was created to serve God, saved to serve God, called to serve God and commanded to serve God. That is a whole lot of service. Apparently, on judgment day, God is going to evaluate how well I served others with my life. Well, in the spirit of Garth Brooks' If Tomorrow Never Comes, I have prepared a little speech to deliver to The Almighty if it turns out that I have to face the day of reckoning sooner rather than later. Here it is:

I have to honestly say that I am surprised to meet my Maker. I guess my skepticism about your supposed existence was mistaken but surely an all-merciful God like you won't hold an eternal grudge for that - will you?

I am pleased to say that I walked the earth for 41 years and not once did I do anything nice in your name although I must admit that I uttered your name in vain frequently. Nor did I do anything nice to curry favour with you today because, to be frank, I didn't believe that you existed. No ... the only reason why I tried to be nice person was because it felt good to use The Golden Rule to govern how I treated my fellow man.

When I was a child, I was taught that it was wrong to lie, cheat and steal - not because you said so but just because it was wrong. I learned how to define right and wrong without you or the Bible. Say ... is the Bible really your true word or the Book of Mormon or the Koran or .... I see ... they were all imposters for your one true word which you are now telling me was anything and everything written by Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). I wish I could tell you I am surprised.

So there you have it. I lived my life and tried to be good for goodness' sake. I told some white lies. I generally preferred the interests of my friends and family to that of strangers. When given a chance, I always preferred truth over falsehoods, beauty over ugliness, good over evil and a good ale over hard liquor. I would like to think that I lived each day like it was my last and, as I liked to tell my kids, that the world was just a little better place for having me in it.

So ... do I go to hell? If not, what the hell am I going to do in heaven for eternity?

Perfect happiness requires perfect ignorance

Best of Class

If there is a better atheist evangelist than P.Z. Myers, I would like to know who it is. His response to Advice for Atheists is right on the money: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/09/advice_for_atheists.php

You can't erect a statue to your elephant god because my sky fairy will be offended

A group that describes itself as Concerned Christians Canada wants the City of Calgary zoo to remove this sculpture from its Asian elephant exhibit because it represents: "selective religious partiality": http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2009/09/25/calgary-zoo-elephant-statue-christians-response.html

In other words, these bible thumpers wants the statue removed because a small segment of the visitors (i.e. Hindus who worship the elephant god Ganesh) consider the statue to be a religious icon and the Christidiots are offended because they prefer other mythic icons.

The CCC would counter my critique by suggesting that I would be offended if the Calgary zoo erected a statue of Jesus. Actually, I couldn't care less. My problem would be if people suggested that the statue had to be treated with special reverance. Ganesh, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, etc. - they're all just equally worthy targets for seagulls.

The full CCC statement can be found here and is today's example of why the world would be a better place without religion: http://www.concernedchristians.ca/chairmans-blog-mainmenu-66/143-regarding-idols-at-calgary-zoo

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 28

It Takes Time

Words cannot express the intellectual vacuity of this chapter. This is really hard on the head but Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale helps immeasurably.

The quick message of this chapter is that it takes time to develop spiritual maturity. But Rick could have told us that in one simple sentence. He still ended up filling 7 pages with jewels of wisdom such as the following:

• Before Christ invades our lives at conversion, he sometimes has to "soften us up" by allowing problems we can't handle. This is a recurring theme throughout this book. God arranges to have nasty things happen to us so we will be compelled to love him. This is not something I was ever taught in Anglican Sunday School or Roman Catholic religion classes - I find the suggestion deeply disturbing.


• God chooses to transform us into Christlike beings slowly because we are slow learners. Please speak for yourself Rick.


• It's fine to pray for a miracle, but don't be disappointed if the answer comes through gradual change. Rick follows this line by describing water eroding through the hardest rock and a little sprout turning into a 350 foot redwood. I wonder why Rick doesn't address the fact that there has never been a single double-blind experiment to show that prayer has any observable effect on anything. Not one. It must the the devil at work.


• God is never in a hurry, but he is always on time. Rick says he uses our entire lifetime to prepare us for our role in eternity. This, of course, makes no sense. Babies die in infancy all the time. Children around the world die by the thousands due to illness and accident. Ooops, I forgot .... nothing is an accident to God. Rick's reasoning suggests that those who die young are more spiritually mature. Right [spoken in an extremely sarcastic tone].

I love the finishing line of this chapter: Even the snail reached the ark by perservering! Sometimes while reading this book I get lulled with the Dr. Phill-ish lines (such as The fear of what we might discover if we honestly faced our character defects keeps us living in a prison of denial) and forget that the author actually believes stories like Noah's ark. With respect, I would be interested to know if anyone on the face of this planet with an IQ above room temperature can honestly look themself in the mirror and say they believe that happened. Like the resurrection of Christ, if you believe in Noah's ark, you have to admit that there is nothing that you would not believe if you found it described in the Bible.

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 27

Defeating Temptation

I find Rick Warren is much easier on the head after I have had a few drinks. To enjoy this chapter, I recommend that you mix it with several glasses of 2007 Casillero del Diablo Shiraz.

This was a simple chapter as Rick presents the 4 biblical keys to defeating temptation:

1. Refocus your attention on something else. As Rick says: Satan can't get your attention when your mind is preoccupied with something else. So, if any sinful want tempts you, just whistle Dixie and think about playing bridge at the library. Oh no ... the librarian is taking off her clothes. Quick, think of something else. Praying at Church. But that collection plate would be an easy touch .... Think of something else. Watching a good football game ... now where can I lay a bet? Perhaps if I stay in a permanently alcohol impaired state my thoughts will remain pure, whatever the hell that means.

2. Reveal your struggle to a godly friend or support group. Ok, so let's assume that I am a lecherous slut who will leap at any chance I can get to be unfaithful to my wife. According to Rick, I don't need to broadcast that to the world but I need to find at least one person that I can honestly share my struggles with. They will, apparently, pray for me, encourage me and hold me accountable. Let me suggest a kick in the ass and a call to my wife - that will accomplish far more than your best intentioned bible buddy.

3. Resist the Devil. Rick says that in order to resist the Devil you must accept God's salvation and use the Word of God as your weapon. If you are a believer, apparently Satan can't force you to do anything. However, I am assuming that Rick believes the converse must be true: if you don't believe you are simply the pawn of the Devil. It's not my fault - "the Devil made me do it". I wonder if my wife would buy that line .... something tells me I would have a better chance of winning a bet for the Cleveland Browns to beat the Baltimore Ravens this weekend.

4. Realize your vulnerability. Once again, Rick repeats that we should avoid putting ourselves in tempting situations. I would have thought this is a common sense proposition and hardly biblically inspired. If you're an alcoholic, make sure the restaurant doesn't put wine in your gravy. If you're a sexoholic, maybe the Playboy mansion isn't the best place for a beer with the boys after the game.

They must be kidding when they say this book has sold over 30 million copies. There's just no way ....

You know you're having a bad day when .....

Here is further proof that if there is a God, he/she/it sure has a sick sense of humour: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/6166852/Man-killed-in-church-after-stone-altar-falls-on-him.html

This video is a must see

This video of Kseniya Simonova, the winning contestant in Ukraine's Got Talent, provides an excellent illustration of how different cultural appreciation in Eastern Europe is compared to North America. I suggest that the latter is sadly lacking.

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 26

Growing through Temptation

Rick Warren begins this chapter by explaining that Every temptation is an opportunity to do good. Temptation, he suggests, simply provides us with the choice to do the right thing as opposed to the wrong thing. He continues by suggesting that every time we choose to do good instead of sin (which I guess he is defining as succombing to temptation) we become more like Christ.

Rick describes temptation as Satan's primary weapon to destroy you and God's tool to develop you. Then he tells us how temptation works. First, Satan identifies a desire within us. Next Satan tries to get us to doubt whether the proposed sin is really wrong. Then Satan deceives us into thinking we can get away with the sin. Finally, we act on our sinful thought and give into the temptation. Rick then offers a quick recipe for overcoming temptation: refuse to be intimidated by tempting thoughts, recognize and be prepared for situations that leave you vulnerable and request God's help.

By now, Rick has taken us so far down the path of delusion that I am having difficulty putting my discombobulation into words. Let me get this straight: something is wrong (i.e. sinful) if God says it's wrong. Sinful behavior (lie, steal, cheat on my spouse, etc.) arises from natural internal desires. It is Beelzebub who suggests that I give in to these desires and provides the tempting thoughts. It's all the devil's fault! If I just concentrate on becoming more like Christ and shun the evil thoughts, all will be well and God will reward me with life forever.

Isn't it infantile to blame the moral frailties of humanity on a supernatural agent? Let's consider the temptation of lust which Rick describes as the choice to commit in your mind what you'd like to do with your body. As Rick fairly points out, there is no shame in noticing an attractive woman. However, Rick apparently believes that the devil is at work if a person follows through on that attraction by thinking evil, lustful thoughts (whatever that means) or, God forbid, acting on those thoughts. Rick does not explain why we need to introduce the agency of Lucifer to explain human lust and infidelity. I would have thought hormones, selfish genes and evolutionary psychology are more than sufficient.

Perhaps I should point out that Rick is basically a bibilical literalist. He believes that everything described in the Bible actually happened. In this chapter, he talks about Satan tempting Adam and Eve as if this couple actually existed. I am simply amazed that commentary like this in the 21st century is found in a best-selling book and not in the ramblings of someone committed to a psychiatric ward.

I was tempted (pun intended) to couple my discussion of this chapter with Rick's next one, entitled Defeating Temptation, but I managed to overcome that evil thought.

Zombie apostles ... Your Sunday smile

Again I ask: how many Christians reflect on what they are supposed to believe as tenets of their faith? I suggest that the answer is "precious few".

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 25

Transformed by Trouble

I need to rant. This chapter explains why I despise religious thinking. I don't really hate religion. I certainly don't hate religious people. What I hate is the twisted way in which religion attempts to make people think irrationally.

If there is a chapter in The Purpose Driven Life that lies at the apex of the bubble of delusion, it is this one.

Rick Warren begins this chapter by explaining that God has a purpose to every problem. To paraphrase, there must be a method to His madness.

Rick continues: We learn things about God in suffering that we can't learn any other way. I submit that the reason why religion is the easiest sell to those in suffering is that desperation softens up the resolve of the receiver. Who do you think is more receptive to belief in the healing power of prayer? A healthy college freshman who has just been introduced to the works of David Hume or a patient in the dying throes of Stage IV cancer? This is just common sense.

Rick cites numerous examples of people facing problems in the Bible and God refusing to intervene to save them. My favorite example is the one he cites from Daniel 3:1-26 (KJV) where Nebuchadnezzar throws 3 Hebrew men into a fiery furnace after they refuse to bow to his golden statue. As seen by Nebuchadnezzar, a fourth figure appears in the furnace with the three as they emerge unscathed and God is credited for preserving them from the flames.

After referring to this mythic conflagration, Rick comes up with a classic one liner: You'll never that know that God is all you need until God is all you've got. In other words, it is much easier to believe in a supernatural deity if that deity is your only hope. This brings me to a question to be considered by atheists:

If your child was lying in the hospital dying of cancer, would you pray to God that they would be healed?

My answer to this question is that I would do anything and everything in my power to assist with the healing of my child. If I were to utter a prayer to God (or Baal, Zeus, etc.), that prayer would only be a sign of my desperation and could not in any way be interpreted that I believe in the object of my prayer.

Rick's babbling continues with: Because God is sovereignly in control, accidents are just incidents in God's good plan for you. This is where I lose it. A tsunami snatches a child out of her father's arms. Lightning kills a toddler while he watches his brother's little league soccer game. A pieces of pavement falls off a buildings and instantly kills a young woman dining with her fiance. An avalanche wipes out an entire town. I could go on until the end of my time on earth listing the senseless tragedies and suffering endured by humanity. According to Rick, everything that happens has spiritual significance. If you can believe that, you are capable of believing anything. If you can believe that, there is nothing that can happen that could shake your faith. A meteor hits your house and wipes out your entire family ... oh well, it's all part of God's plan.

Rick's explanation for suffering appears to be that We live in a fallen world. Only in heaven is everything done perfectly the way God intends. Our problems on earth are character-building opportunities. It's kind of like a metaphysical "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

If God exists, he is the supreme sadist.

A simple correlation

Here is a simple correlation confirmed by no less a source than the Christian Post. The more religious you are, the more likely it is that your teen daughter(s) will get pregnant:
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090917/study-religious-beliefs-strongly-predict-teen-birth-rates/index.html

Do religious believers ever watch this stuff?

QualiaSoup is at it again - putting faith in its rightful place:

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 24

Transformed by Truth

185 pages into this rag and Rick Warren is finally hitting his stride. This chapter is all about the Bible and the transformative power of its truth.

Rick's most striking assertion comes at the beginning of this chapter when he writes:

The Bible is far more than a doctrinal guidebook. God's Word generates life, creates faith, produces change, frightens the Devil, causes miracles, heals hurts, builds character, transforms circumstances, imparts joy, overcomes adversity, defeats temptation, infuses hope, releases power, cleanses our minds, brings things into being, and guarantees our future forever! We cannot live without the Word of God!

Now, admittedly, that's a pretty impressive diatribe. The problem for Rick is that saying it doesn't necessarily make it so. Let's take his selling points in order:

• God's Word generates life - Let's take a quick poll. How many lives have been lost to further the cause of Christianity? How many lives have been lost to further the cause of disbelief in Christianity? No contest.


• ... creates faith - if we define faith as belief in anything without a sufficient evidentiary foundation, I'll give Rick that one.


• ... produces change - yes, but is the change positive?


• ... frightens the Devil - Rick sees God as an all-loving force for good in the world fighting against the forces of evil in the supposed personage of the Devil. However, have you ever considered whether Rick has it backwards? After all, I don't suppose Rick is going to blame the Devil or the Fall for natural catastrophes such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, pestilence, tornados, lightning strikes, earthquakes, cancer, etc. God also supposedly gave man the free will to carry out evil acts. Maybe ... just maybe ... the Devil exists and His real name is L-I-V-E-D (Devil spelled backwards) and he is the only supernatural force for good in the world. Given the tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering in the world, if God exists he must be a supremely sadistic S.O.B.


• causes miracles - David Hume nailed this one over 250 years ago - see: http://www.atheistmissionary.com/2009/03/back-to-atheist-basics-hume-on-miracles.html


• heals hurt - I can only assume that Rick is being metaphorical here. If he actually believes that the Bible has the power to heal people, I prescribe two antidotes: 1. Go suffer through a Benny Hinn performance backstage and talk to the poor sick folk who showed up in the belief that they could actually be helped by the charlatan; and 2. Go look for one (1) double blind study that provides proof that the power of prayer has any healing effect on anything.


• builds character - that's funny ... I teach my kids that true character is helping others without expecting anything in return and in doing what's right without having to be told. I can't find either of these tenets in the Bible where the focus is clearly on doing what you're told in return for the promise of eternal salvation.


• transforms circumstances - I am sure that people who read the Bible have been inspired to do good things just like people who read Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save are inspired to give to charity. This hardly makes Singer an apostle but perhaps future generations might disagree.


• imparts joy - yes, Marx described religion as "the opiate of the masses".


• overcomes adversity - There is no doubt that religious faith provides an emotional crutch to those facing adversity or existential despair.


• defeats temptation - If there is another book in the history of humanity that has resulted in more sexual dysfunction than the Bible, I would like to know what it is.


• infuses hope - if you define hope as existing for eternity (frankly, that comes close to my conception of a personal hell), then I guess Christianity provides as much hope as any other religion selling the prospect of life after death. I guess forgiveness for any sin, no matter how foul, is a good selling point as well.


• releases power - Au contraire, I would argue that an examination of history since the supposed crucifixion would reveal that Christianity has been the primary influence in fostering the centralization of power in governments and institutions.


• cleanses our minds - Rick forgot to add "of reason".


• brings things into being - the Bible has certainly brought numerous things into being and I'll name just a few: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the 30 Years War, the Taiping Rebellion and intolerance towards both homosexuals and fig trees.


• guarantees our future forever - I repeat: forever is an awfully long time. Don't you think you'd eventually get bored? BTW, if God has always existed, what was he doing for the eternity before he decided to create the universe? I couldn't find that answer in the Bible. I guess it would probably take a long time to explain.

I should add that Rick cites Proverbs 30:5 (NIV) which tells us Every word of God is flawless. Rick, have you read the Bible? Check out this beauty:

You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day. Exodus 22:29-30 (NIV)

Rick, if the Bible is the flawless word of God, are you asking me to believe that sacrificing firstborn sons was ok (not only ok but prescribed) prior to the crucifixion of Jesus? I don't expect you to answer but perhaps one of your flock would be so kind.

The Holy Gospel of the Easter Bunny

The sad thing is that this story makes more sense than the Biblical version:

It could be worse ...

It could be worse. Usually, atheists are included in a set with pedophiles and lawyers.

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 23

How We Grow

My assignment to review Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life continues despite the fact that da, the Christian missionary who came up with the challenge, seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Da had promised to read Sam Harris' The End of Faith and I can only assume that has plummeted him into an existential despair. In any event, my tour through the "bestselling nonfiction hardback book in history" (according to Publishers Weekly) continues.

Rick starts this chapter by telling us that God wants you to grow up. By grow up, he means that the monotheistic Judeo-Christian God wants us to mature and develop the characteristics of Jesus Christ. What are these characteristics? Well, Rick keeps it pretty simple: 1. stop thinking immature (i.e. selfish) thoughts because they are the source of sinful behavior; and 2. start thinking of others instead of ourselves.

The most interesting part of this chapter was Rick's observation that:

Thinking of others is the heart of Christlikeness and the best evidence of spritual growth. This kind of thinking is unnatural, counter-cultural, rare, and difficult. Fortunately we have help: "God has given us his Spirit. That's why we don't think the same way that the people of this world think."

Rick takes that last quote from the Contemporary English Version of 1 Corinthians 2:12. If we take a look at the same quote from the King James Version, it reads: "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." The CEV version is useful because it helps explain Rick's worldview, namely that Christians are different from non-believers in that they are (or at least they are supposed to be) less selfish and more concerned about the welfare of others. This is pure bunk. If you are interested in synonyms of "bunk", you will find baloney, rot, hogwash, applesauce, bull and hooey.

If I were to summarize the thesis of The Purpose Driven Life up to this point in the book it would be that belief in Christianity and patterning one's life after the Biblical Jesus is necessary to live a morally upstanding life. This got me thinking about what would Christ do in situations posing true moral dilemmas? I will pose just a couple:

1. Sophie's Choice - Sophie is required by a guard in a concentration camp where she is imprisoned with her two children to select one of them to be killed. If she refuses to choose, both will be killed. By choosing one child for death, Sophie will save the other.

2. The Captain's Dilemma - 30 survivors of a shipwreck are crowded into a lifeboat intended to safely hold only 7. A storm is blowing in and the lifeboat has to be lightened if anyone is to survive. The only way to save anyone on the lifeboat is to jettison 15 innocent souls.

The above noted scenarios are taken from an article entitled Moral Dilemmas by philosopher R.M. Sainsbury. In both cases, a deliberate choice to cause a death is required in order to save a life. As Sainsbury points out, these kinds of moral dilemmas do not involve a contradiction - they simply require choosing the lesser evil. However, "the lesser evil is still an evil, even though chosen after the most careful and high-handed moral deliberation. The best thing to do may still be a bad thing."

So what would Christ do in these situations? Would he choose the lesser of two evils? It would be interesting to hear Rick Warren answer this question. While I suggest that a rational person would choose the lesser evil in both cases, the answer from a Christian perspective seems much less clear. After all, if Sophie refuses to choose either child and they are both killed, a Christian would expect that they both would go straight to heaven - correct? The same answer would apply to the lifeboat situation but perhaps Christ would make sure that everyone on board had accepted him as their personal saviour before he allowed everyone to sink with the ship.

We see this kind of irrational approach to a moral dilemma in action with Roman Catholic doctrine relating to abortion. Catholics, at least orthodox Catholics, would oppose aborting a fetus even if that action was necessary to save the life of the mother. While they say there are no atheists in foxholes, I would like to see if fundamentalist Christians would hold the strength of their convictions if they were faced with the moral dilemmas described above. I would like to think that most would prefer the rational approach.

Your Friday smile ...

I'm golfing today and I thought you would enjoy this:

A little good news

Thank-you to the following individuals who donated a total of $130 US over the last few months towards a donation to The Worldwide Fistula Fund:

Sarah Boyle

United Kingdom

Sharon Evaniew

Saskatchewan, Canada

Matthew Laxer

North Carolina, USA

Robert Ross

New Jersey, USA

Patti Moran

Ontario, Canada

Tom Pink

Ontario, Canada

Kathy Reaves

Florida, USA

Robert Wickberg

Vermont, USA

Cheryl Wolfe

Montana, USA

It was my pleasure to match your donations by sending $260 US to the WWF. This donation resulted in the following letter (which I have reproduced because blogger won't let me post the PDF):

THE WORLDWIDE FISTULA FUND
P.O. Box 27879
Saint Louis, MO 63146-1379

A Tax-Exempt Not-For-Profit Charity Under Section
501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code
Tax Identification Number 30-0139210
www.worldwidefistulafund.org

(866) 991-6955 Toll Free

(314) 991-6955 Local

August 17, 2009

Thank you for your generous donation of $260.00 to support the work of The Worldwide Fistula Fund.

Nearly 4 million women live each day with the misery of an unrepaired vesicovaginal fistula from difficult childbirth, and each year another 150,000 women develop this devastating (and completely preventable) condition. These women live in the poorest countries of the world, where they are largely voiceless, politically powerless, and lack access to the clinical care that would restore them to health and recover their dignity.

The mission of the Worldwide Fistula Fund is to promote excellent, ethical, comprehensive care for women with obstetric fistulas.

Our strategy to accomplish this is to band together and support a network of committed individuals with fistula expertise who share this common ideal.

To this end, we

• support the direct provision of high-quality clinical care for women with obstetric
fistulas,

• promote excellent training for fistula surgeons incorporating these values,

• advocate relentlessly for the unmet needs of women suffering from fistula, and

• encourage scientifically valid research in fistula treatment and prevention.

It is only through the generous support of donors like you that our mission is possible.

On behalf of fistula victims everywhere, we thank you for your generosity.

Very truly yours,

L. Lewis Wall, MD, DPhil, President
The Worldwide Fistula Fund

No goods or services have been provided in connection with this gift.

Thank you!

I think it's great that 10 people (including myself) located thousands of miles apart combined to help this incredibly worthy cause.

I will be continuing to organize events in order to raise money in the name of secular humanism for the WFF, The Smile Train, GiveWell, Oxfam and other like organizations. However, I have removed the PayPal contribution tab from this site because I find it detracts from my primary message that religious beliefs are irrational. Belief in myths and supernatural entities should not be accorded any more respect because they are accompanied with a charitable intent. Would you consider my belief that little green men live on my roof any more respectable if I claimed they were telling me to give to charity?

Supernatural punisher required to promote environmentalism?

This story simply illustrates how dire our climate situation is getting and how desperate measures to reverse global warming are required:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/richard-alleyne/6146656/Maybe-religion-is-the-answer-claims-atheist-scientist.html

Something to make you Think

Think is a journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and is published quarterly by the Cambridge University Press. Each edition contains roughly a dozen essays on topics broadly relating to philosophy. The publication is touted as "Philosophy for everyone" although most contributors are academics. I can't recommend it highly enough.

A great example of the kind of gems you can find in Think is an article entitled "Justice as a Natural Phenomenon" by Ken Binmore (pictured above). Binmore is currently a visiting professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics. He is also one of the founders of the modern economic theory of bargaining and has made important contributions to the foundations of game theory, experimental economics and analytical philosophy. Suffice it to say that he is a exceptionally smart fellow and typical of the contributers to Think.

In his Justice article, Binmore posits what I consider to be a fairly self-evident proposition: that fairness evolved as Nature's answer to the equilibrium selection problem in human coordination games. In other words, the Golden Rule is a device which naturally evolved to solve a host of picayune problems such as: who should take how much of a particular dish when there isn't enough to go around? who goes through the door first? who gets that parking space? If conflict arose every time these problems arose, society would obviously fall apart.

Binmore uses game theory to explain how bargainers who employ the Golden Rule end up achieving results far superior than what they would achieve under what he describes as the "state of nature". He then goes on to explain that our learned cultural norms will determine precisely how we make our small-scale fairness judgments (i.e. whether the outcome is utilitarian, egalitarian or somewhere in between). This is where moral relativism sneaks. Even though fairness seems to be written in our genes ... the appropriate standard of interpersonal comparison varies with the culture in which a fairness norm operates.

I loved Binmore's concluding quote which he offers up as an example that the social contract only gets reformed when people with similar aspirations are sufficiently close to the levels of power:

As General Napier said when asked to tolerate the Hindu practice of suttee:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Ramadan fast - Stupid is what stupid does

We are currently in the midst of Ramadan - the 9th month on the Islamic calendar (August 21, 2009 to September 19, 2009). The most prominent event of Ramadan is fasting. Every day, Muslims around the world get up before dawn to eat a pre-dawn meal and then have to stop eating and drinking until sunset. Sexual thoughts and activities during fasting hours are also forbidden. They are permitted to eat and drink and get it on after the sun has set until the next morning's prayer call. Then the process starts all over.

The fast of Ramadan is intended to be an act of deep personal worship in which Muslims seek a raised awareness of closeness to Allah. My suggestion that you simply add this to your file of :"Stories of Idiotic Religious Practices".

For those who might think that supposedly well-educated North Americans are largely immune to this backward practice, check out this story about a Christian convert to Islam from yesterday's Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/691367 Talk about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire ....

Politically correct readers might jump in at this point with the objection that fasting isn't hurting anyone and that I am being intolerant/insenstitive towards another culture. My response to this objection is simple: I am not being intolerant because I would never attempt to prevent an adult from fasting any more than I would prevent them from jumping off a cliff if that was their wish (if the latter, please make sure the cliff is high enough not to result in you ending up in intensive care and wasting my tax dollars). However, I would support child welfare authorities intervening in any case where misguided parents force their children to go without food and water for extended durations. As for being insensitive, doing something stupid in the name of your faith does not make it right. Stupid is what stupid does.

Bible consistent with Sharia law when it comes to rape

Here is a horrific parallel between sharia law in action and a teaching from the Bible:

In Paktia province [Afghanistan] last year, a shura of elders decided that a 25-year-old man who sexually abused a 7-year-old relative should pay compensation to the child's family. They also decreed the girl should marry her rapist when she's older. Source: Case study from Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan, published by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, July 2009.

Question: What kind of lunatic would make a rape victim marry her attacker? Answer: God. See: Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (NIV) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2022:28-29&version=NIV

Intelligent design debunked with a simple philosophical argument

English philosopher Stephen Law is at it again: this time with a thought provoking rational demolition (unless you live in a bubble) of the concept of intelligent design: http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2009/09/does-concept-of-intelligent-designer.html

Modern day William Paley describes atheist worldview as "grotesquely impoverished"

Tapestry is a weekly radio series by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which explores "spirituality, religion and the search for meaning". It's available for free as a podcast through iTunes.

The featured guest on the August 30, 2009 broadcast was the Reverend John Polkinghorne, a British particle physicist and theologian. If you get the chance, I urge you to listen to the interview.

Polkinghorne suggests that Christianity, by and large, is not incomptable with belief in the theory of evolution. However, I would have loved to ask him why his belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus is any more compatible with science and reason than the suggestion that the world is only 6000 years old.

Polkinghorne describes the atheist worldview is "grotesquely impoverished". He doesn't share why God is his default metaphysical explanation aside from the fact that he chooses to believe "a loving lie".

I love his term "signals of transcendance" and the phrase "Joy keeps breaking in". What a crock of sh*t. Please google "God of Eth" for a splendid article by English philosopher Stephen Law. Law has another great one on his site called "The Problem of Evil".

A priest and physicist - what a rare combination. I suggest that there's a good reason why: most people as bright as Polkinghorne have long since figured out that monotheistic Yahweh is a myth.

Polkinghorne obviously dislikes the nihilistic implications of science and hopes for something better (why that is his intuition he doesn't explain).

I liked the interviewer's passing reference to Thomas Aquinas (actually, Mary Hynes was more of a cheerleader than an interviewer). I wonder why they didn't mention Aquinas' claims of levitation while encountering divine reality!

"Consciousness cannot be an accident". This guy is a modern day William Paley, much like Denver "Christian Philosopher" Douglas Groothuis. Paley is famous for suggesting that a master designer of man is necessary because if you found a watch in the sand there must have been a watchmaker. This inspired Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker (which I should add is a much better read than The God Delusion). I would love to hand Polkinghorne a deck of cards and ask him to pick any ten. According to his way of thinking, it should be impossible for me to draw that hand without divine intervention. He rejects the notion that we are a fluke that arose on a speck of cosmic dust, again without explaining why. Why can't this all be a happy accident? The answer, of course, is that it can and he doesn't like the metaphysical implications of that realization.

"Mathematics is pure abstract human thinking". Again, a crock of sh*t. Does Polkinghorne think that the concept of a circle would cease to exist just because humanity might become extinct? His suggestion that "belief in God ties things together" is probably hitting far closer to the truth than his suggestion that the "will of the creator lies behind our thinking powers". If that's so, who created the Creator?

I found Polkinghorne's suggestion that "theism explains more" spot on and get the sense that he hasn't read Lewis Wolpert's Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast - a great read that explains why humans are susceptible to believing fantastic things in order to give a sense of reason to the unknown.

I get demoralized when I hear such a brilliant person as Polkinghorne adopt such an intellectually vacuous approach. It sounds to me like he is angling to win himself a Templeton prize if he hasn't already won it [after writing this article I discovered that he won it in 2002- surprise, surprise ...]. The Templeton Foundation has been criticized for promoting an accomodationist position between science and religion when many (like me) find them mutually incompatible.

Contrary to Polkinghorne's assertion, atheism is not "rejection of a spiritual dimension". First of all, you don't have to believe in a myth to have a spiritual experience. Secondly, why should we be so holier than thou to suppose that we are able to conceive all there is to conceive? In the past, I have used the analogy of trying to explain Einstein's theory of relativity to an ant - it simply can't be done. I think it is more than likely that there is plenty about the universe that we are similarly unable to understand or discern, perhaps ever.

Just plain nasty - GO VEGAN

For anyone who finds it odd that I am moving towards a vegan lifestyle, just watch this:



Nasty.

10 Worst Bible Passages

Here is a list of the 1o worst Bible passages: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6120373/Top-10-worst-Bible-passages.html

This is just another example of how Christians pick and choose which "Word of God" to follow. Thank Zeus that most of them have the common sense to use selective reading skills.