Christians depict Christians as delusional

A few Christians are indignant over this video mocking Pollyannaish theology.

Unfortunately for them, and to our increased mirth, their excuses are just as ridiculous as Suzie.

Dr. Normal L. Geisler, author of If God, Why Evil?, said the video contains a lot of misconceptions.

“You look at all of that [and] you sympathize with Susie because you think they (disasters, illnesses, etc.) are evil,” he said. “But if it’s evil, then there must be a standard for good. If there is a crooked line in this world then there must be a straight line. If there is a straight line then there must be God.”

Actually, I don’t sympathize with Suzie at all. The whole point of this video is that she’s silly and clueless.

I do have a standard for good: does it cause me or others harm? If not, it’s good. If it does, it’s bad. I don’t need a god to define this for me; humans are the yardstick. The existence of straight and crooked lines do not imply the existence of intent, but only that there are lines.

The video also gives a very limited picture of God’s presence in Suzie’s life, said Geisler, who is a Christian apologist and philosopher. When it comes to Suzie’s recovery from sickness, for example, the video fails to acknowledge that God is the one who designed her body with properties to heal naturally, said Geisler.

BECAUSE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT A GOD DESIGNED HER BODY. Jebus, he’s a philosopher…you’d think he’d be competent to recognize a circular argument when he saw one. There are alternative explanations with evidence in their support for the presence of self-repair mechanisms in evolved organisms, you know, so just point to the fact that someone can heal is not automatic evidence for the existence of a magic man in the sky.

The title of this article at the Christian Post is “Atheist Depicts Christians as Delusional”. Yeah? Depiction confirmed.

PRUUUUUUDES!

Jacqulyn Levin, a high school health education teacher, had a simple lesson plan to help students understand the anatomy of the female reproductive tract.

“She stood in front of the students,” district spokesman Jeff Puma said. “If you can picture a body builder flexing his arms and having his hands [above head level] out to the side, my hands would be the ovaries, my arms would be the fallopian tubes, and so on.”

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me — it’s a way to get the layout of the structures clear in students’ heads. I’ll be teaching human physiology this term, and I’ll just project photos and diagrams of the various ladybits and manbits on a giant screen in front of the auditorium — I don’t know if a public school could handle the level of detail I’ll be going into. Levin’s approach sounds like a good compromise.

But wouldn’t you know it…some parents in the school district freaked out.

King said his son objected to participating, and both he and his son objected to him being “forced” to participate.

“I’m all for scholastically based sex education,” King said. “But this dance is meant to take away modesty and is disrespectful to women.”

Oh, the poor widdle boy! Forced to pretend his manly muscled arms are womanly fallopian tubes! And oh, those poor little girls! Immodestly made aware of the existence of ovaries, ovaries that their mommies have told them to keep covered and hidden away!

This has become a cause for the Illinois Patriarchy Institute, who have taken a brief moment from their usually obsession with homosexuality to decry elementary sex education.

A couple of months ago Crystal Lake’s Prairie Ridge High School Health teacher Jacqulyn Levin decided that the best way to teach her co-ed class of sophomore students the parts of the female reproductive anatomy was to use something she called the “Vagina Dance.” To the tune of the Hokey Pokey, Levin led her class in a puerile dance that involved pointing to and singing about reproductive body parts while prancing about the classroom.

Her selection of this inappropriate instructional activity demonstrated a lack of empathy for those who may have a degree of modesty and self-respect that Levin does not possess. Did she consider that some students might feel uncomfortable participating in or even watching this dance and that they might fear being ridiculed if they chose to opt-out?

Her decision to use this dance as a teaching tool also reveals that she has no commitment to fostering modesty (please don’t be deceived by the attempt of “progressives” to conflate essential modesty with some kind of priggish, neurotic prudery). The very fact that a teacher would consider such an activity reflects how debased and immodest a culture we have. And it reveals that she has no regard for the values of all the families who have entrusted their children to her tutelage.

“Priggish, neurotic prudery”…why, they snatched the words right out of my mouth.

There is nothing immodest about the demonstration (which, by the way, the IFI portrays dishonestly and inaccurately). There is nothing titillating or arousing about fallopian tubes, any more than there is about the common bile duct or the duct of Wirsung or the epididymus, and if you’re getting aroused by hearing about any of those, or blushing in embarrassment at a generic discussion of guts, there’s something deeply wrong with you. I’d suspect the lunatic who wrote the above words of having some morbid paraphilia, actually.

Wanting to pretend that your insides have all the uniformity of a potato is not self-respect, it’s ignorance and denial. Those are things a school is supposed to correct, and I don’t think a school or the teacher should feel any remorse about politely instructing kids in the nature of reality.

Blood libel? Seriously?

Sarah Palin has put her foot in her mouth again. In a statement about the shooting of a Jewish politician, she accuses the media of victimizing her with “blood libel”.

Does this stupid woman even think about what she’s saying?

Just to add to the charm, she goes on and on insisting that the crazy shooter was entirely on his own, uninfluenced by anything in the culture, and that nothing else did or could have affected him. Apparently, he’s been living in a bubble floating in the vacuum of space and has only recently landed here on this planet.

Is god blind or something?

He certainly has the most awful aim ever. Here’s Pr Daniel Nalliah (I think the “Pr” is short for “Prat”) finding a reason for the current terrible floods in Queensland, Australia: Kevin Rudd has been insufficiently zealous in his support for Israel, and Rudd is originally from Queensland, so God is making it rain great buckets in Queensland to send him a message.

It’s a rather opaque message, O Lord, and it seems to be causing far more suffering to other people, rather than Rudd. Wouldn’t it have been far more effective and efficient if, say, the Lord God Almighty made the plumbing in Rudd’s upstairs bathroom overflow? I should think it far more persuasive that something mysterious and ominous was going on if every time Rudd flushed, he ended up with a gusher of feces and urine on his shoes. Taking aim at the whole of Queensland is just a bit sloppy.

By the way, the Prat has conversations with his god.

Also the Lord said to us, “I will humble Australia and bring her down on her knees. As she has taken pride in my blessing, and man has taken the glory and not given it to Me”.

I don’t believe it. As everyone knows, Australia isn’t mentioned in the Bible, not even once, so the place probably doesn’t even exist.

Let’s not just pick on Australia, though — America isn’t in the Bible either, which is strange given that the United States is God’s Chosen Nation. But this god is also mad at us, because he has also cursed us with Fred Phelps decided to kill our birds. There have been a couple of cases of large flocks of birds dying, and now Cindy Jacobs has discovered the reason: because we repealed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that punished gay service men and women.

Again, I don’t quite get the logic. God hates gays, so he’s taken to randomly smiting birds in Arkansas. What’s the sense in that? Were these gay birds? Were they wagging their cloacas heavenward and bragging in bird song about coming out? It’s a confusing message that really doesn’t come across well.

If this god really wanted to communicate the idea that gay sex is bad, and somehow do it using birds, it would have made more sense to, say, have birds smash through windows and throw themselves across any orifice about to be penetrated by a gay man. That would shake people up.

And don’t do it in Arkansas — try New York and San Francisco. Birds dropping dead in Arkansas is more likely to be interpreted as a sign of offense at NASCAR or country music or committing incest while barefoot with a corncob pipe in one’s mouth (I know, it’s an unfair stereotype, but you know god doesn’t seem to be operating on the basis of individual behavior, any way).

The new John Benneth policy

That loopy homeopath, John Benneth, is bragging now that he is the most widely read homeopath in the world, and that his blog has broken all previous viewership records. He’s quite proud of this “accomplishment”.

One of the last John Benneth Journal entries for 2010, IN ONE YEAR, has broken all previous viewership records and sparked more commentary and outrage amongst the pharmaceutical company stooges than any previous Journal entry, enlisting the usual fury and nasty responses.

He seems to be aware of how it happened: I linked to that one article. What he doesn’t seem to appreciate, though, is that what I giveth, I can take away, and that it doesn’t say much for homeopathy that one link from one blog can make such a dramatic difference in his traffic.

So, because he thinks it’s meaningful, I’ve added a little filter to this site: using “johnbenneth.wordpress.com” in a comment will get it held for moderation…and it won’t be approved. Bye bye, Mr Benneth.

You’ll have to look him up indirectly, as in this mention on FSTDT. Otherwise, ignore the loon.

I get email

Some of the email I get is simply crackpots trying to give me information. I received a lovely example this morning, and since he wants to share, I’m willing to help him.

Dear Dr. Myers, When God said He stretched out the Heavens in the Old Testament, and will fold them back again in the New Testament, He was using Hebrew and Greek to explain Planetary Orbital Jumping. Our four gas giants behave like electrons in that they can pivot in relation to each other. Jupiter will soon migrate back to it’s original orbit farther from the Sun as the other three gas giants return to their original orbits closer to the Sun. In the process, Venus will migrate closer to the Earth where it will become a pristine habitable world like Earth was before Noah’s flood. The Tabernacle God gave Moses represents Earth and the four gas giants. The Altar of Burnt Sacrifice represents Earth. The Bronze Laver — Jupiter; the Altar of Incense — Saturn; and the two angels on the Ark of the Covenant — the Greek “Ouranos,” and Neptune. The word Heaven in Greek is “Ouranos.” It means spiritual abodes. Rather than emitting particles that behave like waves when they return to their original orbits, the gas giants will release the souls of those who died on Earth. I have written a book called Fire Rider that explains this in detail. Thank you, David Leon Powers

Yes, he sent me a copy of his “book”. It’s only 13 pages long, though, so maybe he’s just being ambitious in its description. Here, you can read the whole thing yourself, although I have to tell you, it just goes on and on in the vein of the paragraph above.

There must be a god, because I don’t know how things work

David Silverman appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show this week, and brought out the stupidity in dopey ol’ Bill. He gave his usual justification: “The tides go in, the tides go out. The sun goes up, the sun comes down.” The clip below is notable for two things: it contains the multiple examples of O’Reilly dragging out this non-explanation, and it’s got Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining tides.

<td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'Bill O’Reilly Proves God’s Existence – Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

I love how O’Reilly gets that smug look on his face every time he brings up the tides. It’s adorable. You’d want to hug him for his cute and funny story…if he were two years old.

How to cover doomsayers

If you’re disappointed in CNN, you can always turn to MSNBC…ooops, never mind, they’re solemnly reporting on the end-of-the-world nonsense from the Harold Camping Cult. They’re predicting the Rapture will come on 21 May.

I would like to propose a novel version of Pascal’s Wager for the news media. When apocalyptic cults come along and announce disaster and doom, ridicule them. Just rip into them, send your most sarcastic, cynical reporters to cover the story, and just shred all the followers as loons and gullible freaks. There will be two possible outcomes.

One, they’re right, and the world ends. Your business has nothing to gain or lose by taking them seriously before the big event — it’s going kaput no matter what. So have a grand time before the catastrophe and make money with laughter. It’s not as if listening to crazy ol’ Harold Camping will make a bit of difference in your fate.

Two, they’re wrong, and the world keeps rolling on beyond 21 May. We all win! It means your coverage was spot on perfect, and got all the right answers, while the cultists are going to have to go glumly back to living their miserable little failed lives. Follow up with a feature on all the broken-hearted crazies. Start looking for the next mob of nuts to mock.

See? That’s how to handle it. All this sober pandering to derangement gains you nothing.