The Half Baked Lunatic

April 22. 2009 08:55

(i was perusing your site during a conference call and stumbled upon this post, so i'll take a minute to respond - in love as always.)

the rebuttal to this whole posting is quite simple. you dont know whether there is a God or not, and if there is one, then all the sentences comprising your post are a totally worthless display of spiritual ignorance - and it doesnt reflect well on the smug assessment of the intelligence of your position when it overlooks that simple common sense truth that even the dumbest among us can readily grasp. think about it. (or should i say "duh!")


where to begin!

"But it really seems that the stupider someone is, the more fiercely religious they are."
statements like these are a transparent attempt to lend intellectual credibility to what is basically anti-religious prejudice. blacks in america fare worse academically than whites. why not make such a remark about us? it isnt a far leap at all with such generalizations and at least if you did, you'd have some bare amount of empirical evidence to substantiate the claim. considering that children in religious, especially (ironically) catholic, schools and those who are religiously home-schooled fare far better academically than their secular public school counterparts, your assertion is basically that dumb people produce better schools (plus didnt you send *your own kids* to a religious school in ecuador?).
(and i know you're not racist, i'm making a point about malicious blanket generalizing being rooted in bias not brain.)


poor grammar and typos are not the substantive principle of any written debate and thus are not accurate measures of the strength of anyone's position on anything, let alone an indicator of the existence of a supreme being. plus on your own blog site you witnessed someone ripping me to shreds as a fat homophobic straight married guy who worships that "big fag" jesus for opposing gay marriage - even though i am a fit homosexual *in* a gay marriage! since he had relatively few typos in his posting, does that lend strength to his position, his intelligence or the non-existence of God?


making the blanket asertion that all religions are designed to control people ignores the fact that christianity in its infancy was very subversive. christians hid their worship in underground cells for fear of being thrown to the lions - or worse.

replace "pope" with "president" and "god" with "government" and you can easily re-tool your whole posting in a way which exposes the hypocrisy of these remarks when they are proferred (as they quite commonly are) by people who support increasing government control over everyone's lives in the name of "equality". that ease of retooling reveals how facile and fallacious the argument is both in its conclusion and its premises.

i could go on but i have some work to do. plus my experience says its better to pick one point of discussion and finish it completely than to barely touch upon several when having such exchanges.

your posting is 100% jaded anti-religious cynicism and mean-spirited irrational prejudice. that is not the same as high-minded (indeed open-minded) intellectual principle.


p.s. forgive any typos i've made!

bro_in_law

April 30. 2009 04:46

I am very intrigued by this conversation. I was baptized and raised a Catholic, and spent a good portion of my life arguing with people like The Lunatic. Six years ago I found out that my sister had been abused by our Deacon - who was a longtime family friend that had counseled my parents when they were going through a separation. When I was interviewed by our presiding Bishop, he made me feel like I had done something wrong by letting my sister be alone with the Deacon. I was told to ask forgiveness for my sins and make an offering to the church! I am still outraged and insulted, and yes I feel cheated by all the money that my family has donated over the years. I have come to realize that the use of guilt is a very powerful tool. The Catholic church finds anything that anyone enjoys doing, and declares it a sin. It has taken me years to undo the damage to my soul and realize that I am not a bad person.  As long as they made me feel that I was a sinner, they could pry as much money from me as they wanted. It's extortion as far as I'm concerned. I am not quite ready to admit that there is no God but I'm damn close. And I never want to set foot in a church again as long as I live.

Disallusioned Catholic

May 2. 2009 15:45

     the various religions of the world hold strongly contradicting dogma about the nature and characteristics of God and his relationship to mankind. thus if any one of those religions were correct in its assertions, that very fact would mandate that the others are incorrect.

     furthermore, if the correct religion asserted that the theistic error of the incorrect religions was an issue of concern for their deity, then the adherents to those incorrect religions would seem to have a problem.

     the thing about Absolute Truth is that it mandates that something else not be truthful. there is a difference between not believing that one religion is correct and not understanding that logic requires that if one is correct, then the others are incorrect.

   that seems an obvious point.

bro_in_law

May 2. 2009 15:52

the empirical studies pointing to the positive effects that evangelical christianity has on the lives of its adherents is certainly not evidence of the correctness of its dogma, but i'd like to offer the information as a background for this discussion to be referenced when/if necessary.

www.timesonline.co.uk/.../article6204239.ece

     Evangelicals may make up a third of the US population, but this is one minority that Hollywood has no time for. Ever since Elmer Gantry, the phrase “evangelical preacher” has been a shorthand for hypocrite. Most evangelicals are portrayed as murderers, rapists and sexual perverts with a consistency that, if they were black or Jewish, would get the American Civil Liberties Union into a lather...

     Pluralism can certainly mean that some people choose not to be religious: the number of atheists in America has jumped nearly 10 percentage points to 16 per cent in the past two decades (prompting a cover of Newsweek dedicated to “The Decline and Fall of Christian America”). On the other hand the same figures also show a rise in the number of committed evangelicals and of Pentecostals. Three quarters of Americans - the most advanced country on the planet - still describe themselves as Christians...

     China is well on its way to being the world's biggest Christian country: there are at least 80 million Christians and already more people go to church every week than are members of the Communist Party...

     There is also considerable evidence that, regardless of wealth, Christians are healthier and happier than their secular brethren...

     Virtually everywhere in the developing world fiery preachers are preaching a faith that would appeal to Ned Flanders: live your life according to God's law, read the Bible as the literal word of Truth, treat your neighbour as yourself. And everywhere they are thriving. In 1900, 80 per cent of the world's Christians lived in Europe and the United States; today, 60 per cent of them live in the developing world...

     Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, found that black youths who attend church were more likely to attend school and less likely to commit crimes or use drugs. Since then, a host of further studies, including the bipartisan 1991 National Commission on Children, have concluded that religious participation is associated with lower rates of crime and drug use. JamesQ.Wilson, perhaps America's pre-eminent criminologist, summarises a mountain of evidence from the social sciences succinctly: “Religion, independent of social class, reduces deviance.”

bro_in_law

May 2. 2009 16:11

     before i wade further into this debate, i'd like to take a moment to thank God Almighty via His Son Jesus Christ for transforming my wasting, degenerate, miserable life into His own special miracle through the power of His love.

"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take care of me."
-- Psalm 27:10 --

"He raises up the poor out of the dust and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes."
-- I Samuel 2:8 --

bro_in_law

May 2. 2009 18:26

     when disbelieving in God, its important to offer an alternative explanation for our existence that is *more, not less* credible than a supreme being who has designed a hierarchical ordering of the universe. otherwise your position has no force of intellect.
      while every person is free to believe whatever world view he chooses, no one is free to compel his thoughtful peers to buy into his own personally crafted version of CRAZY!
     it is the position of darwinistic materialism, the default explanation of all living things without recourse to the supernatural or the divine, that is ridiculous in the truest sense of the word - worthy of (and only worthy of) ridicule.
     while exposing the degree to which darwinism is junk science (in which the basic premises of the theory are not even empirically observed) is not an automatic validation of the story of adam and eve in genesis, it should pop the hot air bubble of (usually ignorant and always smug) arrogance that the average atheist brings to this discussion.

     in response to your remark

"...**IF** there was a god, which I still say is a totally ridiculous idea.."

i will merely post an excerpt from ann coulter's book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism, Chapter 8 The Creation Myth", since i could scarcely word these ideas better.

------------
  Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story, based on a theory that is a tautology, with no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record - and that's after 150 years of very determined looking. We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God. Darwinism is the last of the 19th century mystery religions.

  To be clear, by "evolution", I mean Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
  Evolution is not selective breeding, is not the capacity of bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance but which never evolves into anything but more of the same bacteria, is not the phenomenon of an existing species changing over the course of many years but remaining the same species, is not proved by genetic similarities among living things, the heritability of characteristics, or the age of the earth. Finally, one can believe evolution is not true without also believing that the earth was created in six days by a man with a long white beard who lives in the clouds and looks eerily like Charlton Heston.

  What the theory of evolution posits is an accidental, law-of-the-jungle, survival-of-the-fittest mechanism for creating new species...Leave aside thornier issues, like how the accidental process that gave us opposable thumbs could produce a moral sense and
consciousness of mortality. Let's consider just the basic steps of evolution.
  The "theory" of evolution is:
1) Random mutation of desirable attributes
2) Natural selection weeding out the "less fit" animals
3) Leading to the creation of new species

  With few exceptions, higher organisms are not going to get anything good out of a single mutation. It takes more than a single mutation to get anything really useful, like an eye or a poisonous fang. In order to get to the final product, each one of the hundreds of mutations needed to create a functional wing or ear would itself have to make the mutant animal more fit, otherwise it wouldn't survive, according to Darwin's theory of natural selection.
     The vast majority of mutations are deleterious to the organism. But evolution demands a whole parade of them that are not only individually advantageous, improving upon what existed before, but also lead to an all-new structure that is better than what existed before.
  The evolutionist's answer is 'Assume that each of the hundreds of mutations necessary to create the final product is itself fit in ways we don't understand but must accept on faith because its Holy Scripture'. We haven't even gotten to the second step, and evolutionists are already asking us to assume a miracle. That's what they mean by 'science, not faith'.

  Darwin set forth this extremely self-serving standard for himself: 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' This is a fantastic formulation I intend to remember in case I ever need to defend one of my own crackpot theories...

  You will begin to notice that the Darwiniacs' answer to everything is to accuse their opponents of believing in God - and a flat earth for good measure - even when responding to an argument based on bio-chemistry, physics or mathematics.

  The 'science' writer for the Wall Street Journal, Sharon Begley, begins her attack by, in effect, confirming Larry Summers' point about women lacking the aptitude for the hard sciences. Begley says, 'Even before Darwin, critics attacked the idea of biological evolution with one or another of, "Evolve this!" Whether they invoked a human, an eye or the cell's flagella that propel bacteria and sperm, the contention that natural processes of mutation and natural selection cannot explain the complexity of living things has been alive for 200 years.'

  First, no one was attacking the 'idea of biological evolution' before Darwin because the accepted explanation for the chain of life was design.
  Second, no one knew what the flagellum was until around the late 1960s when the flagellum was first discovered, so it would be difficult to make an argument for or against any particular method of its creation before that time.
  Third, the fact that the eye has been cited as an argument against natural selection for 200 years is true, but this is hardly an argument in favor of evolution. Despite having 200 years to work on it, evolutionists still don't have an answer.

  Darwin himself noted the difficulty of explaining the eye in The Origin of Species, admitting that he could not do it - which Begley might have mentioned. Darwin hypothesized that they eye might have begun as a patch of light-sensitive cells upon which natural selection could then work its magic, making gradual improvements - creating an eye socket and slowly increasing focus and perspective and so on - until these special cells became light-sensitive pits and the a full-fledged eye.
       Apart from the fact that his explanation explained nothing - like all evolutionary myths, it was just a story about how something might have happened. Darwin catapulted over the whole problem to be solved by beginning his thought experiment after the major characteristic to be evolved - light sensitive cells - already existed. For light-sensitive cells to work, the cells would have to have the capacity to initiate an electric signal, a nerve capable of carrying the electric signal to a brain, and a brain capable of processing the signal and using it to emit other electric signals.
  Even if they start with light sensitive cells, Darwin's apostles still can't get to an eye.

bro_in_law

May 2. 2009 18:33

here is another quote that i couldn't state more eloquently, so again i'll just copy/paste it.:

    The Darwinian theory has become an all-purpose obstacle to thought rather than an enabler of scientific advance.

    At the beginning of the 20th century, said Planck, they balked at taking the “enormous step from the visible and directly controllable to the invisible sphere, from the macrocosm to the microcosm.”
    But by entrance into the “microcosm” of the once-invisible world of atoms, all physical science was transformed. When it turned out early in the 20th century that the atom was not a “massy unbreakable particle,” as Isaac Newton had imagined, but a complex arena of quantum information, the classical physics of Newton began inexorably to break down.

    We are now at a similar point in the history of the sciences of life. The counterpoint to the atom in physics is the cell in biology. At the beginning of the 21st century it turns out that the biological cell is not a “simple lump of protoplasm” as long believed but a microcosmic processor of information and synthesizer of proteins at supercomputer speeds. As a result, breaking down as well is the established biology of Darwinian materialism.

    No evolutionary theory can succeed without confronting the cell. In each of the some 300 trillion cells in every human body, the words of life churn almost flawlessly through our flesh and nervous system at a speed that utterly dwarfs the data rates of all the world’s supercomputers. For example, just to assemble some 500 amino-acid units into each of the trillions of complex hemoglobin molecules that transfer oxygen from the lungs to bodily tissues takes a total of some 250 peta operations per second (250,000,000,000,000,000/sec)

bro_in_law

May 2. 2009 19:06

     consider: how many random mutations would it take to go from an amoeba to a man? or a whale? or a fruit fly (why after thousands of generation of "evolving" are still the same fruit flies)?
     consider: under what conditions would single celled organisms spontaneously randomly arise?
     consider the second law of physics' (law of entropy increase) mandate that disorder increases in a system over time.
     consider the laws of probability when calculating the possibility that dna would randomly assemble itself then reproduce.
     given that all the mechanisms of a materialistic (non-theistic) world view are right here at our fingertips to observe empirically, we can assess their limitations to a reasonable degree.
     which is more credible - that higher intelligence or lottery-of-lotteries accident begot our ecosystems? the atheist position is possible in the sense that anything is possible, but by any objective measure of its probability it is *off the charts* unlikely to the point of being laughably absurd. it is only the power of ideological fanaticism or emotional scarring from a past unfortunate religiously-based personal trauma that fogs up the clarity of our reason to not be able to appreciate this point.

bro_in_law

May 31. 2009 10:51

"Everything is subject to translation and interpretation."

this is like urban myth among unbelievers which i've dispelled many times. there is no point of christian dogma which hinges upon a turn of biblical translation. find one example of this, and i'll concede the point. i often hear anti-religious people accusing religious people of being ignorant when its easy to demonstrate that the exact opposite is the truth - and on the very point in discussion!

i choose that passage that the Lord will take care of me because as an abandoned adrift child of a crackhead single mother living in the violence of the cabrini green housing projects in chicago, i found inspiration and comfort in it which carried me to the place of comfort, peace and personal success which i enjoy today and am able to share with others who were in a similar predicament. God loves everyone, as the bible says over and over (and over and over...) again. he calls us to seek a relationship with him right where we are in life.

what you constantly rail against is a frankenstein monster caricature of christianity of your own creation which focuses almost exclusively on the fallibilty of man and not at all on the character of God or the message of Christ. therein is where the error of your thinking begins and is carried forward into all else.

when religious leaders brought a woman out of a bed of adultery before jesus they asked him "mosaic law says that an adulteress should be stoned to death. what do you say?" he responded,

"let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone."

i assert that this one of the most important quotes of in the history of mankind. it applies not only to religious people judging the nonreligious, but also vice versa.
it has not only allowed the culture of christian nations around the world to evolve to abolish the death penalty except for the most bloodguilty violent criminals among us. it has also spoken directly to how sexual sin should be handled.
again, there is no acknowledgment (or apparently even awareness) of such nuance in your perception of biblical christianity. its easy to create an evil straw man in one's own mind, then pillory it ad infinitum. but ironically the same jaded modern skepticism that is brought against organized religion when turned 180 degrees back onto anti-religious sentiment exposes its shallowness just as easily.

i understand and am mostly at peace now in my old age with the fact that my homosexuality and my evangelical upbringing are wholly irreconcilable. but we are all sinners and all supposed to work out our own salvation individually. to the degree that this infringes upon christian moral codes, it is my burden to seek god's grace for my imperfections in this and all areas of my life.

to the degree that anyone might believe that i am a hypocrite for being a christian and in a gay marriage rather than being celibate or marrying a woman, i offer no pushback or excuse for my perceived shortcomings. but i will remind you that if you let a hypocrite stand between you and God, that just means the hypocrite is closer to God than you are!

and i was actually *quite extremely* shocked at your demand that i not place scripture into my blog posting! you allowed someone to trash me, my sexual orientation and my faith mercilessly here on your blog without a peep of protest, and i am a member of your family! that's ok, but posting a bible quote isn't? that's outrageous! and a clear exposure of how poisonous anti-religious sentiment can be to the human spirit!

i post here with the assumption (validated by history - until now) that i was free to do so without concern for censorship or hostility. i write deliberately with civility, patience and without hurling invective.

please clarify whether you're allowing me to post scripture as part of my points going forward. if so, then i'll breathe a sigh of relief and continue our exchanges. if not then i won't post anything further at all. no blog site that explicitly censors civilly and thoughtfully ideas but allows hateful personal attacks unchecked is worth the bytes it consumes on the internet.

bro_in_law

July 13. 2009 05:55

Howdy, i read your blog on occasion and i have a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot of junk comments? If so how do you control it, any plugin or anything you can suggest? I get so much lately it's driving me nuts so any assistance is much appreciated.

Zoey "Acai Berry" Fan

October 14. 2009 20:24

The pope really believe God. They are trying their best to preach the words of God. If ever proven that the pope is a fake, It's up to you if you still believe in him or not. The important things is that you have faith and believe on our God. Our lord is always been there and will always be. It's not only who is preaching but its the one who's being preach. Thanks.

size genetics

February 14. 2011 18:14

My apologies to listen to about your own experiences. There is absolutely no reason for this kind of behavior. I'm happy you are getting through it and I am confident you'll discover the actual amazing benefits within yourself. Obviously, I'm curious about your own sister, and just how she has handled points. Regardless of how much discomfort you have gone through, she is the real target in all of the, and also you have to be presently there for her.

Driver Software Update

April 4. 2011 14:51

I would hope that the Pope actually does believe it what he's preaching!

Advertising Copywriter

July 3. 2011 00:48

I do wonder if after the conclave, the bishops regret their decisions. There has been a lot of scandals in the catholic church, whether involving the pope or not. After all, they are still human.

What to Invest In

December 25. 2011 06:31

I agree with you. I am one of the only Atheists in my surounding area. All the believing people around me are those dumb idiots who are easy to manipulate. I am not saying that every person that believes is an idiot. Let the church say that birth contoll is bad and they have more babies from catholic parent's. They will be raised catholic , just like their parent's, and will get more babies because of what the pope said. Their children will get children and that goes on until the catholic church is the most expanded religion on earth. If the pope is smart enough to think of something like that, is he really dumb enough to believe in god?

By the way: sorry if my grammar or spelling was bad, I am only 13 years old.

Themasteroflol

January 8. 2012 11:35

I some how found myself directed to your blog, red an article or 2, I especially liked the "Let's Make A Deal" mathematics and with a little thought you convinced me that all those people should have no doubt switched to the other door. Then I red this article about the Pope and religion and your rant on god and thought that your either on anti psychotic drugs or are extremely depressed. I infer this from your obvious narcissism, you seem to have some need for the feeling of superiority. Common sense tells us that you live in serious fear that you really might not be that smart and you could very well be on the wrong half of your intelligence equation. I have a strong feeling here that were only at the tip of the ice burg with your fears, and living in fear is no way to live. You must understand that your narcissism would never allow you to even consider what I'm writing to be an accurate description of your hellish existence after all your so well adjusted and together that I must be completely mistaken.
My confusion with your argument is are you grouping God with religion and calling it the same thing and then grouping all Popes together as an institution that is evil or are you saying the Pope himself is evil. My point is, in your haste and lack of coherency in your argument, all that your entire article said was I'm smarter than most people because I am an atheist. In addition you gave many of your readers unnecessary stress and pain without even a clue as to what harm you may have caused to those that were the target of your attack. I realize you wouldn't recognize the pain that your words could possibly cause others;  that's simply not your nature. I found your article very smug, mean spirited and hurtful to others only to get across the idea to your readers that your smart. The main point of most all religions is real simple, treat people like you would like to be treated.
.  

Dafirestar

January 9. 2012 08:10

Dafirestar - The Lunatic, as he calls himself on his blog, was a guest lecturer at my university last year. You certainly wouldn't want to go up against him in a debate. He makes many valid points in this article - and I think YOU are the one living in fear. I suggest you read his post www.halfbakedlunatic.com/.../...o-you-believe.aspx

Bob Weaver

July 24. 2012 09:11

i was just sitting, relaxing and pondering about the world, govt and people.  and knowing what i already know here is what i posed to myself:  that the pope being a corrupt man that he is can not possibly believe in god.  that it all was just a brilliant scheme to being the world's richest man.

so i google it and found your site.  and yep i hit the jackpot!  everything you say is 100 percent true.  a lot of people won't like it; afterall it goes against everything that brainwashed them.

mel

September 3. 2012 19:03

I think that in this case it's necessary to share the experience with other people!!!