PoStorm - Religion category

Triangle FreeThinkers Challenge

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:23:00 GMT

"TriangleFreeThinkers" is the Triangle chapter of FFRF. The domain name (TriangleFreeThinkers.org) is not presently owned by that organization, but
the owner of "TriangleFreeThinkers.org" has offered to donate the domain to TriangleFreeThinkers provided they step up to specific challenge. The Board of TriangleFreeThinkers are considering whether to accept the challenge, and have asked that the challenge be spelled out in precise detail.

Read about the challenge at trianglefreethinkers.org.

In my opinion, stepping to this challenge is no more than doing the job that TriangleFreeThinkers have assumed for themselves. For extra credit, they could

Make the timing of the meeting convenient for Bill Maher's visit to Raleigh in February 2010, and get him to attend and speak on the motion, or just make fun of both sides. (In which case they should charge for admission).
Get a famous or notorious religious person to speak for (or against?) the motion.

I think this challenge is a constructive exercise, but I am prepared to change my mind in the face of evidence and reason. You can discuss the challenge, and perhaps change my mind, by adding comments in this blog.

Why are there so many Christian denominations?

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:29:00 GMT

According to Christianity Today - General Statistics and Facts of Christianity Today
there are approximately 38,000 Christian denominations in the world.

Why? This question got asked at www.gotquestions.org (which promises 'The Bible has the Answers, we'll find them for you') but I can't say I was impressed with the answer:

The point of these divisions is never Christ as Lord and Savior, but rather honest differences of opinion by godly, albeit flawed, people seeking to honor God and retain doctrinal purity according to their consciences and their understanding of His Word.

It's pretty obvious that if the "point of these divisions" were "Christ as Lord and Savior" it wouldn''t be a Christian domination. I also assume that only 37,999 of these godly people are "albeit flawed". The remaining one being the one that is right?

I can't help noticing that the evolution of Christian Dominations as pictured in wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denomination looks like ..., eh ..., evolution?

Why wouldn't it? For evolution you need only three things:

Variation
Selection
Inheritance

Religion is all about inheritance. Getting other people - your children, at the very least, or just any body, if you are an evangelical religion - to believe what you belief and to belong to your religion.

It has selection: if nobody believes and nobody belongs, it is dead.

And it has variation: "differences of opinion by godly, albeit flawed, people".

According to the ("just a") theory of evolution, given those three factors you must get evolution. Such as, for example, 38,000 different 'species' of Christianity.

Reducing Abortions, Homicides, Infant deaths and teen suicides

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:46:00 GMT

This postorm presents a statistical analysis of occurrence of bad things - like abortions, homicides, Infant deaths and teen suicides in different western developed countries.

The results are damning for the US.

The countries are Australia Canada Denmark Great Britain France Germany Holland Ireland Japan Switzerland Norway Portugal Austria Spain Italy United States Sweden New Zealand.

The US is top in homicides (per capita). Not just top but way ahead of the nearest contender: Portugal, and more than treble every other country.

On Infant mortality, Portugal trumps the US, with Ireland coming in third, but the US is back on top for the number of teenage abortions.

The commonly held religious position in the US is that abortion should be illegal (which based on the US experince with prohibition has nothing to do with whether it happens, but merely with the status of those who do it, and the people who provide it.).

The report makes an interesting correlation. There is a very clear correlation between abortions and believing in God, and between infant mortality and believing in God. The more people who believe in God the more abortions occur, and the more infants die. The more people who pray the more abortions occur, and the more infants die. This correlation casts "In God We trust" in a very poor light.

Am I likely to hear support for "Reduce the abortions and infant deaths by stopping believing in God; and stopping praying"? I doubt it, but that's what the numbers say.

Think For Jesus Christ

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:39:00 GMT

I came across this postorm, that I have cached here.

It makes me wonder how some people think, or whether they think at all. If you assume that everything he asserts about what Jefferson said is true, you have to admire this guys uncritical thinking (the web site author, not Jefferson's).

He says for example:
---------------

Here's another false quote:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

If you look at Jefferson's notes on the State of Virginia, you will see that only some of this quote was truly penned by the hand of Jefferson. Only the part that is underlined is true Jefferson. The rest is false.

-----------
So he is making a big deal of one false quotation while admitting as true an almost identical one.

False	True
They are all alike founded on fables and mythology	Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies
I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature.	"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man.	The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

The author of the web page declares what he is trying to achieve: "So I bring out these quotes because I, and I'm sure you, are interested in the truth even if the person in question doesn't happen to believe the way I do."

His approach to "The Truth" illustrates a curious form of thinking. A quotation attributed to Thomas Jefferson is false unless somewhere on the web is an image of the exact words of the quotation written in Jefferson's own handwriting, yet he decorates the page with bible quotations not one of which has ever been seen in the handwriting of the supposed author. He makes claims to Jefferson quotations ("Thomas Jefferson denied the Godhead and called the Bible a dunghill") without reference to supporting evidence.

But that's not the big issue. My question is how can a person read the words of "Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat" - the man who has a claim to be the single most influential thinker in the creation of this nation, a man whose opinion is expressed so utterly clearly and unambiguously in words that the web site author acknowledges are genuine quotations, and yet declare Jefferson to be wrong, without so much as the tiniest inkling of a reason. The web page author in effect declares Jefferson to be wrong simply because he held a different opinion.

Surely if you read what Jefferson said, and acknowledge that he wasn't the most stupid person in the world, it should make any thinking person ask why Jeffferson thought it to be true.

You might read "History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. " and wonder if that sheds light on where our civil government went now government is priest-ridden. If you are inclined to accept the correctness of the bible quotations, does it not occur to you that you might be the victim of the slavery that Jefferson referred to in "The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."?