My apologies to everyone for a lengthy absence from the blogosphere. Between an extremely hectic work schedule, court proceedings and a little tiff with some acquaintances from my past I have not had much time to get on here. I promise to catch up on everyone’s blogs this week. There was something that caught my eye a few weeks ago though.
Senator Ernie Chambers sues God!
As soon as I saw this article I knew that the Christian sites were going to go crazy over it. Although it is fairly clear that Senator Chambers main objective is not to slam god I knew that the Christians would internalize it and take it that way. Of course the purpose of the lawsuit is to point out the ease of filing frivolous lawsuits. I kind of wish that this was actually about religion though because Senator Chambers makes some really good points regarding “god.”
1. Senator Chambers has filed for an injunction against god to cease “harmful activities” and to stop “participating in terrorist threats.” This reminds me of my favorite “The Onion” article. It was right after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. It showed a photo of downtown New Orleans in ruins and then it read “God outdoes terrorist yet again!”
2. Senator Chambers has tried on several occasions to serve god with the lawsuit unsuccessfully. He has noted that although the lawsuit has failed to be served, “god” definitely knows about it since he is omnipresent. He will be expected to stand trial whether or not he is officially served. Chambers says he has “tried to contact god numerous times.” Priceless.
3. The lawsuit seeks damages against god for causing "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like." Christians love to argue about how god is not responsible for all of these horrible things that occur each day in our world. They are of course quick to praise god every time something good happens. This has always seemed peculiar to me. Even if “the devil” causes all of the bad things to happen god still “allows” him to operate, right?
4. This may be my favorite part of the suit. Chambers claims that god "has manifested neither compassion nor remorse, proclaiming that defendant will laugh when calamity comes.” In other words, if god is real, he is evil and not worthy of our worship.
5. Chambers has filed for a summary judgment and is pushing for a speedy trial to stop god from causing any more damage.
Well Senator Chambers has unfortunately committed political suicide by alienating the tabaccy chewing, nut scratching, right wing, red neck, conservative, Christian vote. I applaud him nonetheless. The more this thought process is shown to be ridiculous and insane, the less it will affect our lives………hopefully……..
Monday, September 24, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Morals, Ethics, and Law. (an exercise in judgment)
Ethics
Morals
Law
Here is an exercise for you. It contains a lesson that may very well be different for everyone. The story is original so please give credit if you would like to repost it. Good luck.
Jim is driving to work one morning when he hears a radio add from a local car dealership. The add states that the dealership is having a “crazy blow out sale.” It says that they have the guaranteed lowest prices on Corvettes and that if you find another price on a Corvette that “they can’t beat” then they will give you a Corvette for free. Jim knows very well that no one will ever get a Corvette for free. The lowest price that any dealership would be willing to give on a brand new Corvette is most likely to be just a few thousand dollars below retail value. If they are able to get you into their store instead then they can beat the price by $100 or so dollars and then obtain the sale.
Jim goes to the dealership after work and learns that the brand new Corvette convertible is $54,000. Suddenly an idea comes to him. What if Jim could find someone to sell him the car for much less than the car is worth thus forcing this dealership to beat the price or give him the car for free? Jim remembers that he has a friend, Jake, one city over who runs a car dealership. Jim drives to see Jake and explains his plan. Jim tells Jake that Jake could offer to sell Jim a Corvette for the current dealer wholesale price of $27,000. Jake could give Jim this offer in writing to take to the car dealership. They would be forced to sell Jim the car for this price or give him the car for free. Obviously they would sell for this price and then Jim would get the car and Jake would still have a Corvette to sell at the regular retail price.
To Jake the plan sounds fishy, plus he gets nothing out of it, so Jake comes up with a new idea. Jake will purchase the car for his inventory at the cost of $27,000 and offer to sell it to Jim for $2,500. The dealership would now be forced to either sell Jim the Corvette for $2,500 or to give it to him for free. Of course they would opt to sell and at least get some money. Now Jake would have two brand new Corvettes for $2,500 that are worth $54,000 each. Jake would then sell the Corvettes for at least $50,000 each. They would take the $100,000 for the two cars after they sold them, subtract the wholesale cost of $27,000 and the upfront cost of $2,500 and then split the remaining $70,500. They would pay taxes on the remaining money as if though it were income and then they could use the rest to buy a new car or whatever else they decided they wanted to spend the money on.
Is their plan Ethical?
Is their plan Moral?
Is their plan Legal?
Morals
Law
Here is an exercise for you. It contains a lesson that may very well be different for everyone. The story is original so please give credit if you would like to repost it. Good luck.
Jim is driving to work one morning when he hears a radio add from a local car dealership. The add states that the dealership is having a “crazy blow out sale.” It says that they have the guaranteed lowest prices on Corvettes and that if you find another price on a Corvette that “they can’t beat” then they will give you a Corvette for free. Jim knows very well that no one will ever get a Corvette for free. The lowest price that any dealership would be willing to give on a brand new Corvette is most likely to be just a few thousand dollars below retail value. If they are able to get you into their store instead then they can beat the price by $100 or so dollars and then obtain the sale.
Jim goes to the dealership after work and learns that the brand new Corvette convertible is $54,000. Suddenly an idea comes to him. What if Jim could find someone to sell him the car for much less than the car is worth thus forcing this dealership to beat the price or give him the car for free? Jim remembers that he has a friend, Jake, one city over who runs a car dealership. Jim drives to see Jake and explains his plan. Jim tells Jake that Jake could offer to sell Jim a Corvette for the current dealer wholesale price of $27,000. Jake could give Jim this offer in writing to take to the car dealership. They would be forced to sell Jim the car for this price or give him the car for free. Obviously they would sell for this price and then Jim would get the car and Jake would still have a Corvette to sell at the regular retail price.
To Jake the plan sounds fishy, plus he gets nothing out of it, so Jake comes up with a new idea. Jake will purchase the car for his inventory at the cost of $27,000 and offer to sell it to Jim for $2,500. The dealership would now be forced to either sell Jim the Corvette for $2,500 or to give it to him for free. Of course they would opt to sell and at least get some money. Now Jake would have two brand new Corvettes for $2,500 that are worth $54,000 each. Jake would then sell the Corvettes for at least $50,000 each. They would take the $100,000 for the two cars after they sold them, subtract the wholesale cost of $27,000 and the upfront cost of $2,500 and then split the remaining $70,500. They would pay taxes on the remaining money as if though it were income and then they could use the rest to buy a new car or whatever else they decided they wanted to spend the money on.
Is their plan Ethical?
Is their plan Moral?
Is their plan Legal?
The persecution of Christians pt 2
Continued from here. My voice is in bold.
Manly P. Hall once wrote, "They are the invisible powers behind the thrones of earth, and men are but marionettes, dancing while the invisible ones pull the strings."
Manly Hall is most well known for being a mystic. He regarded Christianity as mysticism. Of course this should not stop you from using his quotes. This should turn out well!
Satan's string pullers have patiently manipulated unregenerate architects of American society for over five decades, networking both visible and invisible principalities to discredit Christian causes. Indicators reveal the propaganda blame-game against western believers is working.
Satan’s string pullers? Oh my god, I could not stop laughing when I read this. Satan apparently has a legion of demons controlling the western public in a conspiracy against the Christian world. Nothing has yet to bring to light the reasons that Christians have for feeling persecuted, even as the majority, as much as this statement. If you believe that there is an invisible spiritual force working against your entire belief system then of course you are going to think that everything bad that happens to a believer is intentional in some way. Of course if your god cared about you and was all powerful then you wouldn’t have to worry about these “string pullers” in the first place!
Even a casual observance of the facts reveals growing isolation of Christians as a people group, especially school age believers.
While I am near certain here that your main gripe is that prayer is not a sanctioned group activity in school, you are making it seem as if though this is a form of persecution. Students are still allowed to pray though. In many cases they do so. The schools, being state sponsored cannot organize it though. It is interesting that when there are cases of school sponsored prayer and students opt out due to their lack of religious beliefs they are often outcast and persecuted far more severely than any of the Christians ever claim to be.
Faculty and peer efforts to convince public school children that America was not founded on Christian ideals, and that our forefathers actually wanted a secular society, permeates public school interaction. History revisionists labor to eliminate any and all contradictory historical evidence from public school curriculum, and mockingly stereotype Christians as unenlightened fringe.
O.K. first of all America was founded on freedom from religious persecution. The founding fathers were fleeing a country where you could be killed for not professing a belief in the “right religion. Now I will admit that we got off to a rocky start with the whole killing of witches issue. After all witches should have been free to practice their faith. The majority of people that came to this country chose to adopt or continue to follow Christianity. This included many of the founding fathers. The founding fathers, although deist, understood the inefficiency of a government built on a specific religion. The whole point of this new country was that people would have the ability to follow their own convictions. I recommend reading Thomas Paine’s “The age of reason.” This should give you a better understanding of religions role in our countries origins.
I assure you that there are not “history revisionist” involved in a vast conspiracy to eliminate god from the history books. As we gain more information about history we should be updating our books. If those bits of information replace previous religious dogma with new found historical facts then you are just going to have to suck it up and realize that we don’t need god to explain the things that we are capable of discovering on our own.
A few years ago, Dr. Paul Vitz, then professor of psychology at New York University, worked with a committee that examined sixty social studies and history textbooks used in public schools across the United States. The committee was amazed to find that almost every reference to the Christian influence of early America was systematically removed. Their conclusion: the writers of the commonly used textbooks exhibited paranoia of the Christian religion and intentionally censored Christianity's positive role in American history.
By positive influence do you mean raping, killing and pillaging native peoples on the new continent? Or perhaps you were talking about hunting down and killing witches. I know, maybe you were talking about the Catholic extermination camps in WW2. Maybe you were referring to the long list of religious wars that have taken place throughout our history. Interesting that these have been conveniently left out of the text books until recently. Tell me, why do you think that is?
Intolerant, Christ-hating censors of religious expression target the media and public school curriculum because this is the best place, outside of the churches and families, to indoctrinate children and thus manipulate the future political and cultural landscape.
I would expect no one other than a Christian to be the number one authority on where the best place is to indoctrinate and manipulate children into their future political landscape. Nice work!
If one succeeds in separating Godly principles from public education and the media, they deny citizens the knowledge of good and keep them from embracing the laws of God. To that extent, they are pawns of evil and subvert and destroy both the message and the messengers of righteousness.
We are back to the old “no morality without god” argument. Telos has already handled this quite well. Christians love to use this argument because if they can assume that this is true then non-believers have absolutely no grounds with which to argue from. The simple fact is that a world devoid of a god is not a world filled with evil. If anything it is a world where the potential for good has increased exponentially.
Manly P. Hall once wrote, "They are the invisible powers behind the thrones of earth, and men are but marionettes, dancing while the invisible ones pull the strings."
Manly Hall is most well known for being a mystic. He regarded Christianity as mysticism. Of course this should not stop you from using his quotes. This should turn out well!
Satan's string pullers have patiently manipulated unregenerate architects of American society for over five decades, networking both visible and invisible principalities to discredit Christian causes. Indicators reveal the propaganda blame-game against western believers is working.
Satan’s string pullers? Oh my god, I could not stop laughing when I read this. Satan apparently has a legion of demons controlling the western public in a conspiracy against the Christian world. Nothing has yet to bring to light the reasons that Christians have for feeling persecuted, even as the majority, as much as this statement. If you believe that there is an invisible spiritual force working against your entire belief system then of course you are going to think that everything bad that happens to a believer is intentional in some way. Of course if your god cared about you and was all powerful then you wouldn’t have to worry about these “string pullers” in the first place!
Even a casual observance of the facts reveals growing isolation of Christians as a people group, especially school age believers.
While I am near certain here that your main gripe is that prayer is not a sanctioned group activity in school, you are making it seem as if though this is a form of persecution. Students are still allowed to pray though. In many cases they do so. The schools, being state sponsored cannot organize it though. It is interesting that when there are cases of school sponsored prayer and students opt out due to their lack of religious beliefs they are often outcast and persecuted far more severely than any of the Christians ever claim to be.
Faculty and peer efforts to convince public school children that America was not founded on Christian ideals, and that our forefathers actually wanted a secular society, permeates public school interaction. History revisionists labor to eliminate any and all contradictory historical evidence from public school curriculum, and mockingly stereotype Christians as unenlightened fringe.
O.K. first of all America was founded on freedom from religious persecution. The founding fathers were fleeing a country where you could be killed for not professing a belief in the “right religion. Now I will admit that we got off to a rocky start with the whole killing of witches issue. After all witches should have been free to practice their faith. The majority of people that came to this country chose to adopt or continue to follow Christianity. This included many of the founding fathers. The founding fathers, although deist, understood the inefficiency of a government built on a specific religion. The whole point of this new country was that people would have the ability to follow their own convictions. I recommend reading Thomas Paine’s “The age of reason.” This should give you a better understanding of religions role in our countries origins.
I assure you that there are not “history revisionist” involved in a vast conspiracy to eliminate god from the history books. As we gain more information about history we should be updating our books. If those bits of information replace previous religious dogma with new found historical facts then you are just going to have to suck it up and realize that we don’t need god to explain the things that we are capable of discovering on our own.
A few years ago, Dr. Paul Vitz, then professor of psychology at New York University, worked with a committee that examined sixty social studies and history textbooks used in public schools across the United States. The committee was amazed to find that almost every reference to the Christian influence of early America was systematically removed. Their conclusion: the writers of the commonly used textbooks exhibited paranoia of the Christian religion and intentionally censored Christianity's positive role in American history.
By positive influence do you mean raping, killing and pillaging native peoples on the new continent? Or perhaps you were talking about hunting down and killing witches. I know, maybe you were talking about the Catholic extermination camps in WW2. Maybe you were referring to the long list of religious wars that have taken place throughout our history. Interesting that these have been conveniently left out of the text books until recently. Tell me, why do you think that is?
Intolerant, Christ-hating censors of religious expression target the media and public school curriculum because this is the best place, outside of the churches and families, to indoctrinate children and thus manipulate the future political and cultural landscape.
I would expect no one other than a Christian to be the number one authority on where the best place is to indoctrinate and manipulate children into their future political landscape. Nice work!
If one succeeds in separating Godly principles from public education and the media, they deny citizens the knowledge of good and keep them from embracing the laws of God. To that extent, they are pawns of evil and subvert and destroy both the message and the messengers of righteousness.
We are back to the old “no morality without god” argument. Telos has already handled this quite well. Christians love to use this argument because if they can assume that this is true then non-believers have absolutely no grounds with which to argue from. The simple fact is that a world devoid of a god is not a world filled with evil. If anything it is a world where the potential for good has increased exponentially.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
The face of evil!
Did you know that for only $1 you can purchase a mug shot of anyone currently incarcerated in your local county jail or prison. Check out the mug shot I purchased!
