Skepticism @ MindSay 
What is a religion?
Is it good to have a religion? Is it bad to have a religion? Does it matter one way or another?
What's the main characteristic of a religious person? What's the main characteristic of a nonreligious person? From their observable behavior alone, is it possible to know the difference?
What makes a book "sacred" or "holy"? Is there more than one holy book? Can one holy book be holier than another holy book?
Is a holy book true? Are some parts of a holy book truer than other parts? If so, who decides which parts are the truer parts?
What is a god?
What are the characteristics and attributes of a god? Does a god have a body? Is a god born? Does a god die? Does a god have gender? What does gender mean when applied to a god? Does a god have genitalia? Is a god celibate and chaste? Does a god have sex? Does a god eat and drink? Does a god poop and pee? Does a god get hungry? Thirsty? Sleepy? Horny? Angry? Annoyed? Frustrated? Envious? Jealous? Sad? Depressed? Lonely? Happy?
Does a god change? Does a god grow? Does a god learn? Does a god get smarter? Does a god get sick? Does a god get mentally ill? Can a god go crazy? Can a god do wrong? Can a god make a mistake? Can a god be evil?
Can a god cure cancer? Has this ever happened? Can a god regenerate an amputated limb? Has this ever happened?
In the book of Numbers, chapter 15, verses 32-36, in the collection of books known as the Bible, the author writes this story about a god known as the Lord: "While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was discovered gathering wood on the sabbath day. Those who caught him at it brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly. But they kept him in custody, for there was no clear decision as to what should be done with him. Then the Lord said to Moses, 'This man shall be put to death; let the whole community stone him outside the camp.' So the whole community led him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord had commanded Moses." What is your opinion of this god? What is your opinion of the people who obey this god?
In the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 21, verses 18-21, also in the collection of books known as the Bible, according to the author the same god known as the Lord gives the following instructions regarding a son who disobeys his parents and eats and drinks to excess: "If a man has a stubborn and unruly son who will not listen to his father or mother, and will not obey them even though they chastise him, his father and mother shall have him apprehended and brought out to the elders at the gate of his home city, where they shall say to those city elders, 'This son of ours is a stubborn and unruly fellow who will not listen to us; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all his fellow citizens shall stone him to death." What is your opinion of this god? What is your opinion of parents who obey this god? What is your opinion of their fellow citizens who obey this god?
Mr. Skank says he was taught that hell is a place of punishment where people are tortured forever in ways so excruciating and terrible that we cannot even imagine them. In the book of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-46, the author records one of the speeches of Jesus, a man considered the son of this same god known above as the Lord, and in his speech Jesus says that anyone who fails to help even one hungry or poor or sick or imprisoned person is cursed and on the day of judgment will be consigned to punishment in "the eternal fire" of hell forever. What is your opinion of this son of a god?
What is critical thinking? What is logic? What is reason? What is academic discourse? What is academic inquiry? What is science? What is the scientific method? What is the purpose of academic inquiry and scientific method? Why are academic inquiry and scientific method in conflict with religion?
Last week, I placed an online order for a shiny new copy of Castlevania : Portrait of Ruin from Toys "R" Us. I've been browsing for a nicely priced copy for awhile, and the price here was fair. The item was listed as "In Stock" and usually shipped in 2-3 business days. I entered my payment information, Placed my Order, and confidently expected that TRU would send me my new toy in a few days.
A few hours after Placing my Order, I received what I thought would be a confirmation email. No. It was an email stating the item I had selected was on back order (or so I interpreted it - they actually said Pre-Order, but the game had been released a week prior.) and would not be shipped out. Why didn't they say that on their website (which throughout my wait still says the game is available for purchase)? Fine, I thought, I guess I'll be waiting a bit.
Two nights ago, I got another email from TRU, this one no longer saying my game was on Pre-order - now it was on Back Order and would not be arriving until after the holidays. Unbelievable! Hmmm...should I cancel my order? Visiting my account page on the TRU site, though, I couldn't even find my original order. Yikes. Fine, I thought, I've got other games to play - I can wait a bit longer.
Today, I get another email from TRU. Now they state my game has shipped and UPS slates it as a December 20th delivery. Maybe their earlier email meant I'd get it sometime after Thanksgiving. Or Halloween. Those are holidays, too, and I suppose they didn't really specify which holidays my UPS package would succeed.
Part of me is pleased. Part of me is skeptical. Sadly, perhaps, for TRU, I won't be placing any more online orders with them for awhile. I think they've got some kinks to work out before they reclaim my business.
These people know exactly what they are doing. It is sad that we haven't managed to pin the sort of suspicion and perceived shadiness we seem to reserve for used car salesmen."The show began with cold reader “psychic barber” Gordon Smith warming up the crowd with a big steaming plate of bullshit. He moved through the crowd doing standard cold reading junk, some of it more despicable than the usual. Then Sylvia came out and did a “lecture,” which was like an hour of ramblings from your demented aunt your mother makes you go see once every other month. I was half expecting her to offer us hard candies.
Then she led the crowd through a collective meditation. They played new age music while Sylvia talked in a soothing manner . . . well, as soothing a manner as she can get I guess. Imagine being sung to sleep by a mutant bullfrog. Then the bullfrog bites you on the eyeball. It was like that, only much, much worse.
After we all woke up refreshed from our journey into our inner consciousness, Sylvia called wristband numbers to choose who got to ask a single question of her.
...
On a purely professional level, I must admit that this tactic was brilliant. It’s like cold reading, but the other person doesn’t even get a moment to respond. For those who aren’t familiar, cold reading is a method that magicians and “psychics” use to throw out names or ideas at a person and judge his reaction. It’s why psychics always start out a bit general (”I’m getting a ‘J’”) and then work their way in to the specifics they pick up off their subjects. In this case, though, Sylvia can say anything and get away with it by just moving on to the next person. At one point she told a man to eat less carbs. When he objected and said he didn’t eat carbs, she laughed and told him to stop lying to her, she’s psychic. The audience laughed and applauded and the next person began asking her question. There were even two different microphones, one on either side of the stage, to facilitate this. Brilliant."
The rest of Rebecca's account is here.
In other news, this was a brilliant take on the problems in Iraq. Following recent conservative comments about sectarian violence being the fault of Iraqis (no damn shame at all), Michael Kinsley had this gem.
"Second, you don't get to assume the success of your intentions then plead a shrugging “Who knew?” when they don't pan out. I also am in favor of toppling dictators, establishing democracy and watching it spread painlessly throughout every region where there is no experience of it. Not only that: I am in favor of turning sand into ice cream and guaranteeing a cone to every child in the Middle East. But you can't turn sand into ice cream. That is not a defect in the execution of the idea. It is a defect in the idea itself. Although Perle and Adelman and others may think they are dissing the Bush Administration when they talk about its incompetence in failing to turn sand into ice cream, they are also displaying the Bush Administration's key vice, which is assuming that things are how you wish them to be and not how they are."Don't assume things are how you wish them to be. The skeptic must keep this reproach always at the front of their thoughts. Whether its life after death, a reassuring omnipotent father-figure, a miracle cure, an ultimate justice to everything, an ultimate purpose to our existence, or a way to get great abs in only two weeks. Don't assume things are how you wish them to be.
The Southern Fried Skeptic
An article on the Christian Worldview Network has really gotten under my skin. The title of the article is It's not easy to be an Atheist. It then proceeds to give 9 assertions about how the atheistic position is inconsistent or fallacious, each supported by a semi-coherent paragraph of straw men and unreasoned drivel. If you would like the read the original article, you can find it here.
In the meantime, I thought I would do my own version called, It's not easy to be a Christian. I don't expect anyone to accept every point I present within the text of the post, but rather my hope is that they gain insight into the more general point that these one-sided fallacious arguments full of straw men and rhetorical regurgitation rather than honest consideration, are written for the reassurance of the already faithful rather than for the unwashed masses. There is no persuasive value in misrepresenting the opposing view except for those too ignorant to realize the differences or too apathetic to pay attention. The value is not based on persuasion, but rather based on reassurance.
A christian assigns himself to life with a hollow purpose. While christians may frequently claim to have an ultimate purpose or ultimate meaning in their lives, they would be hard pressed to define that meaning. Most would only be able to say something vague like their purpose is to "serve God" or be part of "God's plan". But since such an ultimate plan is unknowable, the purpose they claim is empty of any real meaning. To serve can be a purpose, but what can they say is the meaning behind such service? After all, what possible service could an omnipotent being actually require? There is nothing they can accomplish that couldn't be accomplished by their concept of God. They may feel obediance is their duty, but without any greater understanding of meaning, especially in regards to the reasons why an omnipotent being would feel the need to create beings and a world which in his omniscience he knows will contain horrible cruelty and sorrow, that duty can provide no real sense of purpose.
The christian must suppress the demands of logic. The christian must believe in a host of miracles and events which have no comparable occurances in our world and defy the laws of nature that have established themselves so reliably that they have made our modern life possible. Not only must the christian believe that fantastic stories like the dead returning to life, walking on water, magical plagues, and talking snakes, but must also believe that all other stories of this genre associated with alternative religions both past and present are false, despite having similar claims of "evidence". Natural laws have been the most reliable source of understanding, yet the christian must accept that those laws don't apply when it comes to their specific supernatural claims based on their specific divine revelation.
Ironically the christian must believe in natural laws without believing in natural causes. Christians must believe in natural laws, because it is almost impossible to function in modern society and deny these laws. Science, which strives to understand these laws, has accomplished many of the "miracles" claimed by christian theology which they have not been able to reproduce. We stand upon scientific achievement in almost every aspect of our lives. Yet, when science proves something contradictory to what they accept as dogma, they want to reject scientific information in favor of blind faith. Life expectancy is at the highest in history, people with a range of medical conditions are no longer doomed to slow and painful death, horrible diseases such as smallpox have been virtually eradicated, electronics and prosthetics allows those with missing limbs to have options in their lives, genetic science has allowed us to grow more food than we can consume in America, we have reached beyond our planet- sending robots to mars and men to the moon, we have seen other suns, other galaxies, and even into the past, to the early times of our universe, we can communicate almost instantly with anyone we wish, we can share ideas frequently and quickly with people we are geographically isolated from. All of these accomplishments are based in science. Would any of these have been available to us if science was subordinate to dogma? Yet, despite its proven record of achievement, most christians would toss it out (in theory) as soon as it conflicts with dogma. This leads to strange dissonance like the fact that many christians support dna evidence to prove identity in trials or to indicate kinship such as paternity, they reject the same techniques, the same types of genetic markers, the same evidence when it proves in the same way that we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees.
Christians must suppress all rational approaches to morality. For a christian, what is moral is pre-packaged and shipped to him. Considerations about why something is right or wrong, or considerations involving risks and benefits, positive and negative consequences, and the what option provides the most happiness to the largest number of people with the least negative impact are insignificant since notions of morality have already been determined. Natural altruism is dismissed despite examples of cooperation in the wild by creatures who have no faith. The question of the moral basis of the many societies, past and present, who do not have faith in their God is often overlooked completely. Instead they assume that you either adhere to their faith, or are immoral.
In fact, the christian must have a whimsical view of evil. After all, the christian God is all-loving and all-good. Anything their God does must, by definition, be good. Evil is definied as being antithetical to their God. But, that means that slavery, genocide, and human sacrifice, as depicted in the Bible were not objectively evil, since their God commanded it. When the basis of evil or immorality is not rational, but rather based on something as spurious and ambiguous as the whim of a questionable being as interpreted by human followers, then the door is open for truly heinous acts to be committed on a grand scale by followers who believe themselves to be doing what is righteous and good.
The christian must live with the arrogance of their position. The christian must believe in the absolute truth of his position. Even in the face of alternative explanations by other belief systems, or perhaps evidence from scientific discovery, the christian will accept that their belief and their dogma is absolutely, unquestionably true. An entire industry of apologetics has arisen just to try and provide post-hoc rationalizations of all the contradictions in the bible, so that the illusion of biblical infallibility can be maintained. Despite being aware that all the core knowledge within their belief structure is contained in a few documents written thousands of years ago in a desert choked region filled with many cultures, most of which had similar documents with similar stories, and many of the stories disagree with scientific and historical knowledge, they must arrogantly assert that everyone else is wrong and only they have truth.
The christian must deny the validity of historical proof. Many christians accept the bible as the perfectly inspired infallible word of God. Yet, the bible contains many stories and concepts that do not agree with history. For example, by the biblical chronology, the story of an ancient global flood in which all died save one family, would have happened sometime during ancient Egypt. Yet, there is a detailed historic record of dynastic succession and Egyption history from the period of time before the flood took place. There is no gap in the record. There is no mention of the flood. There is no evidence of Sodom and Gomorrah. There is no evidence of the tower of Babel. Many biblical claims are contradicted by the historical record, yet it would take only one inaccuracy to reasonably bring into question the inspired nature of the bible. Yet, the christian will overlook these errors and maintain the facade of biblical perfection.
The christian must imagine that humans have greater significance than all other life. The christian ideology places humans in a central role, a special creation loved most by their creator. Yet, the fact that genetics shows we are related to all other life, our dna has the same basic chemical composition as mold, is lost on them. We eke out a brief existence on a smallish planet, third of nine in orbit around a mundane star, stuck on some lonely edge of a single spiral arm of an rather normal galaxy. We don't appear to be central to anything. We humans have been around in our modern form for less than 200,000 years out of 4,500,000,000 years of Earth's existence. There was a lot of wasted time if all of this was for us. Christians can get so caught up in wanting to be something that they miss the beauty of being part of everything.
Always remember, the christian's belief in God is based on the absence of evidence and suppression of evidence contrary. If God provided evidence of his existence, faith would be unnecessary. Faith is central to christian belief. If God provides evidence to some but not to all, then God is discriminating and petty and unworthy of worship. This is especially true if he only provides it to those who already believe. Christians theology thrives not on evidence of god's existence, but rather on hopes, fears, and suppression of questions, rational considerations, and alternative views.
-The Southern Fried Skeptic
Everyone around me is in love.
Or "in like," at the very least.
I don't know why it is that I'm so cynical, but when I hear young new couples telling each other "I love you," I react with much skepticism.
I don't know why I have so little faith in "love."
It's not so much the emotion of love. It's the words that I have no faith in.
It's easy to say "I love you" and mean something else, like "I'm infatuated with you" or "I lust for you" or even "I really admire you." It's easy to blurt out those three fatal words that will change your life forever in the heat of the moment.
I've seen enough people and couples claiming that they love each other and then eventually (and oftentimes even rather quickly) breaking up. I find it ridiculous.
Don't say "I love you" unless you know you mean it. Unless you know it deep, deep down inside--and not in your groin, and not even in the searing, heady feeling in your heart.
It's funny how it works out for some people.
My parents met during Christmas. Two weeks later, they were a couple. By May, they were married. And they've been together for thirty-seven years, and still going strong. They still hold hands when they walk together, and they still go out on dates.
Whereas I know a couple who was together for seven years before marriage, and after a year of marriage, they called it quits.
How does it work out for some people?
How is it that my parents knew that they loved each other the moment they met?
How is it that some couples believe themselves to be in love for the longest time, only to find out that they were blinded by one thing or another?
When do you know that you love a person?
When do you know that it's the right time to say it?
I have no faith in the word "love."
But I do have faith in love.