Every once in a while, I like to torture myself by going over to Matt Slick’s website to read over the arguments that he establishes for use in the Christian/anti-atheist community. Included on his website is a copy/paste section, where users have access to simple talking points about various topics, that they can freely use on internet discussion forums, chat rooms, etc. One of the more ridiculous sections, is his answers for people arguing against the idea of relativism, or relative truth. Instead of enabling the neo-apologists on the internetz with valid, structured arguments against relativism, he basically shows people how to engage in bullshit sophistry.

Take a look at Matt’s page on relativism and come back for my comments. Done? Good.

Matt uses semantical and linguistic arguments to try and confuse the issue at hand. His tactic is to explode the notion of individualistic, experience-based perceptions of truth and reality found in relativism to an absolute position. Basically it boils down to something like, “relativism as an absolute construct is flawed because in it’s ‘anything goes’ nature of argument, it debunks itself as an absolute construct.” What Matt fails to realize is that while relativism may be an “absolute” construct of thought, it’s positions, or the quantity of the construct is not made up of notions of absolute truth, reality, etc. He argues against the notions, in an attempt to prove the absolute construct as false. In using this tactic, it is obvious that Matt misses the point of the content of the construct itself.

The approach that Matt Slick is taking here, is one wherein the counter position is only trying to “win” the argument by displacing the issue at hand. This is a dishonest approach by the counter position, which shows that they have no real concern in breaking down the ideas of relativism and showing them false, but only wish to easily dispense with their relativist opponent.

What does this do? Well, for one, it leaves the argument floating out in the aether. No one has addressed the nature of the relativist claims, and we are no closer to understanding a more comprehensible idea of what truth, reality, etc. is or might be. Secondly, it perpetuates the perverse notion that argument and debate within our cultures and societies is an establishment of contest. Throughout the history of honest intellectual debate, the point has never been to leave your opponent in the dust, licking his wounds in defeat. The point of honest intellectual debate is to progress towards a better understanding of the concepts and issues being addressed, for everyone involved, so that potential answers or solutions to those issues can hopefully be found. We see this disordered mentality present (as one example) in the U.S. presidential debates. The issues at hand are presented and argued, but after the lights have dimmed and the room starts to clear, immediately, news correspondents start debating amongst themselves who the victor of the debate was. Victory in a debate is only had when the issues present are resolved, or put to rest. This is not a victory held by one side, but shared by the community benefiting from the debate of those issues.

So, do I hold to the ideological construct of relativism? Yes and no. To an extent, all of our individual experiences shape our individual perceptions of functional and applied truth and our ideas of reality. The fact that there are multitudes that believe in magical super-beings that exist outside of time and space, while others believe that this is a ludicrous idea, shows us that there are obviously individual perceptions that lead different types of people to different types of ideas on how they live their lives. At the same time, there are elements to our individual perceptions on reality that we all seem to share. To a great extent, we all wish to have our individual freedoms to be able to perceive and apply our own truths on reality without forceful limitation. We all seem to care somewhat about self-preservation. On a more basic/silly level, we can all agree that breathing air is a necessity for human life, without having to debate it.

Aside from this, I think that truth is not absolutely relative to the point that it shouldn’t be explored. This is the problem I have with people like Matt Slick and his neo-apologist trainees, utilizing his copy/paste non-answers. We have to weigh our arguments against each other. We have to strive towards what the truth of reality might be, if there is a common reality to embrace. We have to pick apart our own arguments and the arguments of one another, based on the content of the issue at hand, in an honest manner, even if it proves to be difficult. If we continue to approach debate with the sole mindset of defeating our opponents, by twisting terms and arguing solely on the basis of linguistics and semantics, then we are not weighing the ideas themselves. We are not seeking the answers to our questions. We are defeating ourselves.

Share This

God Is Not Dead Yet
How current philosophers argue for his existence.

In the article linked above, William Lane Craig argues that because of the collapse of verificationism and the rise of “intelligent and talented theists entering academia,” Atheism is a “philosophy in retreat.” Craig states that the “New Atheism” of Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens lacks the intellectual muscle to stand up against what he calls the arguments for “natural theology.” I hope that Mr. Craig hasn’t actually read any of their books and doesn’t know how to work Google. If he does, he is either a lunatic, a liar, or the son of god… wait… that’s Jesus. If he does, he’s just an ass-hat, who thinks nobody with any sense is reading! Let’s take a look at his arguments.

Argument 1 - The Cosmological/Kalam Cosmological Argument:
1. Everything that exists (begins to exist) has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists (began to exist / has a cause).
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.

Counter-Arguments (summed up nicely by Ironchariots.org):
A) Infinite Regress
B) Internal Contradiction
C) First Law of Thermodynamics
D) Why Assume The First Cause Is God-Like?

Argument 2 - The Teleological Argument:
1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

Counter-Arguments (once again, Ironchariots.org):
A) The appearance of design is subjective.
B) Seeing design in nature involves confusing the direction of causality.
C) Humans infer intent.
D) Man-made objects are designed a posteriori.

Argument 3 - The Moral Argument:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Counter-Arguments (yep, right there on Ironchariots.org):
A) The Euthyphro Dilemma
B) Moral Truths As Necessary Truths
C) Secular Morality

Argument 4 - The Ontological Argument:
1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
7. Therefore, God exists.

Counter-Arguments (this is like 100 other places too Mr. Craig, but thanks Ironchariots.org):
A) Existence can hardly ever be considered an attribute.
B) Gasking’s Proof (a parody using this same type of reasoning to prove non-existence)

So in the end, William Lane Craig tells us, “of course, there are replies and counterreplies to all of these arguments, and no one imagines that a consensus will be reached.” This makes me wonder why Mr. Craig took the time to write such a tired, old, rehashing of dead arguments for Christianity Today. Perhaps he just had a deadline to meet.

Share This

Grandmas and over-protective, religious fanatic mothers, do you lay restless at night, wondering what will happen to your “lost” loved ones on the glorious day that the lord Jesus parts the clouds and returns in his heavenly splendor? Have you ever wondered how you can beat your friends and family over the head with your religious zealotry one final time after you’ve been raptured to the sweet bye and bye? Well then, have I got a great big steaming pile of bullshit to sell you!

You’ve Been Left Behind - Because “No One Knows The Day Or Hour.”

Operated out of Harwich, MA, “You’ve Been Left Behind, LLC” provides the faithful with up to 250mb of space to store documents that can be distributed to up to 62 individual email addresses, 6 days after the “rapture of the church.” Here is a direct quote from their website about how the system works.

“We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the
addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This
occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to
log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any
false triggering of the system.”

The distribution occurs when 3 of their 5 members fail to log in to the system over a 3 day period. So, their banking on the fact that 3 out of 5 of their team members are prayed up enough to get to go to heaven with all of the other pious when Jesus comes back! They actually wrote into their business model the potential that 3 or more of their staff is righteous enough to get raptured up. This is hilarious. You know they hired at least one gay,atheist,Satan-worshiping child molester on their crew, both for affirmative action reasons and to ensure that at least one of them gets left behind. I bet the main 3 operators stay locked up in a bank vault, with nothing but bibles, prayer cloths, and laptops that can only access the administrative functions of youvebeeleftbehind.com, and they all pray for forgiveness in advance if using the internet, period, is a sin for some crazy reason.

Subscription for their “service” is $40 for the first year and then re-subscription rates will be established as more and more people sign up. Being that they’ve probably only subscribed the 5 members of their team, we’re all probably looking at $40/yr. renewal rates. Since the rapture is a superstitious load of hallucinatory, mystical nonsense, you can expect to pay $40/yr for 250mb of file storage for the rest of your life.

Here is a call to action for all of the atheists out there. Find out who these 5 team members are and disable their internet usage through any means necessary. 6 days later, when all of the emails start going out, there is going to be a ton of bitchy, brow-beating, TBN watching grandmas that are going to slit their wrists because they’ve been left behind after all and there is no way they are going to come face-to-face with the Antichrist! This may seem like a horrible idea now, but trust me, when it goes down it will be hilarious!

Share This

Survey: 70 Percent of Americans Find Divorce ‘Morally Acceptable’

Take a look at the link above. At first, I just wanted to write about how silly it is that Christianity views “morally acceptable” divorce as alarming. I wanted to say how once again, Christianity feels like they should dictate morality for the masses. I could have written extensively on that, like I’ve done in the past, but this time I want to focus on something different.

The linked article gives us all an insight into a very disturbing fact about the United States’ most accepted religion. Christianity encourages its followers to endure emotional and mental stresses/suffering in order to uphold a very weak moral construct.

In the real world, many times, two people fall in love, get excited about their relationship, get married and then find that their choice to spend the rest of their lives together was made in haste. In the real world, people get married young and then find that they change into a different person a few years down the road and start to reconsider the choices they made earlier in life. In the real world, sometimes people get married after accidentally coming face-to-face with pregnancy and are pressured by dogmatic, unnecessary societal ideals to “do the right thing.” In the real world, people have the idea of marriage forced down their throats from childhood and then realize, after married, that it’s not the ideal state that they were convinced of. In the real world, children get to see the reoccurring mental anguish, through their parents, that married/family life can bring, when rushed into without proper consideration or even semi-adequate planning.

But you know what? Absolutely none of this should be accepted as valid reasoning for why divorce is morally acceptable. Do you know why? For many Christians, divorce is a sin.

Here are a few quotes pulled from the user comments on the page linked at the beginning of this post:

“Marriage is to be viewed in the light of Scripture. To make light of divorce is a great mistake. Thank God there is forgivness for divorce, But again, to make light of it is to fly in the face of God.”

“Remarriage is only allowed if your spouce died. If your spouce is alive, then you may divorce although it is not good, but you may never marry again if it was a valid Christian ceremony where you made your committment before God till death do you part.”

“Even if you divorce, you are only divorced civilly. How can man sepparate what God has brought together? If you get a divorce and your spouce did not pass away yet, then you are not free to remarry. it is adultery.”

“One more comment on marrying….I wonder how many marriages could’ve been saved if one of the parties humbled themselves before God and began to cry out to Him for help. Spouse committing adultery? get on your face before God and begin praying for conviction on that person and for their eyes to be opened. Been yelling a lot at each other? Get on your face before God. Cry out to Him and pray for a spirit of humility and peace. take authority over the enemy of your marriage and command him to loose your spouse from the chains that bind them.”

“Should we be surprised when the Lord allows the California Supreme Court to change God’s definition of marriage when we Americans have such disregard for this holy union?”

Now, this isn’t a representation of the total of opinions expressed in the user comments, but this does represent the majority. Some Christians allow for compassion towards those who have to endure the end of a committed relationship, but at the end of the day, if we truly, “view divorce in light of Scripture,” divorce is a sin that leads to adultery.

If we are to take just this small sampling of user comments as an identifier of the common train of Christian thought on this matter (which is arguable, yet in light of my personal experience has been common), then it is their position that two people who come to the conclusion that continuing their relationship is more stressful and harmful to them and their family than ending it, should stick it out and stay burdened mentally and emotionally, so that they don’t both sin against god.

You should be unhappy, so that you might please the almighty deity. The Christian god cares more about the institution of marriage, over the individuals that have committed to this institution in error. It may not be obvious, or intentional, but sadly, this is a very clever trick that religion fools many into believing. You are to sacrifice daily your own happiness if it conflicts with the moral constructs of your faith. You are to endure a state of emotional and mental martyrdom, so that you can be found in favor of your god. What is the point of this? Glad you asked.

In the mind of the religious believer, it creates an infinite loop of sacrifice and suffering which ALWAYS leads back to dependence on the deity figure for guidance, comfort and “strength.” You eventually get to a point where you can completely “divorce” yourself from rational and reasonable consideration for the choices of your life, and give all of your hard decisions to god. This is an intolerable weakness that plagues the Christian mindset. Sacrifice yourself and depend on god. Sacrifice yourself and depend on god. SACRIFICE YOURSELF AND DEPEND ON GOD! Perhaps if you repeat this to yourself over and over again, you can find a way to numb your mind and actually believe that you find relief from time to time. Perhaps when you are praying you will think that you are relieving the burden of your mind that you have voluntarily placed on yourself. Perhaps when you are singing and praising at church, you will convince yourself that you should have no care for tomorrow, and that your god has everything in control. You will give up your ability to have the power to decide what is best for you, so that your god will make those decisions for you.

How does this work? Of course, a person who willfully takes on this mindset will seek advice from their minister and/or those they are close to in the church. More than likely a person like this will start to think about marriage counseling with their church or books that teach them how to maintain a healthy, Christian marriage. This person, who depends on their god to make their decisions for them, is really relying on the church structure to direct them to decisions based on false, unhealthy, group-think moral constructs. Sometimes this might work. Sometimes a marriage that goes through this may start to get better. The two people inside of this relationship might actually convince themselves that they have been deceived by Satan, or had their minds focused to far away from god. They may start to believe that their marriage is stronger for embracing dependence on god, but at the end of the day, it will be a game of pretend.

Now, do I think that every marriage that meets trouble should end in divorce? No, absolutely not. Many times two people decide to get married because they feel they love one another, and maybe they just need to remember that. There are plenty of times that relationships can be salvaged by communicating about mutual feelings of unrest and how to alleviate those feelings. At the end of the day, if the two parties involved can’t reconcile their differences, then it should be completely, morally acceptable for them to end their relationship. There is nothing truly taboo, corrupt or harmful about a decision like that, unless one or both of the individuals make it a point to cause harm either physically or emotionally during the breakup. Of course it should be expected that hurt feelings can and do emerge from divorces, but this is far from a reason to label it evil or immoral. This isn’t Christianity’s basis anyway. To Christianity, it is an offense against god. It is a sin.

This is something that has seemed very sad to me for quite some time now. It is sad in that the people who are willfully engaged in the acceptance and spreading of this type of idea don’t even know that they are hurting themselves and those around them. What is even more sad is that divorce isn’t the only area wherein Christianity distorts and perverts the rational and reasonable decision making processes of what would be potentially otherwise apt, normal people. Any doctrine of sin, that perceives normal people trying to make decisions in everyday life, good outcomes or bad, as evil is a distorted perception and when spread, is a perverse ideology for society to embrace.

In closing, I present the one rational comment from the article above:

“I find divorce acceptable because it is in the DIVORCEES’ and the CHILDRENS’ best interest if parents mutually separate rather than live unhappily, distraught, and sexually unhappy. “How many marriages could have been saved?” Is that a joke? I do not believe that people will stay in an unhappy marriage ‘for the sake of vows and marriage ethics’: they will follow their hearts, their prosperity, and will make adult, mature decisions in the eyes of the law, not religion.”

Thank you blue1018. Christians, if you’re going to proclaim that your religion is one of love, compassion and understanding you might take a lesson.

Share This

In a recent Q&A on Christianpost.com, Billy Graham was asked if people will get bored in Heaven.

Spoken in true old, religious grandpa form, Billy replied that we won’t be bored, experience pain, disappointment or sorrow in Heaven. After explaining the holy removal of these elements of human suffering, Graham went on to say that although we will be removed from boredom, that we will, in fact, have work to do while housed in our eternal reward. What is this work you ask? Why, servitude of course!

Yes friends, I tell you now, there will be a day! Oh how glorious it will be when our souls rise from this doomed, tormented flesh and appear, transformed into the glory of god, bowing and scraping and obeying a king for eternity. Oh what freedom we find in the Lord! Oh what a blessing it will be to spend the rest of limitless time in a state of praise and adoration for a ruler, that will never get dull!

I mean really Christianity. The two choices you are going to give me are:

A) Salvation and acceptance into Heaven where I will have my mind wiped and reprogrammed to believe that eternity in servitude is blissful.

B) Burning in hell forever.

These aren’t options. You mean to tell me that all this time, your god made mankind with all of the human history of natural disaster, genocide, murder, rape, theft, hunger, and all of the other various forms of suffering so that some of us could come to Heaven to serve and worship him forever, while others get to burn in the eternal damnation of ever-burning hellfire? It is completely counter-intuitive for you people to believe in this bullshit so fervently. You think this type of thing makes your god loving? You think that this is your god’s way of showing mercy? Your god is a dictator. Your god is setup to be your ruler. The freewill that you all so adamantly stand up for, as a gift from your god, will be given back in an instant upon entering your heaven.

The redefinition of terms in Christianity, such as love, mercy, grace and freewill is astounding. It is sad that Christians have tricked and convinced themselves that these concepts are real, and that ultimately, it will be greater than anything they could ever imagine.

Well, I can imagine something better! How about a peaceful death, where I don’t have to spend eternity kissing ass to an unjust, supposedly omnipotent tyrant, who willfully allowed generation after generation of his “children” to suffer some of the most horrible things anyone could imagine, just so many of them could find out after death that they didn’t say the right prayer, and now have to spend eternity burning in hell because they were condemned as sinners.

I just can’t believe that Christians are ready and willing to accept this as truth. Of course, many of them remove these types of thoughts to the back of their minds and focus on how Jesus loves everyone SO MUCH, but this is the reality of Christianity. This is the truth of America’s favorite religion.

In closing, I’d like to leave you all with a quote by Mark Twain.

“Singing hymns and waving palm branches through all eternity is pretty when you
hear about it in the pulpit, but it’s as poor a way to put in valuable time
as a body could contrive.”

Share This

Share This

Worldnet Daily’s columnist, Vox Day (blogger, “Christian Libertarian”, football lover and member of SFWA, Mensa and IGDA), has published a new book entitled, “The Irrational Atheist - Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens,” and boy is it a doosy! WND goes so far as to say that this book “trounces God-deniers,” and provides a review on their website from “atheist” critic Brent Rasmussen with the following quotes:

“I am not going to go into a point by point review of the various arguments that Day addressed in ‘The Irrational Atheist.’ Suffice it to say that by the end of the chapters dealing with the individual [atheist] authors, I was happy that it was over. It was a thorough, detailed, dispassionate (with a little snarky levity thrown into the footnotes for flavor), and completely disheartening take-down of some of the best arguments that the godless have put into print – on their own terms, without using the Bible (in the first part of the book, that is), or any other sacred text to do it with. Amazing. And depressing. It is not my place to defend their books. I truly hope that they do find time to defend and clarify their books, specifically to the counter-arguments and claims made by Vox Day in TIA, though, because they really need to. Trust me, it wasn’t pretty.”

“My advice is to read this book – and then do your damnedest to find something in it that you can argue against.”

Well Brent, never fear, someone with a better critical eye than your own has done that very thing, and before the book was even published! Many of Day’s foundations for his book came from an essay of the same name, found here. This essay will give you a good idea of what Day is trying to get at within the bloated 320 pages he has published through BenBella Books (specializing in science fiction and pop culture).

The blog, “Socrates’ elegy” skillfully refutes Day’s reasoning, while providing valid incites into the mindset of the rational atheist. Here is just one example, because you should really click on the blog link and check out all of what it has to say:

Mr. Day continues,

Whereas Christians and the faithful of other religions have good reason for attempting to live by
the Golden Rule – they are commanded to do so – the atheist does not.

This is an unsupported assumption. The atheist has at least one good ethical
motivation: self-interest in the preservation of civilization. Acting
on this an atheist has at his disposal our common humanity: the body of
knowledge we draw upon to establish codes of conduct, points of order,
and define the rights and responsibilities we as citizens must observe
in order to maintain civilization. While religion attempts to encompass
some of this, albeit in a haphazard, dangerously inconsistent manner;
the concept of common humanity transcends religious morality in that it
is not exclusionary. Also, the atheist is never tempted to “play God”
by claiming to speak for him.

After all of this, I am going to give Vox Day 1 halo, because he needs to stick with what his horrible haircut is telling him and keep writing science fiction. Obviously, pseudo-philosophical, theistic essay is not his strong point.

Share This

Anytime a church needs to bring in the dough, you can expect a lecture on tithe/offerings in relation to gods blessings. During my time as a Christian, I can’t tell you the number of lengthy sermons I sat through urging me and my fellow faithful followers to embrace the full amount of God’s blessings by giving “His” portion of our earnings back to the church.

ABC news recently detailed the story of one woman and her expectations of blessing after being misled by numerous prominent prosperity preachers.

Senator Charles Grassley and the Senate Finance Committee are in the process of analyzing the income of 6 major ministries that thrive on prosperity messages, but I don’t believe this to be sufficient. Whether being knowingly deceitful, or blissfully ignorant, prosperity ministries are stripping their followers of their resources on fraudulent grounds. Asking for donations from your church members for provided ministerial services is one thing. Coercing people out of their hard earned money with promises of potential blessing is another. Let’s look at this rationally.

- Based on the claims of modern Christianity, God is an all-powerful, omnipotent, infinite being that resides in the realm and the actions of the supernatural. God has all authority over the realm of the physical and can manipulate any and all physical forces and processes. We will accept this as true, for the sake of argument.

- Mankind and even those who are “able to communicate” with this god are not part of this supernatural realm, nor are they able to manipulate it or decipher the true nature of the supernatural.

- Promising the potential outcome of an effect of the supernatural on the physical (blessing on to mankind) by a limited being, such as man, is fraudulent and misleading, in that our limited state as physical beings gives no rule of manipulation, coercion, or prediction into the realm or the nature of the supernatural. Being omnipotent and all-powerful, only God would be able to promise the actions and potential actions of all beings not possessing omnipotence or absolute power, not the other way around.

- Simply put, if an infinite, omnipotent God does exist, it exists beyond the realm and understanding of humanity by definition. For any man to promise even the potential of an action from a source unknown to him is a lie.

With this established, I think it’s time that the people start holding their churches and leaders accountable for the messages that are being delivered. There is no excuse for being the perpetrator or the victim of a lie that can have obvious harmful effects for both parties. It is time that this lie comes full circle. It is time to stop funding any and all ministries that spread these perverse ideas. Christians, you are being lied to and your money is being stolen from you. You should be upset.

Lies become ineffective when they are no longer believed.

Share This

Imagine you’re a 14-18 year old in the United States. Engaged in the swirling vortex of high school peer politics, part of a generation that has embraced war for nearly 4 years (declared war that is), unsure about what the future holds, experimenting with your own ideas about the world and your place in it, you might feel a bit confused, or at least insecure about the very nature of reality itself.

Why, if I were a Christian, this would be the perfect time to tell you about the life changing answers that are held inside of the knowledge of Christ as a salvation from sin and the harmful effects produced from a world of sin. I could tell you that your confusion is really your soul, crying out for some type of truth, that has yet to be answered. Your inner struggle can be relieved by simply putting your trust in the son of the almighty creator of the universe! There is no need to contemplate the intricacies of society, politics, morality, justice or even truth. God, as an almighty, omnipotent father, has given us the cure to all of our transgressions, through the life changing blood of his son, Jesus, on the cross. You can be whole. You can have meaning. Your life can be real!

Your brain can be washed.

Currently, the “UNREAL” Gospel campaign (partnered with 888-NeedHIM) has produced a series of television commercials targeted towards teens that will air on various media outlets, including MTV and YouTube. These commercials, centered around each of the ten commandments, focus on that “something” teens are searching for that will make them feel complete and secure. The middle of each commercial includes a narrator, with the following to say:

“Do you feel unreal?”

“When you ignore god, it disconnects you from reality.”

“That disconnect leads to sin and sin puts a wall between you and god.”

“If you die with that wall there, it’s there forever.”

“But Jesus has made a way back to reality.”

“Let us help you discover it.”

Allow me to translate:

“Do you feel like a teenager that is facing uncertainty about your place in the world and the decisions you are going to have to make about your life?”

“Your uncertainty is because you are a sinner and you need god.”

“Because you’re a sinner, our perfect god can’t help you, but it’s your fault.”

“If you die without accepting god, your uncertainty about this petty little thing you call life will pale in comparison to the horrible existence you will face for all of eternity as you burn in hell. Aren’t you afraid? You should be really afraid of burning in hell! Add an ass-load of fear to your already uncertain state and tremble at the revelation of how big and glorious, and worthy of awe our god is, wahahahahahahaha!”

“But wait, now that we’ve caused you more uncertainty and added fear into the mix, take a step back. We have an answer for you. You don’t have to be uncertain or afraid, although we have just helped to dig you a little deeper into those states. We believe in a man that was the son of god, who was tortured horribly and crucified until death. But wait, do you know why he died? He died so that you wouldn’t have to be a sinner! Isn’t that great?!?”

“What’s that?”

“Why are you to blame for the presence of sin, to the extent of potentially burning in hell for eternity, when a supposedly omnipotent, almighty, omniscient god created the universe and formed mankind with the ability to sin, knew that man would sin, takes offense to and punishes man for their sin and still created everything the way that Christianity believes it is?”

“Stop being a rebellious teenager, you little shit!”

“DRINK OUR KOOLAID!!!! DRINK ITTTTT!!!!!!”

Playing on the fears and weaknesses of teenagers, as a witnessing opportunity, is one of the things about Christianity that makes me the most nauseated. As a teen, I was part of the Christian faith, and I played an active role in trying to witness to my friends. Not once did I ever feel that I needed to play on our mutual uncertainty about the future, or our need to try and fit in to the world around us, in order to share my faith. Do you know why? Because this type of thing is morally perverse! Anyone who supports this type of “advertisement” should be ashamed of themselves. Coercion through fear…. fucking infuriating!

Here is a link to this garbage
(the rest of the videos are in the column to the right):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oMtMYMKFJhg

The asshats over at the “UNREAL” Gospel Campaign are going to get 5 halos for creating poorly animated propaganda for what will later become slave morality, because that really pisses GoingChurching off! GoingChurching SMASH “UNREAL” Gospel Campaign!!!

Share This

Cell phones are amazing! We all know this. But what you may not know is that the technology behind wireless cellular communication is pretty close to being just as stupefying as the supernatural ability to “speak” entire universes into existence.

I can’t tell you how many times that I, personally, have sat in a church pew, contemplating the true nature of the existence of the supernatural realm. With my hands folded in my lap, I would ponder, over and over again, the mind-blowing forces that would have to come into play for something beyond our physical dimension to control and manipulate the physical world, bending the laws of physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, in order to turn water into wine, or a woman into a pillar of salt. All I really had to do was move one hand a little further down, into my pocket and…… take out my cell phone (don’t think naughty thoughts, sinner).

In her recent article, “How to Share Your Faith Using Cell Phone Technology,” Jane Dratz (writer and editorial coordinator for dare2share ministries) explains that the “special airwaves” carrying cellphone signals can be related, somewhat, to the “spiritual dimension” that surrounds all of us. You may remember Jane from other hot articles such as:

“How to Share Your Faith Using Halo 3“ - Jane compares Halo’s Master Chief John 117 with Jesus, asking her readers what role they are being called to play in the battle for their friends souls.

“How to Share Your Faith Using the Crocodile Hunter“ - Really, this should be titled “How to Share Your Faith Using the Death of the Crocodile Hunter,” because Ms. Dratz shows us how to capitalize (for Christianity) on the untimely undoing of Steve Irwin, by discussing with our friends the uncertainty of life and their place in eternity.

“How to Share Your Faith Using the Simpson’s Movie“ - Yeah, the Simpson’s Movie! Just read the article!

Reading through Jane’s multitude of “How to Share Your Faith…” articles, I’m reminded of those Christian t-shirts that are modeled after popular, “secular” logos and slogans. Here are a few examples:

Yeah, they make me cringe too. The point here is that these types of “witnessing” tools and ideas are not fresh, hip and interesting. They are cheap, rip-offs, that do nothing to actually promote Christianity. Obviously, it has been a very long time since Jane has been a teenager, and I question whether or not she truly experienced public schooling. The first time that I was over at a friend’s house, blasting aliens on Halo, and they came out with something like, “Hey man, you know, killing shit on Halo reminds me of how great my salvation in Christ is,” I would have stood up, put the controller down and got the hell out of there. Then I would have told all of my other friends how much of a religious zealot this douche was. And no, not because I am an asshole, but because that’s exactly what happens when you’re a teenager.

No one wants to feel uncomfortable, especially in the junior high to high school age range, and when someone approaches you to tell you that it’s a bummer the Crocodile Hunter is dead, but that you could go and see him in heaven one day if you accept Christ, it puts you in a very uncomfortable position. Not because you are a sinner whose soul ultimately knows that it is being faced with it’s eternal fate, but because it’s a completely irrational and absurd train of thought that makes you feel bad for the kid who is presenting the idea. And why do you feel bad for this kid? Well, this kid is part of the “see you at the pole, let’s wait until we’re married to have sex, I don’t think our science teacher should teach evolution, I can’t go to a party where there is alcohol, masturbating to my mom’s Sears catalog bra section, wanna go to youth group with me on Wednesday,” crowd. They are completely out of touch with the reality that no 13-18 year old is ready to decide their eternal destiny, or if an eternal destiny is even a plausible concept. Things like this turn faith, religion and Christianity, especially, into a joke.

Allow me to give Jane and any young person that may be influenced by her tactics a bit of advice. Stop trying to approach the spreading of religious ideologies as you would a capitalistic venture. You shouldn’t have to sell the truth. You shouldn’t have to “jazz up” your savior. If your religion is true and meaningful, then the ideas you embrace should be able to stand on their own, without commercial hype. I mean, I don’t see a lot of Buddhists walking around with “Enlightenment is Bitchin’ ” emblazoned across their chests, but there are approximately six million of them in the U.S alone. Jane’s tactic doesn’t work and will severely hinder your teenage social identity. Trust me.

I’m going to give Jane and her “How to Spread Your Faith” series 3 halos, because it’s going to be really hard to use something like the Simpson’s as a witnessing tool, being that it is created by an Agnostic and blatantly makes fun of Christianity every Sunday evening.

Share This