Mufasa Knows More About Physics Than My High School Bible Teacher

For the first two years of high school, I had a fantastic Bible teacher. I really enjoyed his teaching, if not his subject, because he was obviously intelligent and had a vast knowledge outside of the class he was teaching. I still can't figure out why he was teaching Bible at all. In any case, he and the principal did not agree on what he should be teaching, or how he should be teaching, or something, because she fired him after my Sophomore year. The person she replaced him with, was probably the worst teacher I've ever had. I've had better gym teachers.

He spent a lot of class time complaining about his childhood, and telling us stories about how he'd overcome temptation in college, or why he felt guilty for succumbing to temptation in college. If he wasn't talking about how he thought his father could have done a better job raising him, he was talking about college. He was young, and I think the only pair of shoes he owned were a pair of brown Birkenstocks. But probably not the real ones, those are expensive. He's probably in some other Bible classroom right now, boring another group of students, and wearing Crocks. 

Oh, and when he prayed, he would contort himself into these strange looking double-jointed positions. It looked like he wasn't getting a good heavenly signal, so he was trying to adjust his antenna. Hopefully that's not what he was trying to do, but who knows?

Anyway. Among the many vapid assignments he had dreamed up for us, one in particular has stuck with me. Not because I learned anything from it (at least, not the lesson he intended) but because it made me so angry I have never been able to let it go. 

He sat us down and said we were going to watch a movie. It sounded awesome. Then he amended his statement and said we were only watching two clips from the Lion King. I don't want to embed them in here, because they slow everything down. The first one is here, and the second one is here.

The important part from the first one, is Mufasa's story at the end of the clip:

Simba, let me tell you something that my father told me. Look at the stars. The great kings of the past, look down on us from those stars. So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you. And so will I.

The important part from the second one, is that Mufasa is speaking to Simba from beyond the grave.

Then he told us his opinion. Roughly, that we should not ever let our children watch this movie because it is wrong to teach children that they can communicate with the dead. Further, when a person dies, their body goes into the ground and that's the end of it. We come from god and go back to god, the stars are not involved at all. He had several Bible verses to go along with this opinion.

Then he told us to "formulate our own opinions" and write a short explanation, with Bible verses to back up our position, in our journals. I wish I still had that journal. 

So I wrote a lovely little essay about the harm of sheltering and indoctrinating children, and said that the Lion King was a harmless movie that taught nothing but morality and good family values, good prevailing over evil, that it could even be taken as an allegorical account of God triumphing over Satan, etcetera etcetera. I believe I even said something about the writings of C.S. Lewis initially having been condemned by our particular denomination, whereas now our youth pastors include them in Sabbath School lessons. 

Every person who wrote down that they agreed with his opinion, got five points out of five points. Every person who had an alternate opinion, got zero out of five points. Those of us with heathen beliefs were given an opportunity to redo the assignment. If we could write an essay explaining why his opinion was right and our was wrong, we would get full credit for the assignment.

I just want to take this opportunity to prove him wrong once and for all. Lawrence M. Krauss:

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all things that matter for evolution and for life - weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

I feel vindicated.

Shit Christians Say to Atheists

I've heard so many of these questions and statements before. It's ridiculous. It's time to address them.

You're an atheist? But you're so nice? This is insulting because it insinuates that you think only a Christian can be a nice person. That your Christianity is what makes you a nice person. On a more grand scale, it tells me that without your religion, you would't necessarily be a nice person at all. An archaic myth is the only thing keeping you from being the next Son of Sam, except that he was under the misapprehension that god was telling him to kill people.

So why do you hate god? You obviously haven't bothered to find out what an atheist is, and have instead skipped right to the part where you turn into a judgmental bigot. Typical. Atheists don't hate god; not yours, not your neighbors, not anybody's. We just don't believe they exist. Because we don't believe any gods exist, we can't very well hate them, now, can we? It would be like hating Santa Claus. It would be dumb. 

So, you worship the devil, then? You don't...? But you believe in Satan? No...? Really. Satan falls into the same category as all the rest of the mythical beings. Satan isn't any more real than god is. And in fact, when talking about gods, you have to include Satan. He is a god just as much as all the rest of them. It even says so in your Bible: 

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present 

themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.

There are other gods. They come to talk to the god of the Bible. And Satan is one of them. I don't understand how it is possible to deny this, or to believe in this book while also remaining monotheistic. Never mind the message we get from the book of Job, that god will use his most faithful creations as pawns to win a bet with an "inferior" god that, in his omniscience, he should already know he will beat. 

I understand that you're just going through a phase, and that deep down you really do believe. This is also seriously insulting. It tells me that you are not even going to bother to hide your belief that your beliefs are superior to mine, nor are you going to bother to hide your condescension. 

But, you still believe in Jesus, right? Well. This one is tricky. I do agree that there was a person, or maybe multiple persons, at around the approximate time you believe him to have existed, who did travel around preaching a certain message, to certain people who were also in that same approximate area. Ever watched Monty Python's Life of Brian? Hilarious though it is, it is also a very accurate representation of how easily rumor spreads, and how quickly words are twisted when passed orally. 

In light of that, I don't think Jesus was divine. And I'm not certain he was just one person. He certainly wasn't the son of a god. And he wasn't of the line of David (another questionable existence, attributed with historically questionable events and actions) because his genealogy is traced from Abraham to David, to Joseph. And as we all know, Joseph isn't the real father of Jesus. Mary is the only person who could be said to be of blood relation to Jesus, and she was a virgin, right? And thanks to the misogyny of the men who dreamed up the Bible and Christianity, there is no record of Mary's genealogy. So it looks like Jesus is not of the line of David, after all, and therefore not of the line of kings. Nor was he divine.

Come on, you were never really a true believer. People have said this to me as well. It is also insulting because it implies that the only reason I am no longer a believer, is because I just didn't study hard enough. Or I'm just not smart enough. On the contrary, some of the most well-studied and well-versed people are atheists, and it is because of their intelligence and knowledge. In fact, there seems to be a direct correlation between a persons lack of religion and their wealth, IQ level and their lack of religion, especially among academics and scientists. There's even a Wikipedia page about it. So, your posturing is really funny. 

Look, I know you think you've been saved (or something, I can't quite catch what she says) but you really just need to go to a saved church. Come on. Telling me that you know what I think, and then proceeding to tell me that I'm wrong, is condescending and childish. You may have all the answers you need, and that's fine. But you shouldn't go around telling other people that they're wrong to look for answers besides the ones you've found. The church you attend might be good enough for you, but your assumption that it should be good enough for everyone else (and that we're silly for not finding it so) is ignorant and insulting.

But how can you even love, if you don't believe in a god? I never hear you pose the same question to someone of another faith, which I find strange. You wouldn't say that their god is real, you would probably say that they are operating under the misapprehension that their god is real, but yours is the real one. But by not posing this question to them, you are essentially admitting that you think their god could be just as real as yours. But, I'm off topic. 

An atheist is just as capable as you are, of loving, if not more so. I love someone because I can't help it. I stay with the same person because I want to. Not because my parents chose someone for me, or because the sexual temptation was too much for me, or to coverup something inside myself I think it sinful, or for fear that I will be cursed by an invisible flying sky-daddy. If you love because you feel obligated to, it undermines the entire meaning of the word.

Wow. Your life must be bleak and meaningless. This one just makes me sad for you. Do you really have nothing else to live for and to give your life meaning, than your religion and your Bible? Does your family mean nothing? Your friends? Your education and career? Can you find no beauty at all on this Earth? That is pathetic.

What exactly do you believe in, then? Finally! A good question. I believe in myself, my family, and my friends. I believe that it is possible to be a good person without the threat of eternal damnation hanging over my head. I believe that I have one life to live, so I better make the most of it. I want to make this planet a better place for my children and grandchildren. I donate to various charities because donating to charity is a good thing to do. In fact, atheists in general are more generous than their religious counterparts, despite the Bible clearly telling believers to be generous with their riches. I do good because it's good to do good. Doing good because you fear retribution, is not doing good. It's trying to save your own skin.

No but see this is exactly what you don't understand! It take more faith to not believe in god... This one is just an outright lie. It doesn't take more faith not to believe in something you can't see and for which there is no evidence. It doesn't take faith to watch the scientific method work. It doesn't take faith to realize that the things humanity used to attribute to god, are being explained scientifically in demonstrable ways that everyone could understand if only they would try. What really takes faith, is to see all of this and still refuse to accept any of it, choosing ignorance over knowledge. 

So why do you even bother to live? Insulting. Stupid. Ignorant. Evidence of a seriously sheltered childhood of indoctrination. Refer to the what do you believe in, then? paragraph. 

Eternity is a very long time, and hell is hot. Trying to warn or threaten me with something I don't believe in, is silly. It's the same as trying to convince me that your religion is true, by using your holy book. Irrelevant. It would be like me trying to use science to convince you that evolution is true - has that ever worked before? 

No, no, no. Just stop. It's [the Bible] not meant to be taken literally. Have you even read the Bible? Here's the thing about that. You might not take it literally now, but 2,000 years ago people took it very literally. During the Dark Ages, you would have been burned at the stake had you said that the Bible was simply allegorical. I'm glad that you've evolved this far, that you realize it's not actually true. It shows that religion is influenced by social trends, and likely was manmade. And it shows that one day people won't think the Bible is the unaltered and infallible word of god. In short, it shows that whether you choose to believe in it or not, evolution is happening - it's happening to you and your religion, and there really isn't anything you can do to stop it. 

But how can you be a moral person? This one is particularly frightening. It says that without the threat of retribution from an invisibly sky-daddy, you would not feel any obligation to be moral at all. That this mythical being is the only thing stopping you from going crazy and killing everyone. A religious person doesn't rob a bank, because they are afraid of punishment. An atheist doesn't rob a bank, because it's a dick thing to do. 

Further on that note, and sort of a backtrack to the beginning, there are hundreds of people (like the Son of Sam) who did seriously immoral things because they thought god was talking to them. Meaning, anything is moral as long as god tells you to do it, including murdering innocent people. I, and probably all other atheists, agree that murdering a person is always wrong, no matter who you think told you to do it. If I heard voices in my head, telling me to go on a killing spree, I would voluntarily check myself in to an mental hospital and trust science to fix me. 

Besides that aspect, you assume that morality comes straight from the Bible. Every person who is not a Christian, would probably beg to differ, although they probably think morality comes straight from their own holy book. However, morality obviously doesn't come from the Bible, if for no other reason than that the god of the Old Testament is probably the most a-moral character in the whole book. If you want a longer explanation of this, you should read Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. 

I'm not even going to go through the rest of the video, because the rest of the statements are essentially restatements of what I've already addressed. I wish the religious, in general, would make an effort to be more knowledgable and informed. But I guess if they did that, they'd probably all turn into atheists. 

Greg Quinlan is an Idiot

For those of you who many not know who this man is, he is the President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX for short). He used to be a gay activist, back when he was gay, but he has since seen the light and prayed away the gay. Or so I'm assuming. 

Recently, this man gave a speech for the New Jersey marriage hearings. This was his opening statement:

I want to talk first of all about something I heard from the very beginning by people of this Legislature that we are bigots as people of faith, because we do not hold that homosexual marriage should be codified. That somehow we are bigots and we are ideologues because we are people of faith. I want to address that hate. Everyone in this room who is a person of faith deserves an apology from one of the sponsors of this bill for calling us bigots.

Well. Alrighty-roo! Since you asked so nicely, I guess the rest of us will just forget that you are a lying, bigoted ass-hole, with a very twisted grip on reality, and rain down our sincerest apologies upon you. Or not. As I am so fond of doing on this blog, let's just go through that paragraph sentence by sentence.

Skipping over the first bits of drivel, let's go straight to we are bigots as people of faith, because we do not hold that homosexual marriage should be codified. Let's try to get some clarification here. I don't think anyone thinks you are a bigot for thinking that gay marriage is wrong. Or for thinking that gay marriage should not be legal. Or for not wanting to be made to hold gay marriages in your church. People think you are a bigot because you get up in public and tell large groups of people that gay marriage is wrong, according to your personal faith, and therefor everyone else, regardless of what faith or non-faith they hold, should be held to your personal standards. Having personal thoughts, is one thing. Getting up and preaching that people who don't agree with you are going to go to hell and burn forever in a fiery pit of anguish, is another. 

That somehow we are bigots and we are ideologues because we are people of faith. You are not a bigot because you are a person of faith. Nobody is a bigot because they are a person of faith, or non-faith. I'm treading a thin line here, but I would say that the difference between being a bigot and not being a bigot, is that the non-bigot keeps his thoughts to himself. Nobody will call you a bigot for ideas that you never express. An ideologue you may be, I would say that all people of faith are such, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing. That word only has a negative connotation if you choose to take it that way. 

I want to address that hate. Everyone in this room who is a person of faith deserves an apology from one of the sponsors of this bill for calling us bigots. And this is where the typical conservative right-wing speaker does a complete one hundred and eighty degree about face, takes what he has been doing for some time, and accuses his accusers of doing it. He, and his counterparts, have been giving speeches filled with made-up 'facts' about homosexuality being a choice, preaching that gay marriage is harmful to children, and giving us other pearls of wisdom such as 'god hates fags' and 'it would be better for a child to have a father in prison than two dads at home'. A very loving message, wouldn't you say? But as soon as someone points out their bigotry, suddenly they are the ones being attacked and harassed. Suddenly they are the victim. Suddenly they deserve an apology from the people who were brave enough to call out them out on their bigotry. 

I think not. It will be a cold day in hell when I ever apologize to a 'person of faith' who was offended by the truthiness of what I say, or what I believe in. And I seriously hope this idiot, Greg Quinlan, doesn't get  a single apology. No, I will amend that statement. As soon as Mr. Quinlan gets up in front of the media, and apologizes for his made-up facts and hate-mongering, I will apologize ... no, I will never apologize for calling him an idiot. Because he is an idiot. 

But he should still apologize. Asking for an apology from a group of people you are actively trying to repress and make lawfully unequal, is like stealing an old lady's purse, beating her with it, then accusing her of causing you emotional damage, and telling her she has to pay for your therapy. 

I hope that mental image is stuck in your head for a long time, because that type of behavior is reprehensible and it shouldn't be forgotten. 

Atheists Don't Believe In Anything

This video made me laugh. But then I realized it wasn't a joke, and then it wasn't funny anymore.

I guess this guy is serious. The opening sentence of the article on Wikipedia dedicated to him, should really tell you all you need to know about him, why people take him seriously, and how he is allowed to get away with saying such stupid things out loud: 

"Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930)^[1] is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States."

Let's just go through this video, short clip by short clip, until we just can't take the stupidity any longer. 

The first 5 words: Atheists don't believe in anything. Right there he is already lying to you. I am an atheist, I believe in many things. I just don't believe in gods or religions. I believe in myself and in other people, and I believe that more good can be done when people get together for the sole purpose of doing good, than when people get together to do good to glorify god. I do good because it's good. I donate because I believe in certain causes. Doing good because you think someone in the sky watching and judging you, isn't good. It's saving your own ass. 

Next: I mean, a-thea, means no gods. They've got no gods, that's what they...they don't have anything. So they don't believe in anything. If you haven't caught on yet, he's still lying to you. I am amazed at how easy it is for him to make the jump from they've got no gods to they don't have anything to they don't believe in anything. It all happened so quickly, I had to watch those first 9 seconds at least four times. He's just reiterating what he said in his opening statement. According to Pat Robertson, a god...no, more likely only the Christian god...is the only thing a person can have, or believe in, or want, in their life. 

But they can protest somebody who believes in something. Isn't it a strange thing that we would allow somebody who doesn't believe in anything, to restrict the freedoms of those that do? I mean, it makes no sense. Sooner or later we're going to wake up, and I think maybe we are, but....

There are so many things wrong with that. Again, he is operating under the misapprehension that only people who believe in the Christian god, have anything to believe in or live for. His next leap of logic is to say that because atheists don't fit that description, we shouldn't allow them to protest. I don't even want to think about who his chosen privileged few we are, but I'm sure they would be handpicked with the greatest care. 

He thinks it is a strange thing that we would allow somebody who doesn't believe in anything, to restrict the freedoms of those that do. Well you know what I think? I think it's a strange thing that we would allow somebody who believes in something, to restrict the freedoms of those that don't. 

More broadly, I think it's unfortunate that we let any group dictate what any other group is allowed to do. I think it's strange that we even talk about it at all. Where did people start to get this idea that because they personally have a problem with something, everyone else must walk on eggshells so as not to offend them? That's the most ridiculous idea that has ever been introduced. 

People have started to take the idea of freedom, to mean entitlement. It isn't I want to believe this and you're free to believe that anymore. Now it's I want to believe this, and if if you don't believe it too then I'm going to attack you through the right-wing media until you are so sick of it you retaliate through the left-wing media, and then I'm going to call foul and tell everyone that I'm an oppressed minority and you're suppressing my right to freedom. It's disgusting. 

And it's really only religion that's getting this kind of special treatment. For instance, many parents tell their children about Santa Clause, and insinuate that he is real. One day, kids find out that he isn't real, and life goes on. Same with the Tooth Fairy, and all other fairy-tale nonsense. At some point, most children stop talking to their imaginary friends. What makes the different religious myths immune to this same kind of logic?

Mr. Robertsons enlightened side-kick has some input as well. Just a thought! she says in a semi-condescending I'm-smarter-than-you kind of way. You know you've got different, I don't know, call them religions. There's one called Wicca. And they're all about the environment, right? So if their religion, that believes in the environment, and they believe that trees are their god, why are these atheists not saying that we should cut down every tree, because it's offensive? Do you know what I mean? It's the same mentality, right?

Let me just stop you right there. No it is not the same mentality. First of all, atheists are not trying destroy anybody's god. We really don't care what you personally believe. We just don't want you trying to influence the government with your personal beliefs. You are free to believe in whatever you want to, in the comfort of your own home or the privacy of your own mind. Have you ever opened your door early on a Saturday morning to an atheist preaching the non-word of the non-god they don't believe in? No. Because we don't do any of that. 

Secondly, you can't just off-the-cuff say I don't know, call them religions like you're being nice by letting them have that title for half a second. All belief systems are religions. Christianity is not the only belief system that gets to call itself a religion. And while we're at it, all religions are equal. Christianity is not the best, brightest, or more intelligent religion. It's not even the loudest. It's not the number one anything. It's just a religion, like all the others. 

And no, atheism is not a religion. It is not a belief. It is a non-religion, non-belief. Saying atheism is a religion or a belief is the same as saying that off is a television channel. It's stupid. 

Thirdly, if you don't know what a religion actually believes, don't talk about it. I myself do not know that much about Wicca, but I know enough to know that they don't worship trees. Wiccan's don't believe in the environment nor do they believe that trees are their god. They believe in a god and a goddess. Some believe that these gods manifest themselves into every living thing, including trees, so in that aspect, yes, they would worship a tree. But also every other living thing. Not exclusively the tree. Wicca is not the tree religion.

So, this brilliant intellectual thinks that because Wiccan's worship trees (which isn't true anyway) and atheists don't believe in gods, all the atheists should band together and form some sort of medieval witch-hunt (except in this case, a tree-hunt) and murder all the trees. What part of that seems logical to you? 

As I said before, atheists don't hate religion. We hate the amount of respect that religions (mostly Christianity) abstain from showing towards atheism. We hate that it seems impossible for religious people to keep their religion to themselves, out of politics and government. We are not offended by your belief. The only thing that offends us is your assumption that without your belief, we can't be good and happy people. It's condescending, it's childish, and it's stupid. 

Straight People Don't Get AIDS

I went to school in Tennessee. I am ashamed. 

A Republican State Senator by the name of Stacey Campfield, someone who must have campaigned for election and won by a popular vote of the people living in Tennessee, has apparently never had a class on sex education. This is not surprising, but it's still unfortunate, and if it weren't so sad it would almost be funny. 

This is what he says, about AIDS: My understanding is that it is virtually -- not completely, but virtually -- impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...vary rarely [transmitted].

I guess the first thing to note is that he must be aware of how ridiculous he was about to sound, because he doesn't say factually or according to (insert citation from scientific or otherwise credible book), he says my understanding. This is oddly reminiscent of Jon Kyl's remarks about Planned Parenthood (...If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that's well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does...) which later turned out to be more of a metaphor or an allegory, I'm assuming, as we learned that his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions. 

So, his understanding is basically that straight people don't get AIDS. That is very interesting. Obviously, it is impossible to know either the exact number of gay people in the world or the exact number of people in the world suffering from AIDS, but, let us see what we can find through the magic of the internet. 

First off, approximate number of people with AIDS. According to the Catholic Relief Service website (see what I did there):

"In 25 years, HIV has infected more than 65 million people. The majority of those suffering live in Africa, but the pandemic is quickly spreading in many countries throughout Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. By 2010, it is estimated that 80 million people will be infected and 25 million children will have been orphaned. HIV and AIDS disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable, and limited resources often prevent poor communities from supporting the millions who suffer."

Alright. So 80 million infected people, and 25 million orphaned children. Most of these are in Africa. Side note: imagine the backlash if he had said something like only poor people can contract AIDS. It isn't any nicer of a statement, but it is unfortunately more closer to the truth. The poor and uneducated are more likely to get AIDS, through no fault of their own. But it doesn't mean that they are the only ones who can. Word choice is very important.

Now, the approximate number of people who are gay. According to avert.org (there I go again, citing my sources) it has been very hard to get an accurate number on the number of gays because of the stigma historically associated with homosexuality, especially in African countries. However, there is some reliable census data, at least from Britain and the United States. I don't want to take the time here to interpret their data, because it is really irrelevant to my point in light of the following quote from the site:

"State-led homophobia continues to be a serious issue in many African countries, and around the world.¹² Reliable data on numbers of gay people cannot be gathered until such policies are reformed, and social attitudes begin to change."

The point is, it is impossible to have a completely accurate number of either demographic. So, it is impossible to have any real facts to back up any sort of outlandish statement regarding an exclusive relationship between the two groups. 

Besides this, is the issue of common sense. As Mr. Campfield is fond of pointing out, gay people cannot reproduce. Why, then, are there so many children orphaned because their parents died of AIDS? Why does AIDS get passed down from mothers to children? If it were only the gays, or even just mostly the gays, who contracted AIDS, one might expect that eventually the disease would just kill every gay person and then cease to exist. 

Perhaps that wouldn't happen, I'm not a scientist and I fully admit that I am not an authority on the subject. But hey, at least I admit it, which is more than Mr. Campfield is prepared to do. It seems to me that he must know he is wrong. Either he really is that stupid, or he's an evil genius who knows that by scaring his voters (many of whom won't bother to look up the facts for themselves) he is almost 99% guaranteed to have their support. They are convinced that he is the only answer to a problem that (they don't realize) he made up. It's brilliant.