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    Atheist for Jesus
       posted on 08/27/2010
    Memo to the Self-Help Crowd
       posted on 08/11/2010
    Anne Rice - The Wanderer
       posted on 08/04/2010
    The CEO (Chief Exorcism Officer)
       posted on 07/26/2010
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       posted on 07/24/2010
    The Flock Joins the Gulf Effort
       posted on 07/17/2010
    Praying For Hitchens
       posted on 07/13/2010

    Comments


    Anne Rice - The Wanderer
       08/04/2010 by Pesci
    The CEO (Chief Exorcism Officer)
       08/04/2010 by Pesci
    The CEO (Chief Exorcism Officer)
       08/01/2010 by Chris
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/25/2010 by Pesci
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/24/2010 by Chris
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/24/2010 by Chris
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/24/2010 by Pesci

    Atheist for Jesus


    Created on Friday, August 27, 2010

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    There is a new book out by author S.E. Cupp called Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity. The title of the book pretty much says it all - Ms. Cupp (What if her first name was Debbie and she didn't have a middle name - would that make her D. Cupp? Sorry, I had to ask) believes that the liberals are attacking Christianity.

    I think we all know that Conservatives are much more likely to flaunt their religious beliefs than a Liberal might be. While you might think that this is a recent trend in our political landscape it has actualy been going on since the beginning of our country. While the majority of our founding fathers were deists and not really Christian, the heavier Christians in the group would often accuse their foes of not being Christian enough. The politicians of both yesterday and today are Christians but because they do not campaign on their Christian ideals they are deemed to be not as qualified as their evangelical counterparts. There is no middle ground with these people.

    So what is my point with all of this? If you guessed that this post is about religion you would be wrong.

    Ms. Cupp is an atheist.

    That's right - this author that took several months out of her life to both write and defend her book thought it necessary to write a book that defends Christianity. But why did she do it? Because she thought it more important to defend her party than her religious belief (or lack thereof). And that is the state of American life today - it is more important to belong to a group and defend that group (no matter how assinine that will make you look at times) than to do the right thing. Full disclosure: I did not read the book but I heard several interviews with Ms. Cupp as she appeared on several shows that I frequent. It was pretty easy to see where she is coming from. As you might expect, Bill Maher did a number on her when she visited his show.

    My attempt to stay consistent with my own beliefs (not being a lacky to any group or ideology) puts me into bed with some very strange bedfellows - Christian Liberals. For the life of me I can't fathom where the Liberals are attacking Christianity. Is it so wrong to try to uphold the separation of church and state? Is it wrong to have a speech that doesn't mention God?

    And for the record, the Democrats pull the same crap with different subjects. If you dare to ask if the money for the school budgets are used effectively you're cast as being anti-school. Question how unemployment verification and you're an uncaring right-winger. It's the same dishonest garbage and it keeps us from having honest conversations and real solutions. At various times yesterday I was accused of being a lacky for the right and the left based on the topic that was being discussed. It saddens me that people can't think for themselves and realize that others are thinking for themselves.

    The video below is really interesting. Cupp's position (she brags that she just got her master's degree) is that religion is good for the world and thus she feels the need to defend religion in general and Christianity in particular. You'll also find the obligatory statement that atheists are just as dogmatic in their beliefs as believers are. Cupp really comes across as an amateur playing with the big boys and girls.


    .... read the rest of this article here

    Memo to the Self-Help Crowd


    Created on Wednesday, August 11, 2010

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    Note: My mother-in-law asked me to copy some disks by the self-help guru/mystic/faith healer/supernatural freak Caroline Myss. I said that I would if I had a chance to present evidence for the other side (rational thought). This is the letter that was included in this little "care package". I also included a disk that contained three Penn and Teller episodes, some demonstrations on cold reading and various James Randi videos. The audience consists of several women in their 60's and 70's.

    Hello,

    I hope you are not alarmed by the packet that you are receiving. Mom (Pat) had asked me to copy some disks for her to give to you. This request resulted in a little bit of debate.

    I am a skeptic and a free thinker. One of my passions in life is the spread of knowledge and the condemnation of liars, cheats and frauds. When I was handed the CD cover it took only a few lines to see that Ms. Myss was just a different spin on the same old tricks. If you read
    her CD jacket and listen to her speak, something immediately jumps off of the page at you - she is constantly tossing around phrases and slogans. Myss is a former journalist and she knows that these are the types of things that sell. When you view this video you will see that she seems to be someone that seems to be doing her best imitation of real psychologists. It isn't a coincidence - she is doing just that.

    Still, as a free thinker I owed it to myself to read up a little more on her. It didn't take long to get the full picture on who she really is. She is in fact a former journalist that at some point decided to become a fortune teller, psychic and later a self-help guru. To give herself a little more credibility in the self-help world, she joined a correspondence college and started her own department. Once again, appearance matters. The school was never accredited and has long since been shut down. This is where her P.hD claim (in the made-up field of "medical energy", no less) comes from and why she never uses it on anything official.

    When you sit down and think about people like Myss it isn't hard to see them for who they really are. In the first few minutes of her show she lists her credentials:

    - Faith Healer
    - Energy Healer
    - Psychic (although she has backed away from this claim in recent years)
    - Medical Intuitive

    Step back and look at that list for a minute. If she was even one of these things, it would be a miracle. Nobody has ever been able to demonstrate any of these powers in a controlled environment. Yet Myss is all of these things wrapped up in a single package. If she is what she claims to be, why is she travelling the world charging up to $20,000 for her to talk to your group? Wouldn't she be in hospitals treating the sick? After all, she claims to be able to accurately diagnose an illness by only looking at a patient 95% of the time (once again, never demonstrated). Or maybe if she could channel the dead she should be working with detectives to solve murder cases. We would have a safer world with some murderers off of the street, wouldn't we? Better yet, if she was even one of these things would she even need to be the others? She proves PT Barnum right - the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed.

    There is no middle ground with people like this. Either she is exactly what she claims and she is more interested in making money than serving society (this would make her an awful person) or she is a fraud that is looking to make a LOT of money by fooling people (this would also make her an awful person). Of course, the latter is true. There is a reason that these people avoid any kind of inquiry - that would mean that they would be exposed for what they are. There is a reason that pscyhics, energy healers, mediums and the like have to call themselves "entertainers" and that you should "still keep seeing your doctor". If they could prove that even a shred of what they do is valid they would be part of mainstream science.

    Once you strip away all of the mysticism from the likes of Myss, what is left? A bunch of lessons that you learned in kindergarten. Be nice to people. Life is easier if you stay positive. If you have a problem, work on it. Try hard. Don't give up. For some reason our country has become addicted to people that say a lot of stuff that sounds impressive but in reality isn't anything that we didn't already know.

    During the late 19th and early 20th century, psychics, mediums and miracle healers were prevalent in this country. At that time the greatest illusionist in the world was Harry Houdini. He became incensed by a medium that claimed to be able to talk to his mother's dead relatives. Houdini was aware of all of the carnival tricks that these charlatans used. He dedicated the rest of his life to exposing these people for who they really were. One by one, they famously came to his house and tried to prove their supernatural ability. Each time, he figured out how they did their trick. Today this crusade is taken up by the likes of James Rand, Penn and Teller and many other famous illusionists. Randi has a documented prize of one million dollars to anyone that can show any kind of psychic or supernatural ability. He doesn't ask much - you could even win it by doing something simple like naming the three cards that are face down on the table. The prize has gone unclaimed for thirty years now.

    Will the likes of Sylvia Brown, Caroline Myss or John Edward take the test? Of course not. You'd think that it would be easy - after all, there all all of these ghosts talking to them all of the time. But the ghosts always seem to be playing some kind of supernatural charades - the medium can kind of make out who they are. Sometimes. See the first video on the disk to see how these people do it. I've seen Penn and Teller live and they do John Edward's act better than he does. The best thing is that they tell you before they do it that they have no supernatural ability.

    Once you start to look at these people with a clear mind it isn't hard to see the patterns. They all use the same techniques to sell their wares. I'm looking at the back of Myss' CD jacket now and I see the following statement:

    "Why do some people respond well to medical treatments and alternative therapies, while others do not".

    This is classic misdirection and it is often used by holistic healers and psychics. If their elixir didn't work for you or they couldn't accurately channel your dead loved one, you are the one that is doing something wrong. Myss takes this a step further - she will teach you why you didn't respond well to her other works. I think that is genius marketing - if the first try didn't work, it is your fault and you need to purchase something more.

    Finally, there are no mystical people or places in the world. Lilydale was founded by two admitted frauds. The town of Sedona, Arizona was dubbed a "mystical place" by their tourism committee (another genius marking plan) because they needed a way to attract people to town. There are absolutely, positively no such thing as energy fields, shakras or magic beans. There have been plenty of medical advances that started out on the fringe and moved to the mainstream by simply proving that their effects could be reproduced. It only takes one study to do that and the person that funded it would be set up to make a ton of money. Once again, there is a reason why these people hide out in little rural towns or on tv shows where the audience is hand-picked. Simply connect the dots to find the answer.

    And finally, Houdini said that his greatest feat would be to contact his wife from the afterlife. He had given his wife a secret phrase before he died and there was an understanding that if someone told her the phrase that she would know that the person was in contact with him. Of course, nobody ever did. After all, that would be documented proof of supernatural ability and such abilities do not exist.

    .... read the rest of this article here

    Book Review: Jesus for the Non-Religious


    Created on Friday, August 6, 2010

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    My father-in-law is a former member of the clergy. He became a priest so that he could travel the world (mostly Asia) to help poor people. He did this for many years until he saw the the main goal of the church's effort was to expand the flock and the (distant) second goal was to help people.

    Anyway, he still considers himself to be a Christian but he is sickened by the direction of modern religion. He knows that I am a non-theist and recommended "Jesus for the Non Religious". The book is authored by former Bishop John Selby Spong. We actually agree on a great many things when it comes to religion - he thinks that Jesus may have existed but certainly wasn't the son of god.

    Anyway, I read the book. Spong's angle is that he believes that the Bible was never meant to be a historical narrative and that the early church pretty much hijacked it for their own purposes. He makes a compelling argument. Spong's belief is that when we tear down the Bible we can then start to really see who Jesus was. He is sickened by many of the things that Christianity has become.

    Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Non-Religious-John-Shelby-Spong/dp/0060778415/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281128958&sr=1-1
    Random review: http://joewalker.blogs.com/felixhominum/2008/01/book-review-joh.html

    Some of his claims:

    - There is nothing that describes a virgin birth and the early church chose to go with the incorrect translation when this fact was pointed out in the second century.
    - The vast, vast majority of the miracles and supernatural claims were made in the narratives that were written by Luke some 100 years after the fact. The early narratives either did not mention or barely mentioned things like the mystical birth, resurrection (example: Lazarus) or magic. The people that lived with christ didn't observe these amazing events - how would someone 100 years later be able to detail them?
    - The story of Judas and his betrayal was a late addition and not mentioned in early narratives.
    - Mary and Joseph were fictional and only added later on to suit the move to the mystical birth. VERY little is said about either.
    - The narratives gave vastly different accounts of who the disciples were
    - A god that performs miracles is capricious
    - Paul never claimed to have seen jesus. Others narratives later gave the details of an account that he inexplicably did not detail on his own
    - The writings of Luke reflected a wide expansion of the supernatural claims. His writings also reflected the need to further shape the Jesus story based on the cultural changes in the decades after his death. - We have only moved forward as a species because of secular humanism

    Spong takes great pains to step through the various "traditions" and explained exactly why the authors of the Bible crafted the Jesus story the way the did. For example, they had to have Jesus come from a certain tribe and a certain blood line so as to appeal to the most Jews. The timing of the various events was also created to fit various periods that were significant to the people of that era. More importantly, Spong shows how many of the New Testament narratives are really just re-telling of the Old Testament narratives with the names and places changed.

    While I knew much of the history of the Bible, I don't believe that I've ever seen the timeline of the creation of the narratives layed out the way they are in this book. The original narratives describe Jesus the teacher and the whole story undergoes a huge transformation into the supernatural-packed narrative that we know today. I know I'm not doing a great job of describing this but it really was stunning (and at times, laughable) to see how the story changed.

    I actually agreed with 95% of the book. Spong lost me when he tried to build Jesus back from from the ashes that he had created. His main claim is that the story is so important that the authors must have seen a need to embellish/create the way that they did. To me, this is preposterous. After all, the creators of all of the other religions that he discounts did the exact same thing. This is like exposing a 'witness' at a trial to be a complete fraud and then picking through his story to see if there is anything that could be believable. If the bathwater is that bad, sometimes baby needs to go.

    I do urge anyone that is interested in this topic to pick up this book. I can't tell you how many times my jaw hit the floor while I read it. I just couldn't go along with the grand conclusion. This book also supported a belief that I have held for a long time: I have read many books on atheism, but nothing supports my disbelief like a book that tries to promote Christianity.


    .... read the rest of this article here

    Anne Rice - The Wanderer


    Created on Wednesday, August 4, 2010

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    You may have missed this but Anne Rice has quit Christianity. That's right - the famous author is supposedly done with the Church. What I found interesting in this article is not the title but what she said beyond the headline.
    ....said Wednesday that she refuses to be “anti-gay,” “anti-feminist," “anti-science” and “anti-Democrat.”

    Politics aside, good for her. Welcome to humanism.
    “For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian ... It's simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

    Amen to that sister. I don't quite get why you "tried" - that seems to imply that you thought that you would experiment with it but hey, you see it for what it is.
    "My faith in Christ is central to my life. "

    Ah, now I see where she's going with this. Its the 'ol "lets separate Jesus from the awful stuff" idea. Of course, there are many problems with this. First, the Old Testament foretold the coming Messiah. That's why the Jesus story (and all of its contradictions) was fashioned the way it was - it had to fit what the OT told us was going to happen. Worse, JC had to then turn around and validate the OT. You can't just forget that part of all of this because those are also part of his words. If you want to use him as a philosopher you can just skip the middle man and go right to the greeks. Cafeteria religion at its best.
    My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me,"

    Whoa. I have many problems with this one.

    Pessimistic atheist? First, one has nothing to do with the other. Being an atheist or a believer has nothing to do with being an optimist or a pessimist. There is just such a negative connotation when the two words are put together like that.

    But what is more telling is the rest of the statement. She prefers to be an "optimistic believer". Let me translate this for you:

    " I've shopped around and this is what was most appealing to me"

    This article is a fantastic example of why people believe and how little they know of disbelievers. Even when she was a "pessimistic atheist", Rice was a searcher and her search wasn't for truth. It was for... something. This is why people that need to fill a void in their lives settle on religion. If truth isn't comforting enough you just go out there and make your own reality. I can't fathom how this makes people feel better - I can't lie to myself on this level.

    What is unique about Rice is that she doesn't seem to be honest with herself about the evils of religion but not about how the story is derived. We seem to be seeing more and more people rejecting organized religion and pretending that the other part of the story doesn't exist. Once again, this is baffling.

    Besides, it isn't like Jesus had this wisdom beyond what we are taught as a child. Worse, he tells you that if you follow him it will all be ok. How ironic - the same thing that we tell our children when they don't know better.

    .... read the rest of this article here

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