Magog's Weekly-ish Rants (8/25-30 2015)

 

*Image of the week: from https://labofii.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/drawing-a-line-in-the-sand-the-movement-victory-at-ende-gelande-opens-up-the-road-of-disobedience-for-paris/

1. Drawing a Line in the Sand: The Movement Victory at Ende Gelande Opens Up the Road of Disobedience for Paris: 

https://labofii.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/drawing-a-line-in-the-sand-the-movement-victory-at-ende-gelande-opens-up-the-road-of-disobedience-for-paris/

2. Who Says Humans Are Unique? From World Science Festival:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY6K3Vj4UEM 

3. When Women Rape Men.:
TJ (The Amazing Atheist) explains why raping of men is a real thing. Something else to keep in mind. Many people say that just because the 15 year old boy got an erection that goes to show he "wanted" it. As TJ points out correctly here there are cases documented where women that have been raped have even orgasm, let alone became wet (as if she "wanted" it too). We have to understand our bodies react to sex on a purely mechanical biological way... we have a crude basic understanding regarding rape that TJ really explains well here. If you think about it.. having an orgasm probably makes it MORE traumatizing because from that moment on you relate orgasms with horror. I mean, it's like your body is betraying you... it has to be such a mind fuck. I really think people that rape are the most vile of humans. They should be put into caves where they belong. Fucking sick fucks.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teogyQ7_r4s

4. Jimmy Carter Teaches About Love After Cancer Treatment (Secular Talk):

What a great tribute by Kyle here. Under Jimmy Carter not a single shot was fired by our military... can you even imagine that?! That's never happened! Not one single shot! In fact.. that makes him the only real President where peace reigned not war (in some form). I just think that needs a bit of respect. Carter was a devout Evangelical Christian .. and one of the few public figures that call themselves Christians that actually took the peaceful, good words of Jesus from the Bible and acted them out - helping the poor.! Kyle Talks about how he helped basically eradicated a disease in a poor part of the world. Who does that?! Seriously! The man actually cared for the poor and needy and his work for Israel and Palestine is unparalleled in my opinion. He was a great man. and he is taking this with grace and dignity. A kind man, a soft and gentle SMART leader..

President Obama uses his head not his gut (like dubya) so President Obama is a close 2nd to the best President I've seen in my lifetime.. He's accomplished a lot too like this Iran deal if Republicans don't screw it up .. never one for peace :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXftbmIr1FQ

5. "Living Fossil" spotted. What's more impressive having superior intelligence (large brains) like us humans or surviving the past 2 mass extinctions and being among the oldest living species of animals on earth? hmm. These rare sea creatures are playing the long game! Older than the dinosaurs!

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/guy-spots-super-rare-living-222459791.html

6. While you were vacationing a chunk of ice the size of an asteroid fell into the ocean. Climate change is happening RIGHT NOW!:

http://news.yahoo.com/while-were-vacation-chunk-ice-size-asteroid-fell-223827633.html

7. Here's what happens when you try to replicate climate contrarian papers (Guardian article): This is fantastic! You have to read this and share this with anyone of your family or friends that are still drinking the "it's all a liberal hoax" koolaid.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-papers

8. Glenn Beck: WDBJ Shooting Signals End Times: 
Yeah I tend to agree with Cenk here. I seriously think someone needs to step in... he is clinically insane. I think we are basically watching someone mentally fall apart live on TV. Hey billionaires can go crazy too! lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ni9SmSmJAc

9. Ann Coulter Rails Against "Speech Nazis" (Secular Talk):
Yep. Ann Coulter is still a utter loud mouth moron. She hasn't changed a bit even when she went off the radar for a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL3b8GyNiYw

By the way I didn't find the exact VICE video on immigration Kyle is talking about.. but here's one too... point is still the same.. Employers prefer illegal immigrants because they work harder and better and obviously for cheaper.. legal citizens searching for any job they can get do not want nor can they often do the same job. It's just a myth, Ann. You're whole theory is bunk .. as fucking usual..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXUdozfL7iM

10. TYT: Donald Trump Vs. Fox News. Round 2! Fight!:
I predict this war continues and Trump gets the nomination and Fox News is forced to switch their bias to Hillary Clinton...hahaha! JK! Of course not... we are all well aware of the hatred the owners of Fox News have towards the Clinton family. Maybe they'll support Bernie if he beats Hillary. lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZDt9mQcOcA

11. TYT: Ted Cruz Wants to Deport Millions, Just Please Don't Talk about it!:
Ted Cruz is one of my least favorite human beings.. let alone politicians. He is a walking suit .. he will do whatever or say whatever he needs to do for the $$$ and for the vote. Just morph into whatever.. plus he looks like an asshole and we need to call for his birth certificate too!!!!! Here he calls Megyn Kelly part of the liberal media basically... lol... which I love how this shows how pathetic this "news" channel is that saying your part of a "liberal media" is like saying your evil. Fucking pathetic bias at every turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZDt9mQcOcA

12. David Packman Show: Cringe: Donald Trump Falls Apart when Asked for Specifics on His Immigration Plans:
 This speaks for itself. Wow. Our country is FUCKED if this toddler gets to somehow be the first reality show star President of America.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OHQNtPeUXI

13. Why Don't More Muslims Denounce Their Co-Religionists' Barbarism?: 
This subject is an interesting subject for me - there are people in my life that I care very deeply about that would probably sit on the Reza Aslan side of this debate. I disagree, but I think there is some nuance. There is truth to the colonialism claim and what CIA calls "blowback" but where blame is placed here it is near impossible to get people like Reza to point out the very detailed barbarisms within Islamic countries. I also think progressives have a sort of knee-jerk overreaction (and are still reacting and sensitive) about how Muslim Americans were treated in this country after 9/11. And that was a real thing .. a very terrible thing, I've read many stories. I know people that were directly affected because of this. And it was wrong and xenophobic!

Religion is one of those things that gets so tied in with culture and self identity that where trying to criticize it you are painted as a xenophobic racist. I can tell you right now that is not Sam Harris and that is not Richard Dawkins. I think I overreacted a bit too painting with a broad liberal brush directly after 9/11 saying "Bush was fabricating the entire threat of radical Islam" .. Yeah, I also liked Michael Moore then too. I was a simple-minded and biased and didn't do much nuance then. My hatred of all things Bush blinded me of the truth embedded in the doctrine of Islam. I have since learned that the truth lies usually not in the extremes but in the middle. The nuances are important. Especially in this debate on Muslims not doing "enough" to denounce their co-religionists' barbarism. What do you guys think about this?

http://observer.com/2014/10/muslims-on-barbarism/

14. Flashback interview on David Packman Show - Fox News Mole Embarrasses Fox News:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQJwVAHYJtw

... That's all for this week. Remember to pick up your Donald Trump pinatas today!

One Good Memory of Religion from My Childhood... (A Blog Short)

 *A Text Response from Gog when asked if he could imagine comparing C.S. Lewis to Wittgenstein. (Can you tell he's a fan of Wittgenstein?)

"Comparing CS Lewis to Wittgenstein is like comparing Flavor Flav to Einstein. One revolutionized philosophical thinking and almost single handedly ushered in the linguistic turn. The other made shoddy and lazy arguments filled with false choices and fallacies. What was is? Jesus was a liar, a devil, or the son of God?... I looked it up. It's: lunatic, devil, or God himself. Ugh. Stupidity! To formulate that "trilemma", I'd say either you're dishonest, lazy, or brain-dead." 

I read a new theolatte blog today that mentions C.S. Lewis written by Dan D. (who I've previously mentioned in past blogs). Dan really loves and respects C.S. Lewis. He teaches a course at his Bible College he is currently also the dean of. I am not a fan of C. S. Lewis. I have pointed this out before to him. Gog explains exactly my sentiment why. The more one delves into the world of philosophy you realize what a really bad philosopher C. S. Lewis was compared to so many great philosophers. He just did bad philosophy. I'm sure he was a nice enough man and a fine storyteller but some of his arguments he presents fall apart with the slightest examination. His trilemma thing is laughably easy to tear apart and many of his concepts were riddled with logical fallacies. A lot of these things make sense within the brackets of "A Christian Worldview" .. well, guess what.. as I've said before.. there is more to the world than these brackets. There is secular philosophy and most philosophers are atheists, like most scientists, by the way. hmm.

I loved The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe"  when I was a kid. I read that book many times and pretended Naria was in my closet. I loved it for the non-Christian imagery part of it. I loved it because it was a fun imaginary world I could transport myself to. C. S. Lewis' character Aslan the lion in the children's book is representative of Jesus who dies in the place of one of the children. Peter I think? I forget. This whole scapegoat thing was boring and not as magical as the magical world of Narnia. A place a kid could escape to and dream about with witches, a goat-legged leprechaun-looking guy, and yummy turkish delight (always pictured that tasting like Chick fil A, but less homophobic.)

THAT was the best part of that book! In a way it's telling of Christianity ... making up magical places that we all wish we could escape too... hmm.

Like heaven! and of course hell. I've discussed hell enough in my previous blogs. It is difficult to get my New Christian friends that I have to talk to me (an atheist) about hell. It's awkward and they usual glaze over it.. for obvious reasons. But heaven, this place is a magical made up fantasy afterlife destination! Christopher Hitchens once pointed out that heaven sounded like another hell.. like a celestial North Korea.. where all we do is praise, bow, and worship all day long our celestial dictator. Fucking horrifying!

I once joked with Gog about how we should make a short film that is like a complete rip off of David Lynch-style horror film where we see someone die.. a good faithful Christian (like that white kid from God's Not Dead for example) and he goes to heaven and it's not what he expects! It's full of these still-born babies and aborted fetuses and destroyed bodies from car wrecks all dismembered and worshiping and singing creepy praise songs with a fucked up sounding organ played by a dirty rastafarian man. lol like in Muholland Drive. jk. but Jesus!.. (literally) The chills! I can picture it now.. a choir of tiny aborted zygotes all bloody singing praise songs with their non-developed vocal chords so it's even creepier! Fuck!

But let me try to switch gears here... that was terrifying!

Heaven, like "The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe" used to be such a wonderful place in my little mind. I was a young child when I used to dream of heaven. In fact the reason I wrote this blog is I had a weird memory flashback. You've had them before with searing clarity, right? You can almost taste, and smell, and visualize everything and it brings that wonderful warm childhood comforting feeling. It's great. My vivid memory flashback was of my imagination of what I thought heaven was going to look like when I died - I could see the wonderful white cloudy fog, the gold everywhere (like Trump's house I guess), the mansions we all lived in after we died and arrived. It was beautiful. I remember picturing everyone enjoying food like bowls of fruit and oh the laughter .. all the laughter and joy one could imagine. Peaceful and glorious.

The best part though was seeing family members again, like my great grandma and grandpa, that had already passed away. I missed my family very much and I always pictured running up to them .. and hugging them. It was a glorious reunion of those that were stripped of the ones they loved. This memory of what I thought heaven was like when I was a child even now as a godless atheist heathen makes me feel really good. But I no longer fall for such childish things. It's a trick. It's not real... and we should grow up and know better. We invented these stories of afterlives that have been passed down generation after generation to deal with the curse of consciousness that as far as we know we are the only species of animal that has this- self awareness. We birthed cognitive dissonance and we told stories and we believed them for so long. But we know better now. We are smarter.

But unlike the "The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe" I thought heaven was a real place because as a small child all the way through adulthood my parents who of course I trusted told me it was, because my school told me it was, because Sunday School teachers told me it was, because the pastor told me it was. But it was all cherry-picked, and extrapolated upon from the Bible. It's all guess work and imagination based on a few random verses from one stupid book. I often wonder why it's so hard for my New Christian friends to take that step out of deluding themselves over these things and to step into the world without make believe.

It isn't scary because we're all in this together... this journey of being conscious! It's a fucking weird subjective journey we are all separately taking together and fun to try and follow the academic literature and look at good philosophy and science for answers based in logical soundness and/or empirical evidence. There are a lot of people in the non-believer camp now and we are doing really well. In fact some of the polls recently show that some of the most "moral" people (in various factors polled) are those that consider themselves non-religious. We don't need the added "theory of God" to be good, to live a life filled with deep meaning and purpose while simultaneously understanding the cosmos is meaningless and purposeless from a "cosmic perspective" (so far as we can tell). We don't need you to add more to the human story. We'll take what we know and start with that.

I'm currently listening via audiobook to the Old Testament and I'm utterly disgusted by the immorality of this particular god. I'm also just embarrassed for people that seriously think that this book has any relevance on life (especially morality!) in the 21st century. It's honestly mind-boggling to me how people can still be religious in the information age. Many of you that are reading this are non-religious but some that are reading this could be religious... All I want to say to you is be more skeptical of your beliefs and your confirmation biases. Couldn't you be wrong? Can you entertain this possibility? Turn the scrutiny away from Planned Parenthood or gay marriage and turn it around on yourself. You are fooling yourself with these ancient stories, these bad philosophers, these made up afterlife destinations and just like my parents, teachers, principal, pastor, etc did with me growing up you are spreading this to your children.

Please stop. 

Stop making "theories" (involving the supernatural and magic) about the real world in which you have zero evidence of except that you accept as profound that tingle in your heart, that still soft voice you think you are hearing in your head (yikes!), the delusion that prayers are productive and cause outcomes in reality, and a lifetime of confirmation bias. It's not real. Get the fuck out of Narnia... step back through the wardrobe into the real world. You are an adult not a child. Please.. Or else you may end up like Glenn Beck. 

Go here:

Glen Beck right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ni9SmSmJAc

New Theolatte blog on C. S. Lewis:

http://www.theolatte.com/2015/08/c-s-lewis-a-discussion-with-colin-duriez-n-d-wilson-and-lyle-dorsett/

Religion Doesn't Make People More Moral: Study Finds.:

http://www.livescience.com/47799-morality-religion-political-beliefs.html

 

Magog's Weekly-ish Rants (8/16-8/24 2015)

*Image of the week: bleached corals due to rising ocean acidity levels caused by global warming.

 

Well, I watch the shows. I mean I really see a lot of great. You know, when you watch your show and all the other shows and you have the generals. - Donald Trump (Top Republican Presidential for 2016) when asked by Chuck Todd of Meet the Press who he talks to to get his military advice.

This is my very first weekly rant. I want to slowly pull this blog out of being solely a anti-theist blog but introduce politics, economics, science, history, sociology into the mix. The majority of this will continue to be anti-theist blogs just because well, I was brainwashed with this shit for like 18 years of my life and clearly I'm still traumatized enough to bitch about it! So I will be just mostly posting a collection of links and rants about each link (if I feel like it) below. Most of these are from the same YouTube sources. There will be articles too and so on, but you may find after a while of reading these that I have specific people I really enjoy listening to or watching bitch about the world we live in. So without further ado, here's my first weekly rant - 

1. Secular Talk on Bernie Sanders Smackdown of Idiocracy question about hair.:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obF-9htJW7g

2. The War between Republican News (Fox News) and Donald Trump wages on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0YltcMA9yY 

3. Reason # 1231231227878279978792 NOT to vote for Mike Hucakbee. He clearly is mentally retarded - doesn't understand what the "black lives matter is". This man is a moron. You know you have a bad pick for President when he 1. brags about being a pastor, 2. uses the phrase "we have sin problem not a skin problem". NO. sorry... you're automatically out. that's just two of the millions of reasons. Wake up people.. stop voting dumb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ce6B-Hpjbk 

4. Bernie Sanders wants to abolish for-profit prisons. FUCK YES!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6frR_oda2M 

5. Global Warming Worsens California Drought as July Becomes Hottest Month on Record:
But you know.. it's all just a liberal hoax - reality. Reality is just a liberal hoax. So are facts and evidence.:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe6_t43kxuc 

6. "Our Greatest Delusion" This is great... I got it from a friend's friend on twitter that I follow. I thought it was appropriate for capturing the beauty we can feel when basking in conclusions based on the strongest evidence - we are small and there is probably no afterlife... but it's OK. It's actually more exciting and thrilling this way. Refer to my other blog called "How Cosmology Can Fill That God-Shaped Hole in Your Heart" for more clarification on what I mean by this:
http://godsaiditibelieveitthatsettlesit.blogspot.com/2015/04/how-cosmology-can-fill-that-god-shaped.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKR-HydGohQ 

7. Last Week Tonight w/ John Oliver: LGBT Discrimination ... and how every single Republican candidate has shown not to pass any anti-discrimination laws (big shock right?!) If you didn't already have more reasons to loathe that party ... here is just one more .. oh, and it's a big one!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d667Bb_iYA

8. The majority of Americans support funding for Planned Parenthood.. The Defund Planned Parenthood movement is the most ill-informed straw-man movement going on now in this country. With only 3% of PP services going to abortion services and of that 3% zero, fucking zero!!!!!! dollars of taxpayer money is being used for abortion and with 97% of PP services dealing with women and men's health issues that 100% of people agree with in this country - suddenly all the "good" Christian hypocrites that didn't bat an eye as the U.S. bombed to death little brown --but ACTUAL REAL-- children in Iraq while we liberals protested the fuck out of that, are now crying over zygotes and fetuses less then 20 weeks old. Of course they would never be for tripling the social safety nets to support all these millions of extra children birthed if abortion was suddenly illegal (which again IS a fucking red herring from FUNDING PLAN PARENTHOOD! They always try to bait you off topic!). Also, if they would stop for a second and realize the simple math.. fucking christ... if you are for completely defunding PP then that means you are going to wipe away free contraception -- which in turn on a mass scale will lead to MORE FUCKING ABORTIONS.. so if all this is about is simply Christians arguing that "abortion is murder and should be banned" (which it absolutely IS since I just said ZERO dollars come from taxpayers to pay for abortions so why defund it?!?!) then YOU ARE HURTING YOUR CAUSE WHEN YOU WIPE OUT FREE CONTRACEPTION... jesus, sometimes these people.. I need to do a perpetual face palm daily I think. FUCK!!!! lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCYGScn_OCg

... And now rapid fire "Secular Talk" (Kyle rants better than most of us! I love it! and absolutely spot on pretty much 99.9% of the time!:

9. Ted Cruz "Atheist Taliban Keeps Religion Out of Government" .. hey Ted you fucking Canadian! FUCK YOU, you moron!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i88lUAjnn-E 

10. Bill O'Reilly Doesn't Want Cornel West to Take His Stuff: ... Bill O'Reilly really is goddamn stupid.. as Ann Coulter (of all people) recently pointed out on twitter...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DXrB64lVs

oh and here... Ann Coulter direct quote - "Bill O'Reilly, Good God he's stupid.":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDowbjGWQF4

11. Pastor Who Tried to Crowdfund $65 million for Private Jet Rips Critics: Hey we all know religion is a business.. it's a career to many of my friends.. gotta get paid, son.. even if it's 65 mil. right? fucking snakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M4MIE_gTJw

12. Vile Right-Wing Radio Host Has a Sick Plan for Immigrants: (basically make them all slaves.. hey! it's been a while in this country.. it's time to make those Mexican immigrants our slaves! Brilliant.. People in 2015 never cease to amaze me.. Our country isn't the smartest sometimes. :( the dumbest, and most racist, xenophobic, bitoted, homophobic all seem to be the loudest too. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxD4kf0HDMs

13. Ben Carson Suggest Drone Strikes on American Soil:
Ben Carson is a fucking idiot. Period. He doesn't know what he's talking about he knows nothing about politics or how to run a country.. please stop polling for this man. jesus fucking christ. He reminds (sort of like Trump in this way too) of what it would be like to have a toddler run for President of the U.S. The leader of the free world could very well be a fucking toddler. Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qvpuiynj50

That's all for this week. I do not know if I can keep up putting these blogs out once a week.. so I will do them when I can. Enjoy and have a great global warming day!






 

I AM ... Utterly Confused (A Blog Short)

^{8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also. - Genesis 38:8-10}

 
<sup>Lesson 1:
As we see in today's blog short God is PRO-cheating with your brother's wife /only/ if you do not "pull out" and cum all over the ground. That man's semen needed to go into that vagina. (***Remember- This book is for ALL ages, even children- so read ALL of the Bible to them. Not just G-rated verses!) So, do not cum on the ground, brothers and sisters!!! This act would have of course been the one and only time it was considered /not/ a sin to have sex with your brother's wife. We all know after this one story it went back to being a sin to cheat or to have sex before marriage or something. Most importantly we see here in this passage that God is (at least in this specific instance) ANTI-contraception... even in the most barbaric, useless, rudimentary form formally called "pulling out".

So, as we all know theism provides the basic groundwork and basis for all objective morality (no exceptions), and as we also know the Bible is the one and only true "Word of God" in existence... Not the Koran or the Book of Moron. No. Only the Bible. We know this though...

Obviously we are to assume then that God is against contraception. I don't need to express to you dear followers of Christ that God is pro-creation of the human race. It is commanded simply to "be fruitful and multiply". Never allow abortion at any time period... even if the mother is 12 years old and was raped savagely. It doesn't matter. Marco Rubio and Pastor/President-to-be Mike Huckabee have made this perfectly clear, and we should accept their revelation from God Almighty. 

As I've shown from God's infallible Word - We cannot use contraception. Period. The Catholic church understands this very well! Thank goodness too. As we all know by now in Africa, getting AIDS is wAAAAAy better than using a condom. That's just good common sense and basic moral soundness.

So the Christians are right to be against Planned Parenthood, on the contraception bit. God clearly would defund Planned Parenthood on the basis that a good majority of their services is providing contraception for women that cannot otherwise afford it. 

Lesson 2:
Now, I've explained before the tiny fraction of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion (only 3%, and none of which is paid for by tax payer money). This seems to be the faulty "feet planted firmly in midair" foundation on which the proponents of the "Defund Planned Parenthood" movement stand on. Well, we may have a problem here... Not that God wouldn't defund Planned Parenthood, because obviously we know God's stance and he's "Anti-not-shooting-your-load-into-a-vagina" but Christians are wrong on the /reasons/ God would defund Planned Parenthood - for the higher percentage of it's services which is "family planning" like providing contraception- /not/ because of it's miniscule 3% abortion services. 

If you are a devout student of the Bible as I am it's clear in his Word - God is actually PRO-aboriton. Not just because God is in control of all things, he pays attention to all living things.. even something as useless as a sparrow!  Clearly the millions of miscarriages can be attributed to God since he is the actual author of all things LIFE! He is used as the author of life in anti-abortion debates, so he must be author of all things dealing with a "woman's womb". You see, you are not Pro-Choice or for a woman's right to choose - because GOD is the author of life and He is the only one with a choice here! See, He is in control. Praise Him! Those millions of (what I call) "Adonai-Authored-Abortions" some people call miscarriages (lame) are part of His cosmic plan for  everything, everyone, and everywhere. Amen.

So, just with that rationale we can say God is pro-abortion... but let's take God at His "Word" (literally).. here's just a few examples.:

Hosea 9:11-16 (The classic standby "miscarriage" abortion method used by God here!)
Numbers 5:11-21(One of the better verses on "Adonai-Authored-Abortions" Praise be.)
Numbers 31:17 (NICE! Forcible abortion method! A sort of rape sentiment -abortion hybrid-combo. Interesting, I like it!)
Hosea 13:16 (oh, this book is like a medical book! Wow... Here is a very descriptive type of abortion  condoned by God - the "ripped-open" womb method. Very sanitary!)

So, reading the Bible we can safely say that God is clearly FOR abortion by condoning it or one can say at the very least God would clearly take it a step further than simply being PRO-choice like many liberals of today and actually be PRO-abortion! and thus be on the "PRO-abortion" side of a debate if they were to have one back long ago when this was all happening, but wait! How can this be?!

God is PRO-life too!?

Psalm 22:10-11 (oh how nice! SEE it's MORE than a fetus!!!)</sup>
Galatians 1:15 (God's grace -apparently something I'm told we all need for some reason-- is available even as a fetus!)
Psalm 139:13,15 (Awe! Cute!)
Psalm 127:3 (Here! Proof being pregnant is a reward, stop killing babies in your tummy!!)

<sup>It's almost as if the Bible is completely confusing and contradictory in so many ways... It's almost as if a consistent picture of God's character attributes is horribly evil, mixed with sort of good sometimes when he, himself/his son make it on the scene... It's almost as if we all just simply are tribal and stick to "our team" or "our social group" and confirmation bias as we plow our way through these issues every day while sticking to "our own" and siding with them. It's almost as if morality evolves over time bottom up and we pick and choose random passages that to us and our group sound much nicer and civil than those weird "babies being ripped out of pregnant mothers" or "God killing some dude for not cumming in a vagina" passages in His Word. 

Lesson 3
WAKE UP!... Let it all GO!
Everything will be OK.</sup>





 

Many New Christians Do Not Do Nuance

I don't do nuance. - President George W. Bush 2/15/2004

Since becoming an atheist years ago, I have noticed when talking to New Christians that many simply do not do nuance. They are intelligent people that are educated in Christian theology but when you read some of their blogs, check out their social media, watch their YouTube pages, or have a discussion about Christianity you find they simply want to keep things extremely simple. In fact one of my New Christian friends wrote a book a few years back titled "Jesus or Nothing". In discussing his premise with me via email he addressed what I pointed out was an obvious false dilemma fallacy.

My friend truly believes it's really a simple choice between "the gospel" or nihilism. I let an atheist friend of mine borrow his book to thumb through looking forward to hearing his expertise critique since he is getting his masters in philosophy currently. He asked me if this author realizes that there are many different types of nihilism in philosophy. I am pretty certain my friend understands this, but this is my point... There is nuance within the "nothing" part of the "Jesus or Nothing". Shit, there is nuance in the "Jesus" part of the "Jesus or nothing". There are people that truly believe that Jesus was an extraterrestrial. So it's a false dichotomy right from the title page.

My issue with my New Christian friend's entire concept of "Jesus or Nothing" (the current theme throughout the entire book) is it just isn't the only two choices we have. He'll delicately admit he's aware that there are other choices out there that people can pick buuuut will follow by doubling down on his premise by saying that following all things to their logical conclusions there is only two real choices - 1. Jesus (the gospel) or 2. Nothing (nihilism). But that's only true when you are working within a narrow framework. It's only true when you are working within one context - a Christian worldview. There is SO MUCH outside of this context. There is so much outside of this narrow frame work that it's dishonest in all reality to say that the truth is that there is only two choices. It's not true.

It certainly isn't true to the millions of extremely devout Muslim believers in the world today who could easily say "All(ah) or Nothing". I call copyright on that book title! So the author of that book would also be working in a narrow framework (Islam). To be completely "objective" (a term loved by the New Christians who kid themselves that they have an actual "objective" morality when we all know it's working within a subjective framework - the framework of a Christian worldview) we must say it's really an infinite amount of choices out there.. it could be "Polytheism or Amish apple butter", "tweezers or God's God", "Jews or Jesus" .... whatever you want it to be. The possibilities on each side of the "or" here are endless.

But New Christians don't do nuance. It's THIS or THAT! They are tricking you like any good salesman would. You need this NOT that! In reality there are infinitely more choices besides...

"A supernatural being sent his son - put him into a flesh-suit of his favorite species of ape, had that son killed by that species, had that son raise from the dead and come back to a magical, supernatural home beyond the cosmos all to appease blood sacrifice rules he set up in the first place OR .... One particular definition of nihilism."

Just look at the #Defund Planned Parenthood movement to see my point. Here is another example of New Christians trying to pigeon hole an issue into one clear binary "right" or "wrong" stance. To New Christians it's a baby at the moment of conception. The soul is inserted (by Yahweh) into that "baby" vessel as soon as that sperm meets that egg. God often allows miscarriages and horrific birth defects like something you would see out of a horror movie, but we'll ignore that and pretend it's not true - (That must be "the fall", Satan, sin, evil fallen angel-demons or hobgoblins or whatever).

If you have an abortion about a month after that sperm met that egg inside of you and began forming a baby you are a murderer! There is no nuance here. Ignore that God himself killed actual real Egyptian children (the firstborn of all families and what the fuck, why not... all the firstborn cows too), that doesn't matter though, please stay focused... I have heard it a million times on social media from New Christians. It's a baby INSTANTLY!.. thus any abortion at any time period is killing. I suppose if we were to follow this to it's logical conclusion and have our government be ran by a sort of Christian-style-Sharia law (what I think most Christians are striving for since they vote for these type of politicians) then these women who get abortions would be tried in court for murder.... which if you keep following this logic (most New Christians I've known are FOR the death penalty too- "eye of an eye", right?) so we should kill the mother for killing her zygote. Makes sense.

There has not been one New Christian explain to me why on Earth you cannot be pro-life and also NOT support the Defund Planned Parenthood movement. One merely need to be mildly informed with just one, maybe two simple facts -- that 97% of Planned Parenthood's services deal with women's health that everyone is OK with (not concerning abortion) and only 3% are abortion services .. and of those abortion services ZERO are funded by tax payer money. Why is this still a discussion again?? This apparently escapes them... even those that know these 2 simple facts. However, out of principle we must stand with Team Anti-Abortion because well um.. yeah just because it's relevant now.... many New Christians do not do nuance! Murderer or Pro-creation no matter what.

It also works this way with many New Christians' attitudes on gay marriage. There is a song and dance they do that often amuses those like us that simply want all citizens to have equal rights under the law. wow. what a controversial concept! They are in a bind, torn because their "holy book" explains being gay is an abomination (along with shrimp and wearing mixed fabrics in the same book of the Bible but ignore that) and, we should probably be strongly Biblical and kill all gay people (Leviticus 20:13) while we're at it.

These poor New Christians are the young, cool fundamental-hipster Christians so they often have gay friends that they haven't murdered (some of which are even Christians themselves who happen to attend a more liberal church!); so if they are to be true to their religious dogma (via whatever Timothy Keller, C.S. Lewis, Max Lucado book they are reading at the time because no one's gonna actually kill their gay friends as the Bible commands) and remain "cool" quasi-liberal hipster-Jesus-servants they simply shut down. They don't know how to act. They mostly, and simply avoid the subject like the plague altogether in the real world... only inside the protected tribe gatherings of New Christian peers do they discuss it in a rainbowless room.

This is the crux at what is wrong with religious dogma at it's core. Nevermind all the immoral passages within the Scriptures commanded or often acted out by God himself, the Bible forces ancient ways of thinking on it's followers. Many New Christians simply don't do nuance - it's right or it's wrong. Evil or Good. God or Satan. Theistic evolution or creationism. God-given libertarian Free Will or Hard Determinism. Life or Anti-Life. "Objective" morality or lawless chaos. The gospel or Hard Reductionism.

Please. Spare us.

In the real world, the more you learn about philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, economics, and science as a whole the more you realize things are definitely NOT black and white. There are 50 shades of grey at the very least! (*You're welcome for that.) Clearly we can see the simplistic "this or that" mentality played out on full display in young Earth Creationists. Most of the New Christians steer clear from the Ken Hams and Kent and Eric Hovinds of the world and consider themselves at the very least Old Earth creationists. They no longer say all species (I'm sorry "kinds") magically popped into existence 6000 years ago and then just sort of micro-evolved until now.

No. Thankfully the vast majority of New Christians have finally accepted what every field of science shows to be a proven fact: the theory of evolution by natural selection and the common ancestry of all species. However, there are some New Christians that treat this topic like they would gay marriage.. it's easiest not to discuss why they don't accept evolution (per se) when all of science shows it to be true (with mounds of evidence). When pressed they usually just change the subject. Because let's be honest, it's hard to say you accept science and scoff and laugh at those simplistic, silly atheists that think there is a conflict between academic Christianity and the sciences when you deny the foundation of all of biology and genetics. You can't do both. Sorry, even our species MACRO-evolved from single-celled organisms billions of years ago. Deal with it. Stop dancing.

In reality, the journey of our species is an awkward, painful, luck of the draw, evolutionary story with so much death and suffering encasing most of our species existence. As anthropologist Robert Ardrey once said, "We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels." Morality came sprouting forth sloppily as we emerged millions of years ago. Science /does/ nuance. Evolutionary biology /does/ nuance! When studied we find our ancestors pieced together morality through subjective concepts, ethics, philosophy, and religion... all of which did not come from somewhere "out there" in the cosmos in some supernatural realm... it came from within our brains, intertwined with our emotions, over many years of gregarious, social existence among our fellow apes. We built our morality, it wasn't bestowed upon us by our imaginary celestial daddy as those ancient books say.

This is how everything came to be- evolved - bottom up and it's /all/ nuanced! It's all in the details. Just watch the video I posted below from Richard Dawkins to see the beauty of nuance in evolutionary biology. It's fucking amazing! He presents visualized interpretations (snapshots) of our own species back through time and you'll see animals that don't look anything like us the further back in time we go!

Nuance: It's something that thrills us, feeds the insatiable curiosity, stimulating our intellect to discover our species past and the birth of morality in our species - an ongoing social experiment that we have clearly not perfected yet. It's not so simple that all things horrible and immoral on this particular planet  = two words for an explanation: "1. The 2. Fall". NO! It's more nuanced... Everything is more nuanced. All of everything that ever is and was or will be is not in one fucking book. It's not black and white. It's much more complicated and life is much more interesting and complex because of this. Beware of those that want to sell you simplicity or "the answer" to life. There is no such thing and as grown ups we should all know this by now.

Sites:

My friend's "Jesus or Nothing" book for sale:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/jesus-or-nothing-dan-dewitt/1116874863?ean=9781433540462

Here's some full-blown "Not Doing Nuance" in all it's glory (Prager University's "The Truth bout C02"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDWEjSDYfxc

Information on abortion:
http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/health-info/early-abortion-options/

Beautiful Nuance by Richard Dawkins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ClZROoyNM
 

Multiple Eye Witness Testimonies of Jesus and Other Things.

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavours to establish. - David Hume

Dear atheists,

Do you have any New Christian friends? Do you know people that are in the business of religion, whether it be at a seminary, Christian college whether a pastor, a Christian teacher, or a youth leader? These are people that literally make a career off of their particular brand of religion (it's how they make money)... Many of you have friends and family that are still religious and see their social media light up with posts like "abortion is murder!" or "Marriage is between one man and one woman" or "#defundplannedparenthood" or whatever narrative the conservative Republican talking heads decide to push on their followers for the week.

I have noticed in reading many of my friends writings on social media, blogs, or speeches on YouTube that they often call those that do not accept their choice of a religion (Christianity) "skeptics". It's strange because it seems to be used with negative connotation behind it. They, in the same breath, would say that there is absolutely no conflict between science and religion yet seem to not understand how a term like skeptic is a positive thing if one is to think scientifically. There is no situation that being skeptical is bad. It may be unwarranted continuing skepticism like say in the new movement that said we faked the Pluto flyby or that 9/11 was an inside job or the birther movement or global warming is all a liberal hoax or whatever, but it's never bad to be a skeptic going into any claim.

We as atheists know this. Obviously, we have been presented in life with the positive claim that there is a god and this god is the god of the Bible and then throughout our lives are sloppily shown all sorts of lines of reasoning for this from a strange pieced-together ancient book mixed with a whole heaping helping of random overweight sweaty yelling pastors with bad haircuts telling us this means this and this means that and this is the right way to live and don't do that. It's a lot to take in and it's mostly began as brainwashing in children, but I digress. And I've got a little personal there! Let's just say we atheists have found the "evidence" presented for a god to be lacking on all fronts.

I would assume that not all New Christians would talk negatively on being a "skeptic". I think some would acknowledge its inherently good to be skeptical of all claims - even their religion.. then would just suggest they have evidence for this religion's validity. Evidence for the validity of Christianity hinges almost wholly on Jesus being a real human in history first and foremost. There is a small minority of Bible scholars in what's called the Jesus Seminar that are mythicists. They do not think Jesus was a real historical figure but merely concocted over time borrowing from many other myths before and during this time period when the New Testament was written.

We will just write them off as being wrong for now simply due to the fact that the majority of Bible scholars (the experts) think that the stories of Jesus in the New Testament were based on a real person living at that time. This doesn't automatically grant that the stories surrounding this real figure in history were not tacked on or embellished in any way to make this figure look more miraculous, but we'll set that aside for the time being.

Now, if you were to ask one of your New Christian friends what they think "proves" Christianity or at least gives the greatest line of evidence for it - they would say - the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It proves the gospel. You see, first we must grant them the core "blood sacrifice" cosmic rule that demands an all-powerful God /or at least the "son" part of him/ must die to atone for the sins of all human beings throughout history and into the future is an actual thing. So whatever... let's do it... we let them have that, something there is no evidence for - it's just in an old book. So OK. We're giving them a lot already, I know, but let's keep going...

The next step is to examine if these things are true. Did Jesus exist?... we will just say yes here. He was a human being that existed in history. Did he die? We'll grant this as well. He did die on a cross. History shows it, right? Did he raise from the dead? (see, this is the apologists' slam dunk! if you can show Jesus rose from the dead this means to them that the whole message of gospel is true- thus Christianity is true) Do Christians actually believe there is evidence for this to satisfy us skeptics that Jesus rose from the dead?

Yes. Yes, they do. We merely need to look at the evidence to see!

A friend I was introduced to by another friend (both of which are New Christians) has a video I posted in the link below. Check out his stuff, he's a really nice guy. He has a video explaining how we can know the New Testament is reliable and it's not all just made up, or copied wrong, or altered like a bad game of "telephone". YouTube any lecture or debate on Jesus' resurrection from William Lane Craig. This is also where the New Christians find comfort... they can show by delving into ancient accounts that the resurrection of Jesus was true. How do they know this? - three key words - EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY. This is the defining proof for the validity of the gospel. You see, MULTIPLE witnesses saw Jesus after his resurrection. The New Testament itself was taken directly from eye witness testimony. Not just one person.. MULTIPLE eye witnesses! Also, the direct eye witness (a disciple of Jesus - Peter) who was with Jesus the whole time told the Apostle Paul and many others his stories of direct accounts with Jesus (keep in mind there is no proof for this just granting it for now - it's inferred this happened this way, no solid evidence.) So does this confirm the validity of the stories in the New Testament?

Borrowing from Carl Sagan's creed, when I've asked proponents of Jesus' resurrection for extraordinary evidence (extra evidence, more than the usual amount of evidence for a given historical figure), they say we actually have more evidence for Jesus' existence than many very well established historical figures. In other words by ways historians get information on the validity of fact-person over fictional-person, Jesus wins this compared to many other historical figures we today assume are real. Of course, this is just Jesus' existence... I don't think I've ever heard any New Christian say that we have more or even as much evidence for Jesus resurrection than another historical figure doing a specific act or deed. Maybe they will address this contention sometime for me.

Also, it seems they miss my point about the "extra evidence" I require. Even if Jesus has more historical proof than Alexander the Great or whatever historical figure we take for granted it doesn't matter - I don't have to GIVE MY LIFE to any other historical figure except Jesus ... if the gospel is true. So give me something more than shitty spotty evidence if you expect me to give more than a moment's notice of learning who you are like I would with Alexander the Great. You need to earn my following with more and better evidence!

Say it is true ... let's give the proponents of Jesus resurrection the benefit of the doubt and say ALL the eye witness testimonies are really people that are all reporting the same thing. They are real testimonies, not fabricated or falsified. It seems what we are left with is what the Christian apologist wants - accurate, multiple eye witness testimonies of Jesus after he was raised from the dead! Is this proof of the truth of the gospel?!

Well, I would suggest that if we are to use this "multiple eye witness testimony" as valid proof of an event taking place then we must take into account many other events in human history. The Christian apologist would likely be a skeptic in many of these other "multiple eye witness testimonies" such as UFO sightings or other religious experiences. In fact there have been several UFO sightings that have not only been witnessed by multiple people and reported to the local news, but have also been filmed by multiple people! So why would anyone be skeptical when we have film of this account? Why would people that accept multiple eye witness testimony as evidence of an event that happened thousands of years ago and was written down decades after the event not accept an event that multiple people experienced and even filmed?

This is inconsistent. And shows your confirmation bias, New Christians. Address this. Now let me address you:

What we do know is that eye witness is one of the WORST lines of evidence to rely on. Multiple court cases in this country alone have shown this to be the case. We are wired for bias. Listen to this for an example of what I'm talking about:

http://www.npr.org/2015/07/06/418585084/the-new-science-behind-our-unfair-criminal-justice-system

We are pattern seeking mammals and we are inclined to make major mistakes in connecting patterns and forming theories in our heads; creating false stories, attaching blame, biased for those reflecting our race, gender, and socioeconomic status. We are not reliable. It's a fact. And these biases and unreliable, unfair connections have real consequences convicting the wrong person in trials. We are horrible at identifying things from memory and our memory is faulty. And this is all in 2015, we are talking about thousands of years ago when we talk about Jesus' resurrection. Why on Earth should we be inclined to assume our memory was better then? Why on Earth would we assume that biases weren't at play in the eye witness testimonies of Jesus? Why do we mostly all understand that eye witness testimony (even from multiple sources on a single event) in 2015 is unreliable yet somehow think multiple eye witness testimony is somehow reliable in the past? Magic? We can say magic I guess... God's magic? Faith? That illogical gap there was all fuzzy wuzzy woo to connect it all together? We should just have faith in this? There is a certain level of faith here? Is this it? Honestly, New Christian?

Then you've lost me in an intellectual discussion... You're whole "proof of Jesus' resurrection" comes tumbling down in front of us. Multiple eye witness testimony proves fucking nothing! And you know it. Stop saying it does. You have a deep confirmation bias for your tribe to be the right one, for your religion to be the right one, for your god to be the right one. It's dishonest, it's clearly special pleading when you do not treat other claims the same as you do yours.

There is a something that seems crystal clear to me the more I look into it. Religion is like a colossal worldwide role playing game. It's followers are like those who obsess over the details of Lord of Rings or Game of Thrones. Only with a role playing game or these movies and shows, people know it's not real. In religion you embody cognitive dissonance at it's purest form. You start with a completely faulty premise, with no evidence to support it- the concept of God. A premise that has been hashed out and debated for thousands of years, but a concept that when specifics of a theistic god are examined have been debunked philosophically and scientifically years ago. The logical arguments are over.

The game is over but these people are still playing it as if it is real! Christian Universities flooded with budding New Christians eager to learn about the details of real-life-"Dungeons and Dragons/Religion", youth groups, church camps, mega-churches, apologetics seminars all hashing over the minute details of something that is all made up. Something that has no actual concrete foundation in science, logic, or anything in the real world at it's core. It's all smoke and mirrors reflecting emotion, community, fear, tribalism, superstition- each bouncing off each other in different combinations....

All built on .... Nothing.

I understand the pull. I used to be religious. I wrote a blog about what I think is happening regarding "human deep time" and the draw to the ancient woo... by default many things look magical and mystical from this vantage point so far from it's origin.. Religion began a long, long time ago, many different ones existed, those that survived human history still contain that "magical" and "mystical" pull that gets us because we realize it's old so it must be revered and it must be wise.

It's not, it's vestigial. It's not real. You are not talking to someone other than yourself when you pray. You are not pulling the laws of nature to adjust this or that because your imaginary father in heaven is at your call. This is absurd and it's well past time to put these things to rest. You are playing a game that is all it is, dear New Christian,... please let it go with the rest of us that realize we do not need these mental crutches anymore. If it means a purposeless universe.. at least we're not lying to ourselves and hashing out details of a fantasy to make consciousness easier for our species! Your lines of evidence are faulty and you are very deeply clouded in your own confirmation bias - steeped in culture and family history. It's weighing you down and you know it. You know the intellectual debate has been lost years ago and at best we are left with a sort of deistic god. A god that is indistinguishable from an atheistic worldview. Just let it go. We're not alone in the universe. We have each other ... There is a lot of us here on the other side waiting for you! I hope you come over soon. We'd love to have you.

Sources:

William Lane Craig: Did Jesus Raise from the Dead?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NAOc6ctw1s

Timothy Paul Jones on "How We Got the New Testament":
https://vimeo.com/131499553

News report of UFO sightings by multiple eye witnesses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaBZyBTRiM

UFO Cases with Multiple Witnesses:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/Cases/CaseView.asp?section=multiplewitnesses

Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforando:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unfair-adam-benforado/1120377337?ean=9780770437763

Victory! God's Will Was Done! - Planned Parenthood Survives: More Thoughts on Christians and Abortion (A Blog Short)

But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 

- Numbers 5:20-21

Today God's will was done on the floor of the U.S. Senate! Just hours ago the Senate democrats voted to NOT cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood... proving either God has no power on American democracy or that God's will is for Planned Parenthood to continue to have federal funding .. OR one could always just go with the standby - it's because of "the fall" or that this world is cursed by the worst evil angel or something. It works this way with prayer too! Those that prayed for Planned Parenthood to be defunded did not have their prayers answered. Why? God's will? Mysterious ways maybe? Whatever answer you get in reality to your prayer there is always a "Christian reason" for that answer. It couldn't just be random life events playing themselves out at all in a universe devoid of cosmic purpose or anything. No. That's just unthinkable!

This whole debacle stemmed from a heavily edited undercover video by a conservative news group that has been proven misleading due to the parts being edited out. Also, all news is edited, yes - but what you find scrapped on the editing floor, so to speak -if it in fact changes the context when put back in and disproves the very thing you are suggesting this edited video proves -- then THAT'S dishonest. That's like quote-mining or cherry picking scientific data to prove your stupid points (something creationist morons like Kent Hovind Ray Comfort do constantly.)

Republican congressmen and Christians old and new alike took to the blog-o-sphere and social media calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. #DefundPlannedParenthood While this was happening basic facts on the ground lay ignored, brushed aside, or possibly just undiscovered by the supporters of this legislation. This would easily be corrected with a mild skepticism and a quick fact check that would lead readers to what Planned Parenthood actually does! Only about 3% of what Planned Parenthood does daily are abortions (of which 90% or so are before the first 20 weeks, and no federal funding is allowed for this - which seems like the point of this whole fucking thing!!!) So by cutting Planned Parenthood essentially those that follow Jesus are denying help to poor women. Something Jesus would say you were doing unto him ... Matthew 25:31-46. Nicely done there.

Dear Christian, here is another idea to consider - In 2013 and 2014, over 3.5 million patients were provided birth control services by Planned Parenthood. This was something many Evangelical Republicans were against. But that’s about 3.5 million potential abortions prevented! You cannot logically have it both ways. Have some foresight! what would happen if you would have gotten your way today and Planned Parenthood was defunded? Suddenly these millions of people are without birth control which of course will lead to more abortions! Just think about what you are doing before calling something to be defunded completely by the federal government. Plus, as I've stated many times before 97% of what Planned Parenthood provides is healthcare for women, and even men. This includes breast screenings to check for breast cancer, contraception, free STD tests all for women who cannot afford them in our crazy mostly-FOR-profit health system in this country!

Are there issues with Planned Parenthood? Of course, my libertarian friend rightly pointed a few of them out to me in an email today, but we have to look at the priorities of the Christian Republicans. See where loyalty ultimately lies. My friend is not like a typical Republican. He's consistent, but most of the Republicans calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood are not! Unlike my libertarian friend, they don't have a problem with corporatism in Wall Street (where no one of the lower class benefits) but point out the evil corporatism in Planned Parenthood (which women of lower incomes DO benefit). All I'm saying is the priorities are backwards... we can talk about reinventing Planned Parenthood (as "sometimes libertarian" Rand Paul wants to do) to non-profit groups and so on but let's first focus in on corporatism and crony capitalism on Wall Street, or the banks, and large corporations... then we'll get to a this program that gives healthcare to poor women.

***Late Addition -

Dear Christian, 
... as you sulk about the Planned Parenthood legislative decision today, reminding me of the still continued sulking of the Supreme Court Decision (you know those evil black robed elites that legislate from the bench! - which of course you were FOR in deciding our President in "Bush Vs. Gore") -- can you answer why you're weeping over terminating human fetuses without a central nervous system is not on par with actual death of innocent children in say Iraq in our last war? Most of the Christians I knew then were in full support of that war of choice and we didn't hear a single peep on the crushing of a baby's skull by an American bomb or a sharp shooter blowing the head off of a child as we saw at the beginning of Clint Eastwood's movie. These are actual babies, fully developed children not the size of a kidney bean. 

There is disproportion in your lament of early death. And of course, this is just human beings. The overwhelming majority of Christians I've met in my lifetime consider the Earth something we are commanded to "subdue" - which of course means supporting the mass consumption of animals - the genocide of other species of animals by our hands is just God's intention for his favorite species. These ideas, this dogma that puts humans above the animals in all things, and pulls us out of the natural order is at the core of the problem with the global environment we are facing today. We are like giant toddlers, using toddler logic (just look at the 2016 GOP Presidential candidates for a clear example of this.) This country is getting more progressive though... as we've seen lately and I think we are experiencing the death throws of an antiquated, outdated way of viewing our place in the cosmos - religion.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out. American may be joining the rest of modern industrialized countries at the grown up table soon. We will see. 

"Tea Party Republicans"... Love big government that hurts people and are against big government that helps people. Fuck them. - A text from "Gog" 1 min. ago.