“IF”

Why are atheists so mad at god? I have heard this several million times, and apologists even posing that statement at famous atheists. The answer as always, is quite simple. Often leaving out one key point, allows apologists a foothold to say “see, they believe in god, they’re just angry with him”. That key point, when discussing atrocities and misery on the world is the word “if”. If there was a god, he is not the kind and loving father religion claims. He is all the things scripture and preachers teach against and more. God kills, tortures, exterminates, shames, oppresses, mutilates, enslaves, and decimates. Those that preach the loudest are usually the most guilty. “God is love” is a ploy to distract the evidence and cover the truth. Giving him credit for a saving one person from a tsunami that kills 300,000 people is just so spiritual, Isn’t it? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. If it kills like a genocidal maniac, starves out populations, causes death plagues on a fifth of the worlds populations, it is an evil god, not a good god. “If” there was one.

More Abrahamic Tragedy Continues

My friend Max, TheDecentAtheist and deconvert of Islam has an interesting post about the pre pubescent boys of the Muslim world. The story is much bigger than the post, but he opens the door to this atrocity of the Abrahamic Mindset in the middle east.

Here is a link if your not familiar with Bacha Bazi (boy play) in the Muslim world, and here is a story outlining the initial accidental investigation. It is prevalent among the clerics, police, and government officials. Only pious, highly moral people can perpetuate this type of evil on this type of scale. Monotheism at its finest.

Interpreting Scripture or Rationalizing

It was pointed out to me that our interpretation of scripture is uneducated and misguided. I made a comment,”his interpretation sounds like all he’s doing is rationalizing for god”. The answer:

“Absolutely not. It would be called rightly interpreting the Bible, Jim. Ignoring the cultural context, genre, analogical language, or explanatory scope would be superficially treating the text, thus, reading it wrongly.” More rationalizing, or no?

I need an excuse for this “scripture” please. Or is it the interpretation of the original I’m struggling with?

“Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly. Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place. And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.”

‭‭Judges‬ ‭19:22-29‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Correct interpretation? It is only a religious zealot that would not defend his daughters life to his own death.

Bully Sticks and Converts

My son in law has a beauty of a German shepherd pup. He’s 8 months old and just untrained, goofy, and overly friendly. They have been giving him bully sticks for chew treats and he just loves them. I’m happy the dog is happy, but does he know he’s eating dehydrated bull penis? I don’t have the heart to tell him, but would he understand anyhow?

Christian newbies can also be full of zeal and eager to share their recent conversion in praise to their lord. But do they know what the ingredients are? When one finds out the inner fallacies of the church and the discrepancies and excuses, what kind of taste is that going to leave in his pallet? One can try to spruce it up with seasonings or cut it up and add it to a stew, but deep down he knows he’s still digesting a line of BS. If he tells his friends the bowl is full of bull penis first, do you think there would be any takers. The facts of religion must be disguised to be palatable for human consumption. And once you know what’s in it, you won’t want to try it no matter how you slice it.

Bible Facts

The typical bible has an average of 1,189 chapters. These are made up of 31,173 verses and using a rough word count, this amounts to 807,370 words, although the King James Authorized Bible has 780,137 words. Using a standard font, the average bible has around 1200 pages depending on the version. I scoured the Bible for other facts to no avail. And studies outside the Bible regarding evidence is nearly non existent. However, the evidence that it claims itself to be true apparently is good enough.

Moral Argument; The Answer in a Nutshell

You want to see this absolutely brilliant crop dusting of the Christian argument for morality see this post and read the comments. They spent the next several hours trying to address only selected verbiage and imho without question lost, and resorted to cherry picking points with Branyanistic name calling and Mel moving the topic goal posts. It was masterful ! Here’s the first comment-

“I’ve always found the morality argument for a god to be the absolute weakest for the simple reason that we have hard evidence that this thing we call “morality,” which is really nothing but a formative sense of good (positive) and bad (negative) behaviour, is a product of neurological processing power. The more neurons, the more accute an organisms understanding of it. Countless studies, across numerous species, prove this beyond any rational doubt. It is not a human phenomena, and its anything but complicated- John Zande

Finding My Faith Groove With So Many Choices

I once had the difficult decision of selecting the right faith. I really like the Seventh Day Adventists. Nice people, eat right, and family values. But worship on Saturdays is just a big red flag right from the start. Bama Football is on Saturday, so I looked for a Sunday church. Plus the fact that Saturday worship is so important that sinning against it meant going to hell. I thought it was a little early for that!

Mormons seemed pretty cool, but the meeting put me to sleep. Funeral home ambience is the closest I can get to an accurate description. If that is the requirement for conviction, I just don’t have the stamina. Wow they cry a lot.

So many people are becoming Muslim these days I thought I’d give that a quick look. I signed up and got a free monogrammed prayer rug for my five a day devotional prayers. Sounded pretty cool, but highly impractical as a teacher. Word got out to the parents that I would drop and pray during class time and later that week I attended the longest school board meeting in the history of school board meetings. A hot topic for sure, was the kids didn’t know what the hell was going on. Two of them stopped, dropped, and rolled, and 9 of them got under the desks for earthquake drill. And I learned too, that we live in a Christian community and carrying a Janbiya to school is a nono. I didn’t know there was a difference being all children of Abraham. But wow! I did manage to keep my job though.

Unification Church sounded pretty cool. I mean, who doesn’t want to be unified? I went to the first meeting and they took my phone and I spent three days in a locked conference room with little food and no contact with the outside world. I learned some cool chants and was able to “send out” and “receive” a fair amount of love and actually got to act it out. The “insertion” part was cool. There was a calm aura all around. The Handkerchiefs, Holy Garments and Holy Water thing was weird. I can’t throw it away! Where do I keep this shit? When I got done for the weekend I felt like I’d been spiritually flattened and needed to check into a rehab somewhere. I still haven’t told my wife where I was.

So I guess the search continues. Next week I check out Assemblies of God to see if I can get rid of this limp, and then I’m doing the Jehovahs Witness. Hoping to get in on the “144,000” thing. I wonder if I get a special poker chip or something to save my spot? I am hesitant to go into a building with no windows though.

33,995 Christian denominations and 37,000,000 others to go. That shouldn’t take too long since they all claim they’re right.

No Wrong, No Doubt

Honesty and Christian apologetics is the fifty first shade of grey. Advancing the lords work requires the utmost skill and knowledge, and serious fudging of the truth from time to time. “I don’t know” is an ok answer, but confirming any personal doubt or lack of knowledge is not the apologist way. No chink in the armor of god can be displayed.

As I can only speak for myself, here is why I immersed myself in apologetics–Doubt, Doubt, Doubt! Doubt is what puts you into apologetics. After many years of innocent faith you investigate below the surface and come to the crossroads of doubt. Next, spend the rest of your life trying to prove you’re not naive and gullible. I spent 20 years reading Qumran, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea scrolls, and miles of Bible commentary and scripture trying to find proof and validation. I never did. But in Christianity the conversion process is to “believe” before you know the details, then apologetics takes the rest of your life wading through cleverly worded arguments trying to prove yourself right. Faith, them knowledge, then doubt, is the fuel that keeps Christian apologetics alive. And doubt is inevitable when there is no substance but supernatural hearsay.

Archeologists Discover Massive Water Valve

TCA Newsflash 2-17-2018

Happy World Flood Day!!

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Northcoast Oil And Hydrocarbon (NOAH) geologists coupled with geophysicists and a Johannesburg based archeological team unearthed a massive water valve south of Addis Ababa during an open pit oil investigation. Dubbed immediately ” The fountain of the deep”, the valve measures 30 meters in diameter and is made of an unknown metal component. The valve is free of rust and appears operational.

“This is no coincidence ” says team leader Jorge Medirás. The discovery occurred on world flood day, commemorating 4365 years since the great flood. A memorial service is planned to honor the 8 survivors.

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep were opened up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭7:11‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Archaeologists are currently deciphering curious markings indicating at least 12 additional pre Babylonian valves are in existence at various global locations. No windows have been discovered. More to follow.

How to Separate the Facts from the Myths?

Some excellent points from Ark in yesterdays post, and some unanswered questions from Mel, who is not taking a fundamental approach to believing the Bible, such as the Adam and Eve story or Noah’s ark, but we are to believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection. Other than some place names in the Bible that we know exist, how can we determine which is fact and which is fable?

Science is a Matter of Trust, Not Faith

I may have cracked the code on this one.

Trust – reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.

Faith- “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews‬ ‭11:1‬ ‭KJV‬‬

I do not have an iota of faith in science, but I do place some trust and confidence in science and scientists because of the prior and continued successes all around us. It has a track record of measurable performance. Religion still has none. The paradox of religious faith is also found in scripture. Let this next part soak in a second.

“If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” John‬ ‭3:12‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Was Jesus a scientist, or better yet, astrophysicist? The Greek word for heavenly is Ouranos, pronounced (oo-ran-os) meaning – heaven, the visible heavens: the atmosphere, the sky, the starry heavens. I digress.

Monotheistic premise today does not believe the earthly obvious, but holds to faith to explain what is otherwise clearly known.

Fundamental knee jerk resistance to science is holding the religious hostage to faith. If they won’t even admit to proven basics, how will they understand more complex disciplines like physics and evolution?

MLK was Right for the Wrong Reasons (maybe)

Martin Luther King said “our scientific power has surpassed our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men”. I was using that as a rally cry to abandon faith, recognizing that faith has been passed for good reason. Faith is a go nowhere stagnation that requires all your devotion for a lifetime of wishing. But King had some noteworthy insights in this short article that are thought provoking and unifying to humanity.

Dr Seggy and I were chatting on a previous post and he had some positive insights about this topic. His sister is literally terrified of the science. He said “I think it is slow (the change) because it’s that important. We can’t undo thousands of years of indoctrination with a few decades of scientific discovery that easily. So we need to work hard at promoting more critical, more logical and scientific thinking and yet be patient still”.

So it’s full speed ahead but with patience. Remember it took nearly 900 years to relinquish the beliefs in the Greek Gods at sometime in the 9th century. Most likely the last of them were converted to monotheism at the Mani Peninsula near Greece. So we have a lot of work to do to transition the religious to science. About 700 more years. We’re still in the pioneering phase. I would even venture a guess that this is just the evolution of the process.

Simply Said

There are no sacred places or sacred books, just unfounded beliefs

via Weak foundations — nomdeplume

1820 Apostate Memoir

Unknowingly an innocence of my own doing struck calamity to my congregation a fortnight ago. To me it was a most natural of decisions that caused all of the fuss, but to them it was tears of the grandest sobbing heartache. When I no longer believed, it was the only logical conclusion to leave faith behind and make my own way in the world.

Reasons for my departure were no less than two small things that glared an ominous stare into my logic for two score and two years. The first being the inefficacy of prayer, and the other being the ambiguity of the book and the conjecture of the preachers.

How many offered prayers have disappeared into the vastness of space in behalf of me and my kin? How many silent mumblings have I uttered, calling upon god to walk with me and enlighten with his counsel? Hundreds of days I dare say (with a hint of current embarrassment) have distracted me from focusing on other tasks laid before me. Waiting as I did for the almighty to give me a clear hint of inspiration, I’m sure a year or two of days was spent on such matters. And not one time in all my efforts did he make himself known to me. I addressed the issue with my current and former ministers and each encouraged me to continue on, that god’s ways were at best difficult to know, and nearly impossible to understand. I relented. Acquiescence is a terribly wasted life in my opinion as of now, although being the faithful type I did “give in and let God”, as they say. Let god do what, dare you ask? That is a good question and presume at this point you will hear my answer.

At ten minutes per day of prayer and a brief study over 40 years equals 2433 hours. Just a hundred days of my life. But if that were all I would be content. I attended faithful mind you, and also kept the building at times and performed various duties on the lords errand.

Classes to be taught and monies to count and meetings and conferences to attend to. On average I would venture a modest guess at about 7-10 hours per week. Even as a boy there was labor and classes and seminaries to attend. On the low side of 7 hours per week I could safely render an accurate guess of about 806 full days including my morning and evening rituals and not including travel.

And at what point might you expect the lord to show himself in some subtle, fantastic way? Day 807? No. That is the day I had a moment of clarity, skipped meeting and went to the river. It was over. Not one thing had worked as promised, though faithful I had continued all those years. In my mathematical studies I can most frequently determine answers of the most perplexing kind. In religion, no answer given is sufficient to cross the void of truth or evidence. Faith is a manipulative ploy with no end to measure. I will let god proceed and continue what he always favored. Nothing at all. Good day! Jim-TCA

Better off Without the Law

Adding burdens to an already busy life is the Christian way. They can’t help but share, but are we better off not knowing? Without the law we cannot come under condemnation from their god?. “Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭4:15‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“So, according to Bible, if you don’t tell me, I am not accountable. So why are you telling me? I have a guess…but please,…

I feel compelled by the sprit to make a word correction to a popular verse. What is promised versus what is real are most often two different things.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you stress”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭11:28 KJV‬‬

Adding a new form of tactical manipulation filled with ambiguous writings and hidden meaning is not peace. Nor is sifting through endless interpretations excusing archaic morality and promoting divisions a form of rest. Quite possibly at the end of the verse it should say “the rest”. “The rest”of the story is adapting to a new way of life making excuses for unanswered prayer, or excuses for immoral scripture, or belief in 6 day creations, or unicorns and talking snakes, what day is the sabbath, and constant threat of hell and apocalypse. Rest? How about anxiety and non-answers to an already difficult life. Adding a new discipline takes time and effort. Living with Abrahamic religion always ever-present hell threat and manipulation promising relief if you can just “do it right” (if you figure out what that is in 30 years) is not rest. It is psychological tail chasing. And don’t get me started about prayer!! And don’t forget to shake the dust off your feet when you leave.

Careful Grabbing a Man by the Secrets

“When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:

Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭25:11-12‬ ‭KJV‬‬

So if any of you ladies have a husband in a fight, let him lose. A hand to the privies will cost you yours. Check this 30 second video on the related topic.

This advisory is brought to you by Grabbies. Grabbies is a registered trademark (R) Rated M for mature

How we do it?

First we pray and wait for the Holy Spirit to inspire us. Then, based on conflicting messages we choose the answer that best suits us. When things don’t work out we ponder what god really meant, then usually stick with our bad decision based on initial inspiration and ask others to pray too. We don’t want to admit prayer doesn’t work, or give off the message that god is wrong. That would be near blasphemous.

Healing Notes

By solely being born to a family of religious tendencies, I oft said things that made the greatest of past bigots roll over and groan. They weren’t my words but fathers. By sheer luck I was born to a fundamental Christian home that prospered according to strict obedience to biblical law as they had the most perfect sense about it. “Every jot and tittle” as they say, was of supreme importance and likely right as father whip would convince even the finest heathens of its truth.

Father partied and played the girls when he was young

Father came to Jesus and his freewill took our freewill away

Now we all obey god or else father whips us with a belt

I can quote scripture I learned as a young child that keeps me close to Jesus

When I am older my children will never see a bible because I don’t think people like being preached or slapped

Mother caught me playing with myself and I am going to hell with all the other filthy people

Jesus died because of me.

When I am older maybe my children will find god on their own. I hope not.

The Way it Was

I, Having been indoctrinated and guided carefully into belief and faith most of my life, and having studies most lengthy and focused in one particular area of religion I have come to the point where the things I believe, even though preposterous, I believe are true. They will stand the test of time and scrutiny, for my knowledge of these beliefs is vast and as solid as the very foundation of reason and right. I cannot be swayed in my faith, for god has shown me through revelation and feelings and the persuasion of his servants the truth, and now it is my obligation to share that truth with you. To push and persuade you to believe as I believe because I am right! My singular disciplinary approach has not given me the “well rounded” preposterous man made knowledge base to blend experience of the world and science causing a man made “common sense”, but my knowledge is directly linked to god through his prophets by his holy word. How can you doubt the truth when it is the most useful thing in the world to maintain order and peace? Through fantastic miracle, god has used regular men to convey his word in a most uncanny and unlikely fashion. He has used deplorable sinners, forgery, and money grubbing lying preachers to pass his truths and to preserve his words for all the world. Who could do this but a god? Who could circumvent the physical world and the learning of men in such a way as to bind their very tongues with his absolute truth and authority and perfection? My presuppositional truth will dare to challenge your very existence with an ambiguous, morally elastic, fraudulent piece of imperfect, infallible literature that causes the entire world to endless conjecture and debate. You will believe this “one” all perfect god has revealed himself, not to all his subjects, but to only those few that believe in him without any proof of existence. Neither spiritual nor physical evidence is needed. You will believe based on my word and the confusion the words create. You will believe in spite of doubt because of fear and persuasion of the most loving kind. This is the blindness of faith in gods. This is where a person stays without careful scrutiny of the facts and an ounce of self awareness. This is the prison of fear to peek outside the lens if faith and see the world is not as they said, and the courage to see inside the faith is not what they said either. This is the nonsense of being raised in faith. Professing wisdom they remain fools.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” -Aristotle

“You have the right to defend the belief that you are right, but in the end belief is not truth. Why is appearing to be right and self validation more important than truth?” You have nothing to offer to the discussion when all you have is belief. Jim

Trichoglyphs, Behavioral Traits, and a Russian Fox

Who would think the common hair whorl could spawn such genetic and behavioral implications?Trichoglyphs, or hair whorls in horses and cows and the direction of the whorl can predict certain behaviors such as left and right handedness and temperament. The higher the hair whorl in a horse, the more flighty and unpredictable the horses behavior. Dressage and jumping horses tend to be highly athletic and ambidextrous and double hair whorls are common in the sport. The clockwise or counterclockwise rotation of the whorl can also determine handedness in horses, and in K9’s making dog selection for guide and service dogs an important predictor in success. Right eye dominant dogs are less distractible when being led, and choosing the correct dog for such purposes can save time and training costs. “Dogs are both left- and right-handed, he explained, and this has an influence on their selection as guide dogs for the blind because the dogs are trained to work on a person’s left side. He cited a 2012 study in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research that showed that success was higher for right-preferent and ambidextrous dogs, and that the presence of a whorl on the dog’s left side of the head and thorax was associated with a right visual bias.

Abnormal and multiple trichoglyphs are common in birth defects in humans. Most notable in correlation with brain function abnormality. Hair follicle develops at the same time and from the same material as brain development in embryos.

Russian Fox Experiment

Dmitri K. Belyaev, a Russian scientist, may be the man most responsible for our understanding of the process by which wolves were domesticated into our canine companions. Article Here

Belyaev domesticated 40 generations of silver fox, retaining only foxes with mild temeperment towards human interaction. Not only did the foxes eventually behave like domestic dogs, but their physical characteristics changed as well. Drooping ears, changes in fur and odors were significant as well as cranial and jaw structures.

“Even Darwin noted, in On the Origin of Species, that “not a single domestic animal can be named which has not, in some country, drooping ears.” Drooping ears is a feature that does not ever occur in the wild, except for in elephants. And domesticated animals possess characteristic changes in behavior compared with their wild brethren, such as a willingness or even an eagerness to hang out with humans. If you don’t think evolution is possible, look at how one simple seemingly harmless invisible trait can virtually change the whole animal in a relatively short time frame.

What about us?

As we began our own “domestication” process 12,500 years ago, what were we like? Who were we? What changes in physical features and thought have happened to us? What caused us to collaborate our superstitions into groups defending and promoting a god? Has “civilizing” turned us superstitious and neurotic, or were we always that way?

Cherubims, Flaming Sword, Tree of Life In Bible Codes

TCA Newsflash

2-4-2018

Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan from google earth. Potential site of Garden of Eden has the arial appearance of marijuana, shedding additional light on what really happened with Adam and Eve.

Recently discovered clues in Bible codes apparently transcend one language translation to the next, proving god works in mysterious ways including in Japanese. Using a new supercomputer Tokyo biblical scholars have cracked a code in Genesis 3:24 from the New Interconfessional Version translated from the KJVe specifically to align with Japanese culture. The English text clearly shows an accurate description of what actually happened at the end of Adam and Eves tumultuous departure from the garden. It reads as follows.

“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭3:24‬ ‭KJV‬‬

The New Interconfessional Version reads like this.

“かみは人ひとを追おい出だ

し、エデンの園そのの東ひがし

に、ケルビムと、回まわる炎ほのお

のつるぎとを置おいて、命いのち

の木きの道みちを守まも

らせられた”

As you can clearly see from the Japanese translation the Cherubims and the flaming sword mentioned in verse 24, and using every second syllable of every fourth word identifies the exact location of the east end of the garden of eden. (If you missed it, don’t forget horizontal Japanese is read right to left) The CFOBR (Center For Oriental Bible Research) has a team of experts on the ground in two unspecified location in Canada. Wikileaks’s has identified a previous location and researchers are investigating the correlation. One team is at a bakery in Vancouver, the other in Saskatchewan.

Why Does The Word Worship Bother Me so Much?

Images of myself sitting at someone’s feet in continuous homage while they express their love to me as I obey their every desire. Prostrating routinely as they enter my presence so I can give sips of wine and hand feed grapes placing one at a time in the mouth of a superior being while softly singing songs of praise and greatness. Blessed be thy name oh holy god. All the while being very conscious not to mention any of the other gods, for my sweet everlasting is a jealous god and vengeance is looming. Eternal reverence and adoration. How heavenly as we look down at all the suffering fools that didn’t believe while coddling the majesty. Anyone want to join me in worship? 6:00 Tuesday PST. BYOB.

American Atheist Converted at Medjugorje, Bosnia

One of my very best friends went to the pilgrimage at Medjugorje, Bosnia while vacationing about five years ago to see Our Lady of MedjugorjeHe went as a skeptic. I want to give you just a short history of one of the smartest people I know. He has the best memory recall of anyone I have ever met, loves to study the sciences and religion and many other disciplines, and he is currently active in coaching and teaching at a collegiate level.

He went up to Medjugore completely convinced it was nonsense and looking to see what all the talk was about. He came down as a believer. He saw the apparitions and the images dancing in the sun. He could look directly at the sun and suffered nothing. He felt something special he can’t explain. Raised catholic but operated as an atheist since late teens. Now he is an active catholic and a 100% believer. He can’t explain it. Can you? I can’t help but believe there is a logical or psychological explanation. One thing I do know, the Catholic Church regards the first visit to the children a miracle. They are remaining skeptical about the continued messages delivered by Mary.

Phil also stated that “not everyone that goes sees it. Only those meant to see it I guess” Another question I would pose, do people that have no prior knowledge of the site see the miracles? It’s not obvious what your mind is going to do with the stored knowledge and expectations or reservations of any specific event. Here is some good read and video if you haven’t seen it, and this is an email answer I got from Professor Taboo. “Bottom-line? Neurological and endocrinological explanations are quite plausible in all cases of ‘paranormal’ activity and visions/hallucinations. The pilgrimmage/hike in Medjugorje, Bosnia contributes to those physiological conditions…. as they do in other parts of the world. When large groups/crowds all participate/perform the “worship” together, it makes it all even MORE intense — the Placebo-effect.”

Further reading and Other Insights

What is it They Want?

“I shall speak forth my sentiments freely, and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house I consider as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we have. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense?” –Patrick Henry-

How long must we bow to the untestable, ambiguous, immoral, misinterpreted, oft quoted pseudo knowledge of divisive fable of a god that is created to control minds of the superstitious and believed by the gullible masses? How many prayers must be offered into the vacuum of space without a hint of reciprocity before we can open the minds of those masses and reach meaningful human potential?

If sensible people don’t have a sensible discussion, stupid people will have a stupid one.

Believers and Make-Believers – Is there a difference?

Believers in Make-Believe were congratulating themselves after two hours of debating and attempted grandeur. Is it possible to “win” a debate when all if your evidence is complete horse shit and smug showmanship? I read where John Lennox “wiped the floor ” with Dawkins. With what? Make-believe? The pluralistic ignorance of religion is strong. has some sweet history of success in other arenasNorth Korea is the current leader several Muslim countries all tied for 2nd place. Keep moving and agree. It’s safe there. But nowhere on earth can beat the USA in pluralistic ignorance about biblical histories that have been debunked years ago. Accepting fraudulence is a way of life for make-believers. Remember the story that broke about gold plated chariot wheels found in the Red Sea. “What they found strewn across the bottom of the reed sea has shaken the religious and scientific community,” says Rood. “Cameras mounted on remote-controlled submarines revealed coral-encrusted chariot parts, horse and human remains strewn like battlefield wreckage on the bottom of the reed sea.” Years later they are still working the story which was fake news. Snopes. But there are new stories still on the web pushing this. Is it only here you can “be all that you can be” by hanging on to the disproved and claim a cover up is hiding the truth. Only in Christianity can you quote gospel commandments as gods law given to a prophet that didn’t exist. If you’re wondering “am I the only one?” No. You’re not!

The Gospel Behind Apparitions

TCA News Podcast Script 1a

2-2-2018

Apparitions caused quite a stir in out last segment, so let’s follow up with some explanations. Our first caller stated “The only reason I converted to Christianity in my teens was because I saw the face of Jesus in a tortilla”.

I wasn’t sure if the caller was being sarcastic or not, so we’ll address this on a serious note. “Your welcome. Was it a corn tortilla or flour? Tortilla de maíz or “corn tortilla” would signify Christ as a Latin American figure, while flour has a broader range of ethnicities and we could justify a white Jesus using that logic. Was the tortilla already cooked? Post resurrection apparitions are demonstrably more prevalent in cooked tortillas, whereas uncooked could have a range of 33 years to work with and could be a juvenile apparition ranging up to the bearded version we see the most. I’m happy you had such a spiritual encounter.It is remarkably as justifiable as any other I’ve heard”.

Other factors come into play here, but as the caller took the answer off the line, I’ll have to assume a few follow up questions here. Was the tortilla an authentic variety or store bought? Store bought tortillas are uncommon for verifiable apparitions second to a strict assembly line structure. Authentic hand-made are more common as the transfers of belief systems can spiritually influence the potential outcomes. For the atheist homes, use a hot iron type press to maintain apparition free tortillas.

Branyan Apologist

TCA Newsflash

2-1-2018

Christian apologist and ego-fed blogger John Branyan made the pages of the world renown Urban Dictionary today from his Indiana home. Branyan, famous among locals as the “little apologist that could”, had few words for reporters, which is rare for the “eager pleaser of the man from Nazareth”. Fame and notoriety are nothing new for the man known as “Brain Yawn”, in certain blogging circles. Branyan Apologist! It’s official! Congratulations John. Although not accustomed to having anything approved, Urban Dictionary set a new approval speed record of 28 seconds. Seems they knew you were coming, lurking, watching, waiting to pounce and mine out any potential opportunity for conjecture. Congratulations!

Famous Apparitions

How much more proof do you need?

Debate Terminology

The Branyan should not be confused with the Gish Gallop nor confused with Argumenteum ad Nauseum in which the same point is repeated many times. In a Gish Gallop, manybullshit points are given all at once, while the Branyan conveys as many non-points as possible in the most amount of comment space and is impervious to self-contradiction.

synonyms– word salad,

Family Farm

I know some of you are animal lovers. For 3507 years now my family has been keeping a pretty big flock of a mixture of special animals. We saved them as kind of a hobby. When the book of Job came out, Behemoths became the rage. My dad bought one at an auction and he’s had it ever since. He said it may be a collectible some day. Man he got that right. I don’t think it will ever die. The thing is cursed or something. Our hay bill is outrageous, but since we feed it instead of tithing it’s probably cheaper in the long run. I did some sketches since they don’t like being photoed. Ever since dads daguerreotype caught on fire they hide from the camera.

He also bought a Leviathan as a baby. We kept it in a small pool so it didn’t get big. They’re like goldfish and stay small if you hold back the food and keep the pool small. It’s a nasty little thing but dad likes it since it talks a lot. I’m pretty sure this would be the beast from revelation, so keeping it small is probably the best thing.

When dad was just a kid he picked up a serpent looking thing in the garden. He says it used to talk to him, but sometimes I just think dad talked to it a lot when he was little. It’s about as smooth as a used car salesman though.

His pet dragon is the coolest of them all. Frickin thing is ancient and still lays eggs. I was raised on them. We never need matches or anything. I tried to get dad to convert its stall to a thermal breathing heater but he never did. All that energy wasted all these years. He says he bought it from a guy on Patmos Island? Where is that any way?

Well, there’s more but I have to go out and feed. I lost a finger last week to that fuckin cockatrice so I feed it last just to piss it off. Little bastard!

Gods Morals versus Humanist Morals

“The greatest insult to humanism is that man needs a god in order to have a moral framework. The moral framework that comes from god is always tested against mans own morals and the idea that we don’t know right from wrong. But then we have to take it from words dictated from a rather hot-headed neurotic desert tribe is just insulting” -Stephen Fry. It’s so easy even a comedian gets it!

The humanist morals compared to the morals of the nomadic tribe? Hmm

Secular humanism. “The philosophy or life stance of secular humanism embraces human reason, ethics, social justice, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience, and superstition as the bases of morality and decision making”.

It is painstakingly ridiculous to sift through an archaic and divisive text dictated by a cruel nomadic desert tribe thousands of years ago to determine which is moral or immoral for our time. Theirs was an immoral and violent time that would not pass any litmus test of decency today.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” ~Albert Einstein

But imagination with knowledge……Unimaginable–TCA

Panama Apocalypse

It happened again. A 5.7 quake in Los Santos Province of Panama near my home there. The world is ending and god is coming to wipe out the sinners and wrap the believers in his arms for eternal hugs and stuff like that. My evangelical neighbors down there are hoping to be alive to see it all play out. And they hope its soon and they will be lifted up in rapture to god while massive bloodshed and revenge and vengeance for all those wicked homosexuals and atheists unfolds. Not sure why they want to be around to see all the carnage other than the mind of a blood-cult, pious, holier-than-thou baptist saint shouting out SEE, SEE. We told you so!

I think if god existed he would judge Christians for the way they treat gays and unbelievers and other faiths. One of their core tenets is that in the end god is coming to destroy all of us. They pray for it. They welcome it. It’s in the doctrine. Meanwhile nothing gets solved while they sit and wait behind a line of piety drawn in the sand of self righteous racism and bigotry. They fight every social advancement and scientific progression. That’s who they are. That’s why I write!

Were Abraham and Muhammad Primatologists?

What distinguishes Abrahamic Religion from the apes? The apes could not write their ideas of territory, food, male dominance, and sex into law. It was all about protecting what they had and staying at the top of the clan.

Wrought for Change

Sounds like the humanist-pig natives lost this round. Columbus wrote “the natives are so naïve and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.”

He also wrote,

“I believe that they would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they had no religion.”

“The European settlers took a free society without possessions, property, currency, hierarchy or written religion and replaced it with today’s America – the world’s shining beacon of selfish materialism, where every square inch of land/water/airspace is publicly or privately owned, taxed, and governed through a corrupt hierarchical system of laws and regulations where Mother Nature’s gifts are treated as personal possessions to be bought, sold, owned and defended. Howard Zinn “A people’s history of the United States ”

They also threw religion at their feet and forced them to comply or die.They stripped them of their heritage and language and families, and stole all that was left of their land and resources. It amazes me that there is one Native American or African Native Christian on the entire planet that carries on in this belief system that destroyed their beautiful ways of life. It is beyond me. I’ve had this question on the back burner for several years. Long before I was an atheist it amazed me how enthusiastically the black and native communities embrace Christianity. Why? How was this done?

The Requermiento, a document that offered the Indians a choice between salvation and slavery, helped the Spanish “benevolently” force various Indian groups into the missions. The basic mission plan for Catholic missionaries followed a structure repeated by later groups and based on Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, which outlined a plan for Christian communities. Mission life revolved around and resembled rural European Christianity as much as possible, creating communities of Indians who ate, slept, and worked under the aegis of Christianity. Most missions had compulsory attendance at matins and masses, required all able bodies to work within the mission, and set up systems of governance using the patriarchal family as a model. Every day, Indians went to matins, worked in the fields, went back to church, worked in the fields, and then went home to a system where fathers and men ruled and met as councils, mimicking European societies more than biblical ones.

Essentially by eliminating the non compliant, it turned into generational compliance by remaining natives. Why are they still in it? And particularly, why are African Americans still in it so strongly? We all know their history here.

Fascinating Deconvert of Islam

I read this tonight, and knowing very little about Islam it was fascinating to read some of his posts to see an inside view of a different than Christianity twist from an Iranian Atheist. Very interesting read. http://decentatheist.com/2018/01/24/why-is-god-so-angry/

Why do Hard When Simple is Hard Enough?

I used to write a lot of songs and they just kept getting more and more complex, when finally my buddy said, “why do hard when simple is hard enough”? Musicians have made great music with two and three chord songs. Simple is beautiful. Perfecting simple is outstanding.

It is easy to get mired down in the weight of all the information trying to sway you this way and that. Try this: Go someplace quiet. Throw all your preconceptions and indoctrinations in a big pile and burn it. Think what it would be like to face everything you ever learned about religion was a lie. It’s a pill that needs to be swallowed. Think how easy this is without someone trying to influence you in order to validate themselves. Try to show a little self awareness and open your mind. You don’t need convincing circular conjecture and apologetics to know the truth. The truth rarely needs a footnote, or, an explanation to an explanation. You can’t justify one iota of doctrine, or one miracle or prayer unanswered without rationalizing the deficiency of god or being outright deceived. The cliches don’t solve your problem. They are these; “You pray in your time, and god answers in his time”. “We can’t imagine the wisdom of god”, or “He is testing your faithfulness. We just can’t comprehend god”, or “he wasn’t meant to be healed because god is testing his faith”. Why would god need to do that? These are some of the most common excuses for god, passed on from generation to generation. When you look at the objectives there is nothing here but excuses and ambiguous text of archaic language allowing for multiple interpretation and confusion. By design.

I know. I was in it for 50 years and nothing added up. I had several “spiritual” experiences that were based on lies. Positive emotion is not the holy spirit testifying to you. Feeling good by passing off your responsibilities to another entity is psychological feel good. Nothing more. Nothing has changed but the feeling someone is watching over you. They aren’t.

You don’t have to know the science behind it. I didn’t. All you have to do is face the reality that you might be wrong, and look at the failures of religion openly and honestly. It’s about three things. Power, control, and money. Every institution is corrupt. You think religion has escaped unscathed? Hell, they’re the ones that initiated all the corruption. Pointing fingers, deflecting and distracting. The devil has no horns. That is the trick. The devil wears a suit and tie and holds a microphone. Quit making excuses for gods and failed preachers and let’s start working towards something productive instead of wasting millennia of time running in circles chasing hidden meaning of ancient writing that doesn’t come true.

Why do hard when simple is hard enough? Life is pretty peaceful since dumping the hope of an invisible being that instills guilt and racism and has a history of mass destruction and murder. Why do hard when simple is where you find true peace. That is a motto to live by.

The Gods are Doin Their Thing

I’m a little upset with Boreas today. Snow is too wet and trees are down all over the property. Hoping all of my Dryads are safe and sound. I checked my Yggdrasil and it is doing ok. Yggdrasil is my immense mythical tree that connects the nine worlds in Norse cosmology.

And the turkeys came for a visit while I was cutting two trees off the road to the house. They love dinner rolls.

Thank Artemis they are good. Today I am a god. The god of snow shoveling.

2 James 6-9 found! New scripture Predicts Trump

I came across these while rummaging through some old papyrus I found in the basement.

6 Thus saith the LORD, Verily verily I say unto you in the last days one shall rise up in a choice land across the great waters and perform secret works of darkness upon all nations of the earth. And in those days all men shall use one voice to be heard every man in his own tongue like a river to every dwelling upon the face of the earth.

7 And secret works of darkness, and lascivious defilers of their own selves at war with many nations. And no man shall know the truth as all things are confusion and strife with knowledge abounding and fleeting truth as a slippery serpent.

8 Many shall cry lo here, and lo there, as the death of all nations creeps inward, the groaning earth will rock to and fro like a ship tossed on the waves of the deep. And the rulers of men work secret combinations to ensnare all the inhabitants of the earth with gold and with silver and with precious stones while blackness pours from all the deep places filling the earth with smoke and dust in all the waste places where no man shall hide.

9. Hear ye, hear ye children of the most high god. Repent for the hour is nigh that all the valleys will be raised up, and all the mountains shall be swallowed to the great depths, and all those that slumber shall open the earth wielding the sword of justice to all those that cast their lots for the son of evil masking as righteousness as the dawn trump sounds, boasting in the wisdom of a fool.

10 If any man adds or takes away from these sayings, blessed be his name for creativity sake. Hell why not? The scribes did it all the time. Interpretation is the key to good scripture. On an interesting note, neither America or the internet are in the Bible. How did they miss that? It’s ok. I fixed it.

Sex – vs – Violence

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone talk about a movie and say “there are no sex scenes, only violence”. Viewing killing has just become a way of life I guess, and what comes natural to all species is sinful to lay eyes on. Studies show most people have to be trained to kill. The military uses simulations and repetitive virtual killing of humans to condition soldiers to “hit” enemy combatants. In WWI and WWII trigger pulls per soldier were quite low, along with soldiers not aiming at the enemy. Essentially having to be trained to kill. “S.L.A Marshall did a study on the firing rates of soldiers in World War II. He found that the ratio of rounds fired vs. hits was low; he also noted that the majority of soldiers were not aiming to hit their targets. This was a problem for the US military and its allies during World War II. Soldiers were reluctant to kill another human even while under attack. New training implements were developed and hit rates improved. The changes were small, but effective. First, instead of shooting at bulls-eye type targets, the U.S. Army switched to silhouette targets that mimic an average human and killing increased dramatically. After implementing virtual reality simulation, and research shows that the more virtual people you kill, the easier it is to devalue other human life. A high percentage of soldiers today have killed thousands of people before ever enlisting in the military. Kids today are a shoe-in for high trigger pull ratios as they are desensitized to the reality of how horrific killing naturally is. They’ve already done it. Is war like a video game? Prince Harry of Wales thinks so. The Telegraph reported that Prince Harry compared piloting an Apache to playing a video game. He said,

“It’s a joy for me because I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful,” prince Harry stated. As a downtown medic I was on the front lines of urban death far too long. I remember my first, and I remember the last and every single one in between. The violence leaves a wake of panic and hysteria to the family left behind tying to make sense of it. It is ugly and senseless.

So, sex is labeled throughout the pious world as the great sin, while violence gets a pass. Hell, it even makes you a star!

Getting to Know You

I think it would be nice to share one cool memory from your life.

When I was 16–From the time I was very little I loved the outdoors. Like, no fear of the dark out in the middle of the woods gone all day exploring type of love. My junior year in high school I went to work at High Country Packers in the north central cascades. I lived in a wall tent and took guided tours and hunting camps on horseback into a remote wilderness area for the next 5 years. But only one time in my life have I truly been alone was three weeks one early summer. I cleared trails and camped in the back country and never saw another human being. I still like quiet. I remember when I came back to civilization and heard a voice speaking. It felt strange. I think if I had to choose another lifetime to live it would be the frontier America 1820-1880.

Celebration Occasion

After 88 years my old high school friend’s dad finally accepted Christ in his life. They are ecstatic and praising god. Although cumbered with terminal illness and a morphing pain pump, the hospice nurses at the facility were gracious enough to let the family sing to him and pray for him and read scriptures to him. He was reborn!! He accepted Jesus. Praise god! Finally at the end of his life he saw the light. Can one be saved in this altered condition? The poor guy finally caved in. They posted pics of kids and grandkids reading verses and singing to their bedridden captive audience. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But I did see it plastered on FB 2 days. Thoughts? Am I a sacrilegious bastard?

Here’s just one of the comments “He didn’t believe until now. We have had MANY conversations over the last 37 years, talking about the validity of the Bible, the statistical evidence. Once you understand those things, it almost takes more faith NOT to believe. ❤️ He finally was able to reconcile his science background with faith in Jesus, understanding they didn’t conflict”.<

All I can say is sarcasms sanctity surely swirls swiftly since Saturday’s savorous save. Jim

Ten Commandments

Which of the ten commandments has been most effective at preventing crime? Which one has stopped the most carnage, adultery, lying, and so forth? Do you have a personal experience where in a heat of passion and you were just about to kill someone, and you thought, wait! That’s against the rules?

H.G. Wells

“Investigations into the beginnings of religion have accumulated steadily throughout the past half century. It is only by great efforts of censorship, by sectarian education of an elaborately protected sort, and the like, that ignorance about them is maintained.”

H. G. Wells

Might is not Right

Bartolome De Las Casas sailed to the “New World” in 1502 and recorded many of the things he saw in his book, “The Devastation of the Indies”: Quote – “With my own eyes I saw Spaniards cut off the nose, hands and ears of Indians, male and female, without provocation, merely because it pleased them to do it … Likewise, I saw how they summoned the caciques and the chief rulers to come, assuring them safety, and when they peacefully came, they were taken captive and burned … (The Spaniards) took babies from their mothers’ breasts, grabbing them by the feet and smashing their heads against rocks … They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen at a time in honor of Christ Our Savior and the twelve Apostles …

Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive … When the Spaniards had collected a great deal of gold from the Indians, they shut them up in three big houses, crowding in as many as they could, then set fire to the houses, burning alive all that were in them, yet those Indians had given no cause nor made any resistance …They would cut off an Indian’s hands and leave them dangling by a shred of skin … they would test their swords and their manly strength on captured Indians and place bets on the slicing off of heads or cutting of bodies in half with one blow.”

On every island Columbus ‘discovered’ he planted a cross, claiming ownership for his Spanish Catholic patrons.

I do think the spaniards were doing there religious duty here according to Ezekiel. “When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”

‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭3:18‬ ‭KJV‬

The Finite Human Mind Cannot Comprehend

I’ve heard this one before, but I just want to know who gets to determine what I can comprehend? I think we’re ready now. Go ahead. Explain it.

Now I know how few people depend on Answers dot com for their religious questions, but this did get 7200 confidence votes from a guy named fowl1. Good job. Thanks for the material Christians.

Wednesday Affirmation

Hubble Captures Distant Images of Temples on Other Planets

According to an anonymous insider, The Vatican along with NASA’s HST division are withholding critical images proving that Mormonism is indeed more than a world religion. God has created “worlds without number” and recent Hubble images have captured LDS temples in other distant solar systems. LDS temple alignment and curious symbolism is literally a “modern day Mormon stargate “. Below are some codings in alignment from specific LDS temple architecture.

LDS officials routinely open these gates using a stellar map and detailed compass aligned with a curious sword that was deposited in the Hill Cumorah in upstate New York and retrieved by the prophet Joseph Smith.

Officials state ” we’ve had the answers for quite some time”, although common members are not currently participating in intergalactic travel because of “unbelief”, Church officials do commonly visit other planets to coordinate the various second coming scenarios soon to unfold.

“There’s only one Jesus, so these things take a little planning “. LDS doctrine teach “Christ’s atonement was for all of gods children, and in the big picture, that is a lot of worlds and a lot of people that need saving”.

Current leadership is also in pursuit of the Erdapfel globe. “We want it back”, for as rumored the globe is not a 15th century creation, but a much older relic of precolombian mesoamerican mormonism.

Why Fasting is Important

The first Sunday of each month the LDS have fast and testimony meeting. Members fast 24 hours as a general rule. Typically you would have dinner the night before, skip two full meals, than have dinner again the following evening. Somewhere between the 15-20 hour mark you’d have your testimony meeting. Mormons tout the health benefits and spiritual awareness of fasting, but rarely is the caveat considered. Fasting alters brain chemistry and sugar uptake Opening brain fazes to a more programmable state. During this drowsy state of weakened physiology you listen to 20 or so people tell you they know the church is true, and other anecdotal Mormon doctrine and testimony. The science of Physiology works! So does monthly brainwashing.

Bananas and Butterfly

Baby Panama bananas coming out of the pods and a cool butterfly 🇵🇦 These are both from my house on the Azuero.

Half Is Not Enough! Game of Acquiesce

Staring at me every day is a couple of glaring missteps in the religious model. Hearsay and opinion are the driving force of modern faith, and you only need to know the key points. But the devil is in the details. The text is incomplete and the revelations too vague. The origins are muddied with folklore and fable, and mythology is mixed with faith and canonized doctrine overrun with philosophy. The TV preacher will say, “see how god has done this”. No, sir, you have done this! The world has rejected reasonable good sense to pursue charlatan promises about a half read book with a large comment section, while most of the text is kept hidden away from public knowledge

Imagine any philosopher, or physicist or anything deciding they had learned all they needed to know halfway through freshman year quitting before fully comprehending anything! Religion is a kid that just got his yellow belt and wants to show off his karate. He doesn’t know enough to know he doesn’t know enough. But like most faithfuls he will quit the lessons and go on doing roundhouses in front of his buddies. Theist have a bible. An incomplete book of fragments and copies mixed with myth and folklore and a little paganism just to make it friendly. You read through it with a few friends, hear their testimonies and Boom! That’s all you need to know to start preaching. And usually a lot less. This is the wisdom that creates a klan. That is a dangerous juncture to start wielding the sword of righteousness judgement. That is zeal without knowledge. The other side of the coin is the “rather be safe than sorry approach” of Pascal, which is actually a game of acquiesce. You lose your fight and thirst for knowledge when you accept something reluctantly without protest and just give in to it. Just because. They make it too easy. All you have to do accept the free gift. Have you ever gotten a free gift with no forms, no obligation, no strings? No brainer, right? Click here and give your life away along with thinking for yourself. But that’s the way it is. I guess anything worth doing is usually just too hard. And learning takes time.

The LDS system turns kids out to proselytize before they can say boo. But they’ve memorized the key points. They get you into the temple to make lifelong covenants, without even telling you what you will be promising. Then as a large reverent group full of family and friends all raise your hand and make the oaths. If you won’t do it, you stand to be dismissed in front of the group. Who does that? They have to agree before they know what they are agreeing too. Total bullshit. Should be illegal honestly. But that’s the way christianity works. Get everybody to buy into it before they have the knowledge.

These columns are approx 4 light years tall from the vantage point of the Hubble. Awesome!

Panama Throwback

After chatting with Violet yesterday and then seeing Arks pictures I wanted to share some little Panama bugs. My best Grasshopper measured 3-1/2 inches.

What would you say if asked on TV and had ten seconds to say:

Priests and the Gutenberg Bible

Reading Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” published in 1831, and he breaks away on a sideline narrative to explain how the priests were afraid the printing press was going to replace the pulpit. Priests were in fear that everyone else could read their own Bible. Why? Wonder how they feel now, almighty google scholar? But with all the knowledge in the world available to us, has the information made the majority any smarter? When the words “look it up” are deemed too critical or offensive we have a problem. The level of apathy towards sound learning and reason is astounding. At least we still have the priests to tell us what it all means.

Illegal Atheist

Here’s what happens when the church runs the state with tight control and coerced belief in god. Believe or die! I had a comment a few weeks ago from Indonesia and he stated that he had to use careful wording or be accused of blasphemy. Saudi Arabia atheist are declared terrorists.

Even some US states have laws on the books forbidding atheists from running for office. Christianity’s moral high ground is to demonize non believers and elevate themselves with accusations instead living with integrity. Atheist represent 0.1% of prisoners in the US. We’re not that bad. Really!

How do you make someone believe something they don’t?

Debunking Untruisms

“There are no atheists in fox holes”. Truth –“there are no foxholes without theism”.

Celestial Hell. Heaven can Wait

I married young in the church. It was a mistake from the get go (should’ve listened to my atheist brother) but three kids and 6 years later we divorced. She left for me an old boyfriend and she went party crazy for the next 30 years. At 26 I married again in the church. I was very active and dedicated to the lord. He ran my life. But she was a “raging-bitch-lunatic- foam-at–the-mouth-kinda gal and I just couldn’t take another year. 17 years of mortal hell. I was done. Against the clergies council I filed for divorce. (I helped un-answer many prayers during my departure). Two Mormon women. Sealed to me for time and all eternity. I married a 3rd woman 10 years ago who I love and will be with til the end. She gave being Mormon a try, but since then the two ex-wives have gotten active and have strayed back into the church. I walked away from religion a few years ago with my wife and today we are atheists. Problem is the other two still think I’m going to be their husband in the next life if they stay faithful. They both have even told my current wife “we’re going to be Jim’s trio” in heaven. (Me NOT pictured below)

My wife had a good laugh (while I was having brief thoughts of suicide). We were never temple sealed and thank Prometheus I got out when I did.. Lord Jesus Hear My Prayer!! NO THANK YOU!!! Thought you could all use good laugh today at my expense as I dodge the imaginary bullet of eternal “Big Love”.

What to buy next?

When I commented the other day on a blog comparing the fallacy of atheism compared to Christianity, the guy fired back that I sound like a disciple of Dawkins and Ehrman, and then he blocked me. But the truth is, I have never read either of them. If the reasons I left faith are the same as they’ve written about, I guess you can figure it out on your own using you good old fashioned brain, minus what’s lacking in religion with sugarcoated faith. Prayers don’t get answered. Ever! But you all know the excuses. “God knows best”, or “he’s just testing your faith” or ” you pray in our time, but god answers in his time”. B frickin S! Then the scripture is an elastically moral fraud that demands ones full attention and years of endless debate and conjecture. The unsolvable religious Rubiks’s cube. I gave it my full attention. The reason I left is simple. Things never added up the way they were supposed to. Nothing made sense unless it was explained over and over. Then someone would explain the explanation so the explanation made sense. But in the end it is a charade that people believe only because they want to. They feel the need to. If you have a quiet few days you can figure this out. Looks like I need to buy some Dawkins and Ehrman? I really got a lot from John Zande’s 2 books and am science and physics fan. What should I read next as a relative newbie?

Selling What We Already Have

I have laid low these past few years since my deconversion. My mind works like a good stew, and then it’s ready to go. I generally take my time with things, especially after being controlled by those I thought I could trust for so long. Essentially duped by the duped. Funny now, but wow! Having just finished a couple of good books by John Zande these past few weeks, my mind has been working out a concise summary of what struck me profoundly. So without giving too much away, here is one point I have milled in my mind to a chiseled point. Every element from hydrogen to uranium, every molecule and atom, every cell and creature is in a naturally constant state of anxiety. Each one is desperately trying to stay together, to hang on for another day. It is this drive and desire that pushes to new boundaries. Defenses continue to mount and stretch the elements ability to cope and survive. To grow. To evolve. Every bit if matter has this inherent drive to hang on. Hope is the card that religion plays. And they play it well. Hope for eternal life after death. Hope to continue on. Hope things get better. But hope is something we already have. It is in us already. So why do we need to buy it? Fear. Abrahamic religions attach fear to something that is natural and unavoidable. Then they offer the solution. Meanwhile everything in this state of panic is dying and death, struggle and change, and anxiety. Pure, perfect evil if you would. And when you are done with this struggle for existence you die. Miserably decomposing and holding on till another day, but the final outcome is without question. When we observe this creation it is fair to assume the mind and disposition of this perfect creator. If there is a god and this is his doing, then he is enjoying the suffering and delights himself in the misery of all of the elements. Including man. I choose not to believe in deities. The evidence is compelling that no good god would have done this. He is either incompetent or he is malicious. There is much, much more to be taken from Mr. Zande in these two books, and I highly recommend these for every avid learner that wants to challenge what he thinks he knows. It is a fresh look that flies in the face of “god is good”, and has compelling evidence and good supportive reasoning and science. But the conclusions will be left to you.

Go Away My Wayward Son (really)

What do you get when you cross a porn addict with a preachers son? Read on! (Equation Answer below)My area is pretty heavy with SDA, JW, Mennonite and a sprinkling of evangelicals, but SDA has the market cornered on truth because they do Saturday worship. (I heard the sermon many times). One particular family we’ve gotten to know pretty well is SDA. All of their problems come from god because “he tests the most faithful”. He really said that! He has also personalized his brand of SDA for, according to him, “they don’t quite have it right”. He was the wayward son of a preacher but now he’s back with a porn addiction (his wife confided this to my wife) and desperately seeking the respect of his father. He poses deep religious questions on Facebook then his friends spend hours enlightening each other as he sits and watches, but not responding. They have their 3 kiddos on a tight leash and rule over them with godlike love and a wooden spoon, and have absolutely nothing in the house that is not SDA related. The kids are all under 8 and they’ve never seen a video or story book that is secular or scientific of any kind. They homeschool, which in their case revolves around watching church videos. I think you’re getting the picture. None of them can read a word. It is pathetically hard to watch them cripple these kids to the theistical beliefs and growing up to think that without Jesus they are nothing but sinners laden with guilt and shame. Total indoctrination. Total rule. Physical discipline, and withholding valuable necessities to help them cope in the world. Total dependency. It’s disgusting. What happened to free will? What happened to trusting god? Where is the faith? They are so insecure in their faith they have to force the kids single line theology to protect them from the evil in the world while at the same time dispensing ignorance and evil. He’s determined his kids will never sew their wild oats and obsesses that they never do what daddy did. He talks openly about the enormities of his youth like a serial killer revisiting his dead bodies, but forbids the kids any leeway to make decisions or mistakes that would help them grow into human beings. It’s part of the Christian way. It’s disgusting. but who am I to judge?His family and friends commend him for his godlike parenting. I think he should just go away. Go away my wayward son. There was peace but now there’s none.R is religion, P is porn, guilt is represented here by the infinity symbol, 0 squared = overcome and overcompensate. the answer = BAD PARENTING

Benevolent Force

Forged pointed lessons-

Insecurely forced love weighs-

Heavy on young minds-

There’s an Atheist Flag?

When I saw this article about the atheist flag going up over the Ten Commandments monument in New Hampshire, I thought “we have a flag?” Um. No thanks, I guess. I’m slightly new at this, (about 4 years) but my first instinct is this; I just left a belief system to navigate my own way in the world without the help or belief in deities and other superstitions and myth. I belong to nothing. No organizations, no clubs, no nothing. Is atheism a belief system to be held up on a banner? Is it wrong of me to not be affiliated with another emblem designed to group me with other likeminded individuals. Are there guidelines and a rule book shortly to follow? When do we fly it half mast? Could we, as a distressed minority fly it it upside down? I get the point of equal access and all the legality and fairness, it just doesn’t settle well with me. I am open to other thoughts on this. I am a little skeptical after what I’ve been through to trust someone else to speak in my behalf. Maybe I will change my mind? I value the knowledge and opinions of each of you and appreciate your experience and passion. What’s your take this? I may be old, but I’m slow!

The Double Slit- A Practical Application

Most of you are familiar with the double slit experiment in physics where photons change their behavior and properties merely because they are being observed. It’s just barely more detailed than that, but if you’re not up to speed in armchair physics click HERE for a five minute cartoon summary. What physicists fail to realize is we’ve been watching this behavior in the theological sciences for many years with much bigger particles than quantum mechanics. In fact, entire organisms have displayed the “particle duality” phenomena. The quantum model of the universe has been masterfully hidden… Right in plain sight!

“What do you mean” you say? If you “observe” Theists they behave predictable and conform to well established patters. But alas, when alone the behavior becomes less predictable. The pattern becomes unpredictable. But a new super secret recording device has been remotely observing this phenomenon. Google has surpassed Shakira with a new number one hit “Their clicks don’t lie”. Without any prejudice they have found the highest population of religious coincide with the highest use of hetero and gay porn based on clicks per 1000 in population. Utah and Mississippi neck and neck for first place. But when they are under normal observation there in no indication that they are randomly straying off the detection screen. So (c1)<c2= p=hx2) = (piety =hypocrisy squared) And I thought they were anti porn. Hmm.

So physicists are right after all. What can be discovered in the quantum world is a predictor of what we already find in the macro world. We just had to look in plain sight. This is why they say—

Why do you always take two Mormons fishing with you? If you only take one he’ll drink all your beer.

Inside Out

Usually you all know nothing about how your efforts here in presenting Atheism and Humanism can affect just one person once in a while. But you all have stuck with it. I see many familiar names from when I was posting religious spew on your blogs a few years back. I was pretty nice about it but was curious too. Having my own belief questions I wanted to see how my arguments stood up outside of the faith. I tried to have an open mind and really see things from another vantage point.

One day I was asking some questions and interjecting my beliefs, and I mentioned I was really just trying to understand but would never leave religion. Violet (I think was the name) jumped in and said “you will”. “That if I really was serious about learning about life outside of faith that I would eventually leave it”. That really stuck with me and I stewed on it for quite a while. She knew if I saw what was real outside of that lens that I would at least know a decision had to be made. Believe it or don’t believe it. It was a choice! How right she was! That moment was pivotal in my deconversion.

I have always sought truth the best I know how. I don’t care to be right, I just want the truth wherever that may be. If I’m wrong I’ll admit it. I won’t defend a position I know in my head is wrong. That moment started a long search outside of the church and its approved doctrines and materials. Actually took about three weeks of full time searching and trying to justify staying in the faith. Once I peeked at the reality and reasoning there was no going back. After 50 years of church and Jesus I walked away. My wife and kids were in Panama City on vacation during that time. When they came back to the jungle I told them what I wanted to do and why. My wife had done her own looking and promptly agreed. We gathered up all of our church crap, the manuals and home school religious items and scriptures and burned it all. I burned books! Never regretted it for one moment. Free baby!

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you all for your insights and mentoring me in your blood soaked heathenistic pagan smart ass ways. Sometimes good sense does rule the day. Life without church is life indeed! Glad somebody told me! Is an excellent example of how I felt. Thanks Shiarrael!

Where is Violet anyway? Haven’t seen her in quite a while. Give her my regards if any of you know her.

Born Theists Lite Version

Bill the Bad Atheist has a short follow up over at his site if you want to take a peek. Be curious to see what some of you have to say. My overall feeling on the topic is we are comparing something with nothing, and wind up with a riddle as an answer.

Atheist Haiku

To be is to live

Life unshackled and freely

Unchain human thought

Most of you are probably not aware I have a site dedicated to Haiku poetry. If you enjoy that type of thing click here. Have an awesome day!!

Who are We Really?

Misconceptions about atheism are so common I sometimes feel like a minnow in a piranha pool. Mention you’re an atheist or humanist, and immediate visions of the horned immoral boogeyman appear in people’s heads. Who are we really? In your own words maybe give a line or two about what you think people should imagine when they hear the word “Atheist”.

Photo by jim-thecommonatheist

Cambutal, Panama 🇵🇦

Radical Atheistology

Four things or five you need to start deconverting from any invisible mythical sky god religion.

1. Read. Read more than just the official versions your church allows. You’ll be surprised what they hide from you. If you all ready know? Shame on you and skip to step 2. Stop apologizing for them. Read something contrary. You’ll be surprised at the common sense kindness of the atheist community. Smart, accepting, and reasonable. Not for power, not for money, not for control. For a free mind and acceptance. For peace. Really!

2. Observe. Even the simplest observation on your own time can easily overturn the miles of apologetic writing your church has split hairs to write. Don’t forget to look around you. Take a hike in the canyons. The earth is older than that. Cmon man! And there’s more!

3. Critical thinking. For instance, the jesus story has been told almost verbatim by several ancient civilizations long before Christianity. Virgin birth, half man, half god, dies to save everyone, celebrated at Christmas time and they were gods. But hey! This time it’s for real. Right! Think about it. Look it up. It’s all out there. Just peek outside the box. You’ve been duped! And there’s more!! Way more.

4. Whiskey. Relax. The world is not coming to an end. No one is coming out of the sky to save or rapture you. It’s up to us to fix our situation. So let’s put away the waiting for Jesus and praying for the end to come soon and get to work. We’re wasting time. A lot of time. Enjoy life and be brothers and sisters. Religion divides what otherwise would be whole. Try it. What is there to lose. What you’ve been doing is not working. Give it a chance! Peek!

If you’re still here this might be for you. I have a secret surprise I’ve waited for the end, and this is very typical of the folks I’ve met. They are liberated from guilt and they are happy. They have a high moral standard based on natural laws and consequences and we love the earth. A true deep desire to preserve the world. Our way of life

Follow some atheist books and blogs. The basics will get you by, but there is a world of good reading and real knowledge out there.

I was a follower for 50 years I’m sorry to say. I’m actually a little embarrassed by it. I walked away a few years ago from the mind games, guilt, ambiguous doctrine, cover ups, brainwashing, poorly translated mythology I was supposed to analyze and work out my salvation. If I guess wrong? Oops. Sorry jim. You’re going to hell. It was all a trap to keep me payin and prayin and obeyin. Believing a stifling dogma has consequences that restrict growth of the mind and well being. And I defended it!

respectfully–jim, the common atheist

Did I miss anything?

Evidence Evolving in Space

NASA has released some interesting data about Scott Kelly and his year-long stint at the ISS. Although more data will be forthcoming, early statements seem to chalk one up for the good guys. A drastic change of environment seems to accelerate some evolutionary processes. Here is a quote from NASA

“the chemical modifications that were seen in Scott’s DNA during the trip in space returned to normal once he came back to Earth. The same thing happened around the midpoint of the study for Mark’s end, which led scientists to believe that genes are actually sensitive to changing environments.

NASA found that there are hundreds of unique genetic mutations for both Scott and Mark”.

Also stated were changes in sizes and shapes of red and white blood cells.

Imagining the implications here I thought this was pretty big.

Are we Born Theists?

Bill the Bad Atheist has suggested here that we are all born theists and need to be taught to be atheists. I commented my feeling on his blog, I would love to see what you more experienced non believers have to say about his hypothesis. I think this is worthy of a discussion.

Acronyms and DSRD

I was training a newly hired EMT to enter his reports in the computer, and shortly after writing a practice report we got a call to go out for an MVC. We transported a minor injury patient to the hospital and since the new guy tech’d the call, he wrote the notes. Medical people use a ton of acronyms, and as I was reviewing his report I noticed some strange ones I’d never seen before. He stated ” PT found in FPS, A/O X4 PWD, airway intact. Pt with MLLUA and ALSOF. I thought “huh”? I called him back to the office for a minute to explain. “Oh, FPS is front passenger seat”. And MLLUA is mild laceration left upper arm”, and ALSOF is “abrasion left side of face”. I said “Aaron you can’t just make shit up on these reports. No one knows what these mean except you”. There is a long list of accepted acronyms and I gave him a copy to work from. Heres a small sample.

Aaron appears to be mixing religion and work here, since “make it up as you go” is a common tool for building credible rapport in the churches.

I’ve heard some faith promoting whoppers during my time in the church. I felt the spirit (emotion) over outright lies and fabrications. I’ve seen the faithful tie silly things together that show god is with them every step of the way. From found car keys to successful surgeries, god gets the credit. When things don’t go your way he gets a free pass. If uncle Eddy survives the heart attack,”praise god”! If he dies, god took him home to heaven. He knows what’s best for you. Right?

WARNING– What you about to read might cause you to think.

Preachers tell lies and twist stories to convince you that god is real and their religions are right. They desperately want you to believe what they believe. They will tell you things to drive your emotions. That feeling is not the spirit. It is a manipulation tactic to get devotion and keep you in faith to give themselves power and money. Do not believe it. You have been tricked by professionals that prey on people during vulnerable times in their lives. Do not buy it. You already possess everything they have to offer. It’s already in you. You can do this without the bs of a religious dogma. Waiting for god to answer your prayers is a waste of time. Time that could be spent working out your own future, free of charge and free of mental bondage.

DSRD = dumb stuff religions do

Faith + Fiction = Miracles. Here have a bible

Another End is Just Around the Corner

Just got off the phone with a baptist-gringo buddy of mine in Panama and the end of the world is most likely 2018. According to him and his sources, Edgar Cayce, Baba Vanga, and Nostradamus all have pointed to 2018 as the destruction year. The west coast will disappear and the east coast will have just a handful of people left. They said this 4.5 earthquake off the coast of Panama last week was proof all the upheaval is starting. They are not worried. In their smugness they believe they’ll be taken up in rapture, but they do fear for their non-christian friends. I poured through a days worth of ambiguity with the eye of the sceptic and to my surprise I found nothing to suggest what the devout followers of these prognosticators predict. If you read the actual prophecies… Nothing. Could be’s and if’s is all you need with a devotee. My life has been filled with warnings and predictions that never happened. If the modern day Glen Becks of the world were correct, the whole thing would’ve been over years ago. If you’re looking for the end you might find it sifting though miles of ambiguity, you could listen to your favorite summarizer in the hope that jesus will come and save the world. Just like preachers preaching. Read it on your own and you find a lot of nothing but fallacy. They actually believe this crap. To be reasonable we need to rid the world of soothsayer religious alarmism and get to work. It’s all up to us. Jesus ain’t coming to fix it.

Earthquake prone region in the ring of fire

Free Jeep Rental $50

Cozumel is usually a pretty good idea. We stayed at an all inclusive resort with the dive club, and of course while you’re in they try to get you to the timeshare presentation. Usually I won’t go to these, but we had nothing going on for the day so we figured “what the heck”? Get a free jeep for the next day and just say no to everything in the sales pitch. What could it hurt?

I’m a math guy on just about everything, so I did the calculations and we could buy this timeshare for what we were already paying as regular guests. Not a great deal. It was like the Outlaw Josie Wales and Ten Bears. ” I’m ain’t promising you anything extra”. So we walk with our Jeep coupon and the next day go to the counter. With tax and other fees it was $50. $50 for a free Jeep. Hey! This reminds me of church! We had to pay for something you’re supposed to get free. Being an exmo, going to long boring meetings and was a way of life, and getting pressured to do things you don’t want to do is really the way of life. In the end, what was supposed to be free from jesus cost 10% of your income or no blessings. No exaltation, no temple marriage, no important callings. Nada. It’s the equivalent of buying free tap water. Pretty good scheme.

Many thanks to everyone here for sharing your insight, knowledge, and cynical as hell anti- religious wisdom. WP was a big part of my deconversion.

My Sunday Read

The fire is hot. The kiddos are busy. Time for my Sunday read. I heard I need to watch out for this Zande guy!

Sometimes a Stranger is Fiction

I got a flat tire last year on a remote gravel road, and as I was changing my tire an old blue sedan came barreling up the road. I called to my dog but he was so engrossed in a hunt for field mice he wouldn’t hear me. Right as the car approached my dog bolted my way across the road and bam! The car never slowed down or stopped. My dog laid in the ditch. He was dead. I sat there. I think most of you have lost a pet before. No explanation can tell you how devastated I was. I cried. I prayed. God help me. After a little while had passed I collected myself enough to finish my tire, and just as I was about done my dog licked the back of my neck. I was in shock. In complete joy. How? No way! As I held Roger I saw a man hurry across the road and down a steep embankment. I shouted “hey”! I ran to the edge where I last saw him and he was gone. Nothing. I knew what I had seen. I knew my dog was now alive and not a scratch on him. God had sent his holy angel to help me. Thank you Jesus thank you Jesus. God hears our prayers, and in our most desperate times he is here for us. To comfort. To heal. To help.

Should I post this story on Facebook and ask for likes, amens, or shares. I could strengthen testimonies with a story like this. The problem is … it is just a story. Total fabrication. While most church stories contain a wee bit of truth, I’ve seen first hand how they grow bigger and better with time.

The churchers and their preachers embellish nearly everything they say to tug at your emotions then attribute it to god. And I’m not even close to exaggerating here. Just last week god the father and the son and the Holy Spirit visited a friend of mine in the form of three hummingbirds! What the hell do you say to that? If people are looking for miracles, they’ll get them. Or see birds. (Below is the area where none of this occurred)

Dammit Jim

Finally they named a beer after me. They must have talked to an old station manager of mine. I used to hear this 10 times a day when I would go off script and ruin his reputation. But he and I used to have some long talks about religion before he fired me. He was an atheist and I was a (cough cough) Latter Day Saint. My favorite one liner to his comment that “you can’t know this stuff. You can believe it, but you can’t know it”. I told him, the reason you can’t know it is because you don’t believe you can. He’d say “Dammit Jim”. Then he’d go on to tell me what an idiot I was. Bob, you were right. I was an idiot. Rest In Peace old friend.

Now when I see this ridiculous circular reasoning as an outsider of the faith, I remember not so long ago how I was that way. Faith is an unreasonable guide. It commands that you believe a lot of nonsense. Just wish my beer had a better rating.

Why the “What have you done for me lately Church” is hard to leave

As soon as I was old enough to safely go to church my parents brought me before the congregation and I was given an official name and a blessing. A name which would be recorded in the records and make me an official unbaptized member of the LDS. I was about a month old! Hey, thanks for that. Of course I don’t remember this, but those blessings take place the first Sunday of each month just before Fast and Testimony Meeting, where the members share their beliefs with the audience. This was the beginning of the indoctrination of Jim, as for the next hour I would listen to many testimonies that day about how true the church was, and how god played a role in various members lives that week. “I know this church is true” was proclaimed from the pulpit and into every rooms intercom. Even while I was in the mothers lounge, i could hear the testimonies of those who would soon be raising me in the church. Hey! No second opinions allowed either. Whenever a stray Mormon would stand up to bear his soul, and offer how he really felt about the church he would be escorted out. No second opinions needed! This is the true church!

At home it would continue. Exposed to everything mormon. Pictures of jesus and prophets and primary songs. Family home evenings every Monday for twice weekly indoctrination. Family prayer morning and night along with personal prayer. They even taught me what to say. How thoughtful.

Progression of church member Jim

Baby blessing –check

Baptism at 8. -check

Priesthood at 12 -check

Early morning Seminary 4 years. Check

Higher priesthood at 19-check

Temple endowments -check

Mission -check

Marry in the temple- check

Children -check

Memorize countless scriptures and songs – check

Endure to the end– hmm. Not so fast.

Pay Pray and Obey

Keep paying

Questions. Not allowed

Endure to the end, endure to the end

Learn the things you weren’t supposed to learn.

Be bold enough to question

Church court and discipline

Attend in shame.

Fade away. Resign the church. Lose all your friends. All!

In the Mormon faith you are taught if you don’t endure to the end, keep the commandments and keep paying your tithes til the day you die you won’t be saved. You can lose your salvation. Everything done to the children is focused on member retention. Keep you engaged. Don’t give you time to think. Here is how they did it to me

Scoutmaster 15 years. That’s an extra day at the church every week

Early morning Seminary teacher entire school year 8 years total

Home teacher to multiple families each month 30 years

Young men’s presidency 6 years

Adult Sunday school teacher 4 years

Ward missionary 4 years

Finance clerk 2 years

Membership clerk 2 years

Elders quorum presidency 8 years

Multiple tours in some of these callings. Oh!, and work a full time job to support my family.

I was also a pretty good speaker so I would give talks frequently on Sunday.

Frequent temple attendance

Temple initiatory worker 4 years

Veil worker 4 years

By the time I was 50, I had done about 75 years of service callings in the church. This is fairly typical, but not good enough. Pray pay and obey til you die if it will account as nothing.

It’s no wonder it is so hard to see the fallacy of your ways when it is all you know. Variety makes things right.

Don’t forget to look around you. Be humble. You might be wrong

Believers and Bernoulli’s Principle

Misapplied evidence of god. An old friend from school was in an accident a couple of days ago. I have to share this thread and comments.

“With everything I’ve endured the past 3 yrs. I was beginning to wonder “WHY” oh Lord is ALL this happening to me!!!!!! Questioning where is God in all of this. For those who know me, my faith has never wavered in these trying times, until this accident. I’m at my breaking point!!! Asking “why me Lord” what the hell have I done to deserve ALL of this shit!!!!!! Until this morning…..I was sitting on our front patio looking@our water feature,which has 3 staggered height rocks and there sat 3 hummingbirds, yes 3😲 3 male hummingbirds, for 1 they are extremely territorial and always chase each other off, but there they all sat drinking the water for what seemed like an eternity!!!!! My mouth was wide open@this amazingly beautiful, spectacular reminder that the Lord is ALWAYS with me through EVERYTHING❤️For me, the 3 hummingbirds was such an obvious sign of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, right there in plain sight, just for me!!!!!! It was the most spiritual experience that I will forever hold onto💞 Here’s some comments– I commented in Latin “SanctaeTrinitatus ad Avem“. (The Bird Trinity). She replies “oh Jim, that’s beautiful”. Hehe.

Asimov shares an example of misapplied. This from The Ratliff Notepad is part of the old Asimov speech. We are the stagecoach people. We can show the obvious, but the tales are memorized from childhood, and they should have never left it. Why does this matter? This codependent behavior with god hamstrings the faithful and stunts their progress. She has the power to take control of her life. Her situation has not changed, but her attitude has. How much time wasted, waiting, hoping, that god will come fix this mess, when we have the power to do it ourselves?

Smug if by Faith

Recently looking at a little bit of Mel Wild, and just ran into this comment thread where John Z got gamed by this dude up above (in his own mind). He claimed victory several times, ignored questions, and was generally wrong about everything, but he backed it up with the hard, solid evidence of faith. He smugly won the day, and no amount of reason could sway his internal victory as the checkmates rolled off his keyboard. As instructed in the thread, I have prayed about it in Zande’s behalf. I also took the liberty to bless his food. I got the answer I desired by randomly opening the Old Testament, and in miraculous, ambiguous fashion from forgers inspired by god I was made to see the light. The post and comments is exactly why children don’t play ball in the men’s league. No matter the score, we can all claim victory! This was a painful display of zeal without knowledge. I could only guess, but is Banyon from the US where hanging on to disproved myth is a badge of honor? I have a relative that just knows what she knows. No amount of overwhelming evidence can shake that. No sound reasoning can spoil it. “Be humble. You might be wrong” only applies to the faithless I suppose.

ps.. I would link the thread but is just too painful. If you missed it, lucky you.

Izapa Stela 5 and Folklore

The Book of Mormon tells of a vision story about tree of life. Izapa Stela 5 resembles the story, as it contains the depiction of a tree and some human characters found on a large stone in the mesoamericana region of Izapa, Mexico. LDS’s finally found some concrete evidence giving validity to the book of mormon and prior to any unbiased research or confirmation the news spread like wildfire through the church. Firesides and research papers breathed a collective sigh of relief and wonder as the church now had its medal of proof for validation in the religious world. Aha! Told you we’d find proof!!Happy members! Happy happy members. Uh, not so fast. While one Mormon scholar translated the glyph and even the corresponding characters to match the book of mormon and names of the characters on a 2000 year old relic, other top, independent researchers were inconclusive about the meaning of the stone. But like most un-news, the correction never made the rounds like the initial report. To this day, since the first translation in 1941, to subsequent attempt most recent 1976, no conclusions have been made. Now if they could only find that darn DNA they need from the natives!

Suicidal and Mormon

I guess appearing to be perfect is taking its toll in Utah. Mormons are prescribed antidepressants at twice the national rate, and teen suicide is on another record pace this year and 5th highest in the country, climbing each year. Why so sad when you have all this truth and worthiness? I can tell you the pressure in the community is always in the judgment seat. There is a conflict in the mind about reality and what you’re told you believe, and sexuality is governed to a very unhealthy level using guilt and shame as a tool to exact clean living. Also they apply high expectations that are infrequently met regarding teen love and masterbation, declaring those as sins next to murder in severity. Grow up with that guilt trip! I’m surprised any of those kids make it into their 20’s.

I grew up in this culture and the pressures to go on a mission, marry early and in the temple and start pumping out kids is huge. If you fail? Families and congregations are disappointed and judgmental. Whenever I’d move to a new ward, the bishop would call you in for an interview to see what kind of Mormon he was dealing with. One of the first questions was “did you serve a full time mission”? From there they can judge the depth of your commitment and what kind of callings you could perform. I’ll tell you, the day I walked away was a collective sigh of relief to me and my wife and kids. It is no wonder to me what’s wrong in Utah, although health official are stumped as to what’s going on because no one discusses the elephant in the room. You want to know what’s going on? Ask anyone that was courageous enough to get out.

Jesús Viene

(Jesus is Coming) According to a coworker of mine, almost every local, national, or world event is opening another seal, or relates to 1 of 4 horseman or a prophetic fulfillment. I believe him a lot because of the TBN podcasts he listens to all the time. And I mean all the time. So he really knows. He’s actually super smart, and he wrote a letter to president Obama, and now Trump. Still waiting to hear back but his warning about the coming apocalypse needs to be heard by the higher ups. Why does he do this? Two reasons. God spoke to him. The train blared its horn right when he said amen to a prayer he was offering. That was a sign. And 2, he’s worried about us. He’s not worried for himself because he is going to he taken up. Miss the whole thing. But really, what a nice guy.

Christians Unaware

Evidently I have the light and don’t even know it. Jesus is working through me, and I don’t even know it. Twice this week I had brief discussions about my non belief, and twice my mere countenance was attributed to Jesus working through me. And I would be a Christian if I understood the message. I am a “Christian unaware”. (Billy the kid 2nd left in a rare photo with Pat Garret on right)

But see the reason I’m not Christian is that I do understand the doctrine. I also understand the control mechanisms at work. I also understand that if I pray, nothing ever happens unless you look really hard for subtle non existent hints that your prayer was answered in some way other than what you wanted. For your own good. I also know I can get spiritual followers by telling big emotional lies that mimic the spirit. I also understand that to make sense of it takes a lot of hairsplitting explanations and then you have to just decide to believe it because that is the only way it makes sense.

Off The Wall Here

I went through this as a kid. Finally some awareness to a horrible practice in the Mormon church. Please take a minute to read some of these testimonials highlighted at the bottom of the article. Sign the petition if you feel inclined. Although I no longer am affiliated with the mormons, I think it’s important to protect these innocent kids until they have the ability to get out of this mess. https://invisiblescubit.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/petition-already-protecting-children/ This is an embarrassing part of my childhood and important to get this out there. Thanks everyone. I think you’d be surprised how long this has been going on. Happened to me in the 70’s.

On The Problem of Good

Once in a while you stumble across something so contrary to the main views of the world that is so compelling, so convincing, that you really have to evaluate what you think you believe. As a fairly new deconvert, I found this a compelling and contrary view of good and evil, and it presented itself very plausible and convincing. A work that is very hard to counter without interjecting words like “belief” and “faith”. Another reviewer on Amazon put it well–“The research and supporting argumentation is frighteningly persuasive and would pass any Doctorate board of review.” Thank you John for the excellent work. Much appreciated! You can find the book here. On the Problem of Good (The Owner of All Infernal Names) https://www.amazon.com/dp/154247793X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_t4wkAbD9VC5W1

I’ve been Proselytized!

A nurse at work told me yesterday I seem like a believer. Are you? I said no, I don’t believe in any gods at all. Nothing. She got a puzzled eyebrows raised look on her face for just a second and told me “wow I’m surprised. You just seem so nice and have that way about you”. I guess you were all supposed to look like monsters. (not sure who to credit here. Got it from Bill’s site at badatheist)

We had a nice conversation though and she offered me the best book she ever read that convinced her to Jesus. She was so sure I just hadn’t had it explained to me proper. (Just what I want to read. More apologetics). Let me be honest I said. I won’t read it. I’ve read a ton of them and I just don’t believe any of it. Not a lot of atheist in my neck of the woods(at least that will admit it). I’m pretty sure I was her first based on her stutter. I gave her my top three reasons and she bore me her conversion story. It was all pleasant enough, but she couldn’t really grasp the fact that I’m just not interested at all. Nunca

The Antithesis of Answers

In Christian apologetics the most complex answer is the best one, because it is the only one that will wear out the investigator to the point where they just look at the overwhelming picture and say, “well, 2 billion people can’t all be wrong. Can they”? I was embroiled in it for years explaining the defense of the Mormon faith until I got too tired. It went against my simple solution brain. Even the best thought out answer requires additional explaining and hair splitting. You really have to choose to believe or not. It’s that simple. Then if you believe it you’ll know it’s true. Got it!

The Superstitious Panamanian Divorce Effigy

I was driving to Cambutal, Panama to visit a favorite beach with my family, and over the road from a high tree was a hanging in effigy. I asked my neighbor lady what that was all about and she said very matter-of -factly, “when your husband leaves you if you hang a scarecrow outside the house dressed in his old clothes, he will have misfortune in his new life, and when the clothes are weathered and ruined he’ll come back to you sorrowful and faithful”. Another version is a neighbor will hang it for her to taunt her. She’ll eventually burn it down if he does not return before the clothes rot away.

Depending on where you were born will determine which superstitions and folklore or “old wives tales” you believe to be true. Here is a look at one regional hocus-pocus superstition of the Panama/Catholic culture.

Panama is a non politically correct country. You can say anything about everything, banter back and forth and be better friends because of it. Very refreshing having come from the land of “watch everything you say” America. A fat neighbor lady of mine has the nickname “gorda”. Fatty in English. She even has “Gorda”for her Facebook nickname. No fake outrage, no worries at all. Each person is proud of who they are and hold nothing back. Imagine that! Gay, fat, trans, woman or man, there is no need to hide who you are. Fatty is also a twin, so if the locals have back pain, they see her so she can use her left foot to massage out the pain. She and her twin sister also use other means to help men or women, and for $5 they’ll rub out anything you want. When they work together it’s $5 each. Anyway I regress. Back to the effigy.

This particular superstition, as do most of the rest, have natural outcomes that are to be expected. Men in rural Panama hold infidelity in high esteem. Many frequently cheat and often go on walkabout. They know where home is, but because of economics (the women rarely have the resources to go anywhere else) they wander around shagging new tails until they run out of money. Broke, dirty clothes, and now repentant, they return home. In the eyes of the woman, the effigy worked, and her despondent man will take up a job again.

This part of Panama has a grande Arabic influence. Very proud men. Very capable and strong adulterous men. Mountain girls are pretty and raised to serve. Rarely will the returning man be rejected. In what is otherwise a very beautiful life, in a very beautiful place with very happy people, this is one injustice that is traditional and tribal and accepted.

Depending on where you were born and to what family, you might be catholic, jewish, muslim, hindu, and so forth. If you were born in Utah after 1870, chances are very good that you know the one true and authorized religion of the one true god, and be mormon. We all have our qwirks now don’t we?

The ability to think for yourself is hamstringed by the region and traditions we were indoctrinated in. I am happy for this writing community of free thinkers to help the world make a little less biased sense!

Here are some favorite Panama superstitions and their silly counterparts.

1. In the land of barefoot people, if you don’t wear socks in the house you’ll catch a cold.

2. Don’t get rained on. 80 degree rain on an 80 degree day will make you sick, but getting sprayed by the fire truck in the heat of carnaval will not.

3. If you walk barefoot in the mud you’ll get worms in your skin, but barefoot constructing a house or farming is ok.

4. If your children don’t go to sleep at night, a white faced witch will look in your window. That’ll keep their eyes closed!

¡Que tenga buen día!

What would we Argue About?

Last week Nan was talking about childhood. No politics, no religion, and how great it was to be a kid from so many of us. What did we have to argue about when life was so sweet? On Steve Ruis I brought up an old favorite topic of The Savannah Baboons and their toppled hierarchy, now living a non competitive life of leisure. There is nothing to fight about once the top 1% were toppled from their control. Without the elite of the government/business/religious complex, what would we have to fight about? One of the great lies of the world is we’ve been manipulated and forced to choose sides. Democrat or republican, Christian or Muslim, socialism or capitalism. All are two sides of the same coin designed to divide us and preoccupy us with endless banter about who’s right, when in fact they are all wrong. The elite class has everyone convinced that without them, who would provide jobs that fuel the economy, who would lead us through the worlds troubles, and who would save us from hell and eternal torment? The only reason we need them is that they are there. They create the problem and division, then offer the solution. The oldest trick in the book. Without them is a non-competitive life of leisure. With them is the destruction of the worlds beauty and depletion of every last natural resource. For their money and our misery

What do you want to believe

Because the “four corners of the earth” are mentioned in the Bible, pseudo-scholars driven by faith have set out to prove the earth is flat. They will cleverly word every point to show that the Bible is right, and dupe many faithful followers to dig in their heels on this non topic to make Christianity even more silly than it already is. As if the 6 day creation wasn’t silly enough, they continue to believe this nonsense rather than look outside and see with their own eyes what the world is.

As I was walking in the canyons with my seven year old looking at the rock formations and fossils, I mentioned that some people believe all of this was created and formed in 1 day. She looked at me like I was crazy. I know she trusts me, and if I had sat down with her and read the “official” book on this (the Bible) and explained in detail that this was true, and god said so, she would have started a path of contradictory self doubt about the real world and what she is actually seeing, and myth. For now we don’t really talk about the mythical being in the sky. It’s an irrelevant distraction that keeps some of the best minds from real progress in reality.