FINAL EXAM

FINAL EXAMINATION
Due February 11th





1. Be sure to place your entire FINAL on your website and when youare finished send a link of your test to your teacher directly at (don't sendit to any other email address, except that)





2. Make sure that it is YOUR OWN work and that if you use otherauthors please be sure to quote and/or cite the material appropriately. Plagiarism will not betolerated and you will receive an "F" automatically for the examination.3. The test is due NO LATER than April 19th at midnite.





3 Each answer should be at least three paragraphs long, ifpossible.





4. What is your real name? Gabriel Mares





5. What is your "user" name? Archangel703





6. What is your email address that you use for this class? Angelgabriel79@yahoo.com





7. Name and address for your website. http://archangel703.blogspot.com/





8. Have you done all the reading for the entire class? The books were only partially read, all the other assigned readings have been completely read.





9. Have you watched each of the films that were required? Yes





10. What was your midterm grade? Or, if you revised it, your revisedmidterm grade? Provide a LINK to your midterm. I received an A , Midterm is on this same page



11. Please place here all of the postings you have done for thisclass (you can copy and paste them. ALL SIX WEEKS OF POSTINGS.)

Posts came out Squished together for some reason =(



The Pleasure of finding things out and Clear Thinking...





"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and "not knowing, I think itsmuch more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers whichmight be wrong." Richard Feynman (43:12)This is the worldview of Physicist Richard Feynman in a nutshell andbecause of this approach it allows him to observe the world aroundhim in a "hybrid" vision (so to speak) not only observing the outerbeauty of the world around him but always remaining aware ofthe "inner" beauty as well. But not in a spiritual sense, I would sayin a more "complex" natural physical sense.For example early in the video he gives an explanation regarding aflower and how he and anyone can recognize the beauty in it. Hedescribes how his friend who is an artist can hold up the flower andstate that it is "beautiful" but if taken apart it becomes dull andboring. Feynman feels differently. Feynman states that not only isthe flower beautiful on its own but also when analyzed down to thecellular level the actions of the cells themselves and everythingthat makes up the flower possess its own beauty that shouldn't bedisregarded.Feynman seems to make much of his reasoning in a "scientific manner"with a sort of "mathematicalequation to everything that was happening around him. He takes avery "Natural" and "Physical" approach in developing his worldview.Looking through the history posts on Occam's Razor a User by thename "gjertime" stated that …" Richard Feynman was basically sayingthat you have to look past your intitial opinion and look deeper intothe idea to find more out about it. By looking at the idea with adeeper perspective you will very well change your thoughts from yourinitial opinion."I agree that in a way this also reflects the views of Feynman and theteachings of his father. Although it was interesting to note thatthere seemed to be a strange disconnection when it came tothe "beauty" or "analysis" of the "human aspect" It seemed that thereis an emphasis given to the beauty and complexity of a flower on thecellular level, the name of a bird in different languages, thepleasure of ultimately finding things out instead of receiving anaward for it but when it comes to "people showing reverence to thepope" People building bridges in Hiroshima" and the fact that Feynmanseems to basically brush off "Theological/ Sociological" human studies as inferior and less important than physics, Feynman seems tobe missing the inner beauty of his very own Humanity.For example If one were to take Feynmans approach and analyze thepeople honoring the Pope, one discovers that that particular momentalso exhibits its own beauty and is part of a long complex evolutionthat has evolved over centuriesand is significantly more complexthan "The Pope merely having a uniform on" Regardless of the beliefsof different religions, whether they are wrong or right is irrelevantto this point. But to ignore the beauty and the development ofsuch "human" things and label them so simply puts Feynman in somewhatof a contradictory position.It places him in the position of the artist in the very first minutesof the film who thinks that looking past the flower makes it boringand dull. For Feynman's father to state that the honoring of thepope, or for Feynman to think so little of "the building of bridges"it makes him seem as if at those moments him and his father wereunable to "look past the flower" and see the beauty of it because oftheir own bias.This connects to what Bertrand Russel was saying in his short lectureon Clarity and exact thinking. He states that our "Clear thinking" isaffected by our own prejudices and biases and doesn't allow us totruly think clearly because of them. This seems to be the case inthese certain instances with Richard Feynman. He has inherited in away his fathers biases and developed his own as well. This is why it is ultimately important when forming our own worldviewwe all gather pieces of information from multiple sources. Not even a Nobel Prize winning physicist has all the answers as he himselfreadily admits. We take pieces of knowledge and add it to our pieceof "knowledge pie" to learn and shape our worldview. I agree with Richard Feynman when he states "A very fundamental partof my soul is to doubt…" (42:50) but unlike Feynman I am frightenedby existing in this universe without having any purpose. For Feynmanhe has come to terms with this as he has concluded that "this seemsto be the case."I personally don't have a problem holding the idea in my mindthat "Everything is possibly wrong" (42:30) but at the same time Iwish I could know what is right.For me the "doubt", the "fear" the "not knowing" "biased and clearthinking" all add to the pleasure of finding things out...



Cargo Cult Science and Cold Readings...



"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must begiven, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you knowanything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If youmake a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, thenyou must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as wellas those that agree with it". –Richard FeynmanThis is understood as the opposing view of faith and religion. And aswe read in this article on Cargo cult science it can also be appliedto the Sociological/ psychological sciences as well. These particularpractices generate heavy debate and discussion because there islittle agreement on what works, why it works and how we can duplicatethose results on a mass scale for everyone. Far from the nearuniversal agreement on Physics and mathematical calculations,these "ology's" Philosophy, Theology, Sociology, Pscyhology (in noparticular order) often find themselves at odds with each other andwithin themselves.One thing that I would not do though is dismiss them entirely. Asmuch as Feynman would like to blur them all together with the likesof "witch doctors and People who claim they can bend Keys with theirminds we must not ignore the phenomenon that they do in fact existand have in many ways contributed to the growth of our humankindcivilization. It can also be argued that they have also contributedto holding back advancements in Science as well but each case must betaken individually to examine that claim..What we see here is something very human. We have, in humans whatseems like this built in desire to "want to believe" and that causesconflict in our minds with our ability to (as Betrand Russel wouldsay) "Think clearly".On the Contrary, I see these conflicting and contradicting ideas as anecessary part of our "Self" in order for us to function properly. Ifwe have some sort of balance with these conflicting thoughts it seemsand tends to be for our benefit. If we lean to one extreme,dismissing entirely our "faith" and "Desire to believe" for apurely "logical" and "analytical" mind we become too narrow in ourviews and understandings. Likewise if we dismiss the "Logical"and "analytical" thought process for pure faith we can be lead tobelieve in anything as we read in the "Cold readings" articleAn example of what can be described as psychological manipulation,can occur when one throws out the "logical" and "analytical" parts ofour brain."You have been told that you, as an individual, are actuallyconnected to our entire cosmos. You are told how mysterious forces inthe universe around us, far greater than ourselves, work to shape ourintimate destinies. You are told relatively flattering things aboutyour character and life, and in the end you are naturally pleasedthat someone cares about you. In the hectic and generallydisconnected modern society, you feel connected - both to anotherhuman being and to the world around you". –article Cold reading-This brings us back to the built in human desire to "believe".Perhaps its an evolutionary quality that has developed for survivalreasons so that we can cope with the hectic and cruel world around usas some people have described here in relation to Karma. Maybe it's atrait that was one time necessary in our evolutionary development butnow is no longer is a positive attribute for our survival.Maybe it's a bit of both.Either way this desire we have is many times manipulated for thebenefit of others. (mostly financial) Here we see in thisarticle "Cold readers" manipulate people into believing that theypossesses unnatural powers to read into their past, future and advisethem on their present situations based on that knowledge. Inactuality they use common and generic problems that plague everyone.For example, Financial problems, relationship issues, the loss of aloved one…etc..etc.This brings us to the wide range of disagreements we find in circlesof the previous mentioned "Ology's" We know that Theology claims tohave an answer to fill this need and because of that it can be arguedthat it is making the boldest claim of the bunch. Theology also hasthe widest spectrum of disagreements.So where does this leave us? Can we trust any of them? Is physics theonly stable science we can trust? Should we pick and choose what welike and don't like from each of the sciences? Then what next? Bydoing so, do we, ourselves become our very own cult leaders of Cargocult science ready to infect others who are willing to listen withthe Viruses of our mind?In fact I'd say that we all have a little "Cold reader" in us. Webase many of our conclusions on the events in our particular livesthat are often nothing like the person sitting next to us. Weconstantly offer generic advice based on that experience, we offersolutions to problems the way we've dealt with them and the way wehave been taught to deal with them. None of these methods wouldprobably hold up scientifically but yet they have worked enough thatwe trust them.In the end what really makes us any different from a Cold readingPsychic? The fact that we don't charge the people around us forour "general advice and information"?



Beyond Belief...



"Misguided biblical literalism is what causes the problem with theview of certain Christians and Evolution.. The conflict can beresolved by recognizing different scopes for science and religion"(7:19)This is correct, for example Christian fundamentalism has taken astance opposed to Evolution and understands Genesis as a literalcreation account happening exactly as it is read. Also the Church ofthe Latter Day saints (Mormons) have an entire book (The book ofMormon) that deals with supposed historical events that aren't ableto be verified by archaeology or anything scientific. These bothcause conflicts with those types of Christianity and Science.The intention of the Holy ghost is to teach us how one goes to heavennot, how heaven goes. He was quoting a Catholic Cardinal. –Galileo.7:40…The speaker talks about an old opinion stating as long as werecognize the seperate magisteriums of Science and religion we haveno problem and that Science deals with facts, Religion deals withValues. But the Speaker believes that the problem with Science andreligion goes deeper than Biblical literalism and that they cannot bereconciled in any manner.Religion as a system of belief (11:26) States that Science hasdowngraded humans from center stage by showing that the earth is justone of many planets. Evolution treats human beings as another animalspecies that has developed to be what it is just like any otheranimal and not as part of a "divine plan" Science see's less andless signs of human beings in any plan the more we find out.The speaker argues that science Downgrades humans from a centralrole, and that science makes religious explanations unnecessary.The speaker states that The power of this kind of reasoning has beenrecognized by a Catholic cardinal, July 2005 and reads an excerptfrom an Article that concludes with the following points, "Neo-Darwinism, and the multi verse hypothesis invented to avoid theoverwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modernscience." The Catholic church will again defend human nature byproclaiming the eminent design evident in nature is real. 18:53The problem with this reasoning I feel, even while being a Catholicis that we are constantly trying to project on to God, if there issuch an awesome omnipotent being how he created everything.We understand that it should be a "Certain" way that we imagine itbeing like.This, to me is flawed thinking. To only think that everything has toshow a design in order for that to "prove" a creator isn't and can'tbe the only standpoint to argue from. Evolution in all its supposedrandomness can very well be part of a bigger picture that comes froma design that is part of an even bigger picture that is pure chaos.Either way, if there is a super powerful "being" or "thing" thatis "God" outside of time and space beyond our comprehension, then itis plausible that this "God" did it this way.(28:02) I think the world needs to wake up from it's long nightmareofreligious belief. And anything that we scientists can do to weakenthe hold of religion should be done and may in fact in the end by ourgreatest contribution to civilization."It doesn't get anymore biased than this last statement made by thespeaker. How completely foolish and blind to ignore all the good andscientific advances that were made in the name of religion and byreligious people. It's as if he ignores centuries of Scientificprogress existing alongside religion in favor of promoting hisagenda. The speaker is trying to divorce the two from each other asif they are bitter enemies. For example, He ignores the fact that theCatholic church was at the forefront of science for many centuries aswell as advancements made in Muslim Countries. Still, this doesn'tprove that Science is better off when religion is involved it justmeans that this speaker seems to be pushing an agenda and overlooksthese facts when its convenient to do so.Watching the Intelligent design vs. the Evolution debate for me islike watching two people argue over how my HDTV, came to be in myliving room. Was it created over a slow process? instantly? Did itjust appear there? Did someone bring it in the house? Did it evolvefrom the carpet since some of the same chemicals in the carpet can befound in the make-up of the TV? Whatever side figures out how to turnon the TV first does not make their side `"right automatically".That's all that seems to be going on here.At the 33:44 mark the speaker states that a fear of science, thefact that Science doesn't mention God makes it immoral. Thereforemust be wrong and is against God. So we have to change the wayscience is done." While this may be true for some over zealouslyreligious people it isn't the same for everyone and religion as awhole. For example, when I'm learning how to play a new video game,learning a new song on the guitar or expanding my vocabulary from thedictionary I don't think to myself "Since none of what I'm doingright now is mentioning God it must be immoral therefore must bewrong and against God…" This is an absurd overgeneralization.Steven Weinberg is quoted as stating…"Science does not make it impossible to believe in God it just makesit possible to not believe in God. 34:45 and that's reallyimportant." And this is true to an extent because without scienceeverything is a miracle. Then again this brings us backto "Ourselves" projecting on to God what is a miracle and what isnot. Must a miracle have no possible explanation in order for it tobe a miracle? Can it be considered a miracle that in this huge vast"multiverse" it coincidentally happens that someone's prayer isanswered in such a way that can be explained scientifically… but thefact that it happened right then and there is the miracle itself?The speaker talks about the Catholic priest Lemaitre, who was thefirst to identify the Big Bang. Lemaitre wrote to the Pope and saidnot to say that Science proved God because we are unsure of thecauses behind the big bang. The speaker seemed to see this as proofof the shakiness of religion. What I see here again is the promotionof an agenda that is not purely scientific but an ideology that wantsto promote science and ban the idea of "God" from it.At the 54:45 mark the speaker states that half of Americans believeJesus is coming back in their lifetime. In attempt to throw themajority of Christians into a big black pot of "nut cases".Thanks to the Rapturist dispensationalism movement the speaker usesthis information to show that this type of thinking is dangerous toscience. Which I agree it is, but what the speaker doesn't mention isthat in the Worlds largest and oldest Christian organization theCatholic church, the message isn't apocalyptic at all (well in thesense of Rapture theology) and is and has been for centuries a greatpromoter of science and ethics in science.At the 1:03:25 mark the speaker quotes an example of the Catholicstandpoint which states "the Secular society that denies Goddisorients the correct conscience of Man." The speaker states thatthe claim is that Human beings really do get their Morality fromReligion. And religion in some sense is the only sense of Morality."He then goes on to state that "Legions of child rapists coming out ofthe priesthood would have given him some pause before making thisclaim…"This is a very bold and dishonest statement. First off, therearen't "Legions" of child rapists coming out of the priesthood Nomore than there are legions of atheist scientists raping children.(although the Kinsey institute for research in Sex, Gender andReproduction swallows nervously hard when asked permission to quotefrom their namesake's work's on sexuality that involved the sexualabuse of children for the "sake of science")The only difference is that in religion (specifically the Catholicreligion here that was targeted by the speaker) there is Right andwrong, black and white and in godlessness there is only what you wantor what the majority wants right or wrong to be.For the religious,( Catholicspecifically), God is reality and his truth is an objective truth.It is true that In the "Godless" world there can be morality and noreligious person in their right mind would or should automaticallycondemn an atheist as doomed to immorality.But one thing that is clear is that in this "godless world"setting, "Morality" would and could change from one person to thenext.Ultimately it would be decided by the majority what is "wrong"and "right" and that could change with the majority vote. Or thedictatorship at hand.In an atheist world, raping children can in fact be made "right"where as in the "Catholic" world This can never be right. Whether ornot "Catholic people" commit these crimes is not the debate. But thefact remains that just as Catholics believe Faith in Christ isabsolutely necessary for Salvation and are closed off to the ideathat Jesus was just a man. Catholics are also closed off to the ideathat raping children can never be right and will never waiver in thatstance…It's about moving beyond the belief that all religion is a bad thingand is contrary to the development of science because it reallyisn't… We know from observable history that the mentalityof "developing science at all costs" has brought about disaster forour human race.In fact as a Catholic I'd argue from an Evolutionary standpoint thatreligion and faith are an integral part of our being and like thedesire to eat makes us "eat" food it's helped us survive.Faith is why I am here typing this and you are here reading it…These Scientific ideas don't throw God out of the Equation at all inthe slightest…



John Maynard Smith and Skeptical inquiry required for religion...(and Science)



The opening portion of the video with John Maynard smith evolutionarybilogist, immediately caught my attention because I deal with thistopic frequently in discussing with different people about Scienceand faith. When questioned by the interview he explains that(paraphrasing) "He didn't feel that his religion would allow him tofollow through his thoughts to the end" He states that he had aguilty conscience prior to leaving his faith toward a moreatheistic/agnostic approach. He then goes on to explain that he's anatheist but that the "term" agnostic fits him better because hedoesn't like to claim to be too sure of anything. The interviewerasked him if he missed the sense that there is some larger purpose inthe universe to which Maynard replied that at first it was hard butonce he got over his fear of giving up his faith he was happy.In reading other posts by other classmates commenting on this earlierportion of the video one person stated"I believe many people who ponder about life, evolution and scienceoften run into this problem. Religion in some ways can handicap themind."I agree partially with this statement that certain beliefs and typesof religions can handicap the mind if you hold them and areunwilling to be corrected even if they are proven factually wrong. Acouple examples from the assigned article titled "Should SkepticalInquiry Be Applied to Religion?" cover these topics. The example ofthe young earth Creationist who believes the earth is 10,000 yearsold despite the fact that we can view stars that are billions yearsold is a good one.But then we have another example in the article regarding the Shroudof Turin we read…"Extraordinary claims that violate naturalistic causal regularitiesshould require strong evidence. I don't see how anyone can protestthat his beliefs ought to be immune to the standards of objectivehistorical investigation, simply by claiming that they are held onthe basis of faith. A good case in point is the alleged burial shroudof Jesus, the Shroud of Turin. Meticulous carbon-14 dating by threerenowned laboratories has shown that the cloth is approximately 700years old and therefore most likely a forgery. The fact thatbelievers may seek to shield their belief by proclaiming that theyhave faith that the Shroud is genuine does not make it any more true."I agree with this statement and would further conclude that if thiswere the whole evidence one should dismiss their old belief as provenfalse. The believer who once believed that the shroud of Turin was infact the burial cloth of Jesus should simply let go of that beliefbased on the evidence.Allow me to continue discussing the opening statements of theMaynard video and the comments regarding religion being a blockade toskeptical inquiry in the article and by comments made by classmatesbecause i'm going to tie them together.It's interesting to note that the evidence provided in this articleon skepticism is a bit outdated regarding the carbon dating resultsand the latest information regarding the shroud has proven that thereis actually evidence that may prove that the portion tested wasperformed on a medieval "re-weaved" area that was dyed. The shroudcan very well be much older than the date given for the Carbondating.An agnostic retired scientist and engineer named "Ed Brior"commenting on the shroud is quoted as saying"When I first heard the allegation that the Shroud sample used bythe three labs in the radiocarbon dating might have been from arewoven portion of the cloth and not original, I was extremelyskeptical. However, the results of numerous studies on this question,as well as some presentations at the recent Ohio Shroud Conferenceand the new book by Raymond Rogers convinced me that the Shroudradiocarbon sample was not representative of the Shroud---and may bepartly or completely a nearly invisible reweave performed at someearlier time in the Shroud's history. Only further testing can answerthis question…"Either way the verdict is still open on that very issue and it wasprecisely skeptical inquiry sparked by "religious belief" that hascarried the investigation further.So we see it's not always a case of "religion holding science back orbringing a handicap to the mind" I would argue that in many wayscertain religions or religious beliefs can challenge science to beeven more skeptical and critical of itself.So, yes, Skeptical inquiry should be required for religion...and Science.



Intelligent Design and Critical Thinking



"Irreducible complexity.""The reason we know that a creator designed it is because all theparts have to be present together because in the absence of any ofthe components the blood will not clot. Only when all the componentsare together" - statement from video on the position of I.DUltimately it seems that the conflict between evolutionary scienceand advocates of Intelligent design is not really a question ofscience and experiments regarding proving which side is right. Itseems to be a philosophical question.How did this all come about? Where did we and everything come from?In the minds of intelligent design advocates it seems they want tofind this point in time where things just "leaped" or "Warped"forward without any explanation what so ever so that they can invokethe need for a God. Some have labeled this thinking the "God of the gaps". This means that anything that we cannot explain scientificallyautomatically means that it is attributed to God.Here we find multiple problems, one of them being that when you tryto attribute something we do not yet understand to somethingunknowable and mystical you automatically are projecting your limitedmindset on to "God" (if there is such an entity). How many times inthe history of our world did we hear that "We would never be able toaccomplish things that we now take for granted?" If we could travelback in time and tell the people in the 16th century or even the 18thor 19th that we could fly in the sky with giant vehicles that aren'tmade out of "light feathery" material, that actually weigh thousandsof pounds, carry hundreds of people and can travel across continents,They'd gasp and think it was ridiculous and that we were lying. Yetairplanes are in the sky every second of every day.We heard these doubts about harnessing light for electricity in thelight bulb, breaking the sound barrier, splitting the atom, travelingto space… and the list goes on. Yet we've accomplished all thosethings.All of this brings us back to the point of the video though. Is itreally a question of science? Or is it a question of Sciencedeclaring that "all of this happened" (Evolution) and therefore thereis no God.Who's the winner in the hypothetical scenario where two Greeks arearguing over the existence of Zeus and the non-believer points outthat it was not Zeus who was throwing lightning and rain down fromthe clouds but it was the scientific understanding of Precipitationand atmospheric discharge. Does that prove that Zeus doesn't exist orthat the believers understanding of Zeus was limited by theirknowledge of science?The second Science declares that anything happens because there is noGod, I would argue, It has taken a religious stance. This is whypartially; I don't know what the opponents of ID are worried about.If they are merely worried about fundamentalism inserting itself intoScience textbooks then I'd have to agree that that is great cause forconcern because I am also against that. However if they are botheredby the challenge that ID presents then they should re-assessthemselves as "scientists". I think the problem arises in the factthat there is a blurry line here in this debate because like, Maynardin the film on Evolution, many of these scientists areatheists/agnostics, and some are unwilling to give up their own "lackof belief" and they also become uncomfortable and even angry whenchallenged on their lack of belief.Interesting enough in a sweet twist of Irony, this particular videolecture opposing Intelligent design opened up with a prayer and isbeing led by a Roman Catholic. But that just goes to show you thatalthough the line of non-belief and belief in God is somewhat blurredin this debate it is ultimately about a Philosophical question. Theright to say that "No a God didn't and couldn't have done this"or "Yes a God could have done this and we should show how we thinkhis design is apparent in all of this in classroom textbooks"Either way, what I am not against is ID's intellectual challenges toEvolution. ID existing helps to keep the Evolutionary team on it'sfeet. The More claim's ID makes as it searches the "edge ofEvolution" like the title Michael Behe's book, The More challengesand opportunities the Evolution camp gets to embark on. They get tomake this information public and research it even more in depth. Howcan this be a bad idea?Right now it seems that the Evolutionary camp has the upper hand inthe fact that ID has conceded that It is technically not "Science"and to include itself in science it would have broaden the term toinclude such practices as "Astrology". It admits in many ways that itis more of a philosophical Question. Where the ID camp has the upperhand is the fact that the "Evolutionary" Camp is absolutely no wherenear in declaring "Why or How" Everything came to be and declaringthat there is no God because of it.And this is what makes Atheist scientists uncomfortable.The fact that they know they can't declare this.Just like the scenario earlier when the non-believing Greek uncoveredthe real reasons behind the rain and the lightning from the cloudsdoesn't disprove God at all (Or Zeus in that hypothetical scenario),it simply showed the limits of the "believing Greek's" imagination ofGod's power. (If there is Zeus or a True God)…



Beyond belief but not beyond Bias



There is an awful lot of bending over backwards to be nice toreligion going on… (32:35) –Richard Dawkins"When we've lost religion as I hope one day we shall. We shall havelost the appalling guilt that afflicts people brainwashed as peopleinto being religious. We shall have lost the brainwashing of childrenwhich indeed labels them as sharing the same religious opinions astheir parents…a form of Child abuse (33:15)- Richard DawkinsI've highlighted these first 2 quotes here because I want tohighlight the thought process of this man Richard Dawkins and I wantto show how easily men and women of great stature can use theirauthority and their persuasive power to infect others withtheir "Memes" as Richard Dawkins coins the term. The problems is thatmany of these "memes" are complete unsubstantiated opinionated biasriding on the wave of their intellectual prestige.It is important that we all understand that just because oneconsiders themselves an "Intellectual" or a "Bright" as RichardDawkins and Sam Harris arrogantly tout, that they too, are not immunefrom spreading nonsense and false information that would never makeit past their own scientific critiquing standards. Yet it happensfrequently. In fact in the first 4 beyond belief sessions alone, notone half hour segment goes by without an unsubstantiated, biasedopinion that gets thrown in the mix. Still those "unscientificopinions" stand proudly side by side with the speakers "Scientificinformation."I cringe everytime I read or hear someone use the blanket statementthat "Religion blocks intellectual thought or blocks advances inScience, education and Medicine." Because this is such a horribleinaccurate blanket statement in much need of further investigation.Richard dawkins again states..."We shall have lost the subversion of science which comes fromteaching children that faith is a virtue. Faith meaning beliefwithout evidence." (33:20) -Richard DawkinsIn Betrand Russel's "Why I am not a Christian" he states"There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, thechurch, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality,inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessarysuffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part anopponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways thatdiminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label asmorality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothingto do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that oughtto be done because it would make for human happiness, they think thathas nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happinessto do with morals? The object of morals is not to make peoplehappy." –Betrand Russel (why I am not a Christian)Never mind the thousands of Catholic hospitals across the world,never mind the thousands of Catholic schools and colleges as well.Just to name an example of the worlds largest Christian organization.Never mind the fact that for centuries the Catholic church led theworld in scientific studies which included astronomy and medicine. Itseems that all these "intellectuals " can remember is "Galileo orthe Crusades and Inquisition". But not only that, they only knowthe "Black legend" version of these tales taught in the extremeradical fundamentalists Chick publications, which in an ironic twistof fate also gets promoted as "facts" in books like Richard Dawkin'sGod delusion and Sam Harris "End of Faith".Both of these books and authors are revered in the "Beyond Belief"sessions.It seems that in their imaginary world, Religious inquisitions onceupon a time killed millions on top of millions of people just fordisagreeing with the Church. Science was destroyed and suppressedbecause it caused doubt in God. Galileo was ruined because hechallenged the bible with his "Heliocentric" views and the SpanishInquisition was the greatest religious atrocity in the history of theWorld killing millions of people. And Luckily protestant Christianitycame along with it's susceptibility to reason and willingness tocompromise it's beliefs for Science.Never mind the fact that secular historians investigating the SpanishInquisitions 125,000 cases have found that, 1.8% were executed (2,250people) over a period of 350 years with most of these deathsoccurring in the first decade and a half of the Spanish Inquisition'shistory. Never mind that between the 16th and 17th century less than3 people per year were put to death by the inquisition making theinquisition less lethal than Bicycle accidents in the United statesbetween the years of 1987-2002 (www.safekidsnebraska.org/fact-sheets/Bike facts.pdf)Never mind that the protestant induced war that occurred right afterthe Spanish inquisitions killed more people than the inquisitionitself and that the societies built around the new splinteredChristian faith lagged behind their Catholic counterparts who weresupposed to be void of reason.. Never mind any of that. These factsare ignored.Never mind the fact that Galileo wasn't ruined for holding aheliocentric view but because he was going against a prevalent viewof the Scientists of the time and trying to force the church to bendto his scientific view which modern science has proven partiallywrong. Nicolaus Copernicus was a Catholic cleric, who's heliocentricview paved the way for Gallileo's work.Never mind that his views were not suppressed by the church and thefacts that he delayed publication of a book regarding hisHeliocentric view, not for fear of the church, but for fear of hisscientific colleagues at the time.Never mind any of that…"Religion is Evil, it blocks science and teaching it to your childrenis child abuse!." So preaches Richard Dawkins.Sounds like the close minded Radical fundamentalist preaching wherethey label everything "The Devil" that contradicts their thoughtprocess."Religion is The Devil" But teaching your children the ideologyof "Atheism" is not child abuse because if you don't believe in Godyou are a true "intellectual" a "Bright". You have been awakened bythe great "awakening"…Never mind that the so called "Great awakenings" that have occurredin the history of world societies dwarf the death toll of everyreligious war, inquisition, crusade combined by millions of lives.Never mind any of that.If you're a prominent physicist, biologist or philosopher and you sayit.It must be true.I respect everyone's scientific views and their accomplishments intheir respective fields of science but when they start teaching andinterweaving wrong ideas like these with their work I callit "nonsense riding on the wave of intellectual prestige."Don't get me wrong. I'm all for them being able to express theiropinions and points of view. It interests me to hear and study themwhether I agree or not. Ultimately, It's up to us viewers and readersto decipher what is fact and what is fiction.Though these great minds can claim that they are "beyond belief" It'sclear to me that they are far from being "beyond bias".



Why I am a Christian and pray before I eat my food



Reading through Betrand Russel's writing on "Why I am not aChristian", Listening to Carolyn Porco's speech in one of the Beyondbelief sessions and reading quite a few posts from fellow classmateson the conflict of religion and science I decided to write thisgeneral response to some of the points brought up.Critical thinking is all about putting yourself in the other "pointof views" shoes. And when we stand in those shoes it us vital tounderstand this "other" point of view because if we don't, we maymiss the other point entirely. And that's what I see going on herefrom some classmate posts to the intellectuals in the beyond beliefsessions and assigned readings.Carolyn porco at the 1:25.00 minute mark describes how practicing theCatholic faith she grew up in just "didn't do it for her" She goes onto state"I was engaged in asking the questions of wonder. What are we doinghere? Why are we here? Why am I personally individually here. Iturned to astronomy in order to understand the greater theatre inwhich life has unfolded. Being a scientist and staring immensity andeternity In the face everyday is as grand and awe inspiring itgets." –Carolyn PorcoAnd then she goes on to say later regarding science without religion…"The answer to these questions, with absolutely no hype, haveproduced the greatest story that's ever been told. And there isn't areligion that can offer anything better." –Carolyn PorcoThis is where I'd like to begin with my point of view…It's a long summer day and there are four very different lookinggentlemen sitting down together in a Mexican restaurant about toenjoy their food. Most notable, 3 of the four gentlemen are coveredin Tattoos, arms sleeved and the neck area. One who is bald even hasthem on his scalp where his hair would be if he decided to grow itout. Another is wearing a bandana and has a Mohawk. Another has notattoos and is dressed casual In shorts and a T-shirt. 3 of the fourgentlemen are of Mexican ethnicity and the fourth is a mixture ofCreole and African. He has long dreadlocks is wearing shades and hasthe appearance of a R&B or Rap artist getting ready to film a musicvideo.At the table there is much conversation going on, loud laughter,joking at times, some moments of serious exchanges and intense talkbetween the four young men.The waitress walks up to them with their food and you can see it intheir eyes that they are happy to be served. One by one she placestheir food before them and they each go through a quick scrambling ofmaking room for their plates, getting rid of gum, situating theirsilverware…The waitress warns them of their hot plates, smiles and she walksaway.Then it begins…The bald guy begins a peculiar ritual.first as he lowers his head…He quietly signs himself with his right hand…"In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit…"The guy in the shorts with no tattoos closes his eyes and he tobegins to pray to himself as well..Then the guy in the bandana and Mohawk…lastly the guy with dreads joins in quietly…The whole ritual lasts about twenty seconds at most and then theconversations and joking resume with haste….What I've just described here are myself and my friends. I went intodetail on the way we look because I want to make a few points. Iwanted to highlight that we come from very different worlds thoughsome of us share the same ethnicity. A couple of us are familyrelated but still we have walked very different paths in our life.The guy in the shorts is me. The Mohawk guy with the tattoos on hisneck is my cousin James. The bald guy with that tattoos on his headis a good friend named Jude and the Guy with the dreadlocks is a longtime neighbor and friend, Jeffrey.I Myself, am a student and currently looking for a new job and Iassist teaching Catechism classes at a local church. My cousin Jamesand friend Jude are Tattoo artists and my neighbor Jeffrey actuallyis an R&B artist for the Warner brothers record label.What we all share in common beyond our friendship and blood ties isthat we are all Catholic.Classmate jasonni86 wrote something that I wanted to highlight for mynext point.Jasonni86 wrote…."However, when i see people praying before eatingmeals, i find it funny, because in my opinion god didn't give you foodto eat. you or your parents or family worked hard for you to get $$ toget that food. I for one, don't thank Buddha for "giving" me food toeat. I have to work to put food on my plate. And also when people prayfor good things to happen to them, or improve their luck on certainthings."- Jasonni86At the restaurant when our discussion was interrupted by the arrivalof our food we all stopped and prayed quietly to ourselves. At themoment we did that we could feel the eyes from the surrounding tablesbearing down upon us. The people around us suddenly had this look ontheir faces like they just saw something so strange and weird. Likeif all of a sudden we turned into ghosts or stood up and screamed inthe middle of the restaurant. It was clear that our praying before weate had stirred something awkward in the room.Perhaps they too as Jasonni86 described thought we were funny becausewe prayed before we ate. Perhaps at that moment they suddenly feltintellectually superior than us. Deeper thinkers than us. Maybe evenjust flat out better than us.Who knows what they were thinking and why the strange looks wentaiming in our direction.The bottom line is that It was all perfectly fine because wecontinued with our food un-phased by the strange looks. We reservedour personal opinions about them because we didn't know enough aboutthe people surrounding us to make a judgement upon them. We didn'tknow what books they've read or what life experiences they had beenthrough that would cause them to arrive at their conclusions.It was possible that some of them hadn't even thought beyond whatthey had been taught to form their point of view. We knew like somany other people (which includes the grand scientific minds we'vewatched in the "Beyond belief" sessions) that they probably hadmissed the point completely of why us four men prayed before we ateat the table.They simply missed the point.Now I want to analyze our little prayer ritual.So why did we do it?Did we think that it would make our food taste better?Did we think that God was in the back kitchen preparing our food forus?Did we think that God would get mad at us if we didn't thank him forthe food we were about to eat?Did we not understand that it was our money, our work and the Chef'sin the back and Waitress bringing the food to us that allowed us toeat this food?No… of course not. We prayed exactly because we were thinking beyondthat limited view of realityAt the table we were laughing and joking of course but during themoments of intense talk we were talking about life issues and socialissues. Politics, family and friend problems. We were also talkingabout physics and the Universe as well on how there are some planetsout there that are so huge that our Sun could crash into them and itwould just be swallowed up like a small comet dissolving in theearth's atmosphere.We talked about how at the atomic level Scientists have theorizedthat everything moves in waves and how its so strange that theseatomic "objects" can be in two places at once. How 99% of the densityof an atom is in it's nucleus and how the orbiting Electrons wouldreally be about 2 miles away from the Nucleus if the "Nucleus" of anatom was observed on the scale of the nucleus being the size of aBasketball.We prayed that twenty second prayer because we acknowledged that onceupon a time billions of years ago when the universe began from asingle point and exploded into chaos and uncertainty an amazing thinghappened. An extraordinary event happened to a small tiny planet thatallowed life to grow on it. This planet we call earth brought forthhundreds of thousands of living organisms which may have evolvedfurther and grew more complex than the imagination could grasp. Andafter millions of more years humans came along which had aconsciousness even more complex than the hundreds and thousands ofprevious species almost all who were wiped out and had becomeextinct..These humans, that arrived much later developed complex codes ofcommunication, transportation and "agriculture" (which aided inbringing about our food at the table) And after generations andgenerations of successful reproduction which also accounted fortrillions on top of trillions of uncountable unfertilized "egg cellsand sperm" that died and never made It out of the gene pool, Somehowthrough out all of that chaos of billions of years, uncertainty, andthe horrible odds against us…Us four men, survivedWe somehow made it to that table to eat..We existed….And We had the grand opportunity of sitting at that table talkingabout it all…Conscious of it all…In awe of it all…We sat at that dinner table staring "immensity and eternity in theface, Inspired." As Carolyn porco describes In the beyond beliefvideo…There we were "Glorious pieces of meat" as Pat churchland describes…And we prayed because we were thankful for it all…We prayed because we were Thrilled that we were about to experiencethe taste, touch, look and smell of the food before us.How was the food even sitting on the plate in front of us holding itself together? There's no such thing as a "Bean and Cheese" atom.There's no such thing as an "orange" or "Brown" atom either. Whatdoes that even mean?Yet there we were, holding all those contradictory thoughts in ourmind but still being able to function. Enjoying the moment at 186,000miles per hour, yet frozen in place understanding that if there is aGod then he most certainly provided food for us to eat.And given what we know about physics it is entirely plausible thatGod provided our food for us at the exact time God heard our prayersat the restaurant… Instead that God already heard our prayersBillions of years ago, before the big bang ever even happened.That is why I am Christian and pray before I eat my food…

Dawkins, Weinberg and Harris should join the Gang “Eleven”

Despite my own close encounters and familiar experiences with religions I've known to be dangerous It bothers me when I hear such arrogantly touted quotes such as Steven Weinberg's We need to "wake-up from our long nightmare of religious beliefs." He then goes on to state "And anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in fact in the end by our greatest contribution to civilization. " –Steven WeinbergThe phrase "Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done" sends chills down my spine as to what that "anything" could mean. We've seen what happens in our recent history when atheistic states lived by this statement and we've seen what can happen in the movie "Eleven" when gangsters "do anything they can to weaken the hold of religion as well.I would like to continue by stating that I appreciate the works that Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have contributed in their respective fields. I've agreed with many things the authors discussed in their books and I find their books to be mostly devastating to the faiths of Islam and Evangelical/ Fundamentalist Christianity. Especially Sam Harris's The end of Faith which nails Islam quite hard.On that same note I found that both Dawkins and Harris seem nearly clueless when it comes to the details of some religious aspects and the history surrounding them. For example they have trouble with a topic I am quite familiar with. When it comes to Catholic theology/Church/ history for one. Sam Harris in his book "The end of faith" made some effort to sometimes distinguish the Catholic church from other religions but there was still a lot of dribble and "Black legend" to be found in it along with Dawkins revered "the God Delusion". I notice this error being repeated frequently and it seems to be common among other prominent atheists as well. Another well known atheist writer Christopher Hitchens", the author of a book titled "god is not great" also makes these same blunders. These same blanket statement generalizations.What is happening is that they are all failing to try or want to understand the theology of the religions they effortlessly bundle together in blanket statements when they write things like "Reason in Exile" (the intro to Sam Harris's book that is referenced in the Beyond belief series) or when they say things like "Religion has blocked scientific progress" without going into depth as to what they are talking about exactly. I give Harris some credit because he at least makes an effort to make some distinction from time to time, for example his rhetorical question in one of the beyond belief sessions (I believe it was session 8) when he asks "Where are the Christian Palestinians that are experiencing the same treatment as the Muslim Palestinians that are blowing themselves up for Christ?" (I'm paraphrasing and not repeating his exact words in my quote but the point remains) He even goes out of his way to draw a distinct line between religions like Islam and Buddhism (which he seems to favor if he was to be forced to favor any religion. Buddhism that is). But still there remains a lot of blanket statements and a lot of dismissal without investigation coming from Harris.Dawkins is bolder in his claims. "Why study the theology?" he confidently asks? "It's all nonsense". Dawkins anticipates the "Old aunt in the backroom to kill over so he can no longer be bothered with her rubbish and her holding science and society back.So what does this have to do with the gang "eleven" from the assigned film "eleven"? Because Weinberg, Dawkins and Harris are "intellectually" doing the same thing to religion that the thugs were physically doing to their victims in the video eleven.They were blanket labeling them and lashing out at them with no clear substantiated reason to do so. They were blindly attacking based on ignorance."Why study the theology?" the question Dawkins asked could easily be the same question that the founder of the gang "Eleven" confidently asked himself before mistakenly killing a Sikh in place of a Muslim. Had he actually studied the theology who would have never mistaken the Sikh for a muslim in the first place. (not saying that he had actually killed a muslim it would have made it ok. thats not the point here)Radical Islamic fundamentalists strap bombs to themselves and blow away innocent victims for Allah and that somehow makes Fundamentalist Christians and Catholics guilty. Christian Fundamentalists subscribe to literal creationism in the bible and that also means that Catholics are guilty of holding back science even though the Catholic church does not dogmatically endorse Creationism. The Catholic is getting beat up for being mistaken for a fundamentalist, the Fundamentalist is being beat up for getting mistaken for radical Muslim and the Buddhist is being highlighted as the voice of reason even though it could be argued easily that the ideology of Buddhism is rooted in mysticism much more than all the previous mentioned religions.This is what happens when we ask "Why study theology?" and don't care to do it.In the Beyond belief sessions religion is labeled as the "Old aunt" that is going to die soon and this implies that "maybe it (religion) was good thing long ago but now its old and unimportant" . Perhaps they would even like to assist her suicide without the guilt of a god frowning down upon them for killing her? (Euthanasia)What's going on here?This is intellectual bullying. In a previous post I had called this type of opinion sharing "unsubstantiated bias riding on the waves of intellectual prestige" This is why Dawkins and Harris are intellectually acting no different than the gangsters from the film eleven.We can't just label religion in blanket statements and consider it all the same thing. To do so is to make the same mistakes as the thugs in the film eleven did. And unlike Dawkins claims, the understanding of the theology of a religions is vital in understanding what makes it tick. As mentioned earlier the blanket statement of "Religion holding back science" We must ask, what are they talking about exactly? Creationism vs. Evolution? Are they talking about Stem cell research? The answer to these questions needs to be analyzed and discussed to arrive at a consensus of what exactly does "slowing scientific progress" mean. For a Catholic it may mean not harvesting human fertilized embryo's because it infringes on the right of human life. For an atheist they can pick and choose what constitutes someone being worthy of life and having rights and base it on whatever they subjectively feel is right for them.I remember reading once a person joking on the matter stating " I don't consider you alive unless you're in my phonebook". It's worth a chuckle but the reality of the matter is that this is an issue and extremes can be found on both sides in every debate. Who gets to draw the line and why should we accept that line? These core concepts must be investigated further to understand each perspective in depth to make an intelligent decisionBut we can't do that if Atheists like Dawkins are content with throwing the theology out the window without investigation.In Daniel Dennet's book "Breaking the spell, a book that is also referenced later in the Beyond belief sessions, Dennet describes "that at first glance Dolphins and Sharks looked like they were the same creature of sorts, yet because of our advances in science and biology we know them to be very different. Like a cow compared to a fish. (I'm paraphrasing again.) Dawkins in the God delusion describes the Moth who dives into the flame because of an evolutionary hiccup with the recent invention of controlled "light" (fire, headlights etc etc) and how it disturbs the Moth's ability to navigate. He compares the original purpose of the Moth's ability to use light to navigate and it's fatal deviation into the flame to religion. Dawkins is saying that Religion may have somehow served some purpose in the past. "That belief is kind of like being in love" but now it (religion) is like the Moth who is being led to the flame for reasons that are not worth it anymore. In comparison to the unhealthy aspects of radical fundamentalist religions.And I agree with that too, having experienced religions I clearly know to be false and dangerous such as an experience I have had with an apocalyptic Christian Cult based out of south korea that worships a woman alive right now as God the Mother (World mission society church of god).What I am hypothesizing, by using Dennet and Dawkins examples, If there is a God, then I would submit that there are some religions that may "look like" The others, but upon further investigation, turn out to NOT be completely like them. Much Like the differences described in Dennet's book between the shark and the Dolphin. Maybe some religions can lead to the flame like the moth, both literally and figuratively but this is probably because those people have deviated from the proper understanding and theology of their religion much like a person can deviate from an individual atheistic ideology. I submit, that even as just a Meme, that there are religions that are superior, healthier and stronger memes for survival than their counterparts. That they are better for society and There are some that are not deserving of being unfairly labeled in blanket statements. There are some that are not afraid of a critique or a challenge from science and in fact invite it and enjoy advances in technology for the betterment of society.We can test these theories with open minds or we can be like the gang eleven and keep blanket labeling "religion" as "evil" a "problem" that needs to die or a "nightmare we need to wake up from" and in doing so that will cause us to make incorrect and poor judgments on who we should attack intellectually based on our own ignorance.And because of that ignorance we'll keep beating up the wrong people (ideas) based on incorrect biased information.The almost six minute movie eleven was about physical reckless, bias prejudice in extreme forms.I petition the speakers of the beyond belief sessions not to allow their 12 hour videos to be about intellectual reckless, bias prejudice in mild forms…Because In the end they yield the same results…




Burn the messenger lose the message


Distinguishing the message from the messenger is important because the message many times itself has almost nothing to do with the messenger. Da free John as stated in the article is a victim of the bias that seems to naturally affect our willingness to listen and understand a message based on the appearance of the behavior of the messenger. As stated in the article "while many individuals are deeply attracted to the philosophy of Da Free John, they are not drawn to the man." And the example of the alcoholic womanizing alan watts is also given. The article states also that "behind this fallacious equation of "the medium is the message" is found in the life and work of Alan Watts, the renowned philosopher of Zen Buddhism."I have mixed feelings about the article in the fact that Yes, it is true a messenger can be differentiated from the message delivered by the individual but wouldn't it also be true that the messenger themselves can affect the message being delivered because of their interpretation and presentation? What if perhaps the messenger injects their bias into the message and passes it off as "the message" as we have seen many times in the Beyond belief series and other articles on varying topics written by atheist evolutionary biologists, and Physicist. Perhaps we read an article about the "Christian Church" one by a Catholic theologian and another by a pastor of Calvary chapel. The definition of the Church is very different for both messengers even though both will be claiming to be giving an explanation on the "Christian Church" Or the definition of Islam from two different Islamic scholars. One a radical fundamentalist, the other more liberal.Either way it is certain that we must learn to draw the lines between the message and the messenger themselves. Another example given in the article is the message of Christianity. Many times it's lost in critiques of the inquisition and negative aspects of the Christian people who have been part of those historical events labeled in a negative light.Another example that comes to mind when I think of this concept is the renowned theoretical physicist and professor of mathematics Stephen hawking. I remember the first time I saw him I was floored. I had always imagined he was an old smart guy who walked and talked just like anyone of the other intellects we've watched. I never imagined that he was in a wheel chair and afflicted with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) unable to feed himself and that he talked through a voice synthesizer that says what he types onto a computer with what very limited movement he has.Still, overlooking my initial bias I never let his handicap deter my understanding of the information he shared rather I marveled that he was capable of such tasks in his disadvantaged condition. Yet still I remember once watching a documentary that was commenting on his meeting with the late pope john paul II. What I saw is covered in the following excerpt from an msnbc article " Hawking quoted the pope as saying, "It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God."The scientist then joked that he was glad John Paul did not realize that he had presented a paper at the conference suggesting how the universe began.He states..."I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo," Hawking said during a sold-out audience at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology." –MSNBC articleI remember the audience laughed and I sat on my living room couch with my hand pressed against my face shaking my head as another renowned intellectual added fuel to the flames of black legend.Still I did not allow Hawking's self burning affect my understanding or willingness to listen to his teachings on physics and other mathematical matters. Though at the same time this causes me to contemplate that if someone could be so wrong on certain things I wonder if they could be "that wrong" again in another matter of their specialty that I'm not knowledgeable enough to catch.Either way, to burn the messenger entirely is to lose the message. To embrace the messenger based only on the message could prove as equally foolish. Both the messenger and the message form a symbiosis and we have to inform ourselves and educate ourselves so that we can make that disntinction and know where to draw the line.. We once again find ourselves with the difficult task of having to think critically, separate facts from fiction and decide for ourselves what the "message" itself really is.


Extinguishing the FLAME of wgreensix2sick (Part One)


A clash of two Irreconcilable ideologies…That is what this is about in the end. So let me explain why I stand on the side that I do. Before I start, I want to make it clear that whether you agree with me or not it's not going to be a case of anyone being able to exclaim "He's right!" Or "He's wrong" because there really isn't going to be a full consensus among people on who is "right" and who is "wrong" on this issue.You have to decide for yourself what you believe in and why you believe in it.This is about a clash of two different ideologies that are just flat out Irreconcilable and whoever's side wins is the one that will control society..The reason why I say there will be no right and wrong is not because I believe in Moral relativism. I believe in objective right and wrongs because I believe in God. I am Catholic but being able to step away from my Catholicism as Catholicism in its intellectual vastness allows a Catholic to do, I can understand multiple points of views. And by stepping away from what I define as "Right and Wrong" I realize this can completely change and eliminate the meaning of the words themselves. These words will then only gain meaning on what anyone wants them to mean.So this is the ground I will fight on and I am confident I can still win with anyone who is reasonable and willing to listen to a case that doesn't get much attention and is often unfairly drowned out by shouts of bigotry and intolerance. I am going to show here, without any of my religious texts or teachings that If I have to base me being "RIGHT" on "Scientific findings" the "Majority" or the "Facts" than I am "RIGHT" in rejecting the agenda of the Homosexual lifestyle and it's plans for society as a whole.I will show you the reader that there is a strong case and that it is most likely the "Atheist" "Agnostic" or the "Liberal Christian" opposed to my stance that are the ones fighting this battle of ideologies with "THEIR FAITH" and "THEIR BELIEFS" and that if anyone is to be called a bigot… It is themLet us start first with the quotes and critique from wgreensix2sick wgreensix2sick wrote: "This isn't related to the film but I couldn't stand some of thestatements I read here. The first one being, "My view on homosexualityis that it issomething that a person chooses to be and it is also partiallygenetics. "Partially genetics, really? After doing some research I found that at least 50% of homosexuality is due genes that are passeddown from the mother. Chromosome X is the gene that is passed down." Archangel703 Response:Passed down really? Please, where are you getting your information from because not even scientists who study genetics who claim to be homosexual would agree with you. This has been quite an embarrassment to the Gay activist faction especially when their own scientists are on record and their findings publically available for peer review and critique don't even dare hint at promoting a "gay gene".Well actually I take that back. All they ever did was attempt to promote a possible idea of a gay gene. It never materialized.Dr. Dean Hamer, a geneticist who attempted to find a cause between genes and Homosexuality stated"We knew that genes are only part of the answer. We assumed the environment also played a role in sexual orientation, as it does in most, if not all behaviors... . Homosexuality is not purely genetic…environmental factors play a role. There is not a single master gene that makes people gay. I don't think we will ever be able to predict who will be gay." This statement does two things. One it shatters the claim that there is a Gay gene by a scientist who is supposed to be a proponent of such an idea and secondly it says nothing new that we already didn't know about genes. Of course our genes affect us but not in the way that would help your argument.What you are doing here is feeding into the "MYTH" that people who engage in same sex attraction are "born that way". But in order to prove that it's not a myth you must first present scientific evidence that supports your view and unfortunately for your argument there is nothing to prove that this is purely genetic. Or even 50% genetic.In fact to even suggest that it is as a genetic effect such as skin, eye and hair color is preposterous given what we know scientifically about these attributes compared to genes affecting behavior.But for the sake of argument lets say you were correct. Then you would need to explain how a "gene Mutation" that causes someone to engage in uncontrollable behavior that will not allow them to reproduce is not a "defect" and how and why we should consider that uncontrollable behavior a "neutral" attribute such as "Hair or eye color".There is no gay gene.Just like there is no "gene for people attracted to children" Just like there is no gene that makes me want to sleep with many girls and not be faithful to just one"However there are volumes of works written on behavior that is influenced by environment and many other factors including the behavior of Homosexuality.wgreensix2sick wrote:By the way alcoholism is related to genes too. Quoted from CollaborativeStudy of the Genetics of Alcoholism "There is a strong linkage betweenchromosomes 1 and 7 and susceptibility to alcohol dependence, and weak evidence for linkage to chromosome 2." Archangel703 Response:Thanks for the fun facts on Alcholism.I'm glad you noticed the relation of alcoholism and genes especially in regards to behavior. I want to call attention to the fact that this completely contradicts your following statement of homosexuals not choosing to be gay. As you very well know, there is therapy to help alcoholics over come their deficiency. In fact this is exactly proving my point. Where is the therapy to help me overcome my –non-Alcoholism?The very existence of therapy available to those that want help with their same sex attraction is detrimental to your claim. Not only that, the fact that the therapy has proven to work is another blow.But it doesn't even stop there.Gay activists pressured the APA (American Psychiatric Association) to remove Homosexuality as a diagnosis from its "diagnostic and Statistical" manual (DSM) the handbook for mental-health professionals. NOT because of any Scientific reasoning what so ever!In 1970 and 1971 gay activists staged loud and noisy protests at the APA's annual meetings shouting down speakers and accusing the therapists of oppressing them. Many of the Psychiatrists were intimidated by the protesters but despite that there were some who HAD SUCCESSFULLY TREATED MEN WITH Same sex attraction and they defended the diagnosis of homosexuality as a mental disorder, pointing out that it was not based on preconceptions positive or negative—about homosexuality but rather on years of experience with clients who had experienced Same sex attraction and who wanted to be helped.Which brings us to an interesting question… Why did the gay activists discriminate against those that want help and could receive it? (They still do as they try to hide their stories) Why must they resort to lies and deceit to pressure their "ideology" their "beliefs" on to the rest of society harming those that want to be helped? wgreensix2sick wrote:Also I'm positive that if you'd ask twenty-five homosexuals if they chose to be gay that 100% of them will say no. Archangel703 Response:Why use this imaginary scenario of asking 25 homosexuals anything when we have volumes of studies on this very issue at our fingertips!? Why use this imaginary scenario when we can use a study published by Irving Bieber and associaties that compared 106 homosexual men with 100 non-homosexual males of which 29 became heterosexual during the course of psychoanalytical treatment. (this is but one of many studies)Again, the very existence of treatment is an embarrassment to the gay activists. The existence of those that have been helped a greater embarrassment. The activists trying to hide these people and shut them up doesn't make the truth go away.Oh Sweet Irony…Should I dare say that this is a clear case of Scientific progress being STOPPED and SLOWED by the unsubstantiated BELIEFS of certain radical fundamentalist Homosexual activists?My how the tables have turned…But wait we are not done. My next rebuttal is even juicier.wgreensix2sick wrote:I know this because Alfred Kinsey did research on them and found that no homosexual switched sexual preference after therapy. In one case a homosexual stopped "acting" homosexual and the only time he thought about men was when he masturbated. Does that seem cured to you? Didn't think so.Archangel703 Response:What part of Kinseys studies are you citing in an attempt to prove your point? Was it the study where he concluded that one in three men on the street had "homosexual" experiences but conveniently failed to mention that a large portion of the interviews were done by men that were male prostitutes, behind bars, sex offenders or men who had been to prison in an effort to skew the statistics on Homosexuality to make it sound and seem like normal sexual behavior so he could further his own sexual agenda and practices?You should know this information being that you are familiar with Kinsey's studies. Why don't you share with everyone all about Kinsey's Homosexual, Bestiality (sexual experiences with animals) Pedophilia and other deviant sexual studies as well? How about Him trading wives with his male colleagues whom he also had sex with. (both colleagues and wives)Or are you talking about the study that Kinsey used of sexual contact with men and younger boys where Kinsey revealed that out of 182 boys "studied" about a third of them were able to have five or more sexual climaxes in rapid succession and that if such UNNATURAL MORAL restrictions AGAINST PEDOPHILIA were dropped the RAPID ORGASM rates could be boosted to over fifty PERCENT! (WoW exciting science huh? Go Kinsey! I wonder how he got his information on young boys having sex with older men. Use your imagination or better yet, why don't you find out directly from the Kinsey institute who has the information available to the public.)I'm not done…. How about we talk about Kinsey's study when he tabulated the orgasm statistics of BABIES as young as four or five months old? You want to share those studies with us as well?Does anyone care to wonder how Kinsey got that information?Better yet can we even Trust Kinsey?"Right" and "Wrong" No, no no… We'll have none of that Religious Morality mumbo jumbo here. This is SCIENCE!! By the way I'm curious How many of you reading this would be willing to offer up your 5 month old son and daughter for some good ol Kinsey scientific sexual studies?Disgusting isn't it? But why? What's Right and What's wrong? Don't push your religious beliefs on to Kinsey. He believes it's normal and RIGHT.wgreensix2sick wrote:Now for the second thing i found wrong with your views. "I accept thatthere will be homosexuals in today's society but I don't believe it is the right thing and that it is a sin."Acceptance is good i guess but it could be better. Why "accept"someone as being different when people should be seen as the same?That's like saying i "accept" black people. That's a ridiculous statement. Archangel703 Response:No actually the ridiculous statement is you comparing "black people" with "Homosexual" people as if there is a real comparison between people who behave differently and people whose skin color is no more a choice than the color of their eyes.Youre making the grave mistake I described earlier of the "gay gene" "born that way fallacy" which has yet to be proven at all. The best part, not even leading Gay activists believe it but they most definitely will keep quiet if enough people can fall for it and it pushes their agenda forward.In fact the main studies that ever gave any thought to that "gay gene" issue were done by Simon LeVay and Dean Hamer. Both studies have long since been discredited by subsequent studies that proved their results inconclusive. Not only that but not even levay or Hamer who I cited earlier would claim to have found a gay gene. If I take up more space here quoting them it will only prove my point further so I will let you do your homework on that one. By presenting incorrect and skewed evidence as facts it has affected your ability to draw proper analogies and conclusions.This is the same thing the Gay activist faction used when it came to the recent Proposition on Gay marriage. They were preaching their belief that since they were born that way they have a right to marry. But even the logic of this thinking opens up a debate. Does the government even have the authority to change the definition of Marriage?Why stop there? How about as many girls as I want? No, how about my relatives?wgreensix2sick wrote:And the last statement i had a problem with was, "...but now they are treated fairly and given more rights." Is that why gay people are allowed to get married now? oh wait they cant. Well i guess that sums up my beef. Archangel703 Response:The interesting part about this statement is that you probably don't have beef that you or I can't marry our cousins our moms or dad, Our brothers or sisters.Who read that last line and cringed and thought to themselves? "How disgusting is that? I know it grosses me out too, but stay with me…If the right to marry anyone is In fact a "Right" Who are you to tell me that I can't have that right? Who are you to tell me that I can't love whoever I want? Wait! Don't tell me because our kids are going to come out retarded because you have no say in how many kids i want or if I even want to have kids at all. Oh and Youre intolerant, hatefilled and a bigot if you disagree with me. Does this Sound familiar all of a sudden?Again this is about a Clash of Ireconcilable ideologies. Choose your side. I'm comfortable with my choice (here's a hint, I'm not a fan of dishonest politics, junk science or Kinsey studies that involve children)wgreensix2sick wrote:Considering you said it is a sin to be gay i can assume your religious. Now i have one more reason to put down religion.Archangel703 Response:I don't see how your weak arguments give you a warrant to put down someone's religion that you probably don't even fully comprehend in the first place. Also I have to wonder, based on your weak arguments given here does that give me a warrant to put down your beliefs? I say beliefs because that is what you were sharing. "Your beliefs" because they most definitely weren't facts. It was your opinion and your belief. It was your faith in a gay gene that has been proven unscientific more clearly than the Theory of Evolution disproves Literal 7 day Creationism.Your last remark you told a fellow classmate You said"Maybe you shouldn't let your parents influence you so much."To which I respond to you wgreensix2sick. ..Maybe you should first try taking off the Blindfold you let the Guru Kinsey put on you...Maybe then you will be in a position to comment on how other people are influenced in their thinking…


Extinguishing the "FLAME ON" video. Taking the blindfold off (pt 2)


A clash of two Irreconcilable ideologies…That is what this is about in the end.In my first post dealing with the Video "FLAME ON" Morality re-examined. I highlighted a Man, rather a classmate in an attempt to give credibility to the Homosexual movement, highlighted a man Alfred Kinsey.I further discussed Alfred Kinsey because of the following reasons in relation to the video "FLAME ON". You see this man Alfred Kinsey also wanted to "Re-examine" morality and his quest to do so led to him teachings things like "if such UNNATURAL MORAL restrictions AGAINST PEDOPHILIA were dropped the RAPID ORGASM rates could be boosted to over fifty PERCENT! (when talking about Men having sex with young boys in Kinsey's Sexual studies) Kinsey's Re-examining Morality also led to him tabulating the orgasm statistics of BABIES as young as four or five months old as well.The irreconcilable differences can also be seen in the different viewpoints of Kinsey's life and work. Regarding Kinsey's sexual behavior as a known devoted homosexual, sado-masochist who masturbated while ramming objects like toothbrushes into his urethra while simultaneously strangling his testicles He is called "BRAVE and COURAGEOUS" by Gay activist supporters.. .How you feel about all of this is something entirely up to your conscience. I know where I stand.But now I want to further discuss subject matter that deals more directly with this video and some more comments in relation to the video by other classmates. I also want to share more information regarding this topic in general so that I may, as Richard Dawkins states "Raise your Consciousness" Only that I'm probably going to be raising Consciousness in things that Dawkin's probably disagrees with.In order to understand the way I saw and understood this video "Flame On" I need you to come back with me in time to the year 1972. You see I know and Understand that just like Kinsey was trying to do in his studies on Sexuality, It has for a very long time been a priority of the gay activist movement to completely re-examine morality. Well actually to demolish the Moral standards that have held our society together thus far. They knew they couldn't do it without making their lifestyle appear perfectly normal (Just like Kinsey tried to do) to the rest of society. They need videos like this (FLAME ON) with positive propaganda (dishonest, fallacious or not they'll take it) Because This is what effectively helps them pass on their meme to infect your mind.However I prefer facts instead. So lets start with them shall we?...In 1972, the national coalition of gay organizations held a convention in Chicago and developed the first- ever Gay rights platform. I want you to keep in mind our good friend Alfred Kinsey as you read these next lines so you can draw your own conclusion on how they are related. The demand of the Gay platform included, among other things:--Federal encouragement and support for Sex-education courses prepared and taught by gay women and men, presenting Homosexuality as a valid, healthy preference and lifestyle as a viable alternative to Heterosexuality. (of course disregarding and ignoring any studies that statistically proved otherwise) --"The Repeal of all state laws prohibiting Solicitation for private voluntary sexual liaisons; and laws prohibiting Prostitution both Male and Female. (Legalizing Prostitution in every state)--Repeal of all laws governing the age of Sexual consent (Making sex with adults and children legal. (Legal Pedophilia)--The repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entered into a Marriage union and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who co-habit regardless of sex or numbers.(Legalized Polygamy)The activists knew that these goals could not all be achieved immediately but It was clear that they definitely had the big picture in mind. They would need an entire re-working and indoctrination of society which starts with guess who? Me and you but most importantly our children.This is a clash of Irreconcilable ideologies.Choose your side.Maybe most of you read this quote in the opening of the video "as is" but My mind wasn't able to do that.. If "Bad Ideas" are Viruses of the mind then I must have a built in Virus detector in my brain because the SIRENS started sounding off the second I read this quote from the video."Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love-all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce." -Platoto which we can add...-along with higher suicide rates, prone to drug use, higher rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases and more psychological problems than their heterosexual counterparts.How convenient that this quote would also fail to mention the way in societies just as the classical Greek ones where homosexuality flourished women were considered inferior to men, restricted to the home and not educated. Men were of course able to pursue sexual relationships with the young boys they taught but nevertheless these boys were expected to marry a woman when they got older so they could rinse and repeat the process. How's that for non-barbaric sexual enlightenment? What do you say ladies? Care to try it out again?Raising consciousness…Probably commenting on that quote Classmate vs_ram89 wrote"So Plato was gay. You'd think that will make us accept gay peoplemore. But, wait, people that do not like gay people are kind ofilliterate and don't even know about Plato..." -vs_ram89It's clear that the quote in the video does have an affect on some people who may buy into the propaganda trying to show that you must be stupid if you disagree with the video. I'd like to hijack this quote though, as actually something that proves my point even further.It seems that If the facts fail you, like they have failed to support the gay activists ideologies, the only thing left to do is to resort to name calling and false labeling. That really is a shame and it causes me to ask "so why is this being done in such a dishonest fashion by proponents of the Homosexual agenda"?I'm not falling for it…Are you?Gay proponents have even attempted to use the facts that ancient Roman emperors such as Caligula and Nero engaged in homosexuality and even gay marriage in order to promote the idea that the homosexual lifestyle is perfectly normal. But unfortunately for the Gay activist we have that knowledge about those emperors from their enemies who even back then were using this information in an effort to show that these men were depraved or insane. Personally, the fact that Nero used Christian families as human torches in his gardens is enough to convince me of his insanity but either way lets move on …Repeatedly we see societies were sexuality had no moral code experiencing grave problems with the treatment of people and the respect of human life. Mighty Ancient Rome is no exception. I wonder how it felt to be an infant left in a gutter to dry out in the Sun? Fortunately, Some of those babies were rescued by a brand new developing cult that called themselves "Christians"Toward the end of the video another famous philosopher is quoted in an effort to gain more credibility for the propaganda being spouted. Nietchze's quote on guilt and it's claims to accuracy. "It is like a dog biting a stone Utterly pointless…"I could imagine Kinsey was thinking of that exact line about "guilt being pointless" as he guiltlessly continued his sexual studies on infants for the sake of science. Well actually for the sake of trying to get science to make his behavior appear normal.Classmate vs_ram89 wrote"today's conquest is tomorrow's competition. you might be conqueringgay people by oppressing them now and not giving them what isrightfully theirs, but they are going to conquer the world and leaveyou in the dust later? Karma?" -vs_ram89I have friends and family that experience same sex attraction. I love them without making a distinction from my other friends or family who do not. I don't go around labeling people I know and love by their behaviors. That is not the way to live and act toward other people. I judge no person by the color of their skin or eyes either but I do judge a person by the content of their character and as we have seen here practicing "homosexuality" has much to do with the content of your character and is not something that you're just born with like skin color.I fully acknowledge that people who are practicing homosexuals" have contributed much to society referencing the list at the end of the video. But at the same time I'm not fooled into thinking that this proves anything as I can easily provide a much more impressive list of renowned scientist, philosophers, physicists, inventors, authors, directors, and actors who were womanizers and adulterers. But what does that prove anyways? It only proves that the video was relying on Fallacious thinking to promote it's propaganda. What would it do for the gay community if someone released a long list of Catholic priests involved in the sex scandals and could show that these were also the same people moving priests from location to location so they can hurt more children and that many of the priests engaging in such acts turned out to actually be active homosexuals, staunch gay rights supporters and activists? Does this then discredit Homosexuality as a lifestyle? (Such a list can actually be produced by the way)It's interesting that Those same people throwing stones at the Catholic Church for the Priest scandals will wave their fists at the front page of the newspaper describing a Scandal of a Male priest and a Male boy over the age of consent having consensual sexual experiences but will overlook the back section of the newspaper reviewing Gay and Lesbian films about a "Strikingly touching and romantic Love story of a young teenage girl (under the age) and her older woman teacher (adult) who "Initiated" her into the gay lifestyle… awww how touching… right?Hypocrisy! I'm not buying itI'm not blindfolded by the Guru.This is a clash of Irreconcilable ideologies.I have chosen my side.I am for the oppression of NO PERSON. But at the same time I acknowledge that I am not being oppressed just because I am not allowed to marry a man, my siblings or first cousins. I hate no one and nobody can dictate to me who I am and how i feel. I am not a bigot, intolerant or filled with "Hate" because i disagree with the stance of the gay activists or this video.I have simply chosen my side based on the evidence…So in response to this video and to the agenda underlying I say thisNO, I will not condone the use of the next generation of babies and children for Gay agenda social experiments.NO, I will not teach them what science and psychological studies have shown us is a treatable disorder as a normal way of lifeNO, you will not force your ideology or your beliefs on me or the majority of society without resistance.NO, I will not aid in the idea that we should deprive children of their right to grow up under the care of both a Father and Mother they can properly identify with.NO, I will not regress and support the restructuring of society just to fit the gay agenda which also includes the indoctrination of children in erotic play and same sex explicit teachings. (If you You don't believe me you can Read the children's manual "its perfectly Normal" by Robbie harris with it's child friendly drawings of nude adults and children.)Lastly, I'd like to end my critique with the opening sequence of the film The very first quote of the video states..."Our Education is essentially Socratic and Socrates was gay…"To which I respond"Nietchze" was also quoted in an effort to support this viewpointand Nietchze went insane…


12. Why are certain religious zealots prone to use terrorism,according to Professor Mark Juergensmsyer? What does Juergensmeyerbelieve we should do in the future to mitigate such attacks?


Professor Juergensmyer claimed to have found common themes with religious zealots regarding terrorism. The main point he makes is that he finds a Remarkable power and potency of religion to move people. This can be taken in extremes in both positive and negative ways that are both good and bad to society.


The religious extremists view The soulessness and the strong critique of religion by the enlightenment movement as a threat to their religion and many times religious extremist view such critique as an extreme secularism that seeks to replace their faith.


Juergensmeyr states that the “War on terror” mentality creates a new mindset in regards to the war against this kind of thinking because it really should have been a criminal conflict between a handful of extremists.


Ironically, being a person of faith I’d have to disagree completely especially being familiar with the theology of Islam. The name “War on Terror’ is a provocative title I’m forced to concede and not the best name for a campaign that seeks to dismantle “religious terrorism” in a swift and stealth manner. However the name is proper because the actual faith itself that these men have subscribed to has “terror” built into it’s theology with no authority but the book itself that calls for such terror. Unlike it’s Christian Counterpart there is NO authority to “Excommunicate” or to publically rebuke or correct such actions as those committed by terrorists from the September 11th attacks. The best Islam can hope for is a committee of their religious leaders that could come together, cherry pick the “be nice to people” passages from the Koran and denounce the actions of the Sept 11th terrorists. Meanwhile there’d be another committee formed by other Muslim religious leaders denouncing the “cherry picking” committee for not backing up the true Muslim faith who support the attacks as an act of self defense Jihad.


13. Is there sufficient evidence to support the claim that EdgarCayce was psychic? Use your critical thinking field guide tosubstantiate your answer.


14. Why is your professor so critical of cults?


It was not long ago I was on my way to the lab here at Mt. Sac and I stopped at a table in front of the library. I noticed that there was a group of people giving out free literature. Immediately I recognized where it was coming from being familiar with the organization myself from independent studies. The Watchtower society, the organization that leads everyone’s famous door to door Christians, The Jehovah’s witnesses. After discussing with me in an attempt to reveal to me the errors of the Catholic Church I answered every one of their questions in detail with the best accuracy I could. At one point I stopped and told them at the table. I said something along the lines of “You know you have a right to not believe In the Catholic faith and the teachings of the Catholic church, you don’t even have to consider that Church Christian or the members Christians… but don’t choose not to believe in it because of the things you just told me here today because none of the things you said were factually true. The things you told me aren’t faith issues they were all historical issues and you had them all wrong. (This was regarding a discussion we had on the historical development of the Canon of the bible and “Paganism” and “Pagan” practices infiltrating the church)


This is exactly why Professor lane is critical of cults. Because he believes that if you’re going to believe in something at least get all the facts straight before you believe in it. Bottom line. If youre going to buy someone’s religion you should be completely comfortable by who you are willing to be faked out by if it turns out to all be a bunch of BS.


Choose your faith wisely. If it’s healthy isn’t apocalyptic, doesn’t involve hurting people or ruining peoples lives in some sort of twisted way. (because there are a lot more ways of destroying a person than just getting them to drink the kool-aid) then so be it. However, Critically think and analyze everything you can about that religion, it’s roots, it’s practices before you jump into it. You owe it to yourself, to your family, to your friends. To anyone that you present yourself to in this life.


You get one shot at this life. Too much has happened and so much has gone right over periods of millions of years just for you to exist right now at this very moment.
So don’t waste it. Don’t go out like a sucker. Take the blindfold off and try and rip your own religion to shreds. If you find out you weren’t being asked to where a blindfold to believe in it in the first place then that’s a good sign.


“Wouldn't you want to know everything you possibly could about the history of this group, and then make your choice? It seems to me I'm doing a huge favor to the Eckists because now they can know what they're joining, and if they've read my book, they've done all the research and if they still think this is for me, then fine. They've made an open-eyed decision." –David Lane


15. What do the films reveal about Sai Baba's claim for paranormalpowers?


They simply reveal that he is a charlatan and he is crafty at what he does.


16. Why did Thakar Singh believe in blindfolding children? Why dosome religious followers lack critical thinking skills?


Science of the soul cult leader Thakar Singh claims that he does this in order to get these children in touch with their spiritual selves. Followers have claimed that they “Use enough discipline on them so that they are turned in the right direction.”


Some religious followers lack critical thinking skills because they are emotion driven. Their desire or their “deficiency” is that they are dependant on the “feel good” aspect of the religion they are subscribing to. Whether it be a sense of belonging or any other void being filled by their faith. It becomes a symbiosis with them in a sense. Like a drug addiction they cannot break away or refuse to break away because they are “in love” with their religion.


I believe this was described best by an ex-eck member in the Eckist article…


The article stated


“On an Internet alternative religion bulletin board a former Eckist writes that after reading Lane's book, "I felt as if someone had just torn out my insides and served them to me over rice." Losing one's cult is like losing the love of one's life. The lover has lied to you, but the lover is oh so seductive and satisfying, and submission is so thrilling. It's difficult not to resent Lane, that temptress, that town gossip, that snake in Eden.


17. JOHN POLKINGHORNE believes both in religion and science. Why?


John Polkinghorne believes that they do not conflict. He states regarding “Natural theory” is an attempt to find divinity of some sort. He agrees you can only go far in two senses. He doesn’t think it’s logically coercive. He believes there are arguments that show that Rational beauty or fruitfulness of the world points to a purpose. He can’t say your stupid for not seeing things that way. You just don’t see it that way. Even if you give him the maximum success of his arguments it gives him an abstract picture of God as god being like a “Great Mathematician” or cosmic architect. He states that his Christian faith is more detailed than just an abstract vision of God that he can’t get out of natural theology but only through personal religious experience.


When asked how to address the non-believers regarding the topic or how far he could take someone on logical grounds and no pre-conceptions about God, Polkinghorne describes the God that would emerge from that investigation would show that there is a case for a divine mind. A divine purpose.


But ultimately that investigation leads back to claimed revelation from God. He claims to have no spectacular religious experiences but his own reflection on scripture and his personal worship makes him who he is.


He agrees that physicist seems to “see” an order to the universe as opposed to evolutionary biologists who see more of a chaos because of evolutionary theory.
He describes Biology as in a certain triumphant state as of current times and cites someone who stated “we’ve explained” genes we can explain everything. He compares them to the Physicst from centuries ago who discovered gravity and secrets of our solar system who also boasted “we don’t need God” because of their findings that were before that time attributed to divine forces unexplainable in natural ways. Polkinghorne states that the biologists too may discover that they are wrong.


18. How does Nietzsche critique religion? What are his mainarguments against a belief in God?


Nietzsche’s primary argument against religion is that it blocks a person from being open to other possibilities. Further explanation found in my answer of Transvaluation of Values. The same way he applies this to Christianity goes for belief in God. Nietzsche primarily focused on Christianity in his critique.


19. Why does James Watson believe that genetics holds the secret forunderstanding human behavior? Why do some people resist believingthat we are just bundles of DNA?


Watson teaches that genetics may hold the secret for understanding human behavior because our human behaviors and personality are linked to our genetic make up. A keener understanding of our genetics will inevitably help us explain our behavioral tendencies more accurately.


We know that human behavior is connected to our genetic makeup. These genes come down to us biologically from our parents and we in turn pass them to our offspring. During the conference Watson discusses a neurological disorder, Autism. He explains the causes of this disorder and the genetic connection. In the future if we are able to understand the code more clearly we may be able to suppress and even eliminate such disorders.


As far as “why some people resist believing that we are just bundles of Dna” My response is this. A while ago the website Yahoo.com on the front page ran an article about an explosion in space that was the equivalent of 9000 suns dying. The moment I read the title of that article I thought to myself . “Wow, that’s why too big for a mind of a Christian fundamentalist”


Let me break down the meaning of that thought in my mind because it answers this question. To put it quite simply some people don’t think big enough. Some people have a pre-conceived idea or notion of what we are. Some people want to believe that we are “animated” by a soul or something spiritual that can’t be seen or ever observed. That doesn’t mean that a “Soul” is disproved if we one day find out that we can break everything down to “physical matter” in order to understand our behaviors. It just means the people who believed a “soul” was a certain thing may have had it wrong to begin with.


I’m going to use a fundamentalist Christian in this example. See, for a fundamentalist Christian they’ll use HUGE words to describe how mighty God is and how amazing and vast his power is. Yet they can’t fathom that God would dare “Create” the world in any other way then their “Poof in 6 days” version in their mind. All of a sudden evolution is impossible for God and he must be restricted and is shackled to their interpretation of a sacred text. I remember watching a video clip from The science institute a Christian fundamentalist organization that promotes creationism and the person on the film states mockingly that “Evolutionists teach that we were once slimy goo”


Pause right there!” I thought to myself. The fact of the matter is, the fundamentalist mind isn’t thinking hard enough because we don’t even have to go back millions of years ago for that to be true. We were all slimy goo much more recent than that. All we have to do is go back to the day we were conceived ladies and gentlemen.
Catch my drift?


In the end. People refuse to believe things like that because it doesn’t match their idea of what they’d like to be or what they think we are. They can’t reconcile the fact that we may just be exactly only matter and maybe the “Soul” (if there is such a thing) could very well be a “Recording” of everything we’ve ever done in our life as “matter”


20. Why is intelligent design regarded as "junk" science by mostevolutionary biologists?


One thing that disturbs me about the simple labeling of Intelligent Design as “Junk” science is the fact that “Evolution” does nothing what so ever to disprove a designer. In fact the whole thing reeks of a designer if you ask me. It reeks so bad that when the staunch atheist Richard Dawkins has to explain “Memes” or anything genetic it’s impossible for him to do so while refraining from using the words “design” or “program”. Still, I must admit this design” is far from perfect but on that same note we must ask “What if it was designed that way?” and “By whose standards are we measuring perfection?” Not even a fundamentalist Christian should be wow’ed by the fact that “Nature is all about the Talons and claws” when we clearly have been dying as humans for years and have been living in the middle of this big ball of death called earth filled with suffering.


I.D shouldn’t truly be labeled as Junk science because it really isn’t science to begin with. Well at least not by itself. I wouldn’t throw it out if I was a scientist but I’d welcome it and it’s critique. What is there to be afraid of if it is just “Junk” anyways?


It’s a win win situation for Evolutionary biologists if they are truly confident in their position. For one, we have a huge audience for I.D and it has a huge following without having to perform a fraction of the experiments that Evolutionary biologists have had to do to prove themselves. This puts E. Biologists in a great position to “easily” and “Systematically” refute I.D’s Junk. Secondly, I’D’s existence is a healthy and honest critique of Evolution. It helps to keep the fresh questions coming in from people who don’t buy evolution and it provides a VERY much needed platform for Evolutionists to explain themselves and their theory to a much wider audience. Most importantly the I.D audience.


Evolutionary biologists regard it as junk because most of them who subscribe to Atheism equate I.D with “Religious Creationism” more specifically “Christian Creationism” They defeat the god of Christian Fundamentalists with their Evolution and champion their cause as defeating God all together.


In the end, I.D is not necessarily “Junk” unless evolutionary biologists have the authority to label all “philosophical scientific” questions as junk science because that’s what I.D is. It’s a philosophical question and also a Scientific question as well.


“Where did we ultimately come from?”…


That’s a perfectly sound question for both Science and Philosophy.


Atheist Evolutionary biologists think so too, unless you dare imagine that a God was behind it all. Perhaps they are offended just like the person who is offended at only being DNA that we might be something else besides just “matter”?


21. What is the underlying theme behind the movie the ZAHIR?


The underlying theme seems to suggest a few different things. One of those points is the power that we give certain “things” over ourselves. The example of the coin Possibly being of some evil origin. The coin had no real powers but it was the mans mind that projected the powers on to the coin. He became obsessed not because the coin had any magic but because of his own preconceived notions. He started to think about the coin, what it meant what it could mean. He obsessed over it. Not because the coin made him do it but because he did this on his own.
Of course money is time in abstract form. But this is no cause to lose sleep over it. If you lack the ability to hold multiple and even contradicting thoughts In your mind while still functioning youre in trouble.


If you can’t grasp the concept that we are on the roller coaster of death (living life) and living in a giant ball of death (earth) and also realize that the ride and our home can also be enjoyable as well then you just might have to see a shrink.


If you can understand both simultaneously and still function that’s a good start because youre actually realizing two different truth’s that are both opposite but real.


22. How can little things that jiggle reveal the universe around us(hint: think of the movie of the same title).


By understanding the four forces that control the universe and our roll as humans (the measurers) we can learn more about the universe around us.


The four forces are Gravity, Weak and strong nuclear reactions and electromagnetism.



23. Why is fundamentalism a mental disease, according to the movie of the same title?


“The creationists realize now that talking about god or the bible just doesn’t work when it comes to science so they have dressed up the old man in sheeps clothing and Trojan horsed the ID design idea under the pretense that there is just way too much complexity at the level of the Cell to be arranged by chance forces…”


Quite a dogmatic statement for a person who believes that fundamentalism is a disease. In the end it really comes down to the fact that atheists can’t stand the notion of the God of the Christian Fundamentalist. Interesting enough is that I am a Christian and I can’t stand that god either.


I don’t believe that “Fundamentalism” is a disease because of it was, then the narrator of the video is infected as well. “fundamentalism” doesn’t necessarily have to be religious. It can be a belief or a radical alignment with an ideology void of a religious diety. That’s what this video was about when I viewed it. It was about one perspective pointing it’s fingers at another claiming they are the “Crazy’s” while making all the same statements that the other side would say about them as well.


For an Atheist who is relying on his high built walls of “evolution” to save him from the Trojan horse of Creationist Fundamentalism. His mind is set that “Christianity is trying to shoehorn God into biology,”


Because of this the atheist is forced to speak dogmatically by saying things like “Creationism is taught by only those who cannot think.”


the video states

“Dennet in “Darwins Dangerous Idea, rightly said that Natural selection is probably the single greatest idea to permeate human thought. Once you understand evolution then life in it’s confusion becomes clear and decipherable.” -video


Yet it delivers to us no moral code what so ever that works for everyone. While Atheist evolutionary biologists are waiting for science to tell them when it’s ok to kill a developing baby in the womb, the Christian fundamentalists already have it figured out. Would the atheist dare admit that Science is holding back the faster and more accurate response of religion for human happiness?


The video states “Indeed it is the awesome simplicity of the idea that completely devastates you. Dennet called it the universal acid. Once you hold it, it burns through everything, every concept, every ideology, every ism.”


Again, see what I wrote above. Simplicity is an understatement times a million when it comes proclaiming Darwinism as any such “Cure all” for humanity.


The video states “Is there an intelligent design to the universe? No, and that is why natures cruelty ironically becomes intelligible.”


Not only is this a dogmatic statement. This only proves that the atheist fundamentalists idea of “BIG” is just a little bigger than a Fundamentalist, yet much smaller than someone who truly has an open mind to the possibilities.


“Darwin quote: Nature is bred with tooth and claw and too think otherwise that there is some compassionate God behind it all only tortures us unnecessarily…”


I’m religious and I’m not tortured by this concept. In fact not even the most radical Christian fundamentalist is blinded to the reality that there is “Suffering” and that animals eat other animals in this cruel world. It’s like saying “Aha, there’s no such thing as God because the Sun will come up tomorrow and there will be many Sunburned!” This proves nothing and isn't nearly as revealing as the video wants it to be. It is just the same concept but repackaged as some great revelation.



I’m not buying it. and the author of the video shouldn't be shocked when the"Fundamentalist" who can't think isn't floored by the intense revelation of Natures cruelty which is quite evident without someone telling us it's Cruel.


The Video states “Chaos in the beginning, order in the middle, Chaos in the end. Exempting God from the Equation of evolution.”

Or your equation could be completely wrong. It could all be Chaos perceived as Order. Or it could all be order perceived as Chaos. Or neither. But none of this exempts God from the Equation.


24. Name eight common fallacies when arguing for a position. Be sureto give examples, perhaps drawn from your own life, for each of them.


First, “Circular Reasoning” I can’t tell you how many times in my life that I have had a Fundamentalist Christian tell me he knows that the bible is God Breathed because the Bible says that it is “God Breathed”… which leads me to my second fallacy…


Second, “appeal to ignorance” Nowhere does the bible claim to be God breathed because there was no mention of the “bible” at the time the author wrote these words in this particular book. The person making this assertion is relying on you to not even know that the bible was canonized by men over 400 years after this book was written.


Third “argumentum ad baculum: An argument based on an appeal to fear or a threat. See the entire Beyond Belief series for the best examples of this Fallacy against religion


Fourth “half truths” Me claiming in my third fallacy example that the Beyond belief series has the best examples of fallacies against religion because not all of the speakers argued as such. Only some.


Fifth, “slippery slope” During the gay marraige debate it was argued that If gay marriage is legalized then Polygamy and Pedophilia marriages will be allowed next and the next thing you know this will be Sodom and Gamorrah all over again.


Sixth “red herring:” is an argument, given in reply, that does not address the original issue.


Traditional Marriage supporter:: Hey isn’t it true that in the first gay platform in the 1970’s did contain a demand to erase the age of consent and to make polygamy legal despite you claiming that we are arguing a slippery slope?


Gay Marriage supporter: We aren’t talking about the 1970’s we are talking about right now and making gay marriage legal says nothing about erasing the age of consent or making polygamy legal…


Traditional Marriage supporter: but isn’t that part of the long term agenda of the gay activists as we have seen in prior platforms and numerous statements. You’re ignoring the evidence to push your agenda. We are arguing the big picture and will relinquish nothing for you to gain a foothold.
Gay Marriage supporter: Well the current law says nothing about erasing the age of consent or making polygamy legal


Traditional Marriage supporter:: you’re not answering my question.


Seventh “ad hominem:” consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the source making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.


Traditional Marriage supporter: I don’t agree with your ideology or your reasoning for gay marriage.

Gay Marriage supporter:: You are a hate filled intolerant bigot!


Eighth “straw man” the refutation of a misrepresented position.


Evolution is a lie because scientists teach that we evolved from Monkeys.


25. Provide your own critical analysis (using the terminologylearned in this class, etc.) of the current "war on terrorism" aswaged by the USA. Your argument can be either pro or con or both,provided that you substantiate your reasoning.


I’m going to quote myself from earlier In response to Jurgensymeyer stating that the “War on Terror” should have been against a handful of radicals. I stated


“being a person of faith I’d have to disagree completely especially being familiar with the theology of Islam. The name “War on Terror’ is a provocative title I’m forced to concede and not the best name for a campaign that seeks to dismantle “religious terrorism” in a swift and stealth manner. However the name is proper because the actual faith itself that these men have subscribed to has “terror” built into it’s theology with no authority but the book itself that calls for such terror. Unlike it’s Christian Counterpart there is NO authority to “Excommunicate” or to publically rebuke or correct such actions as those committed by terrorists from the September 11th attacks. The best Islam can hope for is a committee of their religious leaders that could come together, cherry pick the “be nice to people” passages from the Koran and denounce the actions of the Sept 11th terrorists. Meanwhile there’d be another committee formed by other Muslim religious leaders denouncing the “cherry picking” committee for not backing up the true Muslim faith who support the attacks as an act of self defense Jihad.


This is a clash of irreconcilable ideologies. One trapped in a religious war from centuries ago (that it lost) has lost in modern times on repeated battlefields and it’s shame in dealing with those repeated losses. Islam sticks it’s chest out in more ways then one and it is constantly embarrassed as it should be. Instead of stopping realizing that it has failed as a religion it holds on desperately in ways that were used during medieval times. The only difference is the dark and exaggerated black legends of inquisitions that killed many people for blasphemy are the realities of the Islamic world right now. Islam isn’t growing because of it’s mighty and amazing message. It’s growing because you will be killed if you leave Islam.


The War on Terror is a good intentioned effort but not a good one. It’s better than doing nothing but its ultimately Damage Control at best. It’s attempting to cut the weeds in a gardern by snipping the tip tops of them. They aren’t going to die only be slowed a bit but will still destroy the garden and spread more weeds. It’s like fighting the transmission of AIDS in Africa by distributed condoms. It doesn’t solve the problem at it’s root.



It’s like providing a hype with a clean clinic needle to help suppress the spread of diseases with shared needles. Damage control. It’s like the war on Drugs. Damage control at best and will not solve the problem unless you uproot it at the root.


Deadly Theology and Ideologies are the roots of religious Terrorism. Change the minds and hearts of the people and you eliminate it completely.

26 (very important question, don't skip it): In the Beyond Beliefconference there was much heated discussion about religion and itsplace. Provide a 750 word or more review of the entire series. Whosearguments were most persuasive? Whose arguments were less so? BESPECIFIC.


For the answer to this question I will submit two of my posts that I titled “Beyond belief but not Beyond bias” and another post I Titled “Dawkins, Weinberg and Harris should join the Gang “Eleven” But I have added more commentary and lengthened my response to include more of the points I wanted to make that I didn’t add in my original posts.
There is an awful lot of bending over backwards to be nice toreligion going on… (32:35) –Richard Dawkins"



"When we've lost religion as I hope one day we shall. We shall havelost the appalling guilt that afflicts people brainwashed as peopleinto being religious. We shall have lost the brainwashing of childrenwhich indeed labels them as sharing the same religious opinions astheir parents…a form of Child abuse (33:15)- Richard Dawkins



"I've highlighted these first 2 quotes here because I want to highlight the thought process of this man Richard Dawkins and I want to show how easily men and women of great stature can use their authority and their persuasive power to infect others with their "Memes" as Richard Dawkins coins the term. The problems is that many of these "memes" are complete unsubstantiated opinionated bias riding on the wave of their intellectual prestige.It is important that we all understand that just because one considers themselves an "Intellectual" or a "Bright" as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris arrogantly tout, that they too, are not immune from spreading nonsense and false information that would never make it past their own scientific critiquing standards. Yet it happens frequently. In fact in the first 4 beyond belief sessions alone, not one half hour segment goes by without an unsubstantiated, biased opinion that gets thrown in the mix. Still those "unscientific opinions" stand proudly side by side with the speakers "Scientific information."



I cringe everytime I read or hear someone use the blanket statement that "Religion blocks intellectual thought or blocks advances in Science, education and Medicine." Because this is such a horrible inaccurate blanket statement in much need of further investigation.



Richard dawkins again states..."We shall have lost the subversion of science which comes from teaching children that faith is a virtue. Faith meaning belief without evidence." (33:20) -Richard Dawkins



In Betrand Russel's "Why I am not a Christian" he states "There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy." –Betrand Russel (why I am not a Christian)



Never mind the thousands of Catholic hospitals across the world, never mind the thousands of Catholic schools and colleges as well. Just to name an example of the worlds largest Christian organization. Never mind the fact that for centuries the Catholic church led the world in scientific studies which included astronomy and medicine.



It seems that all these "intellectuals " can remember is "Galileo or the Crusades and Inquisition". But not only that, they only know the "Black legend" version of these tales taught in the extreme radical fundamentalists Chick publications, which in an ironic twist of fate also gets promoted as "facts" in books like Richard Dawkin's God delusion and Sam Harris "End of Faith". Both of these books and authors are revered in the "Beyond Belief" sessions.



It seems that in their imaginary world, Religious inquisitions once upon a time killed millions on top of millions of people just for disagreeing with the Church. Science was destroyed and suppressed because it caused doubt in God. Galileo was ruined because he challenged the bible with his "Heliocentric" views and the Spanish Inquisition was the greatest religious atrocity in the history of the World killing millions of people. And Luckily protestant Christianity came along with it's susceptibility to reason and willingness to compromise it's beliefs for Science. Never mind the fact that secular historians investigating the Spanish Inquisitions 125,000 cases have found that, 1.8% were executed (2,250 people) over a period of 350 years with most of these deaths occurring in the first decade and a half of the Spanish Inquisition's history. Never mind that between the 16th and 17th century less than 3 people per year were put to death by the inquisition making the inquisition less lethal than Bicycle accidents in the United statesbetween the years of 1987-2002 (www.safekidsnebraska.org/fact-sheets/Bike facts.pdf)



Never mind that the protestant induced war that occurred right after the Spanish inquisitions killed more people than the inquisition itself and that the societies built around the new splintered Christian faith lagged behind their Catholic counterparts who were supposed to be void of reason..



Never mind any of that. These facts are ignored.



Never mind the fact that Galileo wasn't ruined for holding a heliocentric view but because he was going against a prevalent view of the Scientists of the time and trying to force the church to bendto his scientific view which modern science has proven partially wrong. Nicolaus Copernicus was a Catholic cleric, who's heliocentric view paved the way for Gallileo's work.



Never mind that his views were not suppressed by the church and the facts that he delayed publication of a book regarding his Heliocentric view, not for fear of the church, but for fear of hisscientific colleagues at the time.



Never mind any of that…"Religion is Evil, it blocks science and teaching it to your children is child abuse!." So preaches Richard Dawkins.Sounds like the close minded Radical fundamentalist preaching where they label everything "The Devil" that contradicts their thought process."Religion is The Devil" But teaching your children the ideology of "Atheism" is not child abuse because if you don't believe in God you are a true "intellectual" a "Bright". You have been awakened by the great "awakening"



…Never mind that the so called "Great awakenings" that have occurred in the history of world societies dwarf the death toll of every religious war, inquisition, crusade combined by millions of lives.Never mind any of that.If you're a prominent physicist, biologist or philosopher and you say it.It must be true.



I respect everyone's scientific views and their accomplishments in their respective fields of science but when they start teaching and interweaving wrong ideas like these with their work I callit "nonsense riding on the wave of intellectual prestige."Don't get me wrong. I'm all for them being able to express their opinions and points of view. It interests me to hear and study them whether I agree or not. Ultimately, It's up to us viewers and readers to decipher what is fact and what is fiction.Though these great minds can claim that they are "beyond belief" It's clear to me that they are far from being "beyond bias".


Richard Dawkins entire argument that "parents teaching their children their own religion is a form of child abuse" loses any credibility when the facts written above are highlighted. Are we to believe that Richard Dawkins is capable or that he brought up his children without any bias or slant toward his ideologies what so ever? Are we to believe that he also disregarded his duty as a parent to provide a foundation for his children to work from? Regardless if it is a great foundation or not. That is all subjective and open to scrutiny.


Are we to believe that Richard Dawkins knew whatever foundation he set for his children was 100% solid and true? What do religious parents need to do to gain Richard Dawkins approval? To add the disclaimer “oh but this might all not be true, Make sure you investigate for yourself” to every religious lesson or moral code?


Well consider it done and this has been done for ages before Dawkins was ever born. Parent’s would do well to add to their list of warnings to watch out for fundamentalist biased thinking ALWAYS and sometimes it can come harshest from people who claim to not even believe in a god or gods.


Despite my own close encounters and familiar experiences with religions I've known to be dangerous It bothers me when I hear such arrogantly touted quotes such as Steven Weinberg's We need to "wake-up from our long nightmare of religious beliefs." He then goes on to state "And anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in fact in the end by our greatest contribution to civilization. " –Steven Weinberg



The phrase "Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done" sends chills down my spine as to what that "anything" could mean. We've seen what happens in our recent history when atheistic states lived by this statement and we've seen what can happen in the movie "Eleven" when gangsters "do anything they can to weaken the hold of religion as well.



I would like to continue by stating that I appreciate the works that Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have contributed in their respective fields. I've agreed with many things the authors discussed in their books and I find their books to be mostly devastating to the faiths of Islam and Evangelical/ Fundamentalist Christianity. Especially Sam Harris's The end of Faith which nails Islam quite hard.On that same note I found that both Dawkins and Harris seem nearly clueless when it comes to the details of some religious aspects and the history surrounding them. For example they have trouble with a topic I am quite familiar with. When it comes to Catholic theology/Church/ history for one. Sam Harris in his book "The end of faith" made some effort to sometimes distinguish the Catholic church from other religions but there was still a lot of dribble and "Black legend" to be found in it along with Dawkins revered "the God Delusion". I notice this error being repeated frequently and it seems to be common among other prominent atheists as well. Another well known atheist writer Christopher Hitchens", the author of a book titled "god is not great" also makes these same blunders. These same blanket statement generalizations. This can be very dangerous in more ways than one. The following reason is an example of how this works.


We live in a day and age where information has been democratized to a point where anyone with an internet connection basically has a podium, mic and access to the rest of the world. Everyone now has a chance to be a dictator, a cult leader or someone famous. Everyone has the amount of information at their fingertips that makes the Alexandrian libraries of old look like your tiny elementary school library. In fact you don’t even need internet to have access to this sea of information if you live within walking distance of your local library or a barnes and Noble. Bottom line, information spreads faster than ever in our time.This can be bad, and this is how it can be bad. If all I had were these Three atheists that I just mentioned in order to understand in a very small trivial conflict that took place centuries ago between the Catholic church and the Albegensians/Cathars one would easily be led to believe the poor Cathars were just sitting around with their “outlawed bibles” twittling their thumbs when the Catholics came to smite off their heads for such a horrid crime of reading the bible in their own language. Needless to say this couldn’t be farther from the truth for anyone who has actually studied the whole of history regarding this issue, (Unfortunately for Jack chick and all the Christian fundamentalist that want this to be true so badly it’s only partially true in all the ways that don’t help their cause…)



But anyways before I read these authors books I was engaged in some intense discussions and debates with atheists on an internet forum. I recalled that even though they all lived in different parts of the world they each seemed to mimic a very poor and “fundamentalists like” argument in regards to the Catholic church and this situation. I wondered how these atheist intellects could be so wrong on this topic and how they even felt that this historical event would help their claim against “religion being good”


It all made sense finally when I completed the “four horsemen” of Atheism, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennet’s books, with Dennets book breaking the spell being the “Johns gospel” of the four with a noticeably different angle. All 3 of the first books dealt with the topic of the Catholic church like they ripped it off from the Jack Chick publications directly. It was horrible. Yet these young atheists on the forums were quoting this garbage as it was authoritative. Embracing the arguing from authority fallacy.


This was interesting to me because this is good stuff. It helps to build a better bridge in understanding. I remember I slapped my forehead like “Where do people get this BS from!?…” These guys had ripped it straight from these books.Now it makes a lot more sense to me. Especially when I’m seeing the same arguments echo’d in different books by different respectable and influential authors.



What is happening is that they are all failing to try or want to understand the theology of the religions they effortlessly bundle together in blanket statements when they write things like "Reason in Exile" (the intro to Sam Harris's book that is referenced in the Beyond belief series) or when they say things like "Religion has blocked scientific progress" without going into depth as to what they are talking about exactly. I give Harris some credit because he at least makes an effort to make some distinction from time to time, for example his rhetorical question in one of the beyond belief sessions (I believe it was session 8) when he asks "Where are the Christian Palestinians that are experiencing the same treatment as the Muslim Palestinians that are blowing themselves up for Christ?" (I'm paraphrasing and not repeating his exact words in my quote but the point remains) He even goes out of his way to draw a distinct line between religions like Islam and Buddhism (which he seems to favor if he was to be forced to favor any religion. Buddhism that is). But still there remains a lot of blanket statements and a lot of dismissal without investigation coming from Harris.



Dawkins is bolder in his claims. "Why study the theology?" he confidently asks? "It's all nonsense". Dawkins anticipates the "Old aunt in the backroom to kill over so he can no longer be bothered with her rubbish and her holding science and society back.So what does this have to do with the gang "eleven" from the assigned film "eleven"? Because Weinberg, Dawkins and Harris are "intellectually" doing the same thing to religion that the thugs were physically doing to their victims in the video eleven.They were blanket labeling them and lashing out at them with no clear substantiated reason to do so. They were blindly attacking based on ignorance."Why study the theology?" the question Dawkins asked could easily be the same question that the founder of the gang "Eleven" confidently asked himself before mistakenly killing a Sikh in place of a Muslim. Had he actually studied the theology who would have never mistaken the Sikh for a muslim in the first place. (not saying that he had actually killed a muslim it would have made it ok. thats not the point here)Radical Islamic fundamentalists strap bombs to themselves and blow away innocent victims for Allah and that somehow makes Fundamentalist Christians and Catholics guilty. Christian Fundamentalists subscribe to literal creationism in the bible and that also means that Catholics are guilty of holding back science even though the Catholic church does not dogmatically endorse Creationism.



The Catholic is getting beat up for being mistaken for a fundamentalist, the Fundamentalist is being beat up for getting mistaken for radical Muslim and the Buddhist is being highlighted as the voice of reason even though it could be argued easily that the ideology of Buddhism is rooted in mysticism much more than all the previous mentioned religions.This is what happens when we ask "Why study theology?" and don't care to do it.



In the Beyond belief sessions religion is labeled as the "Old aunt" that is going to die soon and this implies that "maybe it (religion) was good thing long ago but now its old and unimportant" . Perhaps they would even like to assist her suicide without the guilt of a god frowning down upon them for killing her? (Euthanasia)What's going on here?This is intellectual bullying. In a previous post I had called this type of opinion sharing "unsubstantiated bias riding on the waves of intellectual prestige" This is why Dawkins and Harris are intellectually acting no different than the gangsters from the film eleven.We can't just label religion in blanket statements and consider it all the same thing. To do so is to make the same mistakes as the thugs in the film eleven did. And unlike Dawkins claims, the understanding of the theology of a religions is vital in understanding what makes it tick.



As mentioned earlier the blanket statement of "Religion holding back science" We must ask, what are they talking about exactly? Creationism vs. Evolution? Are they talking about Stem cell research? The answer to these questions needs to be analyzed and discussed to arrive at a consensus of what exactly does "slowing scientific progress" mean. For a Catholic it may mean not harvesting human fertilized embryo's because it infringes on the right of human life. For an atheist they can pick and choose what constitutes someone being worthy of life and having rights and base it on whatever they subjectively feel is right for them.



I remember reading once a person joking on the matter stating " I don't consider you alive unless you're in my phonebook". It's worth a chuckle but the reality of the matter is that this is an issue and extremes can be found on both sides in every debate. Who gets to draw the line and why should we accept that line? These core concepts must be investigated further to understand each perspective in depth to make an intelligent decisionBut we can't do that if Atheists like Dawkins are content with throwing the theology out the window without investigation.



In Daniel Dennet's book "Breaking the spell, a book that is also referenced later in the Beyond belief sessions, Dennet describes "that at first glance Dolphins and Sharks looked like they were the same creature of sorts, yet because of our advances in science and biology we know them to be very different. Like a cow compared to a fish. (I'm paraphrasing again.) Dawkins in the God delusion describes the Moth who dives into the flame because of an evolutionary hiccup with the recent invention of controlled "light" (fire, headlights etc etc) and how it disturbs the Moth's ability to navigate. He compares the original purpose of the Moth's ability to use light to navigate and it's fatal deviation into the flame to religion. Dawkins is saying that Religion may have somehow served some purpose in the past. "That belief is kind of like being in love" but now it (religion) is like the Moth who is being led to the flame for reasons that are not worth it anymore. In comparison to the unhealthy aspects of radical fundamentalist religions.And I agree with that too, having experienced religions I clearly know to be false and dangerous such as an experience I have had with an apocalyptic Christian Cult based out of south korea that worships a woman alive right now as God the Mother (World mission society church of god).



What I am hypothesizing, by using Dennet and Dawkins examples, If there is a God, then I would submit that there are some religions that may "look like" The others, but upon further investigation, turn out to NOT be completely like them. Much Like the differences described in Dennet's book between the shark and the Dolphin. Maybe some religions can lead to the flame like the moth, both literally and figuratively but this is probably because those people have deviated from the proper understanding and theology of their religion much like a person can deviate from an individual atheistic ideology.



I submit, that even as just a Meme, that there are religions that are superior, healthier and stronger memes for survival than their counterparts. That they are better for society and There are some that are not deserving of being unfairly labeled in blanket statements. There are some that are not afraid of a critique or a challenge from science and in fact invite it and enjoy advances in technology for the betterment of society. How long do we have to wait for an atheist ideology to teach us humans their superior way for us to live based on purely a scientific method?



So far every Atheist ideology on a mass scale has killed more people than every religious war and the best thing atheists can say about it is “Oh you can’t say Atheism wasn’t the reason behind those killings of millions of people because the person who ordered their killings didn’t specifically say “I’m killing you because of my Atheism!” This is flat out nonsense and dodging the argument.These atheist intellects can test these theories with open minds or they can be like the gang eleven and keep blanket labeling "religion" as "evil" a "problem" that needs to die or a "nightmare we need to wake up from" and in doing so that will cause humanity to keep making incorrect and poor judgments on who should be attacked or corrected intellectually.And because of that ignorance we'll keep beating up the wrong people (ideas) based on incorrect biased information.



The almost six minute movie eleven was about physical reckless, bias prejudice in extreme forms.I petition the speakers of the beyond belief sessions not to allow their 12 hour videos to be about intellectual reckless, bias prejudice in mild forms…



Because In the end they yield the same results…




27. How does the book, Darwin's DNA, explain the evolution of consciousness?


The main term used that caught my attention was"brain burn." Brain burn was described as the result of the interaction of the Brain and the body. It’s self awareness. This desire to understand this “want” to put things in order is what has ultimately brought about Consciousness.
Consciousness is described as a virtual simulator that is able to play out imaginary scenarios that further help ensure the organisms survival. If the organism has a bad simulator it would have been eaten. Our interaction with our environment is crucial to our survival therefore Consciousness is an evolutionary advantage much like the Eye. The eye allows the organism to visualize it’s surrounding environment and consciousness aides in making predictions about what is beneficial to the organism in that environment.


Consciousness can project outcomes that are incorrect or wrong but in doing so this only proves that our “brain” is doing it’s job by playing out such scenarios. Without that ability the organism would have to perform them in real life settings that can prove to be harmful to it’s survival.

28. Explain Nietzsche's transvaluation of values.

Nietzsche’s transvaluation of values can best be described as the antithesis of the Christian moral code. Well Actually the Christianity according to Nietzsche. Nietzsche proclaims that evil is spawned from what is weak and anything that is sympathetic to the weak does a great disservice to themselves and to everyone.


“What is more harmful than any vice”? is the Question asked in Nietzsche’s Anti-Christ his own response given is “Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak-Christianity”


Nietzsche’s outlook on Christianity that it is a reproducing weakness that is counter-productive toward the exaltation of Man. This exaltation of Man is the embracing of every lust and desire as valid because it is to be considered natural. Christianity however is claimed to glorify suffering which is the opposite of the instinct of mans desires.


29. What was the favorite thing you learned this semester?


Mostly everything in the class required work interested me. I enjoyed the Beyond Belief sessions, the philosophy in 5 minute videos and reading the Eckist article the most. The ability to interact with classmates online. The freedom to rebuttal and discuss the topics is a great idea.



I wish there was a way to get people to communicate more thoroughly and consistently with each other. Perhaps maybe there should be a requirement for future classes much like the Minimum post requirements. Perhaps a requirement that you must Rebuttal or comment on 2 other classmates posts a week.



Or if someone responds to your post then you must give them at least one response back and it could count toward credit as part of your required responses/posts for the week.


I think it would lessen the majority of posts which tend to be just “explanations and synopsis” of the video we watched, book we read, or article we read. We all knew what it was about because we watched/read it. It's the discussion and rebuttal that makes it really come alive.


Adding that requirement may encourage more interaction and participation. Spark more debate and discussion and get the gears spinning in everyone’s head a little more.