On Calvary's Bigotry

On the bus ride into work this morning, I noticed an interesting sermon listing on the billboard for the local Calvary Church. The upcoming sermon is "God's Word on Same Sex Marriages". Now, being the inquisitive person I am, I wanted to know their stance. Naively, I thought that this would be one of the churches that has embraced ALL of their members, and preaches love and tolerance. It is not. According to the Calvary Chapel's "beliefs" page they are quite against same sex marriage. Not only are they against it, they use 2 of their 18 talking points--more than ten percent--to speak against same sex marriages.

One statement about love, two against homosexuality... They have wonderful priorities!

Due to these statements, I have no problem calling the Calvary Church a bigoted organization. Additionally, everyone who holds these same beliefs is a bigot.

The interesting thing is that as I was researching the Calvary's position, a nice-seeming gentleman who was peeking over my shoulder asked me what I was doing. I explained that I had seen the billboard, and was interested in what the church thought. Luckily, he corrected me, and explained that it is not what the church thought, and that it was actually God's word.

On Miracles

So, every once in a while, a friend of mine will post a link to a sweet story about how God saved someone, or how a prayer saved a life... Really just about a Miracle Something, similar to this:

On Blag Hag and Dogs

As you may know, there are a lot of assholes on the internet....

I know, this may come as a shock. I'll give you a moment to recover. 

Now one of these assholes has created a list of the 42 things wrong with American women. Luckily, Jen, the author or Blag Hag, (one of my favorite blogs) expertly destroyed his arguments and made him look like the sexist asshole he is. Unfortunately, she didn't emphasize perhaps the most important point of her article. There was one point of her article that has perhaps changed my life forever. She introduced the Seattle Dog. Now, Don't get me wrong, the struggle to eliminate bigotry and morons from our society is one of my highest priorities in life. But.... Seattle Dog..... 

It has cream cheese....

On Smiles and Kicks

So, as you may or may not know, this week (August 5th to 11th) is National Smile Week. To assist you in smiling, here is a cute penguin...

It is SOOO Cute!!!

And if you don't want to smile, I'll kick you in the face. With a boot. I'd assume that to be the response of Todd Bentley at least.... Mr. Bentley has gained a bit of fame from his work in the Lakeland Revival. He is best known for his faith-healing work with a "physical" bent. For instance, when a member of his congregation claimed to have colon cancer, Mr. Bentley shared the "Power of God"with a swift knee to the man's gut. And then the man fell to the floor....probably because he had been kneed in the stomach. In another case, he pushed a man so hard that the man lost a tooth. In yet another case, he "assisted" a woman....

“The Holy Spirit spoke to me, the gift of faith came on me, and said, ‘Kick her in the face with your biker boot.’ I inched closer and I went bam!”
(Because you're not speaking about him, I wouldnt have this set apart as a quote)He then adds, “Just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God.”

On Karma

So,

I saw this on my Facebook feed:

With the title "Karma is a b****".  

Now, I'm all for teh lols, but the issue I have with karma is that it is so widely held as true in our culture. According to Trans4Mind.com (I know, such a reputable source)

Karma is based on logic. It is an unavoidable consequence of our creations. When we create anything, we also create other things which might not be what we intended.

So, this information is false, wrong and just plain (to take from Tim Minchin) BULLSHIT! Just to make myself clear, there is no evidence, no proposed mechanism, no science, no statistics, nothing more than a cool idea and some anecdotal evidence to support the concept of karma. For some reason, people think that karma is an actual thing, and that it is based in natural laws. IT'S NOT. It's a comforting thought, but outside of Reddit, karma is the same religious dogma as any other belief not founded in reality. 

Now, you might ask, what is the harm in believing in karma? It's just a cool idea; what comes around, goes around, right?

On 1,000,000 r/atheism/ subscribers

So, as I am writing this, r/atheism/ on reddit is almost at 1,000,000 subscribers. Now, while I have mixed feelings about this community as a whole, there is no denying that it is one of the most powerful online tools that atheists have to feel connected to each other. And that is a pretty awesome thing.

Congratulations to all godless redditors!

On "Pro-life" "Science"

So,

I try not to get involved in issues that I am not especially trained in, or that I have not vigorously researched, or that I am not incredibly passionate about. I do this not because of apathy, but because I am a very busy person, and under most circumstances, I will let more apt people get involved. One of these issues is abortion. It's a very complex issue, and I don't think I would ever be able to understand the battlefield of a mind of a person who is contemplating abortion.

That being said, I am pro-choice. I am VERY pro-choice. And I would absolutely support someone who decides to have an abortion. My opinion on the matter is more pragmatic, in that even when abortion is illegal, people still have abortions, they are just more dangerous. In addition to that, I would rather for every child born be loved, and not treated as just some mistake. But to discuss the philosophy of my stance is not the reason I am writing this post. I am writing this post to defend science. I am acting as a defender of science, because people are misquoting someone-else's-hell out of it.

Science does rule, but cannot defend itself

A common tactic of "pro-life" activists is to claim that science is on their side. They will often claim that life begins at conception.

Hey, apparently a life begins at conception.... 

Another one says that....

Well if it's scientific fact...

Now, if someone claims that their religion says life begins at conception, I'm probably going to stay quiet, lest I open a giant can of atheist-rage on some unsuspecting stranger. And when they claim their philosophy says that, I'm really not in a position to argue it. But when they claim that "it's scientific fact", they are essentially forcing me to correct them.

LIFE DOES NOT BEGIN AT CONCEPTION!

But, you may ask, "if life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin???" The answer to that question is complex and nuanced, as most scientific answers are. The correct answer to when did life begin (according to science) is about 3.8 billion years ago. And you may claim, "But the earth is only 6000 years old." If this is you, please pick up a text book and either educate yourself with it, or hit yourself in the head with it, HARD! Now, life on earth began 3.8 billion years ago, and we are an extension of that life.... Just as all living organisms on Earth share a common ancestor, we share that ancestor's life.

You really should thank your great, great, [∞], great-grand cell more often.... 

Now you may say, "Thats a crappy answer, that’s not what life is". And you will be right..... sort of. Life is a very complex and complicated idea, and as a result, we have lots of different definitions of life. And none of them are very clear cut. 

From a metabolic perspective, life is present whenever we have cellular activity such as respiration. This is the simplest answer, and the most commonly used definition of life. It’s also really easy to define what is alive (a dog), and what isn't (a pencil). That being said, according to this definition of life, we are simply an extension of the original life on earth, (about 3.8 billion years ago) through a lineage of a variety of cells. Now, I like this definition, as it is the most clear cut, and I find the thought that we are simply an extension of life accurate, appropriate, and even comforting.

If this is not answering your questions, you may be looking for a definition of human life. I would like to make this very clear, a definition for human life is very different from a definition of life. But once again, depending on the flavor of biology you are looking at, we will have a different answer.