How Far We've Come in 13 Years

It's been 13 years since extremists attacked the USA. 13 years, and the world seems just as dangerous as it was before. The heady days of the Arab Revolution, when waves of democracy and popular rule were sweeping the middle east, are long gone. Egypt is back where is started, Syria never finished falling in the first place, and Libya is in the middle of a new civil war. Not to mention ISIS. Oh and Ebola is slowly decimating Africa, country by country.

But consider this. Osama Bin Laden is dead, along with nearly every senior Al Qaeda commander from the time. The new World Trade Center building is almost complete. Unemployment is getting close to falling under 6%, and the GDP is up. Plus technology marches on. Direct brain to electrical connection, internet so fast you could download the Library of Congress in minutes, fully electric cars which go hundreds of miles between charges, and even reusable rockets which can land vertically, all coming down the pipeline.

The world is in a race. A race between technology and entropy, and I speak of entropy metaphorically. Entropy is the forces of chaos, the forces of destruction. Extremist religion (of all flavors), global climate change, diseases such as Ebola, poverty, and even just the natural slow progression of all governments into totalitarianism.

And it isn't new. History and human civilization are cyclical. The forces of chaos knock everything down, and then we slowly rebuild. We get knocked down, and we rebuild. 1200BC, 500AD, both times civilization collapsed. But each time, we retained more technology than before. The only question that remains is how far we can get before the next collapse. I have high hopes. I look around and see how fast we are progressing, and I think we can beat it. I think that my generation can be the first to permanently colonize something that isn't on Earth. We we can spread out, we can finally break the cycle, and then how far do you think we'll go?

Great Video

 

Christianity in Schools

New Heights Middle School, Jefferson, South Carolina. The school brings in a Christian group to speak to the Children to convert them to Christianity.

This is a public school, paid for by money forcibly taken by the government from all citizens, even non-Christian ones. We also have a Constitution that prohibits the government from endorsing one religion. Yet here it is doing just that. The ACLU reposted the video that the Christian group put up originally.



One thing that struck me was a comment in the comments section of the article that the ACLU wrote about the issue.

"I applaud the school for their courage! They are indeed promoting civil rights for there is a direct correlation between the spread of the Gospel and the rise of civil liberty."

Interesting how the ideals of liberty and civilian, non-theocratic government arose in the 1700s with the rise of philosophy and beginnings of universal atheism. Also interesting that the countries with the highest civil liberties are the ones that have the most religious freedom. And another interesting point is that the ones who've been most consistently fighting civil liberties in our own country, from slavery in the 1860s through the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and now into the issues with gay rights ... are Christians.

Just to note of course, not all Christians are homophobic bigots who want to force their morality onto everyone. But if you look at people trying to force morality on others, chances are those people are Christians.

Edit:
I saw this video yesterday and found it interesting, but not enough to warrant a post about it. But it's on similar topic so I'll go ahead and link it here as well:


 

Extract of a Sermon from the Church of Murphy

Are you a good son or daughter of the Church of our lord, Murphy? You know that He is always watching, He sees everything and everyone, and His wrath is awesome. Tread carefully, lest ye bring it down upon you.

Murphy is above us, and around us. He is everywhere, and everywhere his influence is felt. Did you slip on a rock today? Or have your car break down? Did something that seemed the random chance happen to go the very worst possible way? Heed his warnings! For you have felt the presence of Murphy Himself. Take heed, and repent. Pray to Him, asking for forgiveness, and for mercy. For Murphy can be merciful if you are truly sincere.

Be grateful! For once, Murphy was not so kind. Back ages ago, when Raptor Jesus walked the Earth and did battle with our Lord, even the slightest of sins would see us cast from Him. He had no choice, for he was fighting for his Life against the evil one. But when Raptor Jesus was finally cast down, and Murphy gained His utter dominion of the Earth, life grew orderly. And those who are loyal are rewarded.

Let us pray.

Hear us, O Murphy, and heed our prayers. Stay far from us, and those we love. But take up our enemies in your close embrace. Deliver us from your touch, until the end of time. Amen.
 

Koran Burning

In Florida several days ago, a small Christian church burned a Koran. Following that, large protests erupted across the middle east. One protest in northern Afghanistan ended with the mob overrunning a UN complex, killing and beheading, leaving 11 dead.

World leaders have begun condemning the violence, which is good. However, at the same time, they began to condemn the Koran burning, some going so far as to say that the Pastor responsible for it was to blame for the violence.

In America, we are guaranteed freedom of speech by the Constitution. That means freedom to make fun of people or things, and freedom to disrespect. A book is a physical object, and a piece of property. Assuming the Pastor acquired the Koran legally, then he is allowed to burn it. The pastor is in no way responsible for the deaths of the UN workers. Zero, nada, nothing. The people responsible for their deaths are the people that killed them.

Let me draw a parallel. Imagine an elementary school playground. The playground bully (Muslim extremists) decides one say that the slide is his and his alone. However, another child (Christian pastor in Florida) wants to slide. The bully tells the child not to, threatening violence if he does. The child refuses to stop, and the bully pulls out a knife and kills him. Now the teacher (Obama) comes and says, that killing is wrong! But, the child shouldn't have defied the boy in the first place! They are both equally wrong!

What we have here is the exact same situation, on a larger scale. America is afraid to say anything bad about Islam, because Muslim extremists threaten to hurt us if we do. Examples of this are: Draw Muhammad Day: canceled because the girl got numerous death threats. Muhammad on South Park: censored because Comedy Central got death threats. Now this latest fiasco. This time, he went ahead and did it. He defied them, actually disrespected Islam! Like any bully, the Muslim extremists in Afghanistan couldn't let their bluff be called, so they stormed a UN complex and beheaded people. (Note, though the crowd was 20,000 people, the city it took place in has a population of 375,000, which means that only 5% of the people were involved. I am not blaming Muslims in general, just the extremists among them who think violence is acceptable).

The US's response should be a swift execution of the people responsible. But instead, while we do condemn the bully with words, we equally condemn the ... person who stood up to the bully? Whaaaattt?

Edit:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the action of burning a holy book is a good thing. It's not, in fact it's a jerk move. However, by condemning it, Obama is setting a double standard. He doesn't condemn people who burn Bibles, does he? And condemning both at the same time implies they are the two extremes (true) and both equally bad (not true). Killing people is far worse than burning a book.
 

Britain's Government Dictating Beliefs

I just read about a situation in Britain. Short summary, a foster-parent couple was trying to adopt a child, and it was blocked because they hold anti-gay views, and said that they would teach them to any child they raised. [Source] Google News it for confirmation, this was one of the more neutral articles I could find.

It's a pretty gray area, there are good arguments on both sides. We are violating the parent's right to teach their children, and there has to be a good reason. Would you want the Grand Dragon of the KKK teaching a foster child? I'd hope you say no. Would you want one of Hitler's top echelon as a foster parent? No. The question really is, where do we draw the line? Does their belief that homosexuality is wrong constitute enough of a danger that we have to intervene? That is what's important in this case. The court obviously thinks so.

When I read about it, my first reaction was, damn right. I'm a strong proponent of equal rights, and so teaching that homosexuality is wrong is something I disagree with. However, after a moment of actually thinking about it, I realized how wrong that reaction was. It's NOT wrong because it's anti-Christian. It's wrong because it's anti-anything. This opens the door to government dictating what beliefs and opinions are correct .. thought control, basically. That is a VERY dangerous thing.

Also,I have to wonder why Christian groups (which have been the loudest ones protesting) are crying foul. I can understand civil libertarians protesting this. But NOM is right now protesting Virginia's new foster care law, which states that parents can't be chosen based on sexual orientation, because it'll make it easier for gay couples to adopt. We can't have it both ways, allowed to say that people can't be parents because they are gay, but can be if they are anti-gay.

Though I disagree with this couple's beliefs, letting the State decide what opinions and beliefs people are allowed to have is much more dangerous than the indoctrination of one child, and so this ruling is wrong.
 

Overreaction And Christian-Bashing

In wake of the tragic earthquakes in Japan, a girl posted this video on Facebook. She exclaims how happy she is that God grabbed Japan and shook it (killing thousands) to let atheists know that He is here.



It's obviously an insensitive and cruel video, and it makes Christians look ... really bad. And already, people are jumping on the bandwagon to write about how evil it is, and in turn, how evil Christianity is. The problem is ... it's a fake:



What is the best way to discredit someone/thing? Frame it/them for something horrific. I have no idea if she is a Christian/Muslim/Atheist, etc. What I do know is, her video has brought on a slew of Christian-bashing blog posts and articles, as well as Facebook threads. Was that her original point? Probably not, I suspect she was just doing it to get a rise from people. But it's certainly being used that way, even by some bloggers that I normally have a pretty high respect for.

Example, CLS made a post in response. While admitting near the top that it was Satire, the blogger went on to use the video as an excuse to bash all of the "faith-inflicted" out there by responding as if the video was real, referring the video-poster multiple times. "She prayed that God would show he was loving, thousands of people are killed in a natural disaster" No, she didn't. She said that to provoke people, and she obviously succeeded, to the detriment of real Christians everywhere.
 

Monogomy

I was raised as a Methodist Christian, and in that faith, all sex outside of marriage is both a sin, and wrong/evil. Over time, my beliefs on the issue have evolved, and I'd like to examine the issue here.

First I'd like to say, I differentiate between 'sin' and 'evil'. Sin is a Christian concept; anything that God says not to do is a sin. One sins by breaking any of God's rules. Evil on the other hand, is a universal concept, and it's one that is hard to define. Everyone's definition of what is wrong is slightly off. Some things are considered evil by nearly everyone in a society, such as murder. Some things are considered evil by only small portions, such as homosexuality. Evil is distinct from sin because evil is governed by your own conscience, sin is governed by God. Also, there are some things that are evil but not sin, such as offering one's daughters to be gangraped, and some things that are sin but not evil, such as gambling and in my opinion, sex outside of marriage.

Lets first examine whether sex outside of marriage is sin. In the Bible, there are many occasions where "sexual immorality" are condemned, such as Thessalonians 4:3-5 and Mark 7:20-23. Source However, it isn't defined what exactly constitutes "sexual immorality", which has lead to some confusion. Similarly, Number 7 of the 10 commandments reads: "Thou [You] shall not commit adultery." It is the same in the King James version, the New International, the New American Standard, as well as all other versions I checked. Source Again though, adultery isn't really defined, and interpretations vary widely. Whether it's a sin or not is difficult to say with certainty, which is why I fall to the other issue of whether it's evil or not.

So is extramarital sex morally wrong? I personally don't think so, and the reason lies in my definition of evil. I think evil has to involve harming someone. Harm means anything that hurts or diminishes someone, physically, mentally, or emotionally, without their consent. If an action doesn't involve harming someone, I don't think it's evil. And sex between two people doesn't innately harm someone.

Many situations that involve sex DO harm people:

Rape, Forced prostitution, Women with low self esteem going out and having sex with random strangers, a man cheating on his wife.

However, it's not the sex in these situations that is the problem. With rape, the problem is lack of consensuality, similar to force prostitution. With the 3rd, the problem is the lack of self esteem. With the cheating, the problem is the lying and the breaking of vows, which can cause severe emotional harm. In all cases, there is a specific reason that sex isn't a good idea. Sex itself isn't the harmful agent.

If two people with no other commitments wish to have sex, be it a one night stand, or a couple that's not yet married deciding to play around a little early, I don't think that it's morally wrong and I don't think they should be condemned for it. I'll note that if it IS a sin, then they might end up paying for it later on, but that is between that person and God, it's not our place to judge.

That said, would I consider having extramarital sex? My answer depends on the type. I absolutely want to avoid one night stands, because while I don't think it's wrong, I DO think that sex has a large emotional aspect, and I want the person that I just had sex with to be there in the morning. If I was in a long term committed relationship, and my partner wanted to play around a little early, I might consider it, but I'd want to be sure that there is a Very good chance that this person is the one I'd end up marrying. To me, marriage the final step in a commitment, it's built on previous commitments, realization of love. We don't go from casual dating to being married all of the sudden, and so I can see lots of situations where you know that you are going to end up with someone and are both fully committed to each other, before you hold that marriage license. I therefore don't really see any problem with starting early.

However, all of the above is just conjecture. It's what I hope I'd do. The real answer is that I don't know. Many people like to talk about what they would do, but the reality is, it's almost impossible to know what one would do without having been in that situation. The longest romantic relationship I've had lasted all of 4 weeks, I've never had the opportunity to have sex, so I can't say what I'd do. What I hope though, if physical sensations don't overwhelm me, is that I'd resist.
 

Masturbation = Adultery ... Ohs Nos!

Christine O'Donnell is running fora 4 year term in the US Senate, in a special election to replace Biden, who left to become Vice President. She's tea party backed to the core, and recently won the republican primary over Mike Castle, (the RNC endorsed candidate). Her views:

Abortion: Against. This is expected, she's a Republican.

Economic Policy: Spend less money. That doesn't sound to bad, okay.

Environment: Block cap & trade. Debatable, but okay.

Gun Rights: Second Amendment protects individual rights.

Health Care: Repeal

Masturbation: It's a sin and a form of adultery .... wait, what?



When asked about her belief on masturbation, she replied:

Yes, I have my personal beliefs," she said when asked about her views. "These are questions from statements I made over 15 years ago. I was in my 20s and very excited and passionate about my new found faith. But I can assure you, my faith has matured. And when I go to Washington D.C., it will be the Constitution on which I base all of my decisions, not my personal beliefs.

Sounds good, right? She's matured, and will base her decisions on the Constitution. Ehh, not really good. StudentLiberal over at Classically Liberal wrote a very good analysis. He says:

Let us go through this statement to see what she is actually saying and what she isn't saying. She says the statements were made when she was young. At that time she had a "new found faith," which means a belief system she adopted wholesale from dead books without any intellectual scrutiny. But "I can assure you, my faith has matured."

What does that mean? Previously she held beliefs without reasons, on the basis of faith. Now she has a mature faith, which means what? How does the mature faith differ from the youthful faith? Faith is faith, it is still not reason. Was she previously a young fool but is now just an old fool? All she said is her faith is mature. People say that they have "faith" when they merely adopt a view without rational reasoning behind it. They hold the belief on the basis of "faith." All this does is tell us how she comes to her beliefs, not what those beliefs are. And both are rather critical here.

She does not indicate at all that her views on masturbation, sex and abstinence have changed at all. In fact, she rather strongly hints that she has NOT abandoned her beliefs whatsoever. She begins her statement saying: "Yes, I have my personal beliefs." This is present tense, not past tense. At best she is hinting that she now understands that there are other ways for her to express the same viewpoints without creating a firestorm. She has not repudiated her "personal beliefs" nor has she said that they have changed, only that her "faith" is now more mature....

The first half of her statement is meant to address the issue of her past beliefs in contrast with present day beliefs. But nowhere does it actually indicate that these beliefs are now different, only that she has a more mature faith—and what that means is never explained by O'Donnell.

The second half of her statement is meant to address how she would vote on issues. It too avoids indicating anything of substance. She says that she will base all her decisions on the Constitution. Whoopee! What a meaningless statement!

If there is one thing that most politicians agree upon it is that they all think they vote according to the Constitution. Believing the Constitution is like believing the Bible. It means nothing. Why is that?

We can all debate what the Constitution means and we each come to our own conclusions. O'Donnell can happily vote for moralistic legislation, if offered the chance, and still proclaim she is within the Constitution as she sees it. The problem is that we have no idea how she sees the Constitution.

The problem with electing someone like this is that there is no way to know they won't put their own morality in front of the Constitution, or in front of your personal rights. She says elsewhere that "as someone who prays about every decision I make, I felt like God was leading me" [1].

If God is real, AND God really talks to people in a physical sense, then a Theocracy could be viable. If either of those two aren't true though, then a Theocracy is a very dangerous form of Autocracy, and nothing more. That is the danger we face when allowing people like O'Donnell into office. She says that she bases all decisions on what she feels God wants her to do, and we have an example of what she believes God's morality is. Is making Masturbation wrong and illegal what we really want? Be careful, Delaware, what you elect.
 

Profiling Passengers - Wrong?

I was watching C-Span yesterday morning, and one of the guests was Nihad Awad, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is a group dealing with American Muslims, and the relations between America and the international Muslim community. Awad has been the Executive Director since 1994, and was speaking yesterday about racial and religious profiling.

There have been a few instances of security officials stopping Muslims, but religious profiling isn't US policy. Awad was making the point that the profiling will only serve the alienate Muslims that don't hate the US yet. IE, our own citizens. And while he makes a valid point, it doesn't change the facts. Fact, all terrorist attacks of the last 15 years have been Muslim extremists. Fact: They were young men.

When we are looking for White Supremacists, do we go to Harlem? No, it doesn't make sense. It's logical to scrutinize young Muslim men more than other passengers, because they are more likely to be a threat. Profiling will save time and money, and increase our chances of actually catching a terrorist.

That said, profiling is still not right. Frankly, and I know that I'm going to be disagreed with, none of this security is right. Controlling who gets on and off a private plane, that's not the government's place. We shouldn't be wasting money on any of this. Bin laden did much much more with 911 than the innitial effects. How much money has been lost due to the extra security across the country? The time lost? The threat of a terrorist attack is bad, but it's not worth the loss of civil rights. Religious profiling .... doing nothing for the last hour of the flight (including the bathroom! even for children!) .... possibly having to register travel plans and reasons for traveling ... it's not worth the small bit of extra safety. And it's giving the government way to much power.

Remember the Nazis? "Your papers, please"