Resistance is Futile

Crap of the Day



Caption reads:

Goes to show: Persons may try to get God out of the government, but He will still shine through.

This is apparently a real photo from Yuma that circulated around the internet from 2002. It does not look in the least like anything miraculous, but according to the person who wrote a letter accompanying it (see the article in Snopes), it symbolizes that Resistance is Futile, and Christianity is Borg. It symbolizes that the people of America, no matter how important their beliefs to the contrary are to them, will always be ruled by Christianity.

Luckily, you Americans can rest easy, because it's some sunlight shining through a piece of cloth--not "God shining through the government of the United States," like our drooling friend would have us believe. Actually, if you want to apply any real significance to the shape of the wrinkle on the cloth, you could interepret this picture in many ways.

If you think the wrinkle is a cross, you could say the picture symbolizes that government is a tool of killing religion, just like the cross was a tool for killing their martyr. But mostly I see the picture as a symbol that the owner of the car dealership that put up the flag is attempting to appropriate a partiotic symbol and an American tragedy to
pass the deals onto you, the customer. Wouldja look at the size of that flag? It's like Mr. Burns is trying to blot out the sun. The symbol in this case is that the car dealership is using an American tragedy and a frighteningly large flag to pass the savings onto you, the customer.

But the real meaning of this photograph is that people will use anything and everything to validate their stupid beliefs, and it would be rare to make it through a whole day without having a picture like this shoved in your face.

Now that would be a miracle.

Respect For Human Life?

The anti-abortion neo-conservatives are saying that stem-cell research is wrong, because it's killing humans in order to save them.

Unless those humans are in the army, or middle-eastern, of course. I mean, lol, they don't count as human life, obviously.

Anyway, there are about 400,000 specimens waiting to be used in research. What happens to them if they cannot be used to, say, help save and drastically improve the lives of countless human lives? Republicans: are you going to volunteer to get them implanted in your uterises where they will grow and become your children? Oh, wait. Haha. Like they have uterises. How about your daughters? Are they ready to step up?

No, the politicians know very well what will happen to those specimens, all those potential human lives. How many potential human lives coming out of congressmen have ended up on the hair and chins of hookers? Can anyone get me the numbers on this? What I'm saying is that if you're talking potentiality here, you can have infinite regress. every month, young women like me are dealing with our 4-7 day mass murder with chocolate and advil. Hey--I'm 38. My womb could have been used for at least 25 potential humans. Call the fucking police.

The neo-conservatives care about life, all right. As long as it is unborn. George W says there's no such thing as an "expendable human." Tell that to the kids in Iraq. Tell that to the 3500 unexpendable inmates on death row . The Bushes should know something about that.

Oh Mighty Asmodeus! I call forth the Great Moloch! Etc etc

For your amusement: The Grey Point.

Atheism = Satanism + Humanism

I'll make this edition short and sweet. It's public knowledge that atheism and Satanism go hand in hand. Satanism and atheism have one common principle: The idea that you can do what you want to without fear of retribution from a higher authority.

No use in getting mad. He's eighteen. I was an idiot at eighteen. Sure, there are many eighteen year-olds that aren't idiots. But most are idiots, and most people that were once eighteen were idiots. Just a fact of statistics.

Actually, I'm hoping, through posting this here, that Li'l Jimmy reads my blog. He may want to confirm his knowledge regarding "just how evil [atheists] are." You haven't seen it yet, Jimmie! Read on! Each entry of mine contains a seperate, secret satanic prayer invoking a demon to infiltrate every single computer and, logically, every single home in which the computer lies. Try to guess which demon this entry is invoking! It's fun!

No offense to Laveyan Satanists. There are few virtuous religions in the world; why bother theirs? But I'm not too worried. The reputation this kind of thing gives them is actually desireable in order to keep out the riff-raff. Anyway, shout-out to the Satanists.

It's Different for Girls

Dear Internet Diary,

From Reason Magazine Online:

Multiculturalism: It's Different for Girls by Cathy Young

On April 30, American journalist Chris Crain became the victim of a hate crime in Amsterdam. While walking in the street holding hands with his partner, he was savagely beaten by seven men shouting antigay slurs. A few days later, Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Program at the Human Rights Watch, expressed some sympathy for the gay-bashers. Crain's attackers were reportedly Moroccan immigrants.

"There's still an extraordinary degree of racism in Dutch society," Long opined to the gay news service PlanetOut. "Gays often become the victims of this when immigrants retaliate for the inequities that they have to suffer."

Welcome to Politically Correct World, where acts that would merit unequivocal condemnation if committed by white males are viewed in a very different light when the offenders belong to an "oppressed group."

The tension between two pillars of the modern left—multiculturalism and progressive views on gender—is not new. It has been particularly thorny in many European countries where, in lieu of an American-style "melting pot" approach, immigrants have been traditionally encouraged to maintain their distinct values and ways. Recently, however, these tensions have started to come out into the open. According to a March article in the German magazine, Der Spiegel, the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by an Islamic extremist last November after he had made a documentary about the oppression of Muslim women "galvanized the Netherlands and sent shock waves across Europe."

There's a dogma that programs people's psyches. The idea that one must tolerate everyone's beliefs at all costs is one of them. Maybe these poor immigrants have cultures that don't accept homosexuality, or women with uncovered heads. We have to "understand" the pain and suffering these angry people are going through. Some Dutch people's minds are being pulled into very uncomfortable directions. There's a backlash against Muslim immigrants because of the fear that their almost ancient progressive society will be destroyed because of the influx of very conservative religious people. But they're progressive and tolerant, so they feel forced to accept it.

I have to wonder, though. What if a giant group of Southern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptists got together and decided to leave North America, en masse, for The Netherlands?

****SIGH*****

Will the progressive Dutch find such a conflict of principles then? Not bloody likely, except among the truly hash-addled.

You want to alleviate such stress? The first step is to stop ignoring your values for someone else's, as a value. If you think about it for a moment, you'll realize how foolish that is. You can deny your values and accept every injustice if you want, but that wouldn't make you very virtuous. Then what you do is prioritize those values you remember you have. Values like freedom--the lack of physical force being imposed on us. Secular values . Independance. Free expression. Values religious conservatives want to take away. Defend those, and don't let anyone take them away, no matter how much you feel sorry for them. Rape is wrong, no matter who does it. Unless you wouldn't mind being raped by someone yourself--as long as he is oppressed in some way.

Thanks for listening, diary.

You HAVE to, because I said so.

Dear Internet Diary,

From around the Web:

I am not religious in any way but respect people who are. Nothing should be done at all in a way that may upset people who have those views.

People can believe what they want; even that [a] faith healer can bring back the dead, [...] Utter rubbish, but then you have to respect people's right to believe in whatever they choose to.

Yes, you have to respect people's beliefs, but sometimes honoring them distorts the truth. What about alien abductees? Creationists? Holocaust deniers? There might be a pro-slavery side, but does it deserve to be sought out for the sake of balance?"

They say I "have" to respect other people's beliefs, but who are "they," and who told them that? The other question is, what is respect, really?

The assumption here suggests the idea that we all have the right to practice our religions. This is mostly true, but a problem for the initial idea of respect, since holding a religion as true very likely holds that another is untrue. Hence, the disrespect of another religion.

How is my disrespect of religion and beliefs goign to prevent free exercise? The only way I can see is when the tenets of a religion violate my rights. In that case, I will vigorously try to prevent the exercise of that religion. But even so, how could I possibly hinder a religious belief?

I imagine that it might be possible to forcibly remove a belief with drugs or electro shock. Maybe that's what people mean when they say I should respect beleifs? "Don't give people lobotomies." That's the trouble I'm having with this whole "you have to respect" notion. The term respect is completely eroded. The way I understand it, to respect something or someone is to give esteem. At its root, respect means simply to look back at and regard. To give attention to. If that's so, I obviously give a hell of a lot of respect to religion. But when people spout off the old "you have to," etc, canard, it sounds more like "don't beat people up." It disregards the definitions of both "belief" and respect," thereby disrespecting both.

Another assumption is that one should put one's own values on hold when it comes to others' behaviors and opinions. That would be foolish. When an atheist upholds the repsect notion, I have to wonder: is he under the influence of a belief system that orders him to withold personal judgement? It would be amusing if it weren't so annoying. It's in the interest of a belief-based organization to tell its members that they are not capable of judging its claims and teachings, therefore they should "just beleive." That's obviously because when it comes under scrutiny, when it is subject to judgement, it proves to be untrue or morally corrupt. It offends me to see a person who claims to be morally autonomous preach the opposite. The truth is, not only should we judge, we must judge. We can't get through our day without judging.

My judgement? Holding something to be true with no evidence--or even with evidence against it--is unethical. That would be faith, that word that makes most people feel warm and fuzzy inside. I guess "you have to respect" my judgement. Let me ask you: if I think a belief is unreasonable, unintelligent, and immoral, should I respect it ? What other unreasonable, unintelligent and immoral things am I required to respect?

Thanks for listening, diary.

Electricity, Eeee-Lec-Tricity

Dear Internet Diary,

This is for the benefit of my readers.

From Bangor Hydro Kids' Outlet

How Is Electricity Created?

When electrons move from one atom to another (voltage) creating unbalance
or flow, you have electrical current.

There are two kinds of electricity:

Static Electricity

A condition that exists when electrons are
displaced and remain so. Static electricity is usually the result of
friction. Lightning is an example of static electricity. Static elec-
tricity makes your hair stand
on end. If you take an inflated balloon and rub it on your head, it will cling to your clothes. Or try turning on the faucet a bit and hold a comb close to -- but not in -- the water. Notice how the water is "pulled" toward the comb. This is because the static electrical charge in the comb is attracting electrons
in the water.

Current Electricity

A constant flow of electrons.
Direct current (DC) means the electrons move in one direction.
Alternating current (AC) means the electrons flow in both directions.


There are two ways to produce electricity

1. Batteries
Chemical reactions (two dissimilar metals in acid) force electrons to move. This creates direct current electricity.

2. Generators
This machine converts the mechanical energy of a rotating turbine shaft into electrical energy through use of magnetic fields.

How electricity is generated...

Three basic elements are required to produce electricity:

1. Motion (required to rotate a turbine)
2. Magnetic Field
3. Conductors

A form of energy is required to rotate a turbine which is attached to the shaft of the generator rotor. The rotor spins through the stator producing electricity.

There are several ways to turn the turbine. Some of the most common ways include burning fossil fuels to produce steam. Some of the fossil fuels might be coal, gas or oil. Nuclear energy is used to produce steam by the splitting of atoms (nuclear fission) which turns the turbine. Hydropower turns the turbine when water falls through it. Other less common sources used to produce electricity include: solar power, wind power, biomass (using organic material to produce steam), geothermal power, ocean or tidal power and fuel cells.

Check out Energy Quest for more about how electricity is created!

Bullshit is an Energy

Dear Internet Diary,

Faith lies at the heart of all that we have in Christ and from Christ and through Christ. It is the very energy of God in us through the presence of His Holy Spirit.

A ghost is an energy... and a consciousness obviously of somebody who had once lived.

Jesus is an energy presence in your life. If you allow him to cleanse you when the dirt is taken out his energizing spiritual power explodes inside of you and you shall be like a fountain of living water.

Psychic energy is an all pervasive energy or force (hence George Lucas' 'force' in Star Wars) that modern science has failed to discover and thus chosen to take a negative, skeptical stance upon it's existence.

You know what? The next time I hear the word "energy" used in that way, "it's like an energy," or some "mysterious energy force," I'm going to have to kill. Hellbound Smash! Hellbound Crash!

I have been watching Penn & Teller's Bullshit! all week, and I guarantee you that in each topic, from Creationism to Bottled water to environmental bullshit, someone pulled the word "energy" out of their ass to bullshit their way through an "explanation." If any one of these people knew what energy actually were, they were thinking of energy, or electricity, in the way Patent Medicine hawkers thought of it in the turn of the century, when public utilities wwas finding its way through the cities. For a lot of those folks, electricity was a miracle, so it seemed reasonable to think that electricity could do anything. So now here we are, it's 2005, and these dumbasses are thinking the same way. They can't prove anything, so they spit QI all over everything in the hopes that they will sound sciency and can get away with it. Whatever it is they are trying to sell you, "it's an energy." And since they believe it in China, it must be true, right? Tell that to the people who were imprisoned in the work camps.

Energy is simply the ability to do work, or what's necessary to do work. And it can be measured. It is not intangible. It is not that quelque chose they want it to be. If you mean je ne sais quois, then say it. If someone wants to say something is "an energy," pin them down! Is it

• Light?
• Kinetic?
• Gravitational Potential Energy?
• Sound Waves?
• Electrical?
• Chemical?
• Heat?
• Elastic?

Unfortunately, the more clever of the bunch will take your information and just use it to sound more sciencey. Of course, they must know that all energy requires a source. Where does the ghost or the qi get its energy? How is it used? Where does it go? Does the sourse equal the output? For instance, we know where humans get their energy, and we know how its used. We know how it's stored. Maybe some of these feng shui experts can tell me how to convert my extra pounds into qi. That sounds profitable.

I'm warning people here: the word "energy" is now entered into my Hokumeter, so don't go trying to use my lack of finesse in physics to prove your poo. It might expose the fact that you know even less about "energy" than I do. And that would just be embarrassing for you.

Thanks for listening, diary.

Christian S&M Porn?

Dear Internet Diary,

I have a confession to make.

I collect Christian sado-masochistic porn. I have about 60 titles. Sick, disgusting ones, like The Beast, Bad Bob, Big Daddy, Dark Dungeons, Scream, Sin City, and, ugh, "Squatters." They all tell stories of people who experience pain, submission, and release. You might have heard of them. They're called "Chick Tracts."

I do actually enjoy them. They're funny. But if you order the big variety pack from Chick.com, don't read them all in one sitting.

If you don't already know what a Chick Tract is, I'm rather surprosed. They're just everywhere. If you ever go to a public place, especially where you don't need to have a lot of money, you'll find one of these penny dreadfuls, lying there like a Whore, ready to be used. You're minding your own business, using a payphone, washing your clothes at the Lost Sock Laundry, flipping through dusty old albums at the St. Vinnie's, and you find a little comic.

Hooray! A comic! Who doesn't like comics? *Side note: That's what the Red Chinese said when they passed out those little red books. According to Chick, anyway. So, you open it up and....THE HORROR!...the horror...

Demons coming out of Host wafers! The Pope is the anti-christ! Girls on 50,000 hits of acid! Screaming professors teaching that we come from monkeys! Really, really ugly homosexuals and drag queens! A giant, glowing white Jesus tossing naked people into fire pits! Mormons! And, the sleaziest of all, crying people, kneeling before the feet of Christ, begging for His mercy, and when they accept his terms, they are naked, quivering, washed in the liquid tears of sweet, sweet release. You just don't know what that God is capable of!

When you're through reading this information, you of course are now saved. You're going to want to write a nice letter to Jack. Like this:

I FOUND a Chick tract in the restroom at school when I was in high school. I was saved from reading that tract.

Or this:

I was lost until I FOUND one of your Chick tracts on the ground in a dead-end alley.

That's because the Christians who are passing out tracts think we are living in a Dead End Kids movie. I can see it now: Tommy, Squirt, Pig and Murph are hanging out in the alley, shooting pennies, drinking cokes. They're surely headed down a slippery slope straight to POOL!

But that's the thing: Jack Chick WAS a Bowery Boy. He was doing things like parking with girls! That's why Chick prefers the Bad Bobs of the world. He's like a hairdresser: it's much more fun to change your style dramatically; it shows off your skill better.

I hope I'm not supporting this hate-literature by actually purchasing it. I think I'm redeeming myself, though. I've made five parody radio plays out of Chick tracts, and I'm working on one as we speak. These comics are so dramatic, they lend themselves well to radio plays. I pulled together a group I like to call the Glorified, Sanctified, Amplified Players. I have people all over the North American continent--and one from Great Britain--scaring their children, parents and pets with their death throes, satanic voices and screams of YAAAAAAH!

And I hope to scare you, too. To hear these monstrosities, and more, visit me at hellboundalleee.com

Mad Sex Demon

Dear Internet Diary,

Alleee is out for today, filling in will be this item from Yahoo News and Reuters:

CHAKE CHAKE, Tanzania (Reuters) - Mohammed Juma starts to sweat and fidget as he recalls his rape by Popo Bawa, the most feared spirit-monster of the Zanzibar spice islands.

"We believe reading the Koran is our only defense, nothing else," says the 41-year-old driver and father of four. "But Popo Bawa is real, and well prepared."

Vacationers on the Indian Ocean islands tend to smile dismissively at accounts in guidebooks of the bat-like ogre said to prey on men, women and children. But for superstitious Zanzibaris a visit from the sodomizing gremlin is no joke.

Although no one ever has seen it, belief in the monster and his unnatural lust is so strong that entire villages will sleep out of doors for protection: Popo Bawa (Swahili for Bat's Wing) prefers to attack behind closed doors at night.

In huts set amid rustling groves of jackfruit and mangoes on Zanzibar's Pemba island, victims told Reuters in interviews that they detected a bad smell, became cold and went into a trance in the moments before they felt the creature's inhuman strength.

Some attacks were heralded by the sound of giant wings and claws rattling and scraping on huts' tin roofs. Others cringed in terror at what sounded like a car engine ticking over.

"We heard a rustling on the roof," recalls Asha Saleh, in her late 50s, in Machomanne village near Pemba's main town of Chake Chake. "I felt someone fondling me. I felt very cold. I felt weak," she said, recalling the attack some 35 years ago.

LEGENDS

"I couldn't call out for help to my husband who was lying asleep beside me. Popo Bawa is strong: He really presses down on you. And it took such a long time: One hour! Eventually I lost consciousness. And I was one of many who were attacked."

Successive waves of colonizers and traders -- Arabs, Portuguese, Hindus, Chinese, Britons, Persians and Africans -- left behind a multinational array of legends on Zanzibar.

Accordingly, many dismiss Popo Bawa as another of the satanic stories swapped over the centuries by migratory Indian Ocean peoples as they moved back and forth on the tides from Indonesia to the Comoros, from Madagascar to the Maldives.

Zanzibar's distinctive past as an Arab-run slave market prompted some academics to speculate that the story of Popo Bawa emerged from a collective race memory of the horrors of slavery.

But Popo Bawa is unlike the many goblins believed by the islanders to populate the tall grasses that ring their huts.

Many on the islands are adept at exorcisms, placing charms at the base of fig trees or sacrificing goats to avert evil or draw favor from the spirit world.

So experienced are the isles' traditional healers that they draw visitors from the Gulf and east Africa, with the successful amassing riches and prestige.

But no placatory offering or witch doctor can deflect Popo Bawa when he has made his mind up to strike, islanders say.

The monster favors Pemba, the poorer and more backward of the archipelago's twin islands despite being home to the clove plantations that provide the mainstay of Zanzibar's economy.

He also becomes active at election time: a habit that is testing nerves ahead of polls due in October.

His last major visitation was during elections in 1995, when Juma says he endured his terrifying ordeal, although some reported his presence again in 2000 and in 2001.

"APOLITICAL"

Pemba's population are staunch opposition supporters. Many accuse the ruling party of Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa of neglecting the island since 1964, when Zanzibar merged with mainland Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanzania.

But Juma says Popo Bawa is apolitical even though electoral emotions seem to summon him from the beyond. "He can strike even if the opposition wins the elections," he said.

The driver vows to do his utmost to avoid what happened to him back in 1995 as he sat alone late one evening.

"Many were afraid and were sleeping outside. But I was confident and was alone in my room. I was reading the Koran for protection. After about 20 minutes I started feeling sleepy. I heard something falling on the roof. I continued reciting. I started feeling something in the room.

"I felt my mouth becoming bigger and bigger. I started losing my ability to form words. My feeling was that my lower lip had stretched to my lap. I felt weak in my body. I became very sweaty. My experience was like that of a neighbor of mine who said his head seemed to grow to an enormous size."

Popo Bawa gets annoyed if villagers deny his existence -- a fact to which Khamis Juma Hamad says he can testify.

Hamad, a retired village chief now aged 75, said that in 1971 Popo Bawa spoke to terrified villagers on Pemba through a girl possessed by the monster.

"I am Popo Bawa," said the girl, called Fatuma, speaking in the unnaturally deep voice of a man. "You have challenged my existence so I have come to prove I am here."

Seconds later, he says, the villagers heard the sound of a car revving and a rustle on a nearby roof -- signs of Popo Bawa. "The people felt cold, almost paralyzed. They were terrified."

Thanks for listening, diary. For more information, please see the entry on Sleep Paralysis, at skepdic.com . And visit me, at HellboundAlleee.com.

Mysterious Energy

Dear Internet Diary,

Now that I've dealt with the idea "you can't prove there is no God," I'd like to move on to some other things. I mean, since I've dispensed with the notion, it's time to wash our hands of some other nonsense.

A lot of believers that can't get their minds around the idea of Materialism are the types who believe in a whole lot of other nonsense, particularly ghosts. After all, the bible is filled with all kinds of stuff like that, and so are a lot of other religious documents. People who leave Christianity don't want to leave behind a lot of their pet beliefs. You can tell this by the huge numbers of nonreligious paranormal ghost sites on the web. There are more than 40,000,000 of them.

The first problem with any claim like this is incoherency. There is very little that's agreed-upon about the definition of ghosts. All I can piece together is that a ghost is a mysterious representation of something, most often a conscious something. It's kind of like a UFO. It's unidentified, but a lot of reputable people swear they've seen something important.

Answers.com says that a ghost is

The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats
The center of spiritual life; the soul.
A demon or spirit.
A returning or haunting memory or image.
A faint, false image, as:
A secondary image on a television or radar screen caused by reflected waves.
A displaced image in a photograph caused by the optical system of the camera.
A false spectral line caused by imperfections in the diffraction grating.
A displaced image in a mirror caused by reflection from the front of the glass.

I think the idea of a faint or false image is the best definition, and one I would certainly agree with. If this were The defintion of ghost, I would have to say, yes, ghosts exist. However, another very common definition is left out, curiously. Curious, since ghost hunters have a favorite instrument they use to detect ghosts. Strangely enough, it has never worked, and they still love to use it . It's called an EMF Detection Meter.
The reason they use the meter is because you seem, a ghost is "an energy." Is it Potential? Kinetic? We don't know. A ghost is just "an energy."
Question? An energy of what? What is this energy coming from, what is it connected to? What's making it? Does a ghost run on regular household current? That would make sense. Is it connected to a potato or lemon? How about the magnetic field? Perhaps ghosts are made of iron? Well, I guess it wouldn't be too hard for these people to believe ghosts run on magnetic field--they believe putting magnets in your shoes will cure cancer.

Or is it what I'm expecting them to say: running on the "human energy field?" The Qi? The problem is, besides the fact that there is no Qi or auras or anything like that is, if the ghost, the "energy" is a soul of the dead person, how is this energy still there? There is no metabolism coming from the dead person , years dispersed, probably.

Perhaps the ghost is coming from the human energy that exists in the household? That I can believe. It takes quite a bit of energy, but the humans in the household, who are presumably still metabolising and using the energy they get from their fuel, can make a ghost. Normal household current, batteries, simple machines, all of those energies can make a lot of things into ghosts. The best way for human energy to make a ghost is at night, when we're tired, just before we go to sleep. You could even make a demon or an alien that way. Those ghosts might not be able to make objects fly through the air, but a good hard toss can.

Thanks for listening, diary.

Do these Spams ever save anyone?

Dear Internet Diary,

I just got another email from someone wanting to save me. That was so nice of her. This person..Joanne? really must love me.

Of course, the first thing she says in her email is that I'm an idiot for being an atheist.

First, there is no such thing as an intelligent atheist. Anyone who states there is no God does so in ignorance.

She goes on to talk about how atheists say there is no God, but that it's impossible to prove there isn't , because I'm not omniscient, blah blah blah, and I haven't been everywhere in the universe and beyond, blah blah, limited material world and so on and so forth.

Thanks for the nihilism!. If you can't know there isn't a God because you haven't been everywhere and you haven't seen everything, then you have no way of knowing that any law of the universe is really true either. You can't know anything. Interesting. Since your logic is contingent upon God, as he is supposedly the creator of the universe, which includes all of its laws, then all knowledge, all logic is contingent upon him. He could change his mind. He could decide that we should breathe hydrogen tomorrow. He could decide that the laws of nature don't apply in a small town in Oregon. Which is what many people claim about the Oregon vortex, weirdly enough.

The problem here is that she is claiming the god of the bible, which actually is just as meaningless as any god anyone can partly make up. There is no coherent definition of God, therefore the word God is meaningless, and she might as well have written me an email that said,

Such a person may say, "Prove to me there is a Skiplix!" A person who believes may say, "Prove to me there is no Skiplix!" Whatever the case, it is clear the askiplixist cannot really know there is no Skiplix.

Which is another way of saying, "my claims are unfalsifiable, therefore you have to believe in them." The argument is old. It is tired. Look! We're equals! She is saying. We both have beliefs, therefore we are in the same boat. If you want to be smart, she says later, you can be an agnostic.

So obviously she has no idea what an agnostic is, and she sees no difference between the terms "knowledge" and "belief." (Gnostos means knowledge.) As a christian, of course, the two words might as well be the same thing. If there can be no knowledge about something, like her beloved holy Skiplix, then why withold your disbelief in it? That's the problem--that's not what an agnostic is. You either believe in Skiplix or you don't.

The email goes on to chide me for being concerned with my life, as those things are material and therefore, I quote, "vain pursuits." Of course they are. I would be much more enriched in my life if I spent all of my time thinking about death, as the email goes on to explain, rather than my values and virtues. Nothing I could possibly care about is of any importance, you see, because I can perceive it with one or more of my 5 senses. That, by the way, includes love, Missy. Or don't you believe in love? UNIMPORTANT! UNECESSARY! Screams the christian.

No, my time is much better spent worrying about burning in the lake of fire. The most idiotic and competely inhumanely cruel of all christian beliefs. If I thought about hell, then I would stop being a stupid atheist and stop thinking about my stupid, unecessary life. After all, since I've heard the rumours of an afterlife, I should just believe for the sake of safety. Because Joanne's God, apparently, is STUPID, and can't tell the difference between a perosn who truly believes and one who pretends to believe JUST IN CASE. What an intelligent position.

Then Joanne gives me all kinds of bible verses I've read before. Then she accuses me of deciding to become an atheist without thinking about it, and without reading her favorite bible verses. Well gee! I guess those 15 years of my life I spent trying my very best to be a chritsian, and those other 10 years afterwards I spent researching and what they like to call soul-searching never happened. No, I just, on a whim, decided that I would be an atheist, even though everyone around me believed in Jesus, or Ramtha or Mother earth. My whole upbringing had nothing to do with it, I suppose. I guess being raised to value independence, rationality, and curiosity was the cause of me just jumping into atheism without any thought whatsoever.

So, thanks, Joanne. I hope your email reaches all sorts of atheists. It won't save anyone, as you already know, considering you sent your email with a fake address. That's not your problem, Joanne. You did it to get a god star from Jesus up in heaven. 10,000 more spams, Joanne, and you get a corner window. I'll bet she's really fun at work, don't you think?

Thanks for listenign, diary.

Loki Crashes the Party

Dear Internet Diary,

So, today is another Friday the Thirteenth.

Nothing. I am absolutely positive that nothing has ever happened to me on Friday the thirteenth. Or on a full moon. Or after I broke a mirror, or spilled salt. I also had a black cat for a number of years, and have, several times, blasphemed our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus! You silly sod!

What's going on with this whole para...skevi..deka...trio..phobia is that the folks who are concerned with thirteen are used to thier 12-month calendar. Since these religions all come from the sun, we can understand why 13 doesn't quite fit in. You've got 12 months, 12 zodiac sign, 12 disciples (the thirteenth is Jesus, that old bastard), 12 Gods at Valhalla until Loki crashed the party...hey, have you ever seen Loki and Jesus together in the same room? Makes you think? 13, well, you've got thirteen cards in a tarot deck, and the 13th stage of life in Egyptian mythology is death. Of course, people who use a lunar calendar have no idea what the problem is with the number 13. They have their own stupid beliefs.

Then we have a little problem with Friday. I don't know who's idea it was to pretend that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. What did they have against Friday? There are many printed evidences that people found Friday unlucky, as early as the 1300's. But today we don't. That's because we have the concept of a "weekend." It's interesting to note that there is evidence of Friday's being unlucky right up to the time we invented Saturday off. So, now we have restaurants that venerate Friday in their bames. We have Disco Movies that thank God he invented Friday. Which is curious, since some emperor invented Friday, probably.

No, we love friday. We just hate 13. But we're stupid, so we had to hold onto at least one fear, the double-whammy Friday the thirteenth. This is the day, along with full moon days, that we discover just how badly we educate nurses, who dutifully report how "strange everyone is acting" in the ER.

Of course, we know that people act strange everywhere, every day. One of the strangest ways for people to act is when they behave differently because it's Friday the Thirteenth. On such a day, people look around and think, "what's strange today, because it is Friday the Thirteenth." On a wednesday the 8th or something, when everything strange or bad seems to happen at once, do we stop to look at a calendar? "Oh! It's wednesday the 8th. THAT explains it."


If the thirteen problem has to do with the "Last Supper," though, keep in mind: not only did Jesus have a 12 guest last supper, but so did Loki, as we discussed earlier, Mithra, and Spartan King Kleomenes. There are many sects that held a similar Eucharist. They are mythic, and/or symbolic. And they show that the characters people worship believed all sorts of occult nonsense and superstitions. It should all be thrown on the trash heap.

Thanks for listening, diary.

Homeopathy: let distilled water treat "like.

Dear internet diary,

I'm not a mean person, I don't always have to be "right." But I admit, I am very selfish. When my friend Kathleen was coming down with the flu, and super-dosed a bunch of homeopathis echinacea, I said nothing. That's because I didn't want her to be mad at me.

There was some logic to that. Using the echinacea wasn't going to effect her much, except to calm her. My pointing out that she was swalling nothing but some gelatin might have caised her some pain. In the long-run, she will have spent thousands on these remedies, but she's loaded and can afford it.

Homeopathy is a 19th-century "modern" response to bloodletting and bodily humours. The term "homeopathy" literally means "like suffering." The theory behind is is that treating an ailment with what you are suffering from will stimulate the "life-force," or the "qi," to begin to heal you. I'm sure you can guess how I feel about the existence of a life force.

There is some merit to the idea: after all, we use snake-venom to make antidotes, right? The problem here is that while they claim to use the actual substance to treat the ailment, they are in fact using nothing but distilled water, or sugars, or plain gelatin. You see, homeopathy works on dilution. Not just kool-aide kind of dilution. If you get a giant vat in space and fill it with all the waters from the seven seas, you begin to get an idea about what homeopathic dilution means. That's good, though. Because according to certain homeopaths, the more diluted the better. Moe Sizlack should hear about this! Unfortunately for alcohol lovers, it's not true. Ask James Randi, who took 64 sleep remedies at once in '97, or Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy who, with others at an Australian Skeptics convention, took part in a mass homeopathic suicide. They are all doing fine.

You find the dilution by looking on the side of the package or bottle. It says something like "24X," or "30X." What that means (and you should take out a piece of paper), one part remedy to 10 to the 30th power water. Take 10 and add 30 zeroes. What's that number called? Does anyone know? How does it look on paper? And where is the one part echinacea? Well, it disappeared completely, at least a million parts of water ago.

It's not just the water that makes for a fantasticly strong remedy. It's the homoepathic shake. Hahneman, the discoveror of this miracle, called this dynamization. The succession of shakes, in certain direction, in certain order, somehow increases the substance's potency. Maybe that's why Bond likes his martinis that way. This agitation apparently releases spiritual powers within the substance, making it "more active." Make sure only homeopathic scientists, like those that graduate from Seattle's Bastyr University. I'd be willing to bet that Seattle's Cornish College of Dance would suffice, but that's just me.

Responding to the charges that no such say, echinacea or sleep enhancer or appetite suppressant , exist in their products, homeopaths rationalize that molecules have memory. It's a more material way of claiming that it's there, we just can't detect it. It indeed would be hard to detect one molecule in a hundred pacific oceans. Anyway, according to them, no molecules disappear in the dilution. That's very interesting. That would mean that what we're drinking remembers everything it came into contact with, ever. That's a lot of dead fish, urine, garbage, beaver feces, soaps and cleaners, and anything else you can think of. That oughta stimulate the spirits.

Thanks for listening, diary.

http://www.ntskeptics.org/cartoons/homeopathy.gif

In Related News: (Headdesk)

Jesus Spotted in Ultrasound



Hit Head Here.

Don't Worry About It: Mary was Crying Before This Happened

Dear Internet Diary,

I just read that the pareidolia on the Chicago underpass wall was restored on Friday.

You know the story. Some winter road salt and water dripped down and made a rounded lump shape, which happens a lot. Since the mythical Mary character had to cover her shame all the time under a burkha, it supposedly looks like her. That's because she's one of the few Burkha-ed women who are famous enough to be "recognzed." They didn't realize, for instance, that the figure actually is of UMM SALAMA HIND bint Abi Umayya, one of the wives of Allah. Or a vagina. Whenever I look at that picture, I see a Georgia O'Keefelike hint at the woman-flower. Which is probably not a coincidence, anyway. Which is another reason Christianity tends to be kind of yukky.

Last week, Victor Gonzales was arrested for writing "big lie" on the image. It's curious, considering that, if you look around the image, you will see all kinds of graffitti, not to mention lots of litter. I don't mean the religious litter-the candles, the prayer slips, the teddy bears, etc. I mean litter from the humanity. Back to the graffitti. People wrote all kinds of things on the wall, including the wishes they wanted the Virgin to grant them. Someone also wrote "satan lives" next to the image, making him a kind of pussy, in my opinion. Maybe he was a christian too, who actually does believe in satan, and is still in fear of god. Make that a lesson to you all. People who write "satan lives" and "666" and most anything else satan-related on walls are CHRISTIANS, not satanists. Are we clear?

Here's where my rant about the misconceptions about people who write about satan on walls is actually relevant: Gonzales is a Chritsian. Yes, yet again, some, ahem "atrocity" attributed to godlessness is caused by religion. To quote:

Gonzalez, 37, told relatives he believed visitors were worshipping a graven image in violation of the Second Commandment, said Mandy Gonzalez, who identified herself as Gonzalez's niece.

Yes, it seems we have a case of Protestant vs Catholic, as Catholics don't recognize the commandment against graven images.

Before I knew Gonzales' act was religious in nature, I generally defended his act. His graffitti or pollution or whatever you want to call it was the only truthful statement to be found there. I have to say, that's stil true. The words "big lie," even now, was the only thing that had virtuous motivation. It's too bad it wasn't done by an atheist. That's kind of sad. Of course, the state came in and covered it up with paint, which is hypocritical. They allowed all these people to leave their little piles and open fires all around, they allowed constant graffitti to be written on the wall, but when someone makes a bold statement, when someone shows what is admittedly artificial independant defiance, the government descends upon it, making themselves enemies of everyone. But that's how this pareidolia stuff ALWAYS happens. Eventually, it just gets too messy. Eventually, someone has to clean it up.

The restoration is amusing though. If this is such a miraculous thing, why is so much human intervention necessary? Why was road salt runoff necessary? Why was the whole car-wash of the government paint necessary? If this was a miracle, Mary could have cleaned herself up. Even so, no-one should worry. The worship of Mary was never, at any time, harmed. The Mary-cult ALWAYS has Mary weeping. Why should this be any different? Catholicism was not harmed, anti-catholicist protestantism was not harmed, and grumpy atheism marches on.

Thanks for listening, diary.

What is "Purpose?"

Dear Internet Diary,

Since we were talking yesterday about how some religious people believe that godlessness leads to purposelesness, and purposlessness leads to, I don't know, behaving like a teenager, I thought I'd explain what purpose is .

Purpose to them, I suppose, is something God gave us as well as the reason He made each and every one of us in the first place. God took a purpose out of His magic bag and tucked it into our little clay hearts. This purpose is hidden inside out hearts until we believe in God. When we believe, our eyes and ears then melt, causing them to see and hear things that live in a magical place called Happy Land. Happy Land exists in a realm above the clouds. Well, it did, until we invented supersonic jets and rockets. Then it went to secondary school and learned about dimensions, and decided to move into one of them that we haven't "discovered" yet.

When our eyes and noses melt, we finally hear God who has been shouting at us from the moment daddy's sperm conquered mommy's egg. God gave us defective melted ears so that his shouting would sound like a "still, small voice," so that we would have to strain to hear it and therefore think it was really important, since Modern Science can't explain why we heard it. Anyway, what has Modern Science ever done for us?

For the most part, God is yelling to us to believe in him more than we did before. In order to do this, we have to learn to look the part by glazing our eyes over and smiling beatifically. It's best to get a biker tatoo in a partly visible spot, so that anyone listening will know you've done a lot of hard living, and that you are a recovering narcotics addict. When it comes to prosthelytizing and preaching about morality, who better to listen to than someone who's lost 75% of his brain cells to hard liquor? No quicker way to the really good religious visions than hallucinogens.

If your melted ears listen really well, you can hear the purpose God has for you in His Plan. It's called a "calling." It used to mean, exclusively, that you were meant to be a priest or a nun. Nowadays it means pretty much anything, especially if it involved a multi-level marketing scheme involving a product Jesus often bought in the Holy Land.

Every true believer knows that his Ultimate Purpose, the bigger one found behind the first one, is to go to Happy Land to meet Jesus. Once there, your purpose is to run the thrill rides and midway games, sell cotton candy and clean up vomit.

It is obvious that without such high purposes, our society would crumble. While it is true that atheists have a purposes, until they stop stubbornly denying God, they will not hear His piteous shouts. It brings a tear to my eye to think of poor God shouting as loud as he can in the ears of the wicked, only to be ignored in favor of trivial, sinful secular values such as independence, freedom, love, and...(shudder) The World.

Thanks for listening, diary.

Part 4: Fear 2.0

Dear Internet Diary,

He is my purpose my ALL! With out Him I would be nothing…

You say that you're glad I believe in God, because otherwise I'd be a psychopath, but my question to you is: if you don't believe in God, why aren't you a psychopath?

I believe in God because the destructive effects of godlessness on individuals and entire societies are sadly evident. These effects include lack of purpose, moral decay, crime, substance dependence, and a major deterioration of society in general.
-- Hector Hammerly

This entry is about fear, but I wanted to focus on something specific. "I believe in God, because if there weren't a God, it would be terrible." "I believe in God, because otherwise I would be terrible."

What's the fallacy on that? Slippery Slope? Begging the question? I'm not so up on my Baloney detection, but my bullshit meter is in the red.

"Without Him I would be nothing." Spoken like a true bashed wife. Truly in submission to a sadist. You know He has special powers, but you're not sure just what he's capable of, and the littlest thing could set Him off. But He loves you. No room for self-esteem in this belief system. The problem here is that in Chritsinity, you are nothing. We're all sinners, and we all deserve to go to hell, if not for the glorious mercy of God. Thank you, oh Lord, for not killing us. As the Pythons say:

O Lord, please don't burn us.

Don't grill or toast Your flock.

Don't put us on the barbecue

Or simmer us in stock.

This is not why I don't believe in a god, but if this god existed, I would be something, just like anyone else. I'd just be terrified, cursed, and enslaved. Just existing, not living, and waiting for The End. God is love!

So, why aren't I a psychopath? Well, because as far as I know, there is nothing afflicting my brain. I haven't physically hurt anyone. I'm not quite sure why this particualr fellow thinks that not believing in his god would make me insane. I imagine that his ego cannot accept the idea that he won't live forever. Maybe he doesn't like the idea that his personality isn't so astronomically important that is simply must go on forever. Not very Zen of him. Remember the part in Hitchhiker's Guide about the chamber where, when one enters, his insignificance in the universe is revealed to him? I remember reading some Buddhist teaching that suggested that the person who can go through that experience and not fly into a spiral of despondency is truly enlightened. I agree, and whoever can retain a sense of connection to the universe whole realizing how small he is is more "spiritual" than a stadium full of believers, Benny Hinn, the band and the choir.

The good professor here believes in God because atheists commit crimes and are probably gay. I can't say it for sure about the prof, but when someone speaks about "general moral decay," it takes a couple of seconds to find out he hates queers. And probably feminists, and dirty words on television. A few seconds online can clear up the confusion about the correlation between godlessness and crime. The truth is, it's godfulness that contributes to crime. It's godfulness that is the cause of purposlessness. It's godfulness that contributes to intolerance, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and sexual repression. Chritstians,Muslims, fundamentalist Jews and others have values in spite of their religions, not because of them. Doctor Hammerly is simply another voice in the chorus that believes because of hate. And hate comes from fear.

Thanks for listening, diary

Part 3: Divine Revelation

Dear Internet Diary,

I believe in God because I feel that there is one God. I have this strange feeling of love and devotion for the Prophet of God.

My opinion that Satan does exist is about as difficult to disprove as your contention he doesn't, Pascal. I feel he exists because he appeared to me in a dream - saying that serving Jesus would only ruin me. Whether that was really Satan or me is hard to say since, according to that philiosophy instructor, it's possible neither he nor I exist. I don't know whose figment of imagination I might occupy or whether corporeal embodiment is possible if tacile measurements weren't possible.

During the peaceful hours of the early morning I was praying and waiting before the Saviour when He suddenly revealed Himself to me. I saw Him as clearly as anyone ever saw Him in the days of His flesh. I ceased to pray, and remained quiet and speechless in His Presence. The moments seemed too sacred for me to break the sweet silence by prayer. What could I have said to Him? Was He not the answer to all prayer?

In this place I feel a spirit…comes over me and moves in me…In this heat and harshness I feel a soft and gentle caress across my red and weary face…A Greater Force…God, Creator, Supreme of the Universe…nameless but for those who would provide a name to such.

Divine revelation certainly seems to come in varied forms! One of them being, erm, rather sexual in nature. There is a surprisingly great number of personal testimonies that are sexy like this. But, well, such is the nature of feeling His glory within you, the ecstasy of revelation, and that final, glorious, emotional release of repentance. Anyone have a cigarette?

The common form of "divine revelation" is technically termed "the warm fuzzies." This happens when, for explained and unexplained reasons, your heart feels warm and a sudden wash of pleasurable feeling comes over you. We pretend this has no earthly explanation so that we can claim to have been touched by the divine. Spiritual lift and enlightenment is not the sole domain of Christianity. Neither is a fantastic feeling of warmth and love, "in your heart." Of course, when these same feelings happen as a result of alcohol or drugs, it's coming from Satan. Satan gives good orgasm, too, I guess. I can testify that I have experienced rushes of adrenaline and a hyper-stimulated pleasure-center for emotional reasons only. As a matter of fact, it happened to me one Thursday evening in the seventies, around 8:15 as I watched "Happy Days." I discovered that lying on the couch watching tv was so pleasurable, I got goosebumps. If only every night in front of the tube were like that. Why it was "Happy Days" is anyone's guess.

Another form of revelation is what the believer sees as direct contact with a superstar of the religion. "Direct contact" is not necessarily Saint Therese sitting at your kitchen table, although you can read about it online all the time. As long as there is a vision, inside or outside the head, awake or dreaming, it's direct contact. Actually, the best time to have a vision is that twilight time in your brain, right before you go to sleep. It's then that your dreams can seem most real, especially if they wake you. But how can I deny it when a person claims that they really, truly were contacted by Our Blessed Blue-Burkahed Blonde? Well, how does one know, for sure, that the vision is coming from God? If you are forbidden from using your own moral judgement, how can you decide this is a good experience? Does the bible not say that Satan comes in pleasing forms, and can deceive you? Does the bible not say that God can deceive you? How do you know that your whole church isn't a deception by Satan? In a religious world, where reality is subject to God's Holy Whim, you can't be sure of anything. Better do what the church has been doing ever since about a hundred years after the agreed-upon death of Jesus: change your religion to fit current understanding. Everyone's doing it. After all, these days it's not demons or saints that come into our rooms at night and cause us to have sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming. It's aliens. Some of them come with divine revelations too, don't they, Rael?

Thanks for listening, diary.

Why Do They Believe? Part 2: Fear

Dear Internet Diary,

Fear-based belief:

I believe in and pray to God simply because it gives comfort and hope and the feeling that there is something else out there supporting me.

I believe because I have to. I cannot go on the way I am. I am sick, I am miserable and I am hurting so badly. I believe because if I don’t I’ll be swept away.

You know what? I believe because I must. I believe because if I
don't, life will seem incredibly hopeless and shallow. Who
wants to live that way?

But until we are really truly in the throes of death, we never really know if what is taught and what is believed is all real. I pray it is and that's why I believe. Because if it is all true, I wouldn't want the alternative when I die.

These four testimonies illustrate two basic fear-based "reasons" for belief: the last one is your basic fear of h-e-double-hockey-sticks. That's a given. The other, illustrateing the first three, is a more existential fear: fear of personal responsibility, independence, moral autonomy.

The first bloke believes because he wants to think that someone is out there taking care of him. He doesn't seem to think he can do that for himself. Perhaps he hasn't yet discovered the many comforts offered in the real world? It's strange, because seeking comfort in a god is admired, but seeking comfort in the real world is considered shallow and indulgent. But if comfort is a good enough reason to believe in a magical, all-powerful man that lives in the sky, made a man out of dirt, and killed everyone on earth because they were gambling, then there should be a little more respect given to the many lovely comforts this world offers: books, movies, food, drugs, hobbies, friends, and family. So if someone says we need religion because it offers comfort, remind them that beer offers comfort too, but few people fly planes into buildings because of it. Well, not out of anger or righteousness, anyway.

The second poor fellow has become so deeply indoctrinated in one of the more immoral teachings of christianity, he's temporarily trapped. His adolescent angst is incorporated in his religion. He's afraid that without force, he will be "swept away." In what? A bad Madonna movie? Perhaps he's worried that his worthless, sinful nature, without god-belief, will lead him to commit terrible crimes. Maybe he should check the prison population statistics. Atheism could only help this guy--it could actually save him.

The next gal has the typical belief, that she would sink in an existential, nihilistic funk without god-belief. As if the reason to be a christian is to avoid being an unpleasant asshole. Newsflash: Ann Coulter, Bill O'Riley, Gene Cook..shall I go on? You can't blame sunny Chritsians for assuming atheists are depressing individuals, living lives of disillusionment and despondency, especially if you are one of those christians who knocks on my door at dinnertime.

But fear not, christians, I say. The best thing about being an atheist is not having to be afraid. Letting go of the fear of hell is the best thing I ever did for my state of mind. I actually became an optiminst precisely when I stopped believing in an afterlife. Who wants to spend eternity in heaven, when the bible makes it sound like an eternal Sunday morning in church? Anyway, there is great joy in the real world; joy without jesus and god. Joy in being your own person, in being independent, in having confidence in your personal moral judgement. Joy in love, beauty, experience, friends, family, food, and making fun of chritsians.

Thanks for listening, diary.

The Uncyclopedia's Ten Commandments

Check out this version of The Ten Commandments:

The Secular-Legalist's Ten Commandments (in modern English)

• 1. You shall have no other gods. That means you must not worship other gods, but you are allowed to worship what they stand for, for example money, power, and so on.
• 2. You shall not practice idolatry and worship idols or images, unless we the Church grants the particular graven image immunity. Yeah, God is a jealous God but he won't notice it if the whole church is doing it, particularly if it's done in his name. Buy our laminated pocket portrait of Jesus while you're at it.
• 3. You shall not take the Lord God's name in vain, unless you use it to spite infidels and heathens or unless the word is in the same sentence as "freedom", "democracy", "-given right", "bomb" or "morals".
• 4. Remember the Sabbath Day: you must work to the death on that day like any other or we the Church shall call you a lazy bum.
• 5. Honour your parents, and tell them to give plenty of money to the local priest, minister, or pastor to honour them. God will bless you for doing this. If not, then God is testing your faith. Show your faith! Keep sending in the money!
• 6. You may kill, but not murder, gay men, infidels, and barbarian heathens. Just say the Holy Spirit made you do it and you'll be fine.
• 7. You shall not commit adultery, unless you are a priest, minister, or pastor, in which case God forgives. Amen.
• 8. You shall not steal, except from the congregation or hoi polloi. You are also allowed to sell crap and steal from the religious masses in the church, if we the Church sees it fit.
• 9. You shall not bear false witness, unless in the name of the Church or the politician the Church endorses. Or if you claim the Holy Spirit told you not to and that you interpreted the vision wrong. God forgives, brethren and sisters.
• 10. You shall not covet what other people have. That's you, stupid, lazy welfare-leeches. Don't even look at my yacht -- it's my God-given property -- and none of my tax money will go to you via the sinful communist government agencies. Hi, I'm Tom DeLay.

The Ascetic-Legalist's Addendum

• 1. You shall not be gay, nor shall you endorse the quality of being gay. This refers to both homosexuality and happiness. Suffer, and be miserable, and you will feel like you are living a righteous life, regardless of whether you actually are.

Why Do They Believe? Part One: Luck

Dear Internet Diary,

Why do people believe in Christianity? I don't know about everyone else, so I try and imagine why I at least tried to believe at one time.

The most honest answer is that I had, or thought I had, Christian parents. I believed because I was born in the right place, at the right time. I was taught in a chritsian school, went to sunday school, went to choir practice, went to church youth group, and of course I went to church potlucks, as you know by now.

It's not an easy thing to admit , if you're a believer. If you admit that, it's admitting that if you were born somewhere else, to some other parents, you would not be a christian. You could have just as easily been a Jew, a Muslim, an Atheist, or even a Raelian. (Of course, in reality, the chance of you being the you you are is 1, Unity, so there's nothing to worry about.) A person doesn't want to think that his beliefs are based on happenstance. There's an easy way to fix this as a believer, besides the obvious one of simply ignoring it. That is, that God, in His infinite wisdom, has a plan for each and (yawn) every one of us, and He chose YOU to be placed in your family. He chose for you to be a christian, to live in the Holy Blessed United States of America, to torch abortion clinics, and to tune in to Hannity and Colmes.

Problem there as well. If GOD has a PLAN for each of us, then He chose ME to be an atheist and go to Hell. He chose Ackbar to be a Muslim and go to Hell. He chose for Rael to go insane. So what about this claim about free will again? What about this idea that God doesn't want us to go to hell, but wants us to accept his free gift and love Him, but his poor li'l old hands are tied? What about that, Huh? Huh? Here's some cake, now eat it.

Whoops, there I go trying to be logical again. As the believers say, there's more to life than logic and reason. I should lighten up, go buy a tiny little book by the cash register about the cute kind of angels.

Then I'll go have some of that cake.

Thanks for listening, diary.