The Pinoy Atheist in Friendster

“If you can’t beat them, join them”. I think that what on the mind of these Bible apologists when they say that you can find some references about dinosaurs in the pages of their “holy book”.

First when paleontologists discover the existence of dinosaur fossils, Christians retorted by saying that these bones were placed by Satan to deceive us to believe that dinosaur exist. Well so far so good. When people didn’t buy this cockeyed explanation, some Christian sect made stories that say God created the dinosaur together with human being, and what best reference they can show other than what was written in their “Holy Bible”.

The Behemoth

According to Christians, the Book of Job is the evidence that dinosaurs can be found in the Bible…Hmmm let us see.

Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him . Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares. (Job 40:15-24 KJV)

Isn’t that great or what. Lo and behold, Job is talking about a sauropod, a Brachiosaurus. Yeah right…

Most Christians agree that the Behemoth in the Book of Job is a dinosaur. Many Young Earth Creationists propose that the Behemoth is a sauropod. But why are these guys’ compares the Behemoth to a dinosaur? It can mean anything? Well let us see.

According to these Christians, Job 40:15-24 is definitely talking about a dinosaur.

1. he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly – So the Behemoth eats grass! Yep and a dinosaur eats grass.

But so does a hippo and an elephant. Dinosaurs don’t eat grass like an ox. They were wholly incapable of chewing their food at all. Their jaws can only move up and down like the jaws of a crocodile, not in a circular pattern like the jaws of a cow. They ate vegetation by grasping the food with the teeth, and pulled away with the head, thereby "raking" the leaves into the mouth. In order to "chew" the food they swallowed, they had to swallow stones (called "gastroliths") that traveled through the necks and into the gizzard area. There, the stones help to grind their food by mashing plant matter into a digestible pulp with the help of special muscles found inside of the gizzards. Oh and did I forgot to tell you that sauropods were tree-browsers.

2. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.

Well…since a behemoth “has a tail that is exactly like a cedar tree” it must be a dinosaur. Good grief! Guys, can you read this verse again. It doesn’t say that a behemoth’s tail is like a cedar tree, it says that its tail move like a cedar. That means that it does not necessarily pointing towards the size of the tail, it only speaking about the motion pattern. It’s just saying that the behemoth’s tail moved like the branches of a cedar tree in the wind.

In the New International Version (NIV), the verses in question are translated as the following:

"What strength he has in his loins; what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar, the sinews of his thighs are close-knit…"

This version could indicate that the animal moved parts of the loin-region, such as the phallus, around aggressively, whether in heat or not. Following the symbolism of strong, well-functioning phalli being a metaphor for masculine courage, the verses continue to demonstrate the behavior and dependence on God of the creature, indicating the humility of a creature that would appear to have no need for humility

3. He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him .

That means anyone, approaching the creature, must arm himself with raw firepower; any weapon needed to kill this vicious monstrosity, including a sword. We are not talking about a creature dated back between 70 and 65 million years ago. We’re talking about some modern African animal, like a hippopotamus, a highly dangerous animal that has been said to kill humans more than any other dangerous animal in Africa.

4. Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.

The rest of the passage refers to Behemoth being a large amphibious mammal. Sauropods, on the other hand would not enjoy being stuck, bogged down, and up to their armpits in mud, mire, and water all the time and, in other cases, be drowned in their own tissue while standing in deep water.

The writer of Job is not talking about dinosaurs here. The New Living Translation says that it’s a hippopotamus. In the original Hebrew, the word behemoth is of Egyptian origin. According to the Easton Bible Dictionary, "Some have supposed this to be an Egyptian word meaning a "water-ox." The Revised Version has here in the margin "hippopotamus," which is probably the correct rendering of the word.  The hippopotamus is truly a wild animal that "eateth grass like an ox," can never be tamed, and makes his home in the swamps, lakes, and rivers of Africa. They were once common in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, but were not seen anymore in that area due to them being hunted down for their ivory teeth, meat, and hide by humans.

The Leviathan

Another dinosaur “wannabee” in the Bible is the Leviathan.

The word "Leviathan" appears six times in the Bible:

1. Isaiah 27:1: "In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

2. Psalms 74:14: "Thou didst crush the heads of the Leviathan, thou didst give him for food to the creatures of the desert." NIV

3. Psalms 104:25,26: "O Lord, how manifold thy works, in wisdom you have created them all. So is this great and wide sea… there go the ships and the Leviathan which you have created to play therein" (AV);

4. Book of Job 3:8 "May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan ";NIV

5. Book of Job 40: 24-32, 41:1-24: "Can you draw out a Leviathan with a hook or press down its tongue with a cord? Canst thou put a hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a bridle ring? Will he make many supplications to thee? Will he speak soft words to thee? Will he make a covenant with thee? To take him for thy servant forever? Will thou play with him as with a bird? Or wilt thou bind him for thy girls? Will the tradesmen heap up payment for him?… Lay thy hand upon him, thou will no more think of fighting. Behold the hope of him is in vain, shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?…Who can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is near to the another, that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. By his [sneezing] a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of morning. Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth….His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone….He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble….He maketh the deep to boil like a pot….he is a king over all the children of pride."

According to Duane Gish, the Leviathan is a dinosaur, some dort of a Parasaurolophus or Corythosaurus, or a plesiosaur such as Koronosaurus. Yet have he forgotten that the Leviathan appears also in Ugaritic texts, where it is described as a twisting serpent. In Canaanite mythology and literature, it is a monster called Lotan, ‘the fleeing serpent, the coiling serpent with the seven heads’. It was eventually killed by Baal. The Leviathan is also the Ugaritic god of evil.

In Psalms 74:14 it also says that the Leviathan has many heads (¹⁴Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.)

Also, let us not forget the following descriptions: 

A.) Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

B.) Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

C.) His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth

Gosh! These descriptions sounds like more of one of those monsters from a Japanese 1960’s monster show…like those Godzilla movies. Dinosaurs don’t have such abilities. The gentle Parasaurolophus or Corythosaurus doesn’t shoot fire from their mouth. Also, there were no sailing ships on the time when sea reptiles known as pliosaurs ruled the seas.

Let me point out…the Bible is neither modern nor scientific. It was written in a poetical, ancient and mythological manner. So I hope Christian fundies should use their brain often and should try to distinguish facts from fables.

I’ve been searching for any article about the separation of church and state here in the

Philippines

and up until now I still haven’t find any. Hmmmmm…maybe I’m just not looking too hard. Well there is that Wikipedia article and that blog site that tried to explain it in a Christian point of view, other than that…none whatsoever.

Is it because the concept of separation of church and state is really in the sticks when Philippine experience is concern? The Roman Catholic Church have always been involved in Philippine politics for over 400 years, and it already become an established force in Philippine political issues especially in the last days of the Marcos era…a heartfelt thanks to the late Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila.

The subject of Church and State separation in the

Philippines

is really quite a difficult topic, even for Filipino atheists. A lot of comments from Filipino non-believers in internet forums always accuse the church…in particular, the Roman Catholics, from violating this principle. But what is this principle anyway?

According to Wikipedia, “Separation of church and state is a political and legal doctrine which states that government and religious institutions are to be kept separate and independent of one another. The term most often refers to the combination of two principles: secularity of government and freedom of religious exercise.

The

United

State

of

America

is said to be the inventor and the one that pioneered the principle of separation of church and state. It started in the time of the American Revolution. People in pluralistic land had become tired with church-state unions that efforts to separate religion and government paralleled the military efforts to expel the British. Key landmarks in the struggle were James Madison’s 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance Against Assessments and Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, the bill that prohibits a person to compel to finance any form of religious organization. This became a law in

Virginia

in 1785.

Two years after the passage of the Jefferson’s bill, the present U.S. Constitution was drafted in

Philadelphia

. The First U.S. Congress in 1789 added the Bill of Rights and on it, Article I of the Bill of Rights states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an established religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

A decade later, in a well-through-out-letter to the

Danbury

,

Connecticut

, Baptist Association, President Thomas Jefferson declared that the First Amendment erected “a wall of separation between church and state.”

In that letter, President Jefferson wrote, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Some Christians interprets

Jefferson

’s letter is about protecting the church from the affairs of the state, but in reality…it’s a give and take relationship. The “wall” was erected to make the state religiously neutral.

In the Reynolds’s case in 1878 for example, the U.S. Supreme Court defended marriage as between a man and a woman and denied the free exercise claims of Mormons in the

Utah

territory.

The clearest expression of the separation of church and state principle is found in the United State Supreme Court ruling in Everson v. Board of Education (1947):

The “establishment of religion” cause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor a federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religion, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain or disbelieve in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious belief or disbeliefs, nor church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institution, whatever they may be called. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of

Jefferson

, the cause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and state.” (Everson vs. Board of Education, 330

U.S.

1.)

To summarize

Jefferson

’s metaphor, the separation of church and state is about:

• The state should not officially establish a religion.

• The state should not officially fund religious activities.

• The state should not fund religious activities.

• The state should not fund non-religious activities sponsored by religious organizations.

• The state should not prescribe, proscribe, or amend religious beliefs.

• The state should not attempt to endorse or criticize any religious belief or practice.

• The state should not interfere in religious hierarchies, nor interfere in issues strictly related to membership.

• No state action should have the primary effect of engaging in religious practice. Any such appearance of a state religious practice must be unintentional and coincidental.

• No state action should have the primary effect of restricting religious practice. Any such appearance of interference in religious practice must be unintentional and coincidental.

• The state should not express any religious beliefs, or in any publication, speech, or other implement of state power such as currency, sworn testimony, oath of fealty to the state, or endorsements of national pride. The state should not imply any derivation of authority from any religious authority, nor should it express temporal supremacy in relation to religious belief or practice.

• Political leaders should not express religious preferences in the course of their duties

• No church should prescribe, proscribe, or amend civil or common law.

• The church should not interfere in civil political processes or relations between the state and other nations.

• No church should actively endorse any political figure, and should confine itself to moral, ethical, and religious teaching.

• No church should actively endorse any civil institution by providing religious services or religious expressions at that institution, nor favor one civil institution over another.

Yet Christian fundamentalism began to deduce this “wall” as taking God and Jesus out of schools, government and the American life.

Dark clouds began to appear in the 1970’s…Religious fundamentalism and political ultra conservatism became closely allied in

U.S.

politics. Christian fundamentalist leaders like the late Jerry Farwell and Pat Robertson allied themselves with Roman Catholic bishops and ultraconservative political group and campaigned unceasingly to discredit the separation principle, to insist that “moral majorities” have the right to impose their values on everyone by law. Until the early 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court has distanced itself from

Jefferson

’s original meaning "…in behalf of the rights of [religious] conscience." Often the U.S. Supreme Court suggest separation of church and state conveys hostility to religion In Wallace v. Jaffree for example, Reagan-appointed Chief Justice Rehnquist presented the view that the establishment clause was intended to protect local establishments of religion from federal interference– a view which diminished the strong separation views of the Court. He also concluded: The “wall of separation between church and state” is a metaphor base on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

Justice Scalia has criticized separation of church and state as a bulldozer removing religion from American public life.

Here in the

Philippines

, the separation of church and state is duly recognized. Well…that is what is written in the Philippine Constitution… in theory at least.

The 1987 Constitution of the

Philippines

declares: The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable. (Article II, Section 6), and, No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights. (Article III, Section 5).

Well…as I have said earlier, this section of the Philippine Constitution is really misunderstood by both Filipino believers and non-believers alike.

According to this principle, the separation of church and state is implied from the constitutional prohibitions that “no law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion (Art. III, Sec. 5.) and that no public money or property shall be ever be appropriated, applied, paid, or employed, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, sectarian institution or system of religion.” (Art. IV, Sec. 29 [2}.)

That means the church cannot interfere in purely political matters or temporal aspects of man’s life and the State…What! Really? I don’t think so…

You see, it may be a written law of the land, but this is really not quite simple to be put in action. The Church is too shortsighted to see the dividing line between what “political matters” is and what “a temporal aspect of man’s life” is.

For example, during the time when the study of Rizal’s life was included in the school’s curriculum, the Roman Catholic Church demanded to use the expurgate version’s of Rizal’s books in Catholic schools. Well…that’s their right…yet the education board allowed it. The Roman Catholic Church is at constant war with the Philippine government’s Family Planning program. The Catholic Church lobbies the government for the use of the natural method of birth control against the use of artificial contraception.

I recall that certain Catholic “sister” of a certain Roman Catholic–sponsored Pro-Life group. Permeate with the fervor of her lost cause and religious fanaticism, she not only publicly condemned a United Nation program of free tetanus inoculations for women of child-bearing age, but actually prevented it from continuing by court action. So what are her grounds? Her demented paranoia! She thinks that the vaccines contained an abortifacient and that it was a western plot to depopulate the

Philippines

. Talk about being psycho!

The truth of the matter is the separation of church and state is being violated in the

Philippines

subtlety and no one seems to notice.

Government TV stations urge the televiewers to pray “the 3o’Clock Habit every 3 o’ Clock. In the afternoon, Philippine Supreme Court justices can avow with straight faces that some of their decisions were divinely inspired just as the case of Ex-President Estrada’s impeachment decision, public-school children pray at the beginning and end of each class day, professors of state universities can send their students to Opus Dei rallies and Roman Catholic idols and graven images adorn every government office. On election season, priests can tell worshippers who to vote, after the Sunday mass, while still inside the church.  Even the Philippine Supreme Court is not spared. There is a large statue of man who supposes to be Moses, holding the “The Ten Commandments” in front of the Supreme Court Building located in

Taft Ave

,

Manila

. There is also a large metal statue of “The Virgin Mary” to commemorate the EDSA I Revolution. Fundamentalist Christian churches can produce a TV show that expresses their political view, after some prayers and halleluiahs. The Muslim community has a privilege in their own Shira Law to take care in the issue of criminal and civil offences. Also religious holidays here in the

Philippines

are made public legal holidays…and I think this now included Islamic holidays.

Wow! And no Filipino non-believer seems to give a damn about it!

Even the Preamble of the Philippine Constitution starts with the words: “we, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God…” What do you expect; Roman Catholic religious and clergy like Sr. Christine Tan, R.G.S., a nun, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., a priest, and Bishop Teodoro C. Bacani became part of the 1986 Constitutional Commission and left their mark on the promulgation of the charter and its numerous provisions on the Church and state.

And take note Philippine non-believer, The Philippine Constitution says nothing about prohibiting the church from expressing its views or stand on public issues. So Fr. Robert Reyes can still run and bang the gates and door of every motel in Metro Manila every Valentines Day. The Constitution is also silent on the issue of church leaders and priest running in public office, a good excuse for Brother Eddie Villanueva of the

JIL

Church

to run for president in the last presidential race of 2004.

So why this unholy partnership between the Church and the Philippine government? The answer…Power!

There is no single politician in the

Philippines

who will discredit the church, especially in Election Day. Is it because he fears God? Nope! It’s because of the voting power of the adherents. There is even a church here in the

Philippines

that practice block voting. If you’re candidacy is endorse by their religious leader, chances are all his flock will vote for you without even thinking. That is a lot of votes!

As long as politicians will ask the help of the church for votes, the church will always use this leverage to ask favors. Example, a church can ask the winning candidate for positions in the government…and we’re not talking about spiritual positions…nope! Positions like national defense, the media and law-making office are the best choice.

But the church doesn’t always win. In my elementary days, it is compulsory to attend Roman Catholic doctrines being taught in public school. This is disguise as religion class. I think today this was already abolished…but sad to say, optional religious instructions in public elementary and high schools is by constitutional mandate allowed (Art. XIV, Sec. 3{3}.)

So Church and State is like oil and water…but who says that oil and water never mixed? There is always an emulsion.

John the Atheist

Wow…the nerve of GMA to say that their teleserye “Zaido” is part of the space sheriff trilogy. What a claim!

Napanood ko yun TV special na nag-propomote ng Zaido. Mga ulol! Sasabihin nyo binantayan mabuti ng Toei eh gago pala kayo, kinuwartahan lang kayo ng mga Ponjap! Bakit nyo sasabihin na pinayagan kayo ng company na gumawa ng Shaider na mag-palabas ng isang show na sasabihin nyong may kaugnayan sa Shaider, eh mukhang ang pinayagan lang ilabas eh yung mukha ni “Alexi” para ma-claim nyo na malayong kamag-anak ni Alexi yung character ng Dennis Trillo. Eh saksakan pala kayo ng tanga! Yung mga names na copy-right ng show na Shaider eh hindi nga pinayagang gamitin ng katarantaduhan nyo. Buti pa yun GoDaikin die-cast figure ng Vavilos, eh Vavilos ang pangalan.

Back in the 1980’s I was one of those fan who always watch “Uchuu Keiji Shaider” and because of YouTube I have the chance to watch the ending of the show. I think the management of GMA and those who tried to promote their so-called Japanese oriented “kuno” show Zaido as a part of Shaider is making a big mistake. Well…for those who don’t have the slightest idea of what Shaider is…makakalusot na ito basurang ito. But sa totoo lang , napakalayo ng “Zaido – Pulis Pangkalokohan” sa “Uchuu Keiji Shaider”!

Pasok tayo sa claims ng GMA sa Zaido-Pulis Pangkagaguhan nila:

First the GMA show Zaido says that there are many space police and only a few will be called a “Zaido”. Shaider as the show claims is one of these “Zaidos”.

Now…this claim is erroneous for a number of reasons. First, Shaider is the code name of a Space Sheriff which was base on the name of a warrior here on Earth who was the first to defeat Kubilai 12,000 years ago. Now since Kubilai’s body was separated from his torso, kaya nabuhay ulit ito. That’s why si Shaider (in the form of Dai) again defeated Kubilai for good, since he killed the main head. Kung tutuusin, wala ng reason para mabuhay at bumalik pa ito as what the show Zaido claim.

Second, there are only 3 space sheriffs, Gavan, Sharivan and Shaider.

And last…they are called “Space Sheriffs” not Space Police.

The show Zaido also changed important names in the show. Well…if they are called in a different name, then why will you claim that they are connected? Anong tingin nyo sa mga manonood nyo,

Moron

?

Avilos is not the name of Shaider’s ship…it is called Vavillos.

The leader of the Mu Empire is Kubilai not Le-Ar.

Shinkan Po is the real name of Ida.

Hestler is the real name of Trigo

The five women warriors from Kubilai’s court are called “Grayu 1,2,3,4, and 5”. They are not called “Amazons”.

And lastly Shaider’s enemy are called Fuuma not Kuuma!

The symbol of the so-called ‘pulis pangkalawakan” is a rip-off from Star Trek. The original symbol design used by the space sheriffs look very much like those mysterious patterns found in the Nasca planes. Also, the commander of the space sheriff doesn’t wear a stupid-looking military costume with a cape. This is another example of bad costume design. Teka, ano ba ang ganap ni Ian De Leon dito? Mukhang M. Bison ng Street Fighters wannabe sya! I prefer Raul Julia sa pag ganap ng M. Bison…mukhang mas may credibility eh.

There is also a claim that the “pulis pangkalawakan” doesn’t allow women recruits. This is a big joke. The Space Sheriff has women on their pay roll! Shaider has Annie and Gavan has Mimi.

Ngayon ano itong claim na walang pulis pangKalookan na babae? Bakla ba o kaya naman mga women haters’ ang writers ng Zaido? Eh sa pulis

Makati

nga may babae, sa pulis pangkalawakan pa? Baka kailangan manood kayo ng Women’s Desk sa Q TV?

Back to the topic:

Shinkan Po’s beauty is preserve because he feeds on Kubilai’s (his grandfather) energy. He doesn’t need to drink female virgin’s blood! He’s not a vampire and he’s not Elisabeth Bathory. Baka namimix-up kayo o baka naman goth fantasy yan ng mga “tsupangkers”?

Now, totoo nga bang pinag-aralan ng mga think tanks ng GMA ang Shaider before they created this so-called Zaido-Pulis Pangkabalastugan? Ito na lang…trivial na nga lang ito. If you will notice, the space sheriffs don’t use small type fighter crafts. Ito po eh mukhang rip-off ng Zaido  sa

Battle

Star Galactica. Sa mga

U.S.

science fiction or space epics po to makikita na gumagamit ang bida ng mga fighter crafts. Sa Battle Star Galactica, mayroon silang Colonial Vipers. Sa Star Wars mayroon silamg Incom-T 65 (X-Wing Fighter). So, sa mga Japanese Space Sheriffs, wala sila nito. Si Shaider ang gamit nya ay ang Vavillos, si Sharivan ang gamit nya ay si Daileon. Also, ang ginagamit ni Shaider at ng mga kagaya nyang mga space sheriffs ay mga vehicles na ala motorcycle kagaya ng Blue Hawk, mga tank like vehicles kagaya ng Battle Tank at mga unique na fighter plane-like vehicles. Ang mga army lang ni Makuu, Madou at Fuuma ang gumagamit ng mga space-fighter crafts.

But one of the greatest errors Zaido have committed so far is the claim that the character played by Dennis Trillio was Alexi’s descendant. Now Dai (the true name of “Alexi”) and Annie went to Europe and

America

after the battle with the Fuuma. Now papaano nag-karoon ng isang alien ala-King Arthur na may kaharian na ala-Lord of the Rings na ala-Star Trek na ala Message from Space na kamag-anak si Alexis a outer space? Eh diba sa

Europe

lang at sa Amerika lang nag-punta si Alexi at Annie? So sino itong mga alien kumag na ito na naka- medieval European costume and custom na kamag-anak kuno ni Alexis sa ibang planeta? Can someone explain that to me?

Marami ng “crime against their viewers” ang GMA.  Una, hindi na nila nirispeto at niyurakan pa ang paniniwalang sinauna ng mga Pilipino. Ito ay masasaksihan sa kanilang teleserye na “Sugo” kung saan sinalaula nila ang mga diyos at diyosa nga ating mga ninuno. Pangalawa, binaboy  nila ang mga  magagandang likha ni Mars Ravelo – ang Captain Barbell at Darna para may mapag-lagyan lang ang kanilang mga walang talent na mga artista. Pangatlo, ginawa nilang “white bitch este..white witch si Angelita. Kung tutuusin ito ay isang pagsasalaula sa istorya ng “Mga Mata ni Angelita” kung saan kinuha ni Anghelita ang kanyang kapangyarihan  kay Birheng Maria, ang sinasabing dakilang ina ni Jesus. Ang kapangyarihan ni Angelita ay hindi nagaling sa mga bruha. Ang mga bruha ay tinuturing kampon ni Satanas ng mga Katoliko. Pang-apat, pinababa nila ang kalidad ni Marimar…para maiangat ang nag-hihingalong career ni Dingdong Dantes at ngayon pati pa ba naman si Shaider? Hindi na ako magtataka na pagdating ng panahon na si Voltes V at si Mazinger Z ay pag-iinitan din nila.

                                                                                 

Ewan! Sa palagay ko, suguro kailangan mag-isip-isip ng malamim ang mga creative think tanks ng GMA before then start to claim something. Sa tingin ko, kahit under the spell ka ng “Fushigi-shigi Makafushigi Ruwa” eh you can still distinguished “Uchuu Keiji Shaider” from the garbage that we call “Zaido – Pulis Pangkalawakan”.

John the “Uchuu Keiji Shaider” fan.

I really don’t get it why majority of god-believers like to use science to prove their faith, and sometimes I don’t know if I’ll be irritated or if I’ll chortle my heart out when I listen on how these believers use science to justify their faith.

Remember the guy in Luneta who refuse to define matter as something that has mass? Well I was surprise to find out that not only he refuse to define matter in a proper way, he also believe that dreams and intuitions are cause by lusty demon spirits called incubus. What is more surprising is the fact that he explains his conviction by accusing the science of psychology as erroneous.

There is also this guy in Luneta who defend his religious faith by justifying his belief on mystical and spiritual realms saying science have already proven these “facts”. Facts…Hmmmm…I never saw any scientific journals that say scientists already discovered heaven and hell and the superpowers you can have when you chant certain mantras. Nor did I saw any scientific literatures stating that it already ascertained the realm of the supernatural because the “String Theory” has justify the existence of elves and fairies. Oh! Nor did I read any scientific books that say neither Theory of Everything nor quantum physics have discovered the realm of demons, angels, talking donkeys and water-walking messiahs. Yet the guy is so damn sure that science has justified his supernatural belief. Sometimes he even muddles up science with mythical, absurd religious philosophies…But hey! Who will know the difference eh?

Other God-believers employ a different method. Here in the

Philippines

…people have a little knowledge in science. Well, because majority of Filipino never really read books and tend to be more engrossed in the latest gossip about who’s that sexy actress who just got herself pregnant rather than knowing what’s new on biological evolution or quantum mechanics. In this kind of situation these so-called scientific theists thrive.

In a crowd full of uninformed public, these sly fraudsters will set up to confer their so-called “scientific” understanding. They will say to the masses; that energy is finite, that infinite can be use on concrete beings, that the Big Bang is the origin of the universe, that evolution means the origin of life on planet earth, that space doesn’t exist, that since you cannot see your mind, then there is an excuse why you don’t see God, that quantum physics is the proof that God exist, that the string theory prove the existence of the supernatural realm, that we have a “God Gene” in gene number 19, and that the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics is a proof that energy can be destroyed. But will the ordinary Filipino become aware of the sham?

As these villains continue their crusade to murder science in the name of their God, the losing end will be those people who believed their pretense. Alas another batch of mindless dimwits to walk on the face of the planet.

Take the case of the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics for example:

One of the most favorite arguments Christians love to use against atheism is the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics. Well…to look like scientific, believers would love to use certain laws of physics to justify their God belief as…eh scientific. But does the argument involving The Second Law of Thermodynamics does hold water?

Before going to the argument, let us first learn what the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is.

The Law of Thermodynamics invokes a quantity called entropy. Entropy is derived from the ratio of the heat energy of a system to the highest temperature object within the system. The second law actually states that “disorder in a closed system tends to increase.”

By “closed system” we are talking about a system receiving no energy from an outside source. Briefly, the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, in a closed system, entropy tends toward a maximum; there is an increase in randomness, a tendency toward equilibrium and, consequently, a decrease of available energy.

Note that the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics is not applicable to an open system…well to give you a more basic example. Imagine a hot cup of coffee. You will notice that a hot cup of coffee will cool after a few minutes. The cup of coffee will cool down to the temperature of the room. The energy will always flow downhill. In other words, a close system will always tend to get more and more disorder over time with less and less useful energy available.

In a recent discussion with Miss Faith in a certain Christian Yahoo!Group, she said that since energy becomes less useful in the second law of thermodynamics that means energy is finite. The argument is unsound and used by people unfamiliar with physics. The 2^nd Law of thermodynamics never stated that when useful energy decreases is synonymous of energy being destroyed. In fact, in the 2^nd law we are just saying that useful energy just change to a less useful energy.  When energy is use, that doesn’t necessary mean all the used up energy was destroyed. Measurements of different kinds of energy before and after a transformation always show that the total always adds up to the same amount. It just demonstrates that energy is change to another form of energy. The total volume of energy remains constant. The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics doesn’t contradict the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Also, the second law of Thermodynamics is only applicable with a close system. The universe is not a close system, it’s an isolated system. According to Landau and Lifshitz, authors of Statistical Physics, “…in the general theory of relativity the universe as a whole must be regarded not as a closed system, but as one which is in a variable gravitational field. In this case the application of the law of increase of entropy does not imply the necessity of statistical equilibrium.”

We must also remember that entropy is not the same as disorder. Sometimes the two correspond, but sometimes order increases as entropy increases. (Aranda-Espinoza et al. 1999; Kestenbaum 1998) Entropy can even be used to produce order, such as in the sorting of molecules by size.

Going back to my topic

Maybe that’s the difference between science and “God-Believer science”. In science we look at facts and let reality predicts the outcome while on a “god-believer science” they look at science and conforms reality to fit their ‘scientific” belief.

So what happened if science won’t budge on their demands? Well then God-believers shouts, “Kill science! Place science in a stake and burn it like other heretics!”

In my opinion, when an atheist and a believer starts a dialogue about religion the best way to initiate the discussion is for the believer to delineate what this thing he believe to exist. Naturally, we can’t start throwing rocks to each other if we don’t know what the heck we are fighting about.

So we begin by asking “What is a god?”

This may be quite problematic. Even in a Christian forum, nobody seems to agree how they will answer it. It seems every person has his or her own definition of what God is. There are so many description of the god-concept, so it’s not even good to assume that the person describing it has an idea of what he’s talking about.

The best way I guess is to ask members of this forum what they mean by the word “god”. And by asking, I think even the non-believers should tell us what they think god is. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg had made good point on this question in his book Dreams of a Final Theory:

“Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that ‘God is the ultimate’ or ‘God is our better nature’ or ‘God is the universe.’ Of course, like any other word, the word ‘God’ can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that ‘God is energy,’ then you can find God in a lump of coal.”

The word “god” is derived from the Gothic root word gheu. This in turn, was derived from the Sanskrit word hub or emu, which means either “the one invoked” or “the one sacrificed to”. So the very nature of the word god indicates an active submission of the believer. But from the word god comes branching descriptions of what it is.

Religion sprang in relation with the god belief, and every religion in this planet has a story to tell. Yet religion also created diverse identity of this god. Some religion created an impersonal deity, a god whose sole purpose is to create the Universe. Others created a god who is too involved with his or her creations like a parent who will forever care for his or her children. Some religions create a god that is not to be treated as a being but rather an event or an absolute idea. A good example of this is the Primal Absolute at the root of phenomena in Confucian and Taoist metaphysical texts. In the case of Native American animism and the Japanese Shinto, God is the many spiritual forces of Nature while others believe in a Parthenon of gods. Some believes that God is subjective and others believe that God can only be found in a spiritual realm, beyond the scope of the natural. So there is no unified belief in the idea of god.

Christians consider that god is a perfect being. This being is often portrayed as a necessary being to be the first of all causes. They also state that it is intelligent and with a perfect moral. According to the British theologian, Richard Swinburne, God is like a person without a body, who is eternally free, able to do anything, knows everything, is perfectly good, is the proper object of human worship and obedience, the creator and sustainer of the universe. Yet the idea of a god as a being is not monopolized by Christian idea. The Greek believes in anthropomorphic gods and goddesses. Greek gods and goddesses share the Greek compassion and love to music, food, the arts…and of course even their philandering nature. Anthropomorphic gods are best suited for personal gods.

Yet personal gods have limitations. The idea of a personal God is fraught with pitfalls. A personal God seems increasingly unacceptable at these modern times for all kinds of reasons: moral, intellectual, scientific and spiritual. Feminists are also repelled by a personal deity who, because of ‘his’ gender, has been male since his tribal, pagan days. Paul Tillich have quoted, “God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was a tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thou, a cause separate from its effect, ‘he’ becomes a being, not Being itself.” An omnipotent, omniscient God is not so unlike from earthly dictators and tyrants who made everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. This is neither a modern concept nor just an influence of disgruntled atheists. Valentinus (c. 140) have commented this personal God as nothing but a demiurge - a lesser divine being who serves as the instrument of the higher powers who reigns as king and lord, who acts as a military commander, who gives the law and judges those who violate it. For Valentinus the Judeo-Christian personal God is not a God.

In 1882 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) proclaimed that God was dead. He announced this in the parable in one of his works, The Gay Science. A madman ran into the market-place one morning, crying “I seek God! I seek God!’ When the supercilious bystanders asked where he imagined God had gone — had he run away, perhaps, or emigrated? - the madman glared at them. "Where has God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you. We have killed him, - you and I! We are all his murderers!" ‘An unimaginable but irreversible event had torn mankind from its roots, thrown the earth off course and cast it adrift in a pathless universe. Everything that had previously given human beings a sense of direction had vanished. The death of God would lead to unparalleled despair and panic. ‘Is there still an above and below?’ cried the madman in his anguish. ‘Do we not stray, as though through an infinite nothingness?”

Not everyone took the death of God as negative news. Thomas J. Altizer claimed that the ‘good news’ of God’s death had freed us from slavery to a tyrannical transcendent deity: Only by accepting and even willing the death of God in our experience can we be liberated from a transcendent beyond, an alien beyond which has been emptied and darkened by God’s self-alienation in Christ. The death of God represented the silence that necessary before God could become meaningful again.

Christians consider this as a blasphemy and even cried out that Nietzsche was dead but their God is very much alive yet John Shelby Spong, once an Episcopalian bishop…in a very poignant tone, quoted “The God of our traditional past, who was the source of our values, the definer of our sense of right and wrong, was simple no more…The God we once worshiped had been obliterated before our eyes. We no longer knew who God was or indeed who we are.”

The personal God that Christian worship is in fact just the mirror of the devotee’s image. It seems in a personal God view point, we are not the creation of God but rather God is the creation of the believers that worship it.  This god hates what his creator hates and loves what his creator loves. And in case you don’t notice, a personal God always acts similar to the philosophy and doctrines it belongs. The God of the Born-Again Christians looks like the typical televangelist, angry and always accusing his tele-viewers from sinning and threatening them of damnation in hell if they won’t accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. The God of the Roman Catholics look like the Roman Catholic priest, a politically motivated preacher…sometimes tolerant, sometimes vindictive and so on.

Personal Gods like that of Christianity is easy to form. We can always shape it base on our image and likeness. The attributes we claimed for God are nothing but human qualities expanded beyond human limits. Human life is mortal so we make him immortal. Human knowledge is finite so we make him omniscient. Human powers have limitation so we make him omnipotent. But we also included our own errors and frailty as humans when we created this Personal God. We made him too barbaric that you have to appease him by blood and animal sacrifices. We made him …to quote Professor Richard Dawkins… a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Robert Ingersoll reflected Professor Dawkins’ sentiment earlier in his work Some Mistakes of Moses, "A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, a hypocrite, a tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, infamous and hideous–such is the God of the Pentateuch.” American revolutionist leader and pamphleteer Thomas Paine (1737-1809) on page 198 in The Age of Reason also has this to say on the Christian personal God, "All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.” A lot of writers, philosophers and even theologians have this remark on the Christian personal God maybe because the Judeo-Christian father God is really a god of war, who has little compassion for anyone but his own favorite pets. This is a characteristic of a tribal deity.

However others see the basis of a personal God in a more humane explanation. For Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) the idea of God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity.

Theologians and authors John Shelby Spong and Karen Armstrong have written books promoting to desert the worship of a personal God and instead evolve into a more mystical God or else Christianity and monotheism will collapse. Karen Armstrong was much bolder when she said that the Personal god of fundamentalism is one of the reasons why believers lost sight of the most sacred values of the confessional faiths.

Yet not everyone worship a personal god. Some believe in a god far superior with a personal deity.

For Carl G. Jung’s (1875-1961) God is a psychological truth, subjectively experienced by each individual.

Paul Tillich (1868-1965) preferred the definition of God as the Ground of being. He calls this god as a “God above God”. Participation in such a God above ‘God’ does not alienate us from the world but immerses us in reality. It returns us to ourselves.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) spoke of the God-shaped hole in the human consciousness, where God had always been. Nevertheless, he insisted that even if God existed, it was still necessary to reject him since the idea of God negates our freedom. Traditional religion tells us that we must conform to God’s idea of humanity to become fully human. Instead, we must see human beings as liberty incarnate.

The problem with this type of God is that it is too subjective. An a priori God, the supposed source of morality, is supposedly objective (objective morality). The more subjective ‘God’ is the more it could not be proven. If God could not be located within an objective system, then what use of it? To push God into intellectual isolation in a holy ghetto of his own is unhealthy and unnatural. Today a subjective God invented by one-sided philosophical opinions doesn’t hold water.

If there are people who define God in a subjective manner, others re-define the concept of God completely.

A. N. Whitehead (1861-1947) and Daniel Day Williams believe that God evolved. They believe that God didn’t started as a God…God earned it through stages till he becomes a God.  This belief system is what we now called Process Theology. Whitehead believes that God is ‘the great companion, the fellow-sufferer, who understands’. Here we have a changeable God, evolving as the universe it contains also evolves. I think the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in this type of doctrine. Pragmatic philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952) describes God as the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and action.

Others believe that God is just a human design and is affected by human experience.  Alfred Adler (1870-1937) says that God was a projection but believed that it had been helpful to humanity. Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) believes that God was simply a human idea. Yet he had also come to appreciate the emotional role of religion in human life. A mere ethical idea - such as ‘God’ - cannot console us. The German philosopher Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-72) argued that God was simply a human projection. Ayn

Rand

(1905-1982) define it as a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive. Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) says that every nation has his own god, and the god has always resembled his creator.

According to Father Wilhelm Schmidt in his book, The Origin of the Idea of God first published in 1912, that man invented God. In the beginning, human beings created a God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of heaven and earth. He was not represented by images and had no temple or priests in his service. He was too exalted for an inadequate human cult. Gradually he faded from the consciousness of his people. He had become so remote that they decided that they did not want him any more. Eventually he was said to have disappeared. So our ancient ancestors did need a god. But does that give us a proof that there is indeed a God spot in our brain? That all of us have inherited a gene that tells us to necessitate for God?

Not according to Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, God and religion is a human creation. The birth of theistic religion grew out of the trauma of self-consciousness. For billions of years, Freud observed, the creature, which inhabit the earth did not have the sufficient intellectual capacity to raise questions about the meaning of their lives or indeed to ask whether life possessed any ultimate meaning.

Finally, a creature evolves with a brain sufficient to be self-aware, self-conscious and to have the capacity for self-transcendence. The shock of mortality and meaninglessness entered and now this creature have anticipated dying, can understand disaster and view its destiny to be nothing more than decay. This traumatic realization created God and religion.

I have given you a short tour; we can now start on the quest. The quest on what God will satisfy your belief or non-belief? There are many gods roaming around the supernatural and the subjective world. The problem is how can you drag that god out and will it continues to exist in the objective world we are at this moment?

Only the future of religion can answer this.

It is said that in nature time doesn’t exist. It’s true that things change…plants grow, rocks weathered, mountains eroded, lakes dry up and so on yet no one really take notice to that nor took the moment to meticulously record it…until humans arrive in the scene.

So what is time?

When we speak of time, we think of seconds, minutes, hours, day, months, years, century and so forth. Some limit the definition of time through the movement of the hands of a clock, the pages of the calendar or the amount of sand which has fallen in the hourglass. We also conceptualize time when we talk about the past, present and future. I remember Stephen King’s novel The Langoliers. It’s about these creatures that eat the past so nothing is left of it. It’s a nice sci-fi horror film, but I don’t think time work that way.

But is time dependent of these ideas? I think the idea of time has been mostly taken for granted to even trouble ourselves about it. Yet others did "trouble themselves about it". Mr. Webster say that time is the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past. So as long as someone experiences something, there is time, right? Your routine in the past to the present add up to what you recognize as time.

Aristotle (384 BCE – 325 BCE) have contended that time does not exist independently of the events that occur in time. This view is called "Reductionism with Respect to Time" or "Relationism" with Respect to Time," since according to this view; all talk that appears to be about time and temporal relations can somehow be reduced to talk about events and relations among them.

Plato (428-354 BCE) on the other hand said that time is like an empty container into which events may be placed; but it is a container that exists independently of whether or not anything is placed in it. This view is called "Platonism with Respect to Time" or as "Absolutism with Respect to Time,"

Antiphon the Sophist, in a fragment preserved from his chief work On Truth held that: "Time is not a reality (hupostasis), but a concept (noêma) or a measure (metron)."

Parmenides (5th century BC) went further, maintaining that time, motion, and change were illusions, leading to the paradoxes of his follower Zeno. He believes that motion and change are sensory illusions. This kind of thinking lead most Greeks to believe that time is just an illusion. Until now, some modern philosophers still think that time is an illusion.

In Book 11 of St. Augustine’s "Confessions", he ruminates on the nature of time, asking, "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not." He settles on time being defined more by what it is not than what it is. Yet Augustine said that the past and the future don’t exist. The past he says is just the memory of the present and the future is just the expectation of the present. That means we are only living in the present and each present has only a moment to exist. This very subjective notion of time will soon influence Rene Descartes (1596-1650) much later.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) believed time and space form a container for events, which is as real as the objects it contains.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) believed that time and space is a conceptual apparatus describing the interrelations between events. He thought of time as a fundamental part of an abstract conceptual framework, together with space and number, within which we sequence events, quantify their duration, and compare the motions of objects. In this view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows," that objects "move through," or that is a "container" for events.

Immanuel Kant (1727-1804), in the Critique of Pure Reason, described time as an a priori intuition that allows us (together with the other a priori intuition, space) to comprehend sense experience. With Kant, neither space nor time are conceived as substances, but rather both are elements of a systematic mental framework necessarily structuring the experiences of any rational agent, or observing subject.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) stated in the preface to his On the Will in Nature that "Time is the condition of the possibility of succession."

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) considered time as fundamental to the question of being.

Henri Bergson (1859-1900) believed that time was neither a real homogeneous medium nor a mental construct, but possesses what he referred to as Duration. Duration, in Bergson’s view, was creativity and memory as an essential component of reality.

J.M.E. McTaggart argued that there is in fact no such thing as time, and that the appearance of a temporal order to the world is a mere appearance.

Modern physicists generally consider time to be as "real" as space, though others such as Julian Barbour in his The End of Time argue that quantum equations of the universe take their true form when expressed in the timeless configuration spacerealm containing every possible "Now" or momentary configuration of the universe, which he terms ‘platonia’.

Well Albert Einstein (1879-1955) said there is a relationship between time and space. It has something to do with what we call light years. In a clear night when we look at the stars, it is said that we are looking at the past. It is said that light travels in a vacuum in 1 year at a distance of 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers. The light of a nearest star system will reach your eyes at approximately billions of years. When a person look at a sky filled with stars, he’s looking at a billion years past. Suppose a Super Nova occur 2 billion light-years away from Earth, the light produced by this interstellar explosion will reach your eyes 2 billion years later. So you will be witnessing something that happened 2 billion years ago. Fantastic but true.

If so, then the past does exist. But how about the future? If psychic says that they can look at the future, does that mean the future is already established? If believers say that their God is currently in the past, present and future does that mean part of this God was already departed and part of it is still not born yet? St. Augustine says that God is always immediate in an eternal present. If that’s the case then than denote God is not in the past and the future?

Human cultures see time differently. Eastern culture sees time as cyclical and quantic consisting of repeating ages that happen to every being of the Universe between birth and extinction. Maybe it’s because of the influence of Hindu religion. For them, time is of continuous cycle that never stops. It has neither beginning nor end. I think the mathematical concept of infinity is applied here. Infinity was neither beginning nor end…so do time. Today this cyclical vision of time has been embraced by theorists of quantic space-time and systems theory.

This idea of time will not work on Western religion. In such a time concept, there will never be any perception of a so-called "Last Days". Perhaps that’s why there is no concept of eschatology on Eastern religion.

Hindu and Buddhism always compare life and time in a wheel. Karmic Law is based on a wheel…we call it the Wheels of Karma. Indian religion talks about incarnations, avatars and concepts about continue cycles of births and re-births.

Western culture on the other hand believes in a "linear time". Here we imagine time as a straight line. It has a beginning and an end. Western believers place their God above this line. So they say that God is above time. Well…maybe because medieval people saw time base on the life and death of a person rather than the seasons. They associated time when a person is born till that person dies. The Christian view assumes also an end, the eschaton, expected to happen when Christ returns to earth in the Second Coming to judge the living and the dead. This will be the consummation of the world and time. St Augustine’s City of God was the first developed application of this concept to world history. The Christian view is that God is uncreated and eternal so that He and the supernatural world are outside time and exist in eternity.

So again we are face with questions. Does time really exist or is it just a pigment of man’s active imagination? Is time independent from action? Suppose everything stop, is there still a time? If time exists is it infinite? In the last question, we will never really know if time is infinite because no man has experience the infinite. You cannot visualize of a time before which there was no time, nor of a time after which there will be no time. We cannot rationally establish that time is either finite or infinite.

Well…time’s up!

John the Atheist

It is amazing to find a lot of people…especially kids, who are now declaring that they are atheists. One proof of this is the increasing number of people participating on the Rational Response Squad’s “Blasphemy Challenge”. Even in Yahoo!Answers, YouTube, My Space, in different web forums and even in Friendster, there are a growing number of people who profess that they don’t believe in God.

Yet in careful examination, some of these so-called “atheists” are just really angry at God and I personally feel these hoi polloi are giving atheism a bad name. Regrettably angry theists fancy going into arguments with Christians. Oh sure they do, and I think these squabbles are really more of a sign of gripe and rebellion to their God. Since these guys love to place themselves in the frontline, believers are now convinced that atheism is just an act of mutiny to God. Like a kid who’s fighting back to his parents just because he’s grounded for a week! Now you see why Christians love to use C. S. Lewis as an example.

In the Internet article titled “Atheist Taxonomy” written by Lucia K.B.Hall she included the “Mad at God” variety, calling them as atheists. According to the article, a Mad at God atheists are those atheists who due to some unfortunate personal tragedy or thwarted desires, has declared God incompetent, insane or dead.

Because of these “atheists”, Christians have placed all atheists in one basket. According to Robert Morey’s book, The New Atheism, “Anyone who reads its literature or debates its leaders finds that modern anti-theism is fueled by such ignoble motives as bitterness, rage, and hatred.” Now atheism is reduce to nothing more but a theological anger management. This Mad at God “atheism” has produced a negative stereotype to the original concept of atheism. An atheist is now an insensitive, amoral cynic—a portrayal that is prevalent nowadays. Atheism turn into nothing more but pure negativism: it destroys but does not rebuild.

Even in a place like

Luneta

Park

for example. A discussion with a …well…a theist has brought in this wide of the mark pigeonhole. I was hit by a bolt from the blue when my opponent dubbed me a cynic because I am an atheist. What does cynicism has to do with atheism?

Personally I don’t recognize “Mad at God” people as atheists. Mad at God and anti-theism is very different to atheism. How can you get angry to an elf, or a leprechaun or an aswang? That doesn’t make any sense. Oh sure, I can get irritated to these creatures if I read a book or watched a movie which depicts them as baddies. Who wouldn’t get pissed off at Freddie Krueger, Leather-Face, The Evil Witch Bitch or Michael Myers? But please…don’t tell me that I’m going to waste my time discussing the scientific, philosophical, sociological and cultural aspect of not believing in the phantom killer that terrorizes those teen-agers in Elms Street?

If you’re angry at God then you’re not an atheist…that’s the bottom line. Atheism is not about rebellion on God. It’s about not believing that such a nauseating supernatural “Big Daddy” exists. I get pissed off when I read the Bible and find those stories about this God who is too antifeminist, green-eyed, vindictive, savage and so on yet these Christians love to boost. Big deal! I sometimes get annoyed on how these Christians encourage this ancient form of a demiurge to thrive. But I only get miffed at the stories and the characters. It’s like reading a novel or watching television and you get angry with some of the situations and the characters in the story. Surely you get fucked-up when you see Q, The Cylones, Lex Luthor or Willamina Slater but does that mean these characters exist in real life?

If you’re angry at God and want to get even with that jackass it’s your problem. But please…don’t drag us atheists in your circus. Be proud to call yourself an anti-theist, an anti-Christian or what ever “anti” you want to be. That’s not a problem and I can empathize with you. Occasionally there is a bit of anti-theism in some atheists. But that is not atheism.

As DavidlovesMay have said, if you feel angry at God, go to your Rabbi, your priest, your pastor, your imam or your neighborhood head-shrinker. Well…you can even emulate that Nebraska State Senator who sued God. But please don’t go into debate with a Christian and call yourself an atheist. You’re giving real atheists a bad rap sheet!

Pinoy Atheist

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than

does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those

who know much, who so positively assert that

this or that problem will never be solved by science.

C H A R L E S D A R W I N ,

Introduction, The Descent of Man

               Round and round we go…no I’m not talking about one of Spandau Ballet’s songs. I’m talking about that theistic apologetic reason why I should believe God exists, the First Cause Argument…again.

Remember last time that I told you that I joined this Yahoo!Group. Well according to this group it’s all about seeking truth. Truth? What kind of truth are you guys looking for, my truth or your truth? Anyway, I receive this e-mail from a certain girl named “Faith”. No! She’s not that sexy vampire hunter from Buffy.  I think she’s one of those Christian members of the said group. I suppose it’s automatic for each member to receive an e-mail every time someone posted something on that Yahoo!Group. Well, as I have said to the moderator of that Christian group…I will post my critiques and comments from that group here in my blog.

According to Faith, the universe that began requires a beginner. OK, so far so good…Faith continued…

We find some sort of inconsistency if we neglect to believe that everything that had a beginning had a cause. Like the universe – a universe that began requires a beginner.

1. Everything that had a beginning had a cause

2. The universe had a beginning

3. Therefore the universe had a cause.

We have 3 points which we need to examine carefully.

1.       Everything that had a beginning had a cause. This premise invokes the law of causality which represents the fundamental principles of science.

Causality denotes the relationship between one event (called cause) and another event (called effect) which is the consequence (result) of the first. The meaning states that every event has an adequate cause which is now a principle of causality. In order for this principle to be sound, we need to validate the reliability of causality.

When the universe began to exist, it is the first event happened with a caused. Events do not happen without a caused (So what is the cause of radioactive decay? – John the Atheist). And definitely have a beginning and an end. In the law of cause and effect everything happens for a reason, even the simple things we observe. When someone asking for the explanation of the things we observe, like the universe we are basically looking for the cause. Since this is the main thought that sink in the mind of every individual it firmly affirmed the credibility of causality principle.

John the Atheist –

Let us talk about the Law of Causality.

The so-called “Law of Cause-Effect,” employed by Faith is a philosophical and theological plaything. The “Law of Cause-Effect” provides no elucidation to any scientific difficulties or inquiries. This in effect shatters Faith avers that the Law of Causality represents the fundamental principle of science.

Suppose, for example, that my TV is broken, and I send it to an electrician for repair. I ask the service technician why my TV will not operate. If the service technician replied, “It’s just the law of cause-effect again,” I would certainly feel that he was giving me the run-around, and that his “explanation” was totally empty. A realistic scientific explanation might be that the TV plug is disconnected; that the transformer is broken; that the fuse is burned and so on. A genuine scientific explanation, then, incorporates specific mechanistic relationships and interactions. Any argument, thus, which appeals blindly to the “Law of Cause-Effect,” without filling in the blanks, is likewise an argument totally empty of scientific content.

Now what’s wrong with Faith’s First Cause argument? Stated in terms of the First Cause argument: For something to exercise a causal influence within or upon the universe, this causal agent must itself already exist.

1. A exist because of B
2. B exist

Therefore A exists.

In other words, something nonexistent cannot possibly serve as any type of causal agent within or upon the universe. The entire concept of causation, therefore, assumes previous existence. But instead of recognizing that causation assumes existence, Faith espouses a bizarre backward “logic” that existence (of the universe) presupposes causation—i.e., that the universe was created out of nothing and thus requires a supernatural causal explanation.

No scientist argues, of course, that a universe created out of nothing would not require a supernatural explanation.

The only way Miss Faith could qualify as a scientific explanation for the existence of the universe would be for her to detail the precise mechanism or the means by which nothing was created into something. Absent such an explanation, Miss Faith’s explanation ceases to be science and reverts to being religious dogma (As it will be demonstrated on her final conclusion). Proclaiming that “Creation is a Divine mystery” or that creation resulted from the “Law of Cause-Effect,” is decidedly not a scientific explanation.

Now let’s go to philosophy. According to David Hume in his book, “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) - That no one really provided a good explanation that every event must have a cause. Hume said that the observable succession of events requires no beginning since we can conceive of it going back to infinity. The entire chain of cause and effects also need no explaining for it is just an act of our mind trying to structure our experience.

That means we see things and assume there is a necessary connection. All we observe is a conjunction of events and they are separated in thought. It’s just a habit of the mind that assumes a connection.  So the idea of causal connection is false and fantastic.

Immanuel Kant took over where Hume left. Kant pointed out that that the principle of there being a cause for every event applies, as far as we know, only to the world of our sense experience. In the First cause Argument this principle is uprooted from our world of sense experience to explain something that is suppose to transcend it. This procedure is, according to Kant, both unjustified and illegitimate, for there is no basis whatsoever to assume that the principle of causality holds when applied to the whole cosmos.

There is a further flaw to the argument according to Kant. There is no rational way to actually knowing that we have reached the origins of cause and explanations. What we assume to be the first cause may just as well be due to our ignorance of the cause and explanation for it. In other words, when can we be sure we have reached the first cause? There is no method by which we can then claim a first cause. These problems arise from the fundamental flaw of utilizing a principle beyond the valid range of applications.

To wrap up Faith’s first premise, using the Law of Cause and Effect give us more questions than answers:

1) If we can suppose that God always existed, then why not suppose instead that physical matter always existed? After all, non-supernatural assumption is far simpler than presupposing a highly complex series of Divine miracles (base on Ockham’s Razor).

2) The ecclesiastical argument—that God always existed—contradicts the original premise of the First Cause argument—that the “Law of Cause-Effect” can be consistently applied. If everything except God is governed by the “Law of Cause-Effect,” then the First Cause argument becomes ad hoc and therefore logically impermissible.

So, Faith’s first premise is wrong

2.      The universe had a beginning – the first premise invokes the law of causality. The second premise is one the stating that the universe had a beginning. There are some few things need to be consider to rose and support this premise. The world of philosophy and science was categorically important to acknowledge the given premise.

The word of science believed that the universe was eternal, which give comfort to evolutionist and atheist. This belief collapse when the five scientific discovery come out with a new line of hypothesis that the universe did have a beginning, they call it Big bang. The five scientific discoveries (Second law of thermodynamics, Universe expanding, Radiation from the Big bang, Great galaxy seeds, and Einstein theory of general relativity) confirmed that the universe had a beginning which is contrary to the common belief of evolutionist and atheist. Genesis account seems to be the focal point of Big bang theory rather than the evolutionist account. [Note: The Big Bang Theory is cosmology (The branch of astrophysics that studies the origin and evolution and structure of the universe.) and has nothing to do with evolution (the development of life on Earth) – John the Atheist] The theory of Big bang is a naturalistic explanation of origin of the universe which clearly shows that there is a supernatural cause, not a natural cause for the world.

In the late 1920 Edwin Hubble discovered a phenomenon known as the red shift. It is a light from the distance galaxies was redder than it should be. This discovery by Edwin Hubble indicates that the universe is expanding. He found out that the light was expanding in all directions, meaning it came from the single point. Because of this thing it really proves that once there was nothing and then all of the sudden there was something. From no time, matter, or space before the single point, all come into existence at that moment.

In philosophical world there is no such thing as actual infinite which exist in the real world. If one claims that there was no beginning to the universe, this means that there have been an actual infinite numbers of past event in the history of the universe. This kind of claim creates the problems. Example the case offered by William Lane Craig.

"Imagine a library with an actually infinite number of books. Suppose further than there is an infinite number of red books and infinite of black books in the library. Does it really make sense to say that there are as many black books in the library as there are red and black book together? Surely not. Furthermore, I could withdraw all the black books and not change the total holdings in the library. Let us also assume that each book has an actual infinite number of pages. There would be just as many pages in the first book in the library as there are in the entire, infinite collection. If someone read the first book, she would read just as many pages as someone who read every page of every book in the library,"

In this case the event shows that the properties of actual infinite create a problem and some unreasonable consequence if we follow the actual infinite really exists. The beginningless series of an actual infinite is impossible.

John the Atheist –

Hoo boy! This is an accusation. Science never proclaims that the universe has no beginning. In the first place science never decrees anything. Remember, science never claim absolute truth @ Faith. Science is base foremost on evidence, not authority or revelation. In case you don’t know @ Faith, in science all knowledge is tentative, continually subjected to revision when better explanations and evidences are acquired. As Dr. Carl Sagan has said, “Science is a collective enterprise with the error-correction machinery often running smoothly.”

I think you mistakenly have the notion that science is identical with your Christian religion @ Faith.

Yes, I agree that the concept of the Big Bang picture a universe that has a beginning. The central idea that the universe exploded into existence in a ‘big bang’ about 15 billion years ago or so, seemed tailor made to a theistic viewpoint. Big bang cosmology seemed to offer empirical evidence for the religious doctrine of creation ex nihilo. The theistic implications seemed so clear and exciting that even Pope Pius XII was led to comment that ‘True science to an ever increasing degree discovers God as though God w ere waiting behind each door opened by science.”

But unlike Faith’s claim, radiation from the Big Bang, Great galaxy seeds, and Einstein theory of general relativity didn’t really gave the Christian theists the run for the money. In other words, those discoveries didn’t warrant the God-believers asserts. If only Faith knew more updated scientific findings and theories like Friedmann Solutions, Robertson-Walker Metric and Hawking-Penrose Singularity Theorems, she wouldn’t even declare such bold statements.

But let’s us examine Faith’s assertion that the theory of Big Bang clearly shows that the universe is a supernatural cause, not a natural cause. Well…sorry to burst Faith’s bubble but the Big Bang can be explained in a naturalistic scenario. The inflationary Big Bang model is the best proposed model to explain the Big Bang without resorting to leprechauns, fairies, the seven dwarfs, ogres, mermaids, aswang, mananagal, unicorns and God.  According to this natural scenario, by means of a random quantum fluctuation the universe “tunneled” from a pure vacuum to what is called a false vacuum, a region of space that contains no matter or radiation but not quite nothing.

The first vacuum fluctuation model was developed by Edward Tryon in 1973. A vacuum fluctuation is an uncaused emergence of energy out of empty space that is governed by the uncertainty relation delta-E • delta-t >= h/(4*pi), and which thus has zero net value for conserved quantities. The space inside the bubble of false vacuum is curve, or warped, and a small amount of energy is stored in that curvature, like the potential energy of a string bows. This ostensible violation of energy of energy conservation is allowed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for sufficiently small time interval. Quantum tunneling is normally understood in terms of processes within space-time; an electron, for example, tunnels through some barrier if the electron lacks sufficient energy to cross it but nevertheless still does cross it. This is possible because the above mentioned uncertainty relation allows the electron to spontaneously acquire the additional energy for the short period of time required for it to tunnel through the barrier. A. Vilenkin applies this concept to space-time itself; in this case, there is not a state of the system before the tunneling, for the state of tunneling is the first state that exists. The equation describing this state is a quantum tunneling equation, specifically the bounce solution of the Euclidean version of the evolutionary equation of a universe with a closed Robertson-Walker metric. The universe emerged from the tunneling with a finite size (a = H^-1) and with a zero rate of expansion or contraction (da/dt = 0) (Reference: Atkatz, D., and Pagels, H. (1982), "Origin of the Universe as a Quantum Tunneling Event", Physical Review D 25: 2065-2073 , Linde, Andre, 1990 Particle Physics and inflationary Cosmology, New York: Academic Press, Vilenkin, A. (1982), "Creation of Universes from Nothing", Physical Letters 117B: 25-28.)

The bubble then inflated exponentially and the universe grew by many orders of magnitude in a tiny fraction of a second. (Stenger 1990) As the bubble expanded, its curvature energy transformed naturally into matter and radiation. To support this Faith should remember Einstein’s famous equation. In Einsteinian physics, matter is just energy in another form.

Inflation stopped, and the more linear Big Bang expansion we now experience commenced. This is what Slipher and Hubble discovered which we now called “the Red Shift”.

Whew! Now let’s move out to astrophysics and into philosophy. Let us examine Faith’s “books in the library” and her infinite number of red and black books example. Faith is using the Kalam Cosmological Argument, an argument borrowed from William Lane Craig. Mr. Craig borrowed this argument from the Muslims so I guess this is not of Christian origin. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is an example of an a priori argument.

According to this argument, an infinite regress of causes is impossible. Without a first cause, there could be no second cause; and without a second cause, there could be no third cause, and so on ad infinitum. We would then reach the absurd conclusion that nothing presently exists.

This causal argument rests on two main assumptions: that the universe as a whole requires a causal explanation, and that we cannot provide an adequate explanation within the context of the universe itself. Therefore, we must posit a transcendent first cause, a being that transcends natural cause-effect relationships.

Since the universe is not causally self-sufficient, we need to reach beyond the universe to account for the basic fact of the universe: the fact that it exists. If the atheist denies the existence of a supernatural being, how can he explain the existence of the universe? Surely it cannot just "happen" to exist; there must be a causal explanation.

For an atheist even if the argument is valid (accepting without admitting), the first-cause argument is capable only of demonstrating the existence of a mysterious first cause in the distant past. It does not establish the present existence of the first cause. On the basis of this argument, there is no reason to assume that the first cause still exists—which cuts the ground from any attempt to demonstrate the truth of theism by this approach.

Faith’s a priori arguments base on Craig’s case are unsound to show at most that actual infinities have odd properties. The fact is well known and shows nothing about whether it is logically impossible to have actual infinities in the real world. According to Craig the concept of an actual infinity in pure mathematics is perfectly consistent. But he fails to show that there is anything logically inconsistent about actual infinity existing in reality. Since Faith copied her explanation from Craig…well she also crashed in the same dead end on her second premise.

3. Therefore the universe had a cause. – The first event affirmed that the universe has caused by something or by something impersonal. But prior to the first event, the state of affairs described by the following: there was no time, space or change of any kind.

Due to the state of affairs before and after the first even question arise – why is it important that the universe had a beginning? How is this evidence for God existence? The question is what caused the universe. It is hard to conceive if the universe exists only by means of physical property. Even the natural properties have been cause. The only way for the first event to arise spontaneously from timeless, changeless, spaceless state of affairs, and at the same time be caused is this – the event resulted from free act or a person or agent (This statement reminds me of an atheist joke: “Where God was when he created space and when was it when He created time?” – John the Atheist). In summary, it is most reasonable to believe that the universe had a beginning and caused by an immutable agent. The evidence point that there is supernatural power for His power beyond nature that brought the whole natural world into existence. Through this we can formulate the following reasons:

1. We are here in the world or space, and time.

2. Logically not applicable if the universe be the cause or itself

3. Logically possible that comes from something.

4. Logically impossible to be an effect of an infinite series of causes and effects

5. Therefore, it is logically reasonable to believe that it must be caused by something outside space and time, and ultimately has a supernatural power.

In this way, the universe depends for its existence on some uncaused being. The only possible explanation for it is God – the First Cause.

John the Atheist - This argument didn’t establish that the first cause was (or is) alive, nor can it establish that the first cause was (or is) conscious. And an inanimate, unconscious god is of little use to theism. It also didn’t establish beyond reasonable doubt that a supernatural agent is the first-cause. All I read in this message so far was a desperate pleading to recognize the existence of a supernatural agent.

The fact is, even if I were to accept Faith’s argument, the most that it can possibly demonstrate is that something has existed which is it uncaused. Now if I say that energy is the First cause, my conclusion is also valid scientifically speaking, since energy (and mass) cannot be created or destroyed according to Einstein’s Law of the Conservation of Mass-Energy.

Now on the philosophical aspect of Faith’s disclosure…well one philosopher has clearly pointed it out, "somebody believing in the eternity of atoms, or of matter generally could quite consistently accept the conclusion."

Now let’s go to Faith’s “immutable agent”.

Faith argues that since the universe is cause, then we need something outside space and time, and ultimately has a supernatural power.

Excuse me? What?

The problem with this argument rest from the fact that a first cause need not have a properties associated by God.  For example, a first cause needs not to be great, let alone infinite. We can say that the first cause needs not to be a sentient being or not a being at all.

Now, assuming for the moment that the universe requires a causal explanation, does the positing of a first cause provide us with that explanation? How does the concept of god function as an explanatory concept in this instance? A supernatural first cause, a god, supposedly caused the universe to exist? Mull over the nature of this "rationalization." Does it give one with a conceptual grasp of the issue being deemed? Does it provide a causal explanation in any meaningful sense? No, it does not.

To posit god as the cause of the universe still leaves two crucial questions unanswered: What caused the universe? How did it cause the universe? To say that a god is responsible for the existence of the universe is vacuous without knowledge of god’s nature and the method used in creating existence. If god is to serve as a causal explanation, we must have knowledge of god’s attributes by virtue of which he or it has the capacity to create matter from non-existence, and knowledge of the causal process involved in creation, by virtue of which god is designated as a cause.

For Faith to claim that god caused the universe to exist is to argue that man can never comprehend the existence of the universe. Faith demands a causal explanation of the universe and then fails to provide an explanation. Even if a supernatural being did exist, the "problem" of existence would be as puzzling as before. After all, how did it create existence from non-existence? "Somehow" is not an explanation, and "through some incomprehensible means" is a poorer explanation still. Faith is trapped in a dilemma of her own making—the "mystery" of existence—and she must confront an unintelligible universe.

Until next time,

John the Atheist

Reference:

Philosophy for Beginners by Richard Osborn

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

Odin Readers

Science Shams and Bible Bloopers by David Mills

Atheism – A Case Against God by George Smith

Atheism – A Philosophical Justification by Michael Martin

Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 23, No. 4

Causation and the Logical Impossibilities of the Devine Cause – Quentin Smith

“Never budge! That’s my rule. Never Budge in the least! Not an inch to the west, not an each to the east! I’ll stay here, not budging! I can and I will

If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!” – The Zax

When I was starting to be an atheist…well I always feel the need to debate. I don’t know…must be an ego trip or something?

That was a long time ago.

But do these debates really have some use?

In an article in a certain Freethought magazine, Prof. Richard Dawkins in an interview said something about why he rebuffs to debate Creationists. You may say that it’s spinelessness in the part of the evolutionist. Hmmmm I may even think that in my early years on atheism. But now I understand his stand.

Enter Theodore Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss. When I was a tot, I don’t have copies of Dr. Seuss books like Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and Fox in a Sock. I only saw copies of these books in my Aunt’s house. My cousins have these books (Unfortunately, they never learned anything from them – Alas! That’s another story.) In any case, I started to understand Dr.Seuss in a later age. I thought Dr. Seuss’s stories were just nattering for little children created to sound like some nursery rhyme. But inside those rhymes are gold mines of ethical issues for a better moral standard like tolerance, anti-discrimination and a lot more…better than what the Bible can offer.

Each story can be use to illustrate a certain aspect in one’s life. In this particular scenario, I will use the story of the Zax.

According to Dr. Seuss’s story, in the prairie of Prax resides the Zax. One is a North-going Zax and the other one is a South-going Zax. As both Zaxs walk, they soon, as expected, collide with to each other. The North-going Zax won’t budge since well…he can’t go east or west. Neither does the South-Going Zax. So they stand there at a standstill and bragging to each other that both will not move an inch for 59 years, or even if the world stand still. Well fortunately, the world didn’t stand still…only the two stubborn Zaxs.

The story illustrate a common scene on an atheist vs. Christian forum

I consider that believers will be as obdurate as the atheist. Both will not budge on their valued point of view. So why waste time of debate? As an atheist I only articulate the alternatives other than supernatural explanations. I will answer questions in an atheist’s opinion…but that’s it. I think that is more fruitful, compare to a volley of endless arguments.

To bicker against faith is fruitless. Nope I’m not saying that it’s wrong to enter on debates…but hey…before you enter to such inane squabbles, maybe it’s wiser to check the environment first. Make an effort to see if your rival will recognize your reasons. Try talking to a rock; do you think such endeavor is evocative?

Ok…not convince?

Try this as a case in point:

Christian: Everything has a cause, so God is the First Cause.

Atheist: How do you know that God is the First Cause?

Christian: Because the Bible said so in Genesis 1:1

Atheist: How do you know that the Bible is telling the truth?

Christian: Because God inspired the Bible and Jesus is the way, the truth and the light.

Now base on the example above…does it make any sense? Did the Christian clarify why God became the First Cause? If an atheist asks him why, Christians often shift the dialogue to another topic.

Yet that’s how Christian vs. atheist discussions always ends up.

Also, I notice that god believers will not recognize any explanations other what they read in the Bible and what they want to accept as true to protect their faith. I knew this man in L.U. (Luneta) who is too mulish or too dumb to understand that a rainbow is produce when sun light passes through rain drops and as these water acts as a prism, they break the white light to bring out the colorful spectrum that creates the rainbow. No siree! He trusts what the Bible says about rainbows. He believes that the rainbow is God’s sign as a promise that he will never again obliterate humanity by a flood. Try explaining to him the scientific cause of a rainbow and he will just laugh or worst will result to name-calling.   That’s because they want to believe that the Bible is the only source of facts…even scientific or historical data. Yet a book that says mental illnesses are cause by demonic spirits, well… anything and everything is possible. I suppose that’s why a lot of Bible-believers are too daunted with science

There is also this guy, who blows his own horn about his grasp with the Bible yet up till now will not accept the definition of matter. Science defines matter as anything that occupies space and has mass. He describes matter as everything that occupies space. He rejected the word “mass” on the definition because he wants God to be composed of matter…to make the concept of god believable. Well as they say, try putting water inside a close jar whose lid will not open and what will you achieve?

Lately a Christian contact invited me to a Yahoo!Group that will again cater discussions and debate about…the Christian belief system. I promise myself not to get occupied to this kind of futility. I just listed myself as an active observer and will not even hassle myself to confer anything to members of that group. Well if I will receive idiocy from that group through my e-mail, I will gladly post that message to this blog and answer it here.

But that’s that. To personally post messages to that Yahoo!Group just to answer rubbish…it’s not worth my time.

Prof. Dawkins have said his reasons why it’s not worth anything to answer Creationists challenge. Maybe it’s also time to repudiate a Christian’s babble forum. They’re still singing the same old tune.