Archive for ‘history’

October 2nd, 2009

Fundy Friday: Tower of Babel Edition

Tower-of-Babel
How could I forget to honor the fantastically fallacious Fundies? Check out these snippets from what I consider an award-winning representation of monumentally stupid anti-evolution hogwash.

If, as evolutionists claim, all of mankind evolved from the SAME primitive life-source, then how did we end up with 7,000 different languages? The Bible teaches that God created all the different languages at Babel… “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech … Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” [see Genesis 11:1-9 [show] Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. (ESV)
This text is from the ESV Bible. Visit www.esv.org to learn about the ESV.
]. It is far more reasonable to accept the Biblical claim that God created all of mankind’s different languages; than it is to believe that some space-dust from a massive chaotic explosion somehow became life, and then took on intelligence, and then from the same evolutionary process ended up with 7,000 different languages. That makes no sense at all.

Oh stop it! You’re making my sides hurt! Please tell me again how reasonable it is that every human being on earth had a powwow in a valley somewhere, decided to build a really tall brick building so they could go up to heaven,  be famous, and to stay neighbors.

Explain to me how sensible it is that a spirit-man in the sky literally visited to check on their work and got really pissed off that they showed some bricklaying skills. He then decided to keep them from being successful and unified, so he used telekinesis to lift them up, plop them down in other parts of the earth, and then magically changed their languages so they wouldn’t be able to understand one another (or themselves, I imagine). Talk about anti-progress, a bitchy boss, and a serious case of “go sit in the corner and be quiet”.

Oh yeah, that makes a whole lot more sense than gradual change over time.

Read more wtf-i-tude at jesus-is-savior.com.

July 4th, 2009

Freedom Rings (But Sounds Better Autotuned)

© alykat
Dear United States of America,

Today is the day we recognize your childhood rebellion against the overbearing parental units of foreign power. May it be a lovely time to recognize that you don’t actually know everything and can be a bit of an obnoxious twat once in a while, but you’re still totally awesome and I love you to bits.

–GG

In honor of the beloved values of liberty and freedom, I’ve chosen to feature three of my favorite songs by The Gregory Brothers. They adapted, mixed, and autotuned three pivotal speeches from the 20th century–making them more memorable than ever. I hope you love them too!

  • “Martin Luther King Sings” samples the civil rights leader’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech given in 1963.
  • “John F. Kennedy backed by band from the future” brings new life to possibly the most stirring inaugural address of our history–given by former President John F. Kennedy.
  • “Winston Churchill backed by band from the future” (yes, a non-American!) is my favorite of the three adapted from the former British Prime Minister’s 1941 Great Declaration against the Nazi threat.

The mp3s are available for free download.
View a playlist of all three songs is below the cut:
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June 15th, 2009

Hitler: Christian or Atheist? (And Why I’ve Had Enough!)

Adolf Hitler
Was Hitler an atheist or a Catholic Christian? This catty debate surges on, year after year, day after day. Each side tries to score one more “Atheists/Christians are evil” point, and you’d better just admit now that no one is going to come out the winner; no matter if it’s ever decisively proven or not, this result won’t likely affect any one person and their individual choice about religion. It won’t bring back lost lives, traumatic memories, or the culture and growth lost to war.

So instead of voting either way, I’ve decided to tell you what I really think when I see this debate bubble to the surface:

Hitler was a fucktard! He had inhumane views that served only himself. He was botched in the head. He did horrible, terrifying things to a hell of a lot of people that impact us to this day. I don’t give a cat’s diarrhea if he was religious, nonreligious, or a guy who liked to dress up as Betty Boop on weekends. He was a human who made a dumbshit mess out of an entire age though his choices, leadership, and influence.

As an atheist, I want to say I don’t care what he labeled himself. Enough! We need to get past this idiotic debate and concentrate on important virtues like personal responsibility, serving those in trouble, and standing up for the rights of all nations. If we can learn anything from the atrocities this man inspired, let’s learn that we must honor and respect one another as individual human beings–not villanizing groups of people in the name of our objectives.

March 31st, 2009

Miracles, Prophecies, and Science–Oh My!

Was Jesus real? Can we trust the Bible? Is it always true?

On a web forum, one woman defended the reality of Jesus and the divine inspiration of the Biblical text. Below, I’ve included her points and my responses. I would love to flesh-out these points more in later posts.

[Said in response to a non-theist's point that you can believe a religious leader was a good person with worthwhile points and not have faith in him or believe he was a prophet]
Joseph Smith was a false prophet as is any other person in history whose prophecies have failed

But even Jesus didn’t even fulfill all the prophesies (supposedly) about him. He apparently has to come back a second time to finish them all.
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