An interesting conversation over facebook led to the suggestion that I make a sequel to a comic I made about atheists and believers reaching a consensus about God previously.

Among others things discussed were the ratios of the sexes among the atheists and believers. (Aarti said, “Interesting ratios here – Atheists: Believers = 3: 5 , Female atheists: male atheists = 2:1, Female believers: Male believers = 1:4 Shall I draw the inference that women are more enlightened than men ?” Rajesh added, “Moral of the Picture : Men join Atheism as there are more women there.”)

It was also suggested that this is not politically correct because there is only one woman in a burqa (Waseem commented, “I am astonished that the Mullah is so poor that he could bag just one as this cartoon suggests. there must had been two or three to be politically correct.”)

There was even speculation about the assets of the lady in the burqa (Harbir said, “the chick in the burqa has nice tits!” and added, “faith in the characteristics of the imaginary and the unseen, thats religion, isn’t it? So I am religiously faithful that she has nice tits, unseen and imaginary though they are. Anyway, its better to worship imaginary tits than an imaginary deity with a god complex.”)

Someone noted that the woman in the burqa didn’t have a voice (Gowhar said, “Remarkably the only woman on the religious side is a stereotypical Muslim woman… as a faceless appendage to the Muslim man… but notice apart from a face she also lacks a voice!”)

And I was eventually advised to do justice to the woman in the burqa, and to  show her real self. (Harbir said, “Siddharth, you should do a sequel of that cartoon that shows the burqa babe moving over to the left. Break her free of her burqa! And prove me right while you’re at it!”)

Clearly, the desire for confirming his intuition about her assets was more important than her seeming need to move to the left. Further, someone actually claimed that the person under the burqa was him. (Tarek commented, “That is me in the burqa. Please do not get into my tag space; it gets me all excited and that is haraam”. Rajesh even alleged  that Tarek got  into his burqa. Oona proclaimed, “I’d pay to see two men in one burqa.”)

In the fear that I’ll ruin everyone’s expectations of what’s under the burqa, I decided it best to leave that to everyone’s respective imaginations. Here’s the sequel:

Sorry folks, but if it is something else you were looking forward to, there’s always hentai.

UPDATE: Anyone interested in knowing the real identity of the burqa clad women? Watch this.

Be happy to be but a link in the chain to ………. hopefully greatness of mankind.
Forget god’s and eternal life.. it’s a scam, imaginary pacifier for overgrown infants… don’s be a sucker..ok!

Someone sent me a very very very idiotic e-mail about me being an Atheist. I posted it in my hate-mail page at the top of this blog, the entry you would want to read is at the very bottom but if you want to read all of my hate mail then go right ahead. You can go there or click here to read it, it will open up in a new tab or window.

Anyway I honestly wish Christians can give this “you’re going to hell” shit a break, I also wish Christians can shut the hell up. What’s so hard in understanding that I don’t give a damn about what your God told you to do just leave this Atheist out of it? Just shut the hell up ok? Leave me alone. Sending me hate-mail solves nothing and neither does throwing a scripture in my blog comments. Telling me I’m stupid for going from being a Christian to an Atheist just shows me how stupid you truly are. I don’t believe I ever was a Christian no matter how many times my family forced me to go to church. There is no “seeing the light”. If that’s the case I would of been saw this imaginary “light” you Christians are so freely flashing in my face.

No, I’m not trying to say that all Christians badger me or anything its just that its a pretty damn lot of you who don’t know when to shut the hell up and leave me alone. A pastor last week had the nerve to call me and ask me did I really become an Atheist. I guess he was the new pastor at the church I used to attend. I knew telling my grandmother that I’m not a Christian would be a bad idea. All that pastor do was tell me to repent and rethink my actions. I had to tell him I was forced to be baptized and to go to church, it was never my choice. Hell I didn’t need my parents to tell me Santa Claus wasn’t real, I figured that out when I learned to walk and talk.

It gets so damn annoying trying to live life and be myself when people are steadily begging me to come back to church. What’s so great about being a Christian? If I truly want an imaginary friend, I would just make one up. If I needed something to pray to, I have a big bag of Sour Neon Crawlers sitting next to me that I can “pray” to. At least I can see and feel the bag to know its there although I know its an inanimate object.  If I need something to believe in, I have Science, I don’t need something that neither Christians nor Atheist can tell me is existent or not.

I got a question for you Christians, if you see an Atheist and they know they could care less about what you think and you still fix your fingers or your mouth to try and convince them differently even though you know what you know, why in the HELL DO YOU WASTE YOUR EVER LOVING TIME!?!? Why not keep it moving? Why just say, “Oh she’s an Atheist, I’m not gone waste my time on someone who could care less about my opinion.” and leave it at that? I don’t go around on or offline telling people that they should stop being a Christian and to open their eyes. I don’t throw a Darwin quote in their faces like an asshole. Then again, I don’t expect people to respect me like I respect them.

I know I won’t get the consideration offline because my phone is still ringing off the hook and I know its that pastor if not pastors still calling me. I can at least try and be able to blog online and people who are Christians can try and keep their biblical crap to themselves. I may be asking for too much from you Christians but those who refuse to open their eyes when it comes to other people beliefs and non beliefs can you please try and shut the fuck up?

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Are you a good person? Please watch this video..

“[T]he only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…” -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

You Can’t Tell Me A Bible Verse to Convince Me to be a Christian

That blog above is what brought on this one. Every day or every other week there is someone new or someone old coming to my blog with a bibliography or a scripture long as hell like I forced them to read it and make a comment. So I guess I have this to say…

I won’t lose sleep at night though because Christians are constantly being contradictive and hypocritical all in the name of their “Lord”.

Christians get so deep into their religion they’re shocked that there are Atheists out there. & When they come up against an Atheist they feel that they can preach them the “good word”. Why? Because they are in denial that there are non-believers out there.

The fact this world run on choices; people have a choice in what to believe in. We don’t all have to believe in God. If we feel that he isn’t real. Then so be it. Not once  has any of you Christians even when I discuss this in real life have told me they understand where I’m coming from. All you and others could do was tell me a scripture, a lot of I’ve heard but wish I hadn’t. Your beliefs mean squat to Atheists & until you Christians can understand that; you’ll always lose the argument. God this God that, he’s not going to get a hold of my heart, I’m not going to heaven or hell I’m going to just die and rot. There is no power there is no God. Give me a damn break. I got one more time for someone to say that crap. Has it occured to you Christians that I cannot be switched back to a Christian? There is no Christ, there is no God, there is no powerful being. He don’t exist. We are in this world alone and if you like it or not I could care less but you’re wasting your time. Stupid people run this planet they get their strength from ignorance and they thrive for idiocy.

I get judged and ridiculed and called an asshole on my own blog all because my views of this “God” is different. Well who fired “God” and made you “God”? No one so why are those that’s judging me; judging me? I’ve read the Bible, I’ve sat through sermons, I’ve even gotten saved. Well that was because I was still an adolescent and I didn’t have a choice to what I believed in. I was forced to go to Church. It was put in my head that I was meant to believe. I’ve done some gut thinking and no Christian will understand to why I believe this “God” don’t exist. Everything people do or think they did or have prayed about and it some how came true; sorry he didn’t do that, everything is coincidental. All these diseases and wars if he was a God would you think he would allow this to happen so many times for so many decades/centuries? Evolution for man I don’t believe either all because in Genesis he ask let there be light, brought upon a garden with a woman made from a man. Adam and Eve; I refuse to believe that. He did not write this Bible. Humans did, a man did. I rather be called an asshole than to be called a hypocrite.

I cannot and will not believe in this God all because of this he said this and he said that bullshit. There is no proof that he did or did not say these things. You cannot tell me you heard him come to you in your dreams. Its a dream; your imagination is unlimited. I don’t care about what you Christians believe but you of all religious being should allow me to believe in what I believe. You’re so stuck in believing this God that you feel others should too or need to. Well I’m sorry but people have a mind of their own. I don’t need to pretend if he was real, I already did that and that was against my own will. How can this God let all these things happen? Especially with these priest molesting children and preachers stealing from their own baskets? How is that a devoted Christian when they are sinning in the very place that people think is sacred? You can’t tell me he’s waiting for Judgment Day, no don’t tell me that. Damn that book of Revelations. You haven’t noticed that things revolve? Just like fashion if you will, shit happens things repeat themselves just in a more bigger and longer formation.

How does scientists say we evolved from Apes/Monkeys when in the Bible Adam & Eve were human and HE created them? So I will believe a scientist before I believe this book. No ones perfect the Bible isn’t perfect. Its just a folktale book with a bunch of poems in it. So don’t tell me to pretend he’s real or tell me to read a Bible. I don’t need to read it I know what I believe in and I’m sticking to it. I may be giving up the fact that people who are Christians won’t allow others who are an anti-religious be themselves but I’m not giving up on what I believe in. & This “God” isn’t one of those things I believe in.

These Christians that are talking all of this crap in my blog, they aren’t behind the reason why I believe in what I believe in. The moment I was no longer an adolescent and my parents couldn’t make me or tell me to go to Church, I decided to believe in what I wanted to. Cause hell in my heart I never believed in this “God” that my family do.

So those who feel they need to give me suggestions on what to read or what I should do then you can just stop wasting your breath wait…you can stop wasting your key strokes on me. Go find another Atheist whose only an Atheist cause he/she read a blog but don’t have a slightest clue to what it is. Those that molest little boys but can still look themselves in the mirror in the morning. Being in Church is almost as dangerous as being in a Public School. You aren’t safe any where.

When something bad happens people just love thanking the “Lord” that something good came out from it. Lets thank the Lord shall we? Did you hear him say “you’re welcome”?

A lot of you “Christians” are hypocrites to begin with. So easily to talk about someone else but can’t even follow your own words that you’re preaching.

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And a temporary example of it at that. I am not in the pay of the Richard Dawkins people. I, however, feel that this kind of scientific elucidation is extremely important and, therefore, feel no qualms about promoting vitally important works such as this Dawkins effort.

I’ll leave this Richard Dawkins.net-based promotion up through the rest of September.

http://richarddawkins.net/thegreatestshowonearth

A Bible-Relatef Question

Or is the above the religious-right, Christian zealot’s preferred method of dealing with the nonbeliever?

[Image by way of the "Russell's Teapot" website: http://russellsteapot.com/]

Spelling out why and how exactly I became an atheist would take forever. I’ll just run over it, and not get into details and philosophical intricacies and rationale.

I was, not unexpectedly, very religious before. I was born into a Hindu family in India, and hence naturally was fed Hinduism by my parents, parents and society in general over time as I grew up. And I wasn’t really reluctant, and did my best to understand the books and traditions. But I was always very inquisitive and kept asking questions, and often saw that there were no good answers for them in Hinduism. But that didn’t turn me away from faith, and I presumed that it was only because of my lack of understanding, rather than the lack of clarity in the philosophy itself.

At this moment, I’d say that what people in the West know of Hinduism is only in the stereotypical view of it being a polytheistic, caste-discriminating, cow-loving, weird-antics-doing religion. While these things do happen, it doesn’t define the Hindu philosophy. Having studied many religions over the years, I think the Hindu philosophy is actually one of the hardest to refute among the major religions. As to why, that would take forever to explain, so I’d rather not here.

Anyway, back to my “story”. We were taught Indian history in schools, and I learnt about many progressive social movements of India’s past. I learnt of Hindu schools of thought that spoke out against many Hindu practices, especially Idol-Worship. Outside my academics, I read up and tried understanding their philosophy. Over the years, our history books also talked about the origins of Indian non-theistic religions of Buddhism and Jainism. Again, outside my academics, I read up on their philosophy and understood the philosophical roots of non-theism, and eventually, atheism.

My questioning mind found rationale and reason in these atheistic and non-theistic philosophies rather than what is popular Hinduism, which like most other religions, shunned questions, inquiry and criticism.

I would say, I prematurely began calling myself an atheist at this point.

As time went by, I began reading about Christianity and its theology. And then Islam and its theology. It was at then I realized the “materialist conception” (a term I came to know of later) of religions. On how 1) the cultural-progression of societies, 2) a good imagination, 3) historical political situation, 4) limited by geographical barriers, and 5) the scientific knowledge of society limited the reasoning given by religion, especially about God. This only strengthened my disbelief.

Religion came out as a means of scientific and philosophical inquiry, and gave rationality and conformism to the human-system or society. (See my article on why religion was initially progressive ) But there are characteristics within it (for example: taking issues on “faith”), that has made religion as a regressive system which serves the socio-political and personal objectives of the middlemen (priests) rather than the ends (life on earth and a possible god). In other words, religion is a system that has been hijacked by priests, and this has happened because of the characteristics of religion itself, rather than outside forces.

However, it was only later that I discovered the disputed definitions of “god”, quite apart from the confines of religions. Religious beliefs simply were the beliefs of people thousands of years ago, which people still believe in today, often at ends with the science and reasoning gained by man over these years. However, notions of a god in the non-religious sense did seem plausible, at least in theory. But there were several counter-arguments refuting even the non-religious god. But given the limitation of human knowledge and the reasoning of today, it would be impossible to come to a conclusion either way. I then realised that I would be classified as an agnostic, not an atheist. (Although, I find more reason in the counter theories, and am closer to being an atheist than a non-committal agnostic – but I would maintain I’m an agnostic to non-religious theists).

A Hindu school of thought called the Nastika, which took birth thousands of years ago, is the world’s oldest rationalist atheistic school of thought. I would say I am a Nastik, which is a word closer to ‘nonthiest’ rather than ‘atheist’. But then, why do I call myself an atheist? Because most (since most people are believers of the religious god) people understand atheism as a disbelief in their god. Which is true! I do not believe in a God as described by most religions. I just have not reached a conclusion in the possibility of there being a “god” (in quotes for the lack of a fixed definition).

After-fact: There is an ancient 14th century Sanskrit book called “Savadarshagraha” (translated as ” a collection of all philosophies”) and it presents 16 chapters respectively sympathetic to 16 different positions on religious issues. A few of them discuss different atheistic philosophies.

COMMENT POLICY for this post: I will not discuss philosophical issues about God or religion on this post.While I do not censor comments, such comments will not be replied to. I believe that such issues cannot be resolved on a blog conversation like this, and from past experience, refuse to even try. But I welcome anyone to recommend me any book(s) that you think I should read that strengthens or challenges my view point. Apart from books, articles, videos, whatever. They are all welcome!

And if you have your experiences to share, please do so as I would love to hear from you!

Please visit my new Photo Blog called Photo Of The Moment.

A Bible-Related Commentary

Good Friday

The gospel evidence overwhelmingly points to Jesus being crucified on “Good Friday” of Passover week. All four gospel writers report that it was the day of Preparation that Jesus underwent his trial before Pilate and was subsequently executed on. This day of “preparation,” or paraskeuē (παρασκευή) in New Testament Greek, refers to “Friday,” the day Jews set aside to prepare for their holiest day of the week, the Sabbath, or “Saturday”:

“And when evening had already come, because it was the preparation day [paraskeuē], that is, the day before the Sabbath.” (Mark 15:42 RSV) 

Two important items of information need to be stressed at this point: first, every Friday is the “day of Preparation” because every Saturday is the Jewish day of Sabbath; and second, Mark is technically incorrect when he says, “when evening had already come …”. This cannot be literally true; for if evening had already come, Mark would be indicating that Saturday, or the “Sabbath” had already begun when it is clear this is not the case. He was, of course, referring to the period of time between Jesus’ death at around 3 o’ clock in the afternoon (“the ninth hour”) and sunset as the text that follows, “it was the the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath” (προσάββατον) points to it still being Friday.

Or is it just possible that Mark is actually referring to Thursday here?

A Possible Thursday Crucifixion – Revisited

I previously dismissed as nonsensical the belief that Jesus was actually crucified on Thursday of Holy Week. But perhaps I was a bit too hasty in doing so, for as previously indicated, when one is dealing with the bible, every thing is not nearly as cut-and-dried as one would imagine.

For example, it is clear from the gospel record that Jesus died during a week in which the Jewish feast of Passover was being observed. All four evangelists attest to this in unison. The testimony of Luke, Chapter 22 (along with Mark 14:12-16) even points to Jesus’ “Last Supper” being the traditional Passover Seder meal:

“Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go prepare the passover for us, that we may eat it …and they prepared the passover … and when when the hour came, he [Jesus] sat at table, and the apostles with him.” (Luke 22:7-14; RSV)

But here’s the “rub”: The fourth gospel gives us every reason to believe that Jesus did not live long enough to eat the Passover Seder meal; that he was crucified the very day and at the very hour the paschal lambs that were to form part of the Seder meal were being slaughtered, or “sacrificed”.

Passover is celebrated on the 15th day of the Jewish month, Nisan. It so happens that Passover fell on a Friday the week of Jesus’ death. So when John reports that:

“They [the Jewish Authorities] led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium [to undergo trial before Pilate], and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium in order that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover [Seder meal]“. (John 18:28)

he was effectively revealing it was Thursday of Holy Week—sunset that evening (14 Nisan) being analogous to the stroke of midnight Christmas Eve for Christians preparing to celebrate Christmas Day.

Further proof that Jesus was crucified on Thursday instead of Friday is found in John 19:14 where we read, “Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour.”

Conclusion

So which is it? Was Jesus crucified at around twelve noon on Thursday of Holy Week as John maintains, or was it at nine o’ clock Friday morning according to Mark’s report?

We should perhaps briefly examine one more exegetical explanation offered by Christian apologists frantically trying to harmonize John with Mark (along with Matthew and Luke) in regards to the day and time of Jesus’ death: the Lunar/Solar Observational Argument. The argument here being that while Mark, Matthew, and Luke were following the normal Jewish lunar calendar in observing the Passover, John may have possibly followed an Essene, Galilean, or a local Greek liturgical sectarian calendar; one that differed from the lunar calendar by 24 hours and that began counting the hours from midnight.

But why would this be the case? Were not all the reports regarding the last week of Jesus’ life based on the testimony of fellow Galileans all observing Passover in a like, customary manner and in accordance with the rest of the Jewish population at-large? And if not, would we not expect “God” to have divinely inspired his evangelists to reveal that at least one or more of His gospel writers was utilizing an alternate calendar so as not to confuse the faithful (and we skeptics)?

No, the answer to why there is such contradictory information being supplied us in regards to the time and day of Jesus’ death is because at least one gospel writer employed a liberal amount of “artistic license” in making up certain elements of the Passion narrative for his/their own theologically-motivated reasons. In the case of John, to portray Jesus as God’s sacrificial “lamb” being sacrificed for the redemption of mankind’s “sins”; Jesus being the ultimate paschal sacrifice, if you will.

Think artistic license was not being liberally employed in the gospel Passion narratives? Read Matthew 27:52-53 and think things over anew.

There can be no greater evil in the world than the Creator of Evil_Greywolf’s Dictum #1 (Assuming such a Creature actually exists, of course.) 

If if happened, God wanted it to. If He didn’t, it would never have happened_Greywolf’s Dictum #2 (Assuming such a Creature actually exists, of course.)

When arguing against religion, some atheists are quite willing to jump headfirst into the bottomless pit of bible verse, where Christians twist and shape scripture into whatever meaning is most convenient –but I’m not one of those atheists, generally. I like to avoid giving credence to a work of fiction like the bible, especially when it concerns scientific matters. I mean no one points to a line of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” and declares it to be the inerrant word of Darwin; scientific theories stand or fall on real world observations, not on faith or allegiance. In science, the evidence is looked for outside of books, not inside of them. Anyway, here we go into the Pit of Despair… don’t even think about trying to escape.

ApologeticsPress.org, a Christian publishing company that does exactly what its name suggests, routinely answers those who dare find contradictions in the bible. One of my favorite unexplained errors, which AP fails to address honestly, is Judas’ death, which occurs twice in the bible –once in Matthew, and once in Acts, with two different method of expiration, within two different story lines. The King James Bible says:

Matthew 27:5 – “And he[Judas] cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.”

Matthew 27:6 – “And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.”

Matthew 27:7 – “And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.”

AND

Acts 1:18 – “Now this man[Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.”

Acts 1:19 – “And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood.”

According to Matthew, Judas drops his booty and hangs himself, and then the priests take the cheese to buy a field for the John Does to be buried in. But according to Acts, Judas does the real estate deal, then takes a belly-busting, nose dive onto the ground. So, ostensibly, both the causes of death and the background stories are inconsistent and incompatible. In the former, Judas discards the silver and the priests buy the field. In the latter, Judas buys the field himself using the silver. Now, if the two books only differed in the method of Judas’ death, perhaps we could accept a single explanation as to why they differ, but since the details surrounding his death also fail to mesh, it’s a lot harder to see any reconciliation of the texts without applying some major rationalizations.

The Apologetics Press attempts to explain away the initial discrepancy with some not-so-subtle pasting. They argue that there’s only one death –that Judas’ guts did, in fact, spill out like a “bloated whale”, but only after he hanged himself and his body had rotted from decomposition:

According to ancient tradition, Judas hanged himself above the Valley of Hinnom on the edge of a cliff. Eventually the rope snapped (or was cut or untied), thus causing his body to fall headfirst into the field below, as Luke[the purported author of Acts] described. Matthew does not deny that Judas fell and had his entrails gush out, and Luke does not deny that Judas hanged himself. In short, Matthew records the method in which Judas attempted his death. Luke reports the end result. [AP's emphasis]

So, the AP sees the holes in Matthew and Luke’s[supposed author of Acts] respective stories of Judas’ demise as an invitation for hole filling –with whatever fits the AP’s preconceived conclusion. But no where in the AP’s longwinded explanation do they even address the question of who bought the field, Judas or the priests. They completely ignore it. Apologists are in major denial when they refuse to acknowledge that the bible’s contradictions aren’t isolated misinterpretations, but interconnected, and cascading, failures. No contradiction is an island.

A Bible-Related Commentary

In a stark, straight-forward statement, the earliest gospel writer, Mark, declares:

“And it was the third hour when they crucified him.”

Since scholars generally agree that the ancient Jews reckoned their daylight hours from dawn to sunset we can be reasonably sure that by “the third hour” Mark (15:25) meant three hours from dawn (= 6 a.m.), or roughly 9 o’ clock in the morning, thus providing us with a remarkably precise chronological record of the time of day Jesus underwent crucifixion.

However, when it comes to the bible, things are often not as dry and clear-cut as they initially seem. The time of Jesus’ crucifixion provides us with just such an example; for if we turn to John 19:14 we learn from that evangelist that Jesus was still undergoing his trial before Pontius Pilate at “about the sixth hour” (or “noon”). Obviously, something isn’t quite right here. What John’s statement does, is not only put into question the time of day the crucifixion took place, but now, even the day of the week it occurred on; and need I add, the accuracy of Scripture itself? 

Before we go on to explore these issues in greater depth, however, one more gospel element needs to be inserted into the passion narrative equation to round things out: Jesus’ prophecy of Matthew 12:38-40 and his (alleged) stay in the heart of the earth for “three days and three nights”. It goes to the heart of why some Christians hold fast to the belief that Jesus’ crucifixion actully took place on Wednesday of Holy Week rather than on “Good Friday”.

The Wednesday Crucifixion Date

The origin of the belief that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday stems from a literal interpretation of a prophecy uttered by Jesus recorded in Matthew 12:38-40.

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. [RSV]

The Wednesday crucifixion advocates take Jesus’ words “three days and three nights” to mean three literal 24-hour periods of time totaling 72 hours. Thus, working backwards from just before the crack of dawn and before Sunday proper—the last moments of Jesus’ three days and three nights, if you will—we find the first 24 hours ending up being just before dawn on Friday; the next 24 hour mark ending up just before dawn on Thursday (here 48 hours prior to Sunday); and the 72-hour mark occurring just before dawn on Wednesday. Incorporating Mark 15:25 leads to Jesus having undergone crucifixion at nine o’ clock Wednesday morning. Jesus’ prophecy thus comes out being extremely accurate and fulfulled in the minds of the faithful. And, in the end, does not Jesus’ actual words take precedence over what others had to say in regards to the resurrection?

But wait. What about John 19:14 and that report that Jesus was still on trial at about the “sixth” hour?

The Roman-Time Argument

Perhaps the most popular and appealing explanation used by Christian apologists to account for the contradiction between Mark and John’s chronology concerning the time of the crucifixion is the “Roman-Time Argument”. This explanation argues that John used the Roman method of calculating time instead of the Jewish way. The Romans, say Christian apologists, reckoned their hours from midnight instead of the Jewish method of reckoning them from dawn.

Seems plausible at first blush, doesn’t it? Using this “Roman” method of determining time would lead to Jesus being on trial before Pilate at six o’ clock in the morning (“the sixth hour” working from midnight forward) rather than noon. By incorporating Mark 15:25 into the picture, we then have Jesus being crucified three hours later at nine a.m. The discrepancy between John and Mark is removed and the gospels stand harmonious.

But there are several fatal problems with this solution. First, there is no evidence whatever that the Romans counted their daytime hours any differently than did the Jews. In fact, the evidence points to the Romans having divided their “days” into two 12-hour periods: the daytime being divided into twelve individual hours ranging from dawn to sunset (and varying in length depending on the season of the year) while the night hours were divided into four 3-hour watches extending from sunset until just before dawn. The first hour of the Roman day was precisely the same as the Jewish one: from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. And the twelfth lasted from 5 p.m to 6 p.m.; the hours after sunset then began the aforementioned so-called watches rather than “hours” per se. So there is no difficulty in seeing the gospel writers refer to the “tenth hour” as a daylight hour in the report of John 1:39, for example, yet refer to a nighttime hour as part of a “watch” or “watches” as in Mark 6:48 and Luke 12:38 respectively.  No, having two different methods of determining time simultaneously would have sown an unacceptable level of confusion. And there is a further problem with the Roman-time explanation: Why would a native Jew opt to employ a Roman method of calculating time that differed from the Jewish method and then fail to explain to his readers that he had done so?

The Bundled-Time Argument

There exists a variant of the Roman-time argument that has the ancient Jews bundling their hours into three-hour segments so that, say, nine a.m to the noon hour constituted one time segment, the noon hour to three p.m. a second, and three p.m. to six p.m. a third. Since time measurement was extremely loose in Jesus’ day–or so some Christian apologists would have us believe–certain events can be said to have occurred at either the beginning or towards the end of one of these three-hour time segments and still be held to be reasonably accurate as far as ancient time measurement was concerned. So say the apologists. Adding seeming credibility to this method of computing time is the argument that the ancients didn’t have pocket or wrist-band watches to keep pin-point precision when marking time.

The skeptic’s reply to this is that the bible is supposed to be the words of the most supreme force in the universe imparted divinely to the writers of Scripture. So one would expect rather precise time being recorded. But on a more practical level, the Jews in Jesus’ day utilized the sundial—among other methods—to keep tab of the hour. And an indication of this can be found in John’s gospel itself where the evangelist makes reference to the “tenth hour” in Chapter One, verse 39, and the “seventh hour” in Chapter Four, verse 52. Rather the opposite of what one would expect if the bundled-time theory had any validity. Then too, there are the recent discoveries of Jewish sundials amid the ruins of Qumran and even Herod’s temple itself. 

 Herodian sundial discovered amid Temple ruins; its base below

A Thursday Crucifixion? 

In an attempt to harmonize John 19:14 with Mark 15:25, some Christian scholars have concluded that too many events are packed into a six a.m. to 9 a.m. “Good Friday” time-frame to be credible. So they maintain that Jesus was tried on Thursday and not executed until nine a.m. the following morning. Problem solved. Mark and John are in perfect agreement.

A rather obvious problem develops in accepting this chronology, however: John states plainly that it was the Preparation of the Passover, meaning it was “Thursday” of passover week alright. (More on this passage and its relevance in Part II.) But does the natural reading of the subsequent passages in John allow for an interval of some 21 hours between noon Thursday and Jesus’ crucifixion on Friday morning in keeping with Mark’s account? What could possibly account for John not informing his readers that nearly an entire day had elapsed before the crucifixion proper is a question Thursday crucifixion advocates trying to harmonize events with Mark’s gospel have failed utterly to explain.

The conclusion, next time in Part II of this commentary.

Greywolf’s* Dictum: There can be no greater evil in the world than the Creator of evil. End of Story. 

*Your’s Truly

Please note that the book review below–funny as it is– was not written by a real creationist, but by a faker. See the comment section for the full correction.

I occasionally like to sift through the reviews on Amazon.com of good, evolution related books. I wholeheartedly recommend Evolution: What The Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero. Although, one of the reviewers, someone named Sam Wood, decided it deserved only a single star and a ‘philosophical’ thrashing that is comical to behold. I can only assume it’s a real review and not a parody. I’ve emphasized my favorite parts in bold.

This book is the latest attempt by Big Science to put forth the Big Lie of evolution. Humble believers, the only real skeptics left, are supposed to simply cower in the face of the evidence. But here’s why you shouldn’t believe the Big Lie:

1) The Bible says that God created all earth’s creatures. Since the Bible is the word of God, I think it has slightly more authority than a goofy looking dingus named Prothero.

2) No one has ever seen evolution in action. Dogs don’t turn into birds, and mice don’t turn into armadillos.

3)If natural selection is true, it means that human minds evolved from lower animal minds, which means they are highly fallible. Yet evolutionists tell us to use these very minds to agree with them . If evolution is true, it must be false. That’s a contradiction, therefore Jesus died for my sins and God created the earth.

4) Where are all the fossils? The only fossil science has ever found is Piltdown man, and that was fake. Christians, however, have the Shroud of Turin, a fossil of Jesus. We also have fossil fingers of many saints. The fossils say that Jesus existed, the saints are holy, and Darwin was wrong.

5) It’s very hard to understand how evolution would work, while it’s easy to understand that God created the world. By the principle of Occam’s Razor, it therefore follows that God is the Creator.

6) Evolution is incorrect, and it is illogical to believe in something incorrect. Since the opposite of something incorrect must be correct, God and not Darwin or dinosaurs must be the creator.

7) Increasing evidence shows that Noah’s flood actually desposited[sic] all the layers of soil that geologists think happened over millions of years. The flood would have killed the dinosaurs, had dinosaurs ever existed, but they haven’t. A review of books shows that no one ever talked about dinosaurs until after Darwin, when they became part of the argument for evolution. Convenient, huh?

8. Evolution became popular around the time that scientists were becoming immoral and wanted to stop hanging around in labs and start having more sex. Evolution is the perfect excuse, since we’re all animals we should do it like animals. Christians find this offensive, since Mary was a virgin. If you suggest otherwise, it means you are thinking about the vagina of the mother of God, which is a sin.

So for all of these reasons, I call on Christians to reject Prothero and all of his works, and all of his minions. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, the 12 apostles, and all of the archaegels[sic] and God the father are part of a holy plan which did not happen through evolution, so stop saying things that make God angry and vote McCain/Palin ‘08.

After ingesting all that, I find my brain is awash in a dreamy haze of perturbation. So many questions remain unanswered: Is this sinister “Big Science” anything like Big Tobacco? Are all the non-existent fossils a drug induced hallucination delivered through my chlorinated, tap water? Is believing something to be correct both incorrect and illogical? Is my plastic dinosaur collection more valuable now that dinosaurs never really existed –they’re mint in the box? And are my impure thoughts about Mary, the mother of god, a sin if Aristotle is involved somewhere in the mix –if you know what I mean?

It might have been more educational if Richard Dawkins –or that over-simplified museum chart– had explained that paleontologists aren’t so much concerned with complete transitional fossils –or intermediates– but the transitional characteristics displayed in the fossils. Fossils are after all collections of physical traits. But Dawkins is countering creationists, who are so often ridiculously literal in their interpretation of evolution that they imagine the fossil evidence for the transition between two distinct species as an exact in-between –for example, half dinosaur and half bird. Evolutionary history, though, is bushy and convoluted; a particular species may only bear an ancestral trait(s) that’s been slightly modified, or a novel trait(s) that is in its incipient state. That a species of dinosaur had proto-feathers –and not necessarily fully functional wings– is in itself profoundly informative. No cartoonish hybrid is needed as proof of evolution. The same goes for those floating pigs of the sea, those media hogs, those cousins of the hungry hungry hippo –the whales.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/07/13/the-making-of-a-muslim/‎

‎12. paarsurrey Says:
July 13th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
‎
May I ask you as to what were your faith, denomination, and religion before you ‎joined ‎the present one; please mention the name of the new ‎faith/denomination/religion also.
‎
‎1.‎ Mumin Salih
‎2.‎ kenmirzz
‎3.‎ Poma
‎4.‎ Proudkafir
‎5.‎ Pathfinder
‎6.‎ A0000Z
‎7.‎ redjupiter58

‎
I already know that friend Shafee al-Zindig was Hanafi Sunni (Deobandi or Brailvi; he ‎‎has not mentioned) and he is a freethinker as he described elsewhere.
‎
Please don’t mind; no compulsion.
‎
All human beings are just like a family in this little village called Earth; I don’t hate ‎‎anyone, rather I love them all.
‎
Thanks

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

Pertanyaan yang sering kali muncul kadang dan masih menyelimuti kita semua adalah tentang misteri Hidup.

Pertanyaan mengenai hidup dan kehidupan simplenya ada 3 :
1. Dari mana kita ?
2. Untuk Apa kita ada di sini, di dunia ini ?
3. Sesudah mati mau kemana kita ?

Klo kita kembali ke agama dan kepercayaan masing2 kita, tentu jawabannya akan berbeda satu sama lain, saling mengclaim punya jawaban yang paling bnar, dan pada akhirnya akan menentukan sikap kita pada pemilihan jalan hidup.

Tapi apakah ada jawaban yang universal bagi seluruh umat manusia, faktanya adalah manusia jenis yang sama dari ujung kutub utara muterin sampe kembali ke kutub utara. Semua manusia mempunyai jenis yang sama, yang berbeda hanya warna kulit, kepercayaan, bahasa, jenis kelamin dan Nasib.
Maka jika manusia berasal dari Jenis yang sama, maka sumbernya pun akan sama, dan kembalinya pun akan sama.

Misteri tetap misteri, hidup merupakan misteri yang tidak akan pernah terpecahkan dengan menemukan jawaban memuaskan yang bersifat universal.

Jawaban atas misteri hidup tentunya akan berpulang kepada masing2 individu, entah mereka akan memikirkan hal itu atau tak peduli, dan jawabannya tergantung atas persepsi mereka masing-masing.

Misteri Hidup baiknya bakal dipahami dengan jelas jika kita menemukan arti dari kematian. karena tidak akan ada kehidupan jika tidak ada kematian. dan sebaliknya.

………..

A Philosophical/Theological Commentary

 Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that “God” actually exists.

Let us, then, go back in time; to the dawn of time; on a hypothetical journey to the time before time even began; to that time referred to in Scripture as “In the beginning”. 

At a certain point during our imaginary journey into preexistence, we will come across God deep in thought mulling over the idea of creating the very universe in which we humans now reside.

A blink of an eye later and we will witness God begin the process of devising and creating the material and immaterial substances that will comprise the theist view of a super-Intelligently designed, perfectly engineered, and lovingly-created cosmos.  

At an intensely critical juncture during this process, and armed with the supernatural foreknowledge of the catastrophic results that the creation of evil will bring about, God, nevertheless, will proceed to use his own free-will to not only conceive, design, and create a perfect form of evil in all its vulgar manifestations, but deliberately do so, and then move on to unleash it upon hapless, defenseless, man without mercy—when he had the option not to.

Now what could possibly be more evil?

The answer? There can be no greater evil in the world than the Creator of evil. End of story. _Greywolf’s* Dictum

*Your’s Truly

 Mainstream Christianity’s Viewpoint

In the preceding section we took an imaginary excursion into preexistence from the viewpoint of an atheist watching a supposed God “invent” evil. But that is not how most Christians surmise evil came into being. 

By chance, I came across an editorial titled The Origin of Evil and Suffering in a mainstream evangelical magazine recently.** The author asks, then answers, the question of where evil and suffering originated. His response is very typical of Christian publications dealing with this issue. Let us, then, explore the author’s analysis and see from where mainstream Christians are led to believe evil originated.

In a subsection titled “Where and how did evil begin.” the author immediately begins by quoting Jesus; citing John 8:44:

“[He was] a murderer from the beginning” adding that “[He is] a liar and the father of lies.” The author then goes on to say, “Here Jesus identifies the origin of evil and suffering, a being who initiated lying, deceit, hatred and murder—the enemy, the adversary of mankind, the devil”.

In describing “the devil” further along in the editorial, the author cites Ezekiel 28:12-15. Part of that text (verse 15) states:

“You [the angel Lucifer and devil] were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you.”

Still later, the author writes:

“Lucifer convinced himself he was as good as or better than his Maker. He rebelled against God, determining to exalt himself above “the stars” of God.”

In summary, the author concludes with the words: “He [Lucifer/the Devil/Satan] was the first criminal, a being whose mind and thinking grew corrupt, twisted and perverse. He introduced evil into the world. Humanity has struggled against evil ever since.” 

“He introduced evil into the world,” this editorial writer says of Lucifer? That he was perfect until iniquity arose from within him? From where, dare we ask, did this “iniquity” originate? And how could it enter into a being created “perfect” by a “God”? From where did Lucifer derive the substance that makes up evil? And how could Lucifer have possibly “introduced” evil anywhere? Just how would that have been accomplished within the confines of God’s perfectly created existence?

Is this not effectively declaring that God created one astoundingly imperfect “perfect” being?

Fact is, the author’s conclusion can hardly be correct if viewed from a biblical perspective. For Isaiah 45:7 states directly that God creates/created evil! John 1:3 declares that God made everything in existence that exists. And Colossians 1:16 proclaims this includes everything both seen and unseen. These are ultra-critical scriptural passages dealing with the origin of evil that the writer simply ignores. And not only he, but countless other Christian exegetes struggling in their attempts to pinpoint the origin of evil; apparently finding God being the author of evil too unpalatable to even contemplate: hence the placing of blame squarely on Lucifer. 

The bible cannot make it more plain, however: God created evil. And using the vehicle of our imaginary journey into preexistence made in the first half of this article, we find God did so deliberately; with the free-will not to. There is no escaping this conclusion if one is going to insist the bible is inerrant. And there is no exonerating God from obvious malfeasance and “sinful” conduct simply because He is “God” either. For even God believes evil to be “evil” if one accepts that the bible is truly the divine word of God.

“Hate the evil, love the good …”_Amos 5:15 (KJV)

“Abhor that which is evil, cling to that which is good.”_Romans 12:9 (KJV)

Sound advice God himself should have heeded before creating evil and pitilessly unleashing it on both angel and man.

 The Free-Will Argument

There are those within the Christian community, of course, who readily accept God created evil. But they insist that He did so as part of a divine plan we humans have no right to contest. These God-created-evil believing Christians maintain that God did not want to simply create mindless human robots or zombies with no capacity for freedom of choice. So he bestowed a “gift” to mankind; that gift being “free-will”; the ability to say “No” to evil and, thus, the gift to be truly human.

There are, however, inherent problems with this “gift” to mankind:

●  Free-Will does nothing to explain where God derived the substance “evil” from. We are given no explanation as to where this gross imperfection could have conceivably originated outside of God.

● The very act of creating evil is, in itself, a malevolently evil act. It is an evil endeavor to deliberately create evil and thus impossible for a being perfect in love, mercy, and goodness to undertake.

●  God had the ability to endow mankind with the free-will, the freedom of choice, to do anything—with the exception of two choices: to think or do evil.

● God had the ability to instantly destroy evil once He recognized it for what it was but chose not to do so. What does that tell one about the moral character of God?

I bring up this last point because it has been, and continues to be, the ultimate aim of every single Christian who has ever taken a breath of air on planet earth to end up in God’s heaven in the hereafter. And what is the singular most attractive draw about entering God’s heaven apart from eternal life and happiness? That’s right! The absence of evil. God is set to eradicate every trace of evil once and for all at some future date, we are told. But does that not then beg the question why God created evil in the first place? For does that not mean that heaven will be comprised of nothing but mindless robots, mindless zombies, traipsing all over perfectly created billowy clouds in incomprehensibly blissful happiness for all eternity? Or are all the Jesus people “upstairs” going to still “enjoy” having the free-will to think and do evil?

Why create Evil in the first place? I’d ask his Godness if he were real. Why not truly have heaven here on earth minus all the agony, anguish, suffering, misery, and death evil entails? “Why put your “children” though such unspeakable torture when you didn’t have to?” I’d ask his ”Holy” Almightiness. Why be so mean? 

We are not to question God on such matters, say the Christians. Okay, then explain why anyone in their right mind would love, worship, and adore such a fiendish creature with all their heart and soul? Even sing It’s praises, I respectfully ask? We atheists are all ears. Well, at least this one is.

So does that mean that I believe God is evil? Hardly. There is no more proof that an evil God exists than an infinitely good one does. End of story. (But if I were forced to pick which one has the closest chance to being “real”, I think the reader can guess which God I think has a distinct edge.)

** Ashley, Scott. “The Origin of Evil and Suffering” The Good News: A Magazine of Understanding Vol. 4, 3May/June 1999 Web.3 Jul 2009. <http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn22/editorialorigin.htm>.

Comedy courtesy of DesertPhile

Prepare to sigh with frustration at how effortlessly an idiot can gain a political seat. Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen (R) says the Earth is 6,000 years old. Surely, the turnip truck that delivered her into this world yesterday can just as easily take her back as defective merchandise; she must have been bruised when she fell off the back.

What I find most irritating about debating creationists isn’t their ignorance of general science; we all don’t know things. What’s most annoying is their apparent lack of curiosity. If I don’t know something I like to do research. But if creationists don’t know something, they often pretend that they do know it, proudly and dogmatically, even if it’s blatantly wrong.  This behavior reminds me of something Ron Reagan once said about his father, former president, Ronald Reagan:

He knew what he knew, and he didn’t want to know any more.

Well, I found a post titled The Great Debate: Genesis or Science? by Allen Epling, a man claiming to be a former, public school, science teacher, and believer in the inerrancy of the Bible. He begins by declaring his apathy toward science:

Why is it so important that we know how man got here? To believers it shouldn’t matter so much HOW [his emphasis], as much as WHY.

He then resorts to revisionist history to make religion appear accommodating.

In the past 300 years we have seen several instances where true science has advocated an opinion that is different from the Church’s, with the result that the Church has adjusted its interpretation of the Word of God to reflect a more modern view.

The Catholic Church has adjusted its position, reluctantly and belatedly, on several issues, like evolution. But how have fundamentalist Christians –who believe the Earth is 6000 years old and who think The Flintstones is a documentary– ever adjusted their “interpretation of the Word Of God to reflect a more modern view”? Biblical literalism doesn’t sound objective.

Allan Epling’s continues with another historical inaccuracy:

Galileo was threatened with excommunication from the Church if he didn’t recant his statements that the moon was full of craters, even though his telescope clearly showed their existence.

No, Galileo was accused of heresy for stating that the Earth revolved around the sun in his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. After being threatened with imprisonment and death, he recanted, and was given the lesser sentence of house arrest, which lasted almost 10 years. In 1992 –350 years later– the Catholic Church apologized for the incident.

And as a former, physics teacher, Allan Epling should know better than to make the following ridiculous statement, which turns an aspect of quantum physics into philosophy.

Many scientists firmly advocate a “certainty” that there is no God, in spite of believing ‘religiously’ in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. In the forefront of today’s science is a body of evidence, catagorized[sic] as Quantum Mechanics, that makes clear that nothing in the entire universe is certain but is determined by a “probability factor”. Any scientist that is certain about anything is admitting hypocracy[sic] to his own field of study.

All Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states is that “the more precisely the POSITION [of a particle] is determined, the less precisely the MOMENTUM is known”. It has nothing to do with the general reliability of scientific evidence.

And where would creationists be without quote mining. Allen Epling delivers with the ubiquitous Einstein citation.

The truth must come from both sides without the barriers that now exist that prevent us from seeing that truth. Einsten[sic] said that “Religion without science is blind, and science without religion is lame”. How true.

It’s fairly obvious Einstein wasn’t specifically paying homage to Christianity, but to the fantastical nature of religion in general, as a source of inspiration and imagination. Nowhere in Einstein’s work will we find the religion variable; there is no equation E=MC2 + God.

The last paragraph of Epling’s post sums up creationism in a nutshell:

Each week a new topic will be dealt with presenting, hopefully, a balanced, educated viewpoint, while ALWAYS upholding the divinity and sanctity of the Bible. The basic tenet of this article is that every word of the book of Genesis is factually, historically, and scientifically true.

What Epling is really saying is that science should accommodate Christianity, while Christianity should concede nothing.

Today we celebrate our independence from the oppressive taxation and monetary policy of the United Kingdom.  Today the United States government’s monetary policy and taxation is nearly identical to the very reasons our forefathers fought and died to free our country.  That is the United States now confiscates approximately 25%-33% of your income.   In addition, our currency is issued by a centrally controlled bank.  These two things that inspired the very revolution that created our country. 

But we don’t care.  We blow shit up, drink our beer, and have a merry old time.  Because we live in the “greatest country on earth,” the good old USA.  Where at least I have my freedom.

But many countries have freedom.  Europe is full of people that do not believe they are unduly oppressed.  So is Japan.  Australians feel pretty good about their way of life. 

So what’s so damn special about America anyway?

Well ….we have the most criminal society.  A larger percentage of our population is in prison than any other country on earth.

Land of the free indeed.

Well …there is our way of life.  The American dream.  That if you work hard, stay in school, and stay determined you can earn your way up the socio-economic ladder. 

What’s actually true in this world is that 1% of the population controls 90% of the wealth, and the other 99% of us spend our time trying to get our piece of the remaining 10%.  The system is systematically stacked against anyone whos lineage is below a certain income bracket.  If you don’t start out ahead you have to work 100 times as hard just to give your kids the chance to start out even (you yourself are screwed, but if you work really hard you may be able to give your kids a chance to not be screwed).

The founding fathers believed in a social contract between the government and those governed.  That if the government ever failed the governed it was the citizens right, no privilege, to revolt against that government. 

No matter how bad our government fails us, we will never revolt.  There are two reasons for this:  the media and the military.

The United States military is way too well funded and armed to be defeated by any citizens’ militia.  No one would ever try.  The US could declare martial law, revoke all civil liberties, and basically set fire to constitution, and the sheep that make up this country would roll over and take it.

The other reason this is true is because of the media.  Not just the news networks.  The entertainment as well.  As long as most people have enough prosperity to eat, sit at home, and watch TV there will never be a revolution in this country.  Never. 

Does there need to be one?  That’s debatable.  I don’t know the answer.

But I know this:  the spirit of the constitution and the bill of rights is in a coma.  It is NOT alive and well in our society today.

 merkaba33  is a contributing writer for projectgroupthink.wordpress.com. Get instant updates for this blog via Twitter: PGTblog.

Thomas Paine, author-patriot, 1737-1809

“The world is my country.  To do good is my religion.” – Thomas Paine, founding father.

On this July 4^th, we honor an under-sung founding father who well represents all those who forged the American nation and brought modern popular democracy into the world.

On January 29^th people around the world working for reform and free thought celebrate Tom Paine’s birthday.  He deserves to be nationally honored post-911 as a great American who fought for freedom, equality, direct democracy, and human rights.

The Revolution might have failed without Tom, or perhaps not even started.  He wrote America’s first bestseller Common Sense, taking backroom revolutionary discussion public, and leading directly to the signing of the Declaration of Independence six months later.  He spent two years in the Colonial Army with Washington, including the brutal winter at Valley Forge where he wrote The Crisis to talk the starving, freezing army out of deserting the cause.  “These are the times that try men’s souls,” are among the most famous words in the American revolutionary liturgy.

“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of all men and women.”

Paine’s words saved the army and the infant nation.  Sent to France by Congress at his own expense to find aid to save America from bankruptcy, he not only got the aid, but bankrupted himself buying a desperately needed ship and cargo of muskets, powder and shot, quite literally saving the army and the nascent nation a second time.

Paine may be the only true revolutionary in our Revolution.  His ideals bring common people together as a community.  No one is above the law.  Justice and fairness shall prevail.  Everyone gets to vote.  He argued for social security, childcare reform, universal health care, animal cruelty penalties and animal shelters 225 years ago!

He warned us to watch, guide, and stop the powerful elite if we want humanity in general to succeed.  He proposed that any bill that enriches a corporation or grants a corporate charter should be enacted in one session of the legislature, and confirmed in a second, after a vote of the people, to stop corporate raids on the public treasury.

Paine was made an honorary citizen of France after our Revolution so he could be elected to the French National Convention to help form their new republic.  He wrote much of the first French constitution and his masterwork The Rights of Man, both of which still inform the world.  He was certain that democracy was spreading and would soon free all of humanity from tyranny.  He was jailed, instead, as too moderate (!) and his health was wrecked.  He asked his old friend Washington for help to get home, but George ignored him to protect treaty negotiations with England for access to rich West Indies trade.  Tom wrote a bitter letter: Washington was a monarch who ignored honor to friends, and to allies who helped set America free, instead helping the filthy barbarians who kept her enslaved for the sake of ungodly profit. 

Washington’s political party the Federalists was outraged.  Tom languished in prison for Washington’s eight-year presidency, and four more because John Adams carried an old grudge for Paine calling him a would-be king (which he was).  Jefferson finally welcomed Tom home after fifteen years, but trouble was waiting.

Paine wrote The Age of Reason while in exile to “avoid politics and controversy,” but rejected religion in it.  We can just stare at a tree, he said, and believe in God.  Who needs revealed religion?  Religionists branded him an atheist, Federalists recalled his insult to their great hero general president, and both went “a-howl in the newspapers over the drunken, atheist, radical Jefferson has let back into the country.”

Tom couldn’t get a job or a pension.  All he wanted was repayment for money he gave to the Cause – dollar for dollar – without other reward, but he was only given a small farm in New Rochelle, New York as compensation.  He retreated to it in poverty to write letters to the editor and to Jefferson, and articles on controversial topics.  When Louisiana petitioned for statehood with a right to keep slaves, he wrote that admitting slaves to a free and equal society was unthinkable.  “Pennsylvanians” must be sent to teach Louisiana about democracy; and don’t call the state “Louisiana” because it honors a king, which insults the republic just won by the people’s blood!

He tried to vote for his friend Thomas Jefferson in 1804, but the New Rochelle election board wouldn’t allow it: he was a “French citizen” because of the honorary citizenship permitting him to serve in the Convention.  He spent his last days in the courts trying to redress this ultimate indignity, but it was not the final disrespect.

He was refused burial in Quaker ground despite his request because the Quakers feared someone might immodestly raise a monument to him.  He was buried on a remote corner of his New Rochelle farm, and a visiting Englishman later dug his bones up secretly, took them to England, stashed them under his bed, and forgot about them.  Upon rediscovery years later, they were sold and parted out all over England as souvenirs, and the whereabouts of Tom Paine’s bones is today unknown.  It begs the question: How frightened of a man must one be to want to hide his very bones?

After Tom began to grow in popularity and accreditation during the threatened nationally self-conscious democracy of the 1930’s and ‘40’s, his full American citizenship was belatedly admitted in 1945.  In truth, he’s a citizen of the world.  Tom Paine’s fierce principled call for human rights and, yes, loving hearts, still echoes and is still needed, for as much now as then, “These are the times.”

Citizen Tom Paine was the essence of our great democratic republican experiment: we are rebels as well as patriots.  This fourth of July and on January 29^th, lift your cup and toast a great American, friend to all the world, and champion of humanity.  Sing out:  “Hurrah!” for Tom Paine.                                                             © J. Legry ‘08

Citizen Paine

POLITICAL MEMORABILIA: 

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This is one of the must watch videos I have yet to watch. It shows the absurbness of the creation myth in the Bible. I do hope one of these days people will make videos about other religions as well. Although I believe informing people of the truth and showing them proof with scientific tests -other than teasing people by saying “everytime I look at the mirror I see the glory of the god”- will have no effect on them since belief requires complete ignorance, I do enjoy watching this kind of videos.

This part is taken from the video so; I am out and you are in. Have fun.

Text: “Genesis Revisited – A Scientific Creation Story” by Michael Shermer (“Why Darwin Matters”).

“To convey the logical absurdity of trying to squeeze the round peg of science into the square hole of religion, I penned this scientific revision of the Genesis creation story. It is not intended as a sacrilege of the poetic beauty of Genesis; rather, it is a mere extension of what the creationists have already done to Genesis in their insistence that it be read not as mythic saga but as scientific prose. If Genesis were written in the language of modern science, it would read something like this.”

• http://skepticblog.org/2009/05/26/the-atheists-genesis-revisited/
Michael Shermer (*1954 in Glendale, California) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating and debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims.

Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the television series “Exploring the Unknown”. Since April 2004, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Once a fundamentalist Christian, Shermer now describes himself as an agnostic nontheist and an advocate for humanist philosophy.