New research using fine iron meteorite fragments and volcanic ash to catalyze organic molecules:
Synthesis of prebiotic organics from CO2 by catalysis with meteoritic and volcanic particles
Scientists still working on how the universe works and disappointing creationists who depend on no more research being done so they can cling to their gods.
Tag: christian
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – christian lies about mass shootings
A rather unpleasant Christian, Caroline has come out with the claim that surely christians would never ever do a mass shooting. Caroline is unfortunately a real life “Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian” with out Deven’s wit and intelligence. Caroline has been on this blog before, consistently showing how dishonest she is with everything from the sciences to her ignorance about anyone not like her.
quite a set of lies.
“We needn’t fear those who fear God
And the third factor that should be fostered if we want to end these terrible tragedies is genuine faith in God. I know my children will never be on that list because they know the God who is Love and who said to love our neighbor as ourself. They know that he loves them and that they could never do something so contrary to his character and his will.”
Funny how this god said to murder people who don’t agree with it and that people deserve death and worse if they dont’ agree with it.
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6
“26 “I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.”’” Luke 19
We also have christians blowing up abortion clinics, murdering staff and doctors, and attacking members of religions not their own. I do have to wonder, does Caroline think she can lie about such things when they are public knowledge. Oh I’m sure she will claim they aren’t TrueChristian(tm), at all, the typical maneuver of someone unable to take responsiblity for what her religion causes.
and then Caroline goes onto say exactly what she claims she’s not. it’s a typical tactic from a liar who wants to be able to disavow her lies:
“Children who are raised by both natural parents who genuinely and demonstrably love them are much less likely to get up one day and decide to murder innocent people. But young men in particular who grow up without the irreplaceable influence of a father who loves them carry a void that they must find a way to fill. Many young people have never known an intact family, and others have had one irreparably broken by divorce, which can harm them just as much.”
yep, “natural” parents, showing Caroline’s bigotry and lies yet again.
“Of course I’m not saying that kids who are put in daycare will grow up to be criminals. What I am saying is that children whose mothers sacrifice a career and all the perks that go with it, who are willing to take on the responsibility of diapers, discipline, and domestic drudgery so that their little ones know the security of a mother’s near-constant presence, will probably not be on a list of mass shooters.”
Oh the poor martyr Caroline. No evidence for Caroline’s claims at all. And damn, “near constant presence”?
“Again, I’m not saying that individuals from single-parent homes who don’t believe in God are destined to be involved in criminal activity. Only that a strong foundation of family and faith is an excellent predictor of someone who will never cause such grief, heartache, and anger as every mass shooter has.
So we can talk about gun control. But it will be immensely more productive to focus instead on how we can foster stronger families and encourage rather than ridicule and restrict real, life-changing faith.”
yep, again she is exactly saying what she claims she is not. Caroline is just one more Christian nationalist, more concerned with guns than caring for people. Funny how she’s out there attacking this supposed ever so important faith, if its not her own. She typically is quite sure any christianity other than her own isn’t true.
Happily, these cults are dying out, slowly, but surely. The ignorance, fear and hate they are built on are not needed by anyone.
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – the moral argument for a god
I’ve found a curious article about the moral argument for a god. The pastor finds it a weak argument, and I would agree with him.
The typical argument is as he presents it:
“(1) If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist.
(2) Objective morality does exist.
(3) Therefore, God exists.”
He claims it is a “valid argument”, which should mean that the premises are true, and demonstrably so, and thus the conclusion is true.
The problem is that neither he, or any theist who offers this as an argument, can show that objective morality exists at all. The term objective can mean a few things and this is what it seems to mean in this context: “of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind and/or “expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations” (merriam-webster).
There is nothing to indicate that there morals that fit either definition.
So, #1 premise fails since there is nothing to show that any god exists, and #2 fails since there is nothing to show that objective morality exists. This makes the conclusion fail.
I’m not aware of any atheists arguing for objective morality. There could indeed be some, and there could be objective morals. We simply have no way to know as far as I can determine. (let me know if you think there is a way).
The pastor is honest in that he believes that objective morals must exist, because he thinks there is a god, not that since there is a god there must be objective morals. The problem is that he must assume that the morals he claims his god wants are indeed objective. In that eveyr other Christian makes the same claim, about different sets of morals, he, and they, must present evidence their god exist, and agrees with them.
That has yet to happen.
They also have the problem that they must assert that everything is their god’s will. Which would make the pastor’s reference to the Holocaust a problem.
“I don’t believe in objective morality.”
“Really? So, you’re saying that the Holocaust was okay?”
“No, the Holocaust was a horrible evil.”
“If there is no objective morality, then the evil of the Holocaust is just a matter of personal opinion. It would not be evil from the perspective of the participants.”
“All I know is that based on what I understand about human flourishing, the Holocaust was wrong.”
“But without objective morality, there is a possible world in which gassing and burning Jews was a good thing…”
This does not make the person asserting subjective morals look bad, it makes the theist’s base argument, “God is good” fail.
The moral argument does indeed show that many people think there is objective morality; it doesn’t show it does.
There is no absolute measure, and thus we are not moving toward or away from something that doesn’t exist. What we do see is that morals change and generally change to those that improve the existence of humans, assisting civilization. Morals may not be objective but they can be common.
The claim that objective morality is based on the will of god fails since again, there is no evidence for objective morality at all *and* that morality for Christians depends on who or what is doing something, not an objective relationship to morality and an action. If the will of this god is that it is okay for it to commit genocide, but not for humans, then morality becomes subjective.
The pastor claims this “But I believe in objective morality because I believe in God, rather than believing in God because I believe in objective morality.” Otherwise
“(1) If God does exist, then objective morality does exist.
(2) Objective morality does not exist.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.”
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – forgive me dear reader, I’m bored and will proceed with beating a dead horse
Yet more nonsense from christians and “ministries”. This is from a Jim Weikal on a website for Bill Rudge Ministries, which seems to be the typical conservative christian nationalist group. It’s not terribly far from where I grew up.
There is nothing new here at all. But it’s something for me to do.
this is the standard raft of what christians try:
“1.God provided a written account of His creative work, but the atheist believes the Bible to be a human invention.”
no evidence for this at all. There is nothing about the bible to show it is some work by an omnipotent being. This god is as ignorant as the people who invented it. Add that to the fact that christians can’t figure out what it means to agree on it, and you have nothing to support this claim.
“2. God created this material universe from nothing in six days, but the atheist believes evolutionary processes over billions of years to be the cause.”
Even other christians don’t buy this.
“3.The Bible describes many miraculous accounts in its 66 books, but the atheist believes that miracles can’t happen.”
And surprise, no evidence for them at all. Other supposed ‘holy books” also make magical claims. No evidence for them either.
“4.God raised Jesus from the dead, but the atheist believes the resurrection never occurred.”
Yep, no evidence for this either.
“5.God brought the Jewish people back to Israel after thousands of years, but the atheist believes this return to be nothing more than political coincidence.”
And funny how the clock is running out for this claim. This god did nothing, just the action of guilty feeling countries.
“I feel for the elderly atheist who committed his eternal life to the belief system of this world. But remember, it’s not by lack of evidence. Romans 1:18-20 tells us that people “suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse.””
Every cult makes this claim.
Addendum: Hey, I *thought* had had crossed swords with these christians before.
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – questions posed to an atheist
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – some archiving
I’ve made copies of some information I’ve found on the web, either from fairly hidden webpages or on websites that are quite old and I have no idea if they are being maintained or not. They are not something I generated myself.
I’m putting them up here so I can find them when I want them, and for anyone else’s use.
I’ve found the following useful in countering various theist claims.
Nazi Book Banning lists
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – some prior posts about easter and passover
I’m being lazy and well, there just isnt’ much more to point out about how unpleaseant these religious bits of nonsense are.
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – FFRF’s Blog “Easter fools, April Fools and Jesus’ pundits”
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – this year Easter is on April Fool’s Day
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – what has become the annual easter post
What the Boss Likes – welcome to Easter, syncretic religion at its best
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – Easter, the supposed events and implications
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – Dungeons and Dragons is in the news, now what will the christians do?
If you are of an age like mine, you remember Dungeons and Dragons, and the fit that some Christians took about it back in the 70s. This is of course when they were also taking a fit about rock music and other things too, including predicting the end of their world with their sadistic little fantasies.
They took it upon themselves to lie about the game, and the players and lied to their own people to scare them deeper into their cult. The Jack Chick tracts were notorious, with their claims of suicide, etc. Here’s a video about them:
Well, now D&D is back in a big budget movie and it seems that it isn’t nearly so bad now for at least some christians. The younger ones don’t remember the hysteria, it seems, and I’m guessing that the older Christians hope no one remembers how their lies failed. It’s always embarrassing when your cult’s claims are shown as the nonsense they are.
Here’s a christian review of the movie (which is out on March 31st). And the wiki entry for it, just in case you are curious.
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – that talking ass
hmm, “write boldly” is on a Christian website that is afraid of allowing comments to appear with their nonsense. I guess they can’t “defend” nonsense boldly.
this is doing to be a fun one. Christians often don’t like when non-Christians make fun of how idiotic their bible is, and how much it is like any other set of myths from the bronze/iron ages.
This particular Christian, “Pastor Ricky”, a Lutheran, is upset about the talking donkey:
“Numbers 22:22-41 is an account atheists love to bring up to “prove” Christianity is false. They take this account of Balaam and his donkey and say, “So you believe animals can talk?” As usual, this is a trick question. First, it’s not so farfetched that animals can talk. Some birds like parakeets can clearly mimic human speech. I’ve seen videos of dogs “saying” something that closely resembles, “I love you” (which is rather adorable). “
Some animals can, but donkeys physically can’t. So, his first whine fails. BTW, snakes can’t talk either.
“Secondly, verse 28 says, “Then the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey.” God is the one giving the donkey the ability to speak here.”
Yep, it does. So the bible claims magic works, and no evidence for this claim at all.
This story is ridiculous. There’s a guy, Balak, who is upset that the Israelites are bothering people during their imaginary exodus. Then this guy summons some guy, Balam, to “curse” the Israelites. Balam seems to be a guy who chats with this god. Balam for some reason, has no idea who the Israelites are. Balam refuses Balak.
Balak sends better people to ask him and more stuff, but Balam still refuses. Then, this god tells Balam to go with them, but this time to only do what God says. Amazing, a supposedly unchanging god changes his mind.
Then, even better, God becomes pissed off at Balam for doing what God wanted. God sends and angel to bother the donkey balam is riding on, so the donkey is beaten for no fault of its own. Then this god makes the donkey talk asking why it is being hurt. This dialogue also makes little sense.
“8 Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?’ 29 Balaam said to the donkey, ‘Because you have made a fool of me! I wish I had a sword in my hand! I would kill you right now!’ 30 But the donkey said to Balaam, ‘Am I not your donkey, which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you in this way?’ And he said, ‘No.’”
Then the angels reveals he’s been tormenting the donkey because it wouldn’t go where he wanted, and where this god said for him to go. The angels says he would have killed Balam if he hadn’t turned around. Then the angel says don’t turn around and repeats what this idiot god said, “go but do only what I say”.
So, the donkey was hurt for no reason at all except for these idiots.
“If the atheist is willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that God, being the Creator of the entire universe, can do literally whatever He wants with His creation—even giving an animal the ability to speak human language clearly—then this account is not so difficult to believe.”
yeah, we don’t agree on the fairy tales of the gullible and the dishonest.
“If God can literally create everything simply by speaking, surely He can give an ass the ability to speak. If, evolutionarily speaking, animals like parakeets and dogs can mimic human speech, it’s not that difficult of a concept to wrap your mind around when you simply entertain the possibility that God’s creative sovereignty means He can do literally anything with His creation. That’s what makes Him, you know, God.”
Still a problem, no evidence for this nonsense at all. And it’s not evolution in the bible, it’s magic.
“Taking pride in being scientifically minded and rational people, they are willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to ridiculous and entertaining science-fiction feats in sci-fi movies and shows, but cannot for a moment suspend unbelief when God does things only He can do. Therefore, when atheists are aware of animals today mimicking human speech and refuse to accept that God does impossible Godlike things because He’s God and use strawmen fallacies like above, they ironically talk out of their own ass.”
Alas, poor Ricky is lying when he thinks that us non-christians literally believe that what movies show are true. Nope, we just enjoy them. We have no need to “suspend unbelief” when a Christian comes out with the lie that donkeys can talk, and their god is as stupid as the book makes it out to be. His god does nothing at all.
And Ricky, mentioning the idiocy of your bible isn’t a strawman fallacy at all. At least know your logical fallacies before you accuse anyone of using them.
No wonder Ricky doesn’t allow comments.
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – yet more money wasted by the Templeton Foundation
For those who don’t know, the Templeton Foundation is a group that is desperately trying to prove that christianity is true.
They now have this lovely website called “Explaining Atheism”, which as one can guess is a train wreck, and nothing more than christians desperate to figure out why fewer and fewer people are buying in to their lies.
https://www.explainingatheism.org/
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – always good when a christian attacks atheism and is too scared to allow comments
A christian has claimed this “Scientism is the great intellectual poverty of our age. It assumes its own intellectual superiority, but what it imagines to be ‘intellect’ is mere technical competence; the ability to programme circuits and switches to ‘behave’ in a desired way. This is not intellect. The Church, for all its failings — and there are many, stands on the back of the greatest intellectual tradition in the history of human civilisation. Theologians and moralists of the Christian tradition may not have the technical know-how to put a satellite into orbit around Mars, but we have always known why it is wrong to drop napalm on villagers and launch drone strikes on weddings.”
Hmm, funny they didn’t know enough not to burn people alive for disagreeing with them.
So much for the false claims of superior morality.
and in another post: “Knowing that the earth is spherical, the smarter among us simply give ‘Flat-Earthers’ a wide berth. They don’t need to engage with nonsense. That this kind of Atheist needs to — and really does need to — challenge every religious person they meet to a duel to the death tells its own story. They are not engaged in a good faith dispute. They are not launching into the fray so much as to demolish the arguments of their opponent as they are in the hope their own will be demolished, that they will get their moment in court with the God they believe has hurt them.”
Unsurprisingly, more false claims by a Christian. Alas, we really do need to stand up against christian claims since they do real harm in the real world.
Club Schadenfreude 