Free Will or Nah? The Divine Paradox of Choice in Christianity

Hey there, you beautiful heathens and saints! Buckle up, because we're diving into the rabbit hole of Christianity's take on free will. You know, that age-old debate that's been keeping theologians and philosophers up at night, probably sipping on some holy wine. 🍷

I am basing this on what the bible actually says. For the record, there is no external evidence that Moses existed or that the Israelites were ever enslaved. The Bible never even tells us which Pharoah was supposedly in power at the time. And of course, there is the whole problem with this god thing being real. However since this is a blog specifically about the Judeo-Christian god thing, I'm going to go ahead and capitalize that G (as in a title, we won't even get into what Big G's name actually is).

The Free Will Paradox: Choose Wisely, or Else!

So, here's the deal: Christianity is all about free will, right? God's like, "Yo, you've got choices, fam. Make good ones, and you'll be chilling with me in Heaven. Screw up, and well, let's just say it's gonna be hot. Real hot." 🔥

But hold up a sec. If God is all-knowing, doesn't He already know what choices we're gonna make? And if that's the case, is it really free will? Or is it just some divine puppet show? 🤔

Now, let's sprinkle in some 1st Peter 1:20 action: "He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake." Translation: God knew Jesus would be needed as a ransom for sin before He even hit the "Start Game" button on Creation. So, if He knew we'd need saving, doesn't that mean He knew Adam and Eve were gonna flunk out of Eden University? 🍎
Hell-Yeah or Hell-No?

Now, let's talk about the elephant in the room: Hell. You know, that place you go if you don't believe in God. Seems kinda harsh, doesn't it? Like, imagine you're at a party, and the host says, "Hey, if you don't believe I throw the best parties, you're not just uninvited—you're banned for life!" Bit of an overreaction, don't you think?

The Bible: A Plot Twist Around Every Corner

But wait, there's more! The Bible is chock-full of stories that make you go, "Huh?" when it comes to free will. Remember Pharaoh from the Exodus story? God straight-up hardened his heart. He was ready to let the Hebrews go again and again but this God made him change his mind multiple times. He even told Moses that he was going to do so before he was even sent.

Exodus 7:3-4 says, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out...my people the Israelites.” 

It seems unjust for God to harden Pharaoh’s heart and then punish Pharaoh and Egypt for what Pharaoh decided when his heart was hardened.

Why would God harden Pharaoh’s heart just so He could judge Egypt more severely with additional plagues? Especially since according to the bible it was God who allowed the Israelites to be sent into slavery in order to forge a strong identity in them. This means that Pharoah was just doing exactly what God wanted, had his free will taken away, and got punished for it! Dude didn't even stand a chance. It's like telling someone to make a free throw while you're holding onto the basketball. 🏀

And then there's Thessalonians, where it says God sends "strong delusion" so people will believe a lie. What's up with that? It's like God's playing 4D chess while we're still figuring out how to set up the board.

The Economics of Salvation: A Divine Ponzi Scheme?

Let's get analytical for a sec. If salvation is the ultimate goal, and belief is the currency, then isn't God running some sort of celestial Ponzi scheme? You invest your belief, recruit others to believe, and the payoff is eternal life. But what happens when the CEO upstairs decides to change the rules? Market crash, anyone?
So, What's the Verdict?

Look, I'm not saying I've got all the answers. But it's clear that the concept of free will in Christianity is as complicated as trying to explain why people still think the Earth is flat. 🌍

Is it all predestined? Do we actually have a choice? Or is God just the ultimate troll, sitting back and watching the chaos unfold like it's some divine reality TV show?

What do you think? Is free will just a divine illusion? Or is God giving us the ultimate "choose your own adventure" story? Drop your thoughts, prayers, and existential crises in the comments below. Let's get this theological party started! 🎉

Heathens Greetings!

Just Remember

No matter what they tell you

Axial Tilt is the Reason For The Season

The Earth Is Not Flat

Virgins Don't Have Babies

There is no war on Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS

& HEATHEN'S GREETINGS

Extremophiles in the Goldilocks Zone

I'm not a science guy...

Let me reiterate that, I am not a science guy.  I wish I was,  but I am a truck driver in West Texas. There are no PHDs after my name. Scientific knowledge has nothing to do with why I am an Atheist. Nothing!

Evolution and adaptation via natural selection, while the best explanation we currently have for life on this planet, had nothing to do with me becoming an Atheist. I read the Bible and realized it did not comport to reality in any meaningful way. It's also not what this blog post is about. 

I am not an expert on the big bang, abiogenesis, genetics, DNA, RNA, or any other scientific gobbelty gook.  I don't know what existed before the big bang if anything. I don't really care either. If you come at me with that old, "How did something come from nothing"?"nonsense, I'm going to be like, bro... first show there was nothing, and even if you show me there was nothing then my answer would still be, I don't know. I'm not arguing about that. Not even worried about it right now, maybe later, probably not. Talk to someone like Aron Ra if you want to fight about that! If don't know who that is, find out!

Argue with me about science? You might as well be arguing with Beaker!

Some sciency guy that does have PHDs is welcome to correct all the mistakes I make in this post. Christian apologists are also welcome to tell me I'm wrong. Bring evidence though, it's more convincing that way.

This post is a refutation, based on my understanding, of one creationist claim by looking at the way the world actually works, and it's only a refutation of that one claim. 

The claim goes something like this: the Earth is at the exact correct distance to support life, and all of the various universal laws and constants have had to work together in planned harmony in order for life to arise anywhere and therefore a creator must have put it there. What they really mean though, is life as WE know it! It's called the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument. The universe is fine-tuned --- therefore God.

The Earth specific part of the claim is what I want to address here. I have also seen some making the additional claim that if the universe had been just 10%, or 5% or even 1% different in its orbit (some even say 10ft) closer or farther away we would either burn up or freeze to death or never have existed in the first place.

Just one of the many fine-tuning arguments!

My response is... nuh-uh! There ya go, completely refuted. Nuh-uh should literally put a stop to that shit. But just in case it doesn't let's talk about a couple more things.

Firstly, Eath's orbit varies wildly. It has an elliptical orbit that changes by millions of miles during the year. It can be as close as 91 million miles or as far away as 94 million miles. Maybe 3 million miles doesn't sound like a lot, but the Earth is less than 8000 miles across. which means you could fit 3750 Earth's end to end in that space. Not exactly a nice circular orbit.

See how that's not a circle? None of them are...

By the way, this assumes the reader understands and accepts the reality of a heliocentric universe. If your a flat Earther or otherwise don't understand that we live on a sphere that rotates a sun and not the other way around (like your holy books say) then I can't help you, bro.

A big part of the argument comes the fact Earth is in what is called the Goldilocks Zone (kind of like the Twilight Zone.. but gold?) Basically it is the area in a solar system in which liquid water can survive, and thus life as we know it can form and be sustained. Life as WE know it is an important thing to remember there.

An important thing to understand though is that at the time (in the 70s) that scientists started defining what was a habitable area they made certain assumptions. They thought life couldn't survive in anything colder than Antarctica or hotter than scalding water, they assumed that life as we know it is all the life that can be. 

What we now know though is that life adapts to its environment over time and if the environment changes the animal either adapts or dies. In other words, the world was not created for life, life adapted to the world.

Like Captain America at the end of the First Avenger!

For Flat Earthers reading this... that was a joke.

The very idea that this world was made for us is silly. This world has millions of ways to kill us. Most of it is completely uninhabitable by humans and our primate ancestors. However, as time has gone by we have discovered that life is about a million times more diverse than those scientists in the 70s assumed when they decided what was a habitable zone. There are diverse forms of life living in just about every part of this world in the most extreme conditions. They live in environments that would quickly kill you and I. We call these creatures Extremophiles. Which the Oxford Dictionary defines as a microorganism, especially an archaean, that lives in conditions of extreme temperature, acidity, alkalinity, or chemical concentration.
 

This is a Tardigrade, also called a Water Bear

If extremophiles have a king, it's this guy!

About a millimeter long, the tardigrade is a polyextremophile. They can withstand temperatures from -328 °F (200 °C) up to 304 °F (151 °C), lack of oxygen and water, and a thousand times the radiation we can take.

They survive is by going into a state of suspended animation, in which body functions temporarily shut down until conditions improve. They can even survive space. Researchers sent a group of living tardigrades to orbit the earth on the outside of a rocket for 10 days. 68% lived through that.

But Extromphiles are micro-organisms you say, they don't really count in your opinion? You still think this goldilocks thing is the real deal. While these are not extremophiles here are some critters that have adapted to extreme environments in order to survive.

This is the Sailfin Plunderfish. It's what is known as a notothenioid fish (not gonna lie, I just learned that word for this blog). Notothenioid fish basically have anti-freeze proteins called glycoproteins that keep them from freezing to death in the cold Antarctic Waters.  There are over a hundred different species of notothenioid fish and they have been around since before the global cooling off led to the mass extinction of most other species around 42 million years ago.
 

There are literally thousands of other examples of animals who have adapted to environments outside what we once considered survivable. From animals that freeze almost solid in the winter to micro-organisms living in acid and boiling water... 

In my mind, these animals with their obvious adaptations are one hundred percent the best arguments against the fine-tuned universe. It just didn't happen that way.

Tell me why I'm right or wrong in the comments... thanks!

Christianity is not a beautiful thing.you unworthy ass wretch!

My children were not born sinful, let's get that shit out of the way right now. Neither was I, and neither were you. There was no Garden of Eden, snakes don't talk to people, and fruit doesn't impart knowledge. There is no such thing as original sin.

In fact, there is no such thing as sin at all. There is good and there is bad and what is good and bad changes over time. For instance, we know slavery is bad. We came to this knowledge over time and as society advanced. I'm not going to get into the bible's clear endorsement of slavery in this blog (Exodus 21 among others), but it is a fact that our moral compass has changed and improved in this issue and many others since biblical times.

Sin is something else though, apart from good or bad. Sin is something we are born with, but at the same time, it is something we can acquire. 

We can acquire it by physically breaking any of literally hundreds of rules, but we can also acquire it just by thinking about breaking those rules. We can know we broke it, or we can be ignorant, but it still counts. At any time this god can decide that something else is a sin (things like taking a census or calling a man bald) and it still counts.

You are an evil sinning wretch, let's sing about it!

Sin is a way of convincing people that they are broken, worthless and even evil simply because they exist. Sin is meant to create a phony product called redemption, and all you have to do to get it is fervently believe in a magic man in the sky who loves you, but can't even be bothered to prove he really exists.

In fact, the Bible teaches that no man is sinless. So we have a god being who gave us this impossible to follow set of rules that guarantee we will become this worthless wretched thing. In other words, if he was real, he set us up to fail. We had no choice and no chance.

Redemption from sin is like an ad campaign for an invisible product created and perpetuated by the world's best bullshit artists whether you call them ministers, preachers, priests or televangelists.  The better these bullshit artists are at convincing you that you are a worthless heap of trash that their god watches over constantly and loves you infinitely, while at the same time he's willing to destroy us and/or punish us eternally the more they are able to sell the product. 

The top 8 preachers in this country are worth over $1 billion dollars!

The problem is this god creature if it was real, it's a monster in every sense of the word. Not only did it kill millions with floods, plagues, and supernatural shenanigans (like turning people into salt or sending she-bears to kill them) throughout the Old Testament in the New Testament it became somehow even worse while convincing it's adherents that it was being kinder and more loving. 

The worst part is that all of it is perpetuated on this horrible idea of sin and how this loving god needs or needed us to torture and kill something in order for him to forgive us for it. 

We literally can't be forgiven for naturally occurring evil inside us unless something dies!

Originally what died was animals, by the hundreds (there were grain offerings, but those didn't affect sin). People would have to bring only the completely unblemished animals to the priests who would perform ritual slaughter. Pour a little blood on an altar and then burn the sacrifice and whamo blamo your sins were forgiven. Then after you bought your redemption and went home the priests ate the barbecue. In the Old Testament through this wasn't done in the hope of getting into Heaven or avoiding Hell, at this time it was to avoid being wiped out by a god directly. This was to help you avoid plagues and sickness and as a people to avoid bigger problems like drought. In no way did these people seem to think that a sacrifice in this life bought you anything in the next life.

The New Testament with its new sacrifice changed all that. It somehow made it fucking worse!

Don't worry, you still get to be an unworthy evil piece of shit wretch though, and now you get the added bonus of being eligible for an eternity burning in Hell, you can also apparently eat shellfish and bacon though, so it's not all bad.

So about this time the Abrahamic god must have started looking around and realized that the other gods were starting to have afterlives for their followers (especially after that prick Dionysus) and he decided to get in on that action.

Dionysus was one of the first god beliefs to claim an afterlife

but he was mostly known for partying.

 He decided he'd go ahead and bring his believers up to Heaven when they died, and he would have the added bonus of getting them to sing his praises all the time and forever. That might also be just as good as the smell of burnt flesh.

He wanted to something different than the same old animal sacrifices (and the priests were getting tired of the blood since they could just take the money and buy some take out on the way home) But how would he get them up here? He could have decided to just forgive everyone and let them in, but where is the glory in that? You can't have glory without the gory!

So this god decided to send his son (who is also himself) to sacrifice himself for us by letting beat him bloody and nail him to a cross where he would slowly suffocate and die in excruciating pain (well, not really die since he came back to life a couple days later). Because of this horrific bloody gory dead, but not really dead sacrifice we don't have to slaughter other animals anymore.

Of course, symbolically we still need to support the bullshit artists, but we can do that with cold hard cash and by giving them tax-exempt status on their loot, and we also and most importantly have to accept that Jesus really did this for us and accept him into our hearts and you automatically get into Heaven no matter what shit you did before you gave your soul to Jesus.

If you don't accept that this really happened and you don't accept Jesus' love into your worthless sinning wretched evil piece of shit heart than you get to go to HELL and burn forever and ever for the crime of not believing in Jesus or accepting his sacrifice. Try to do good with your life, help others and forward humanity but fail to accept this sacrifice on nothing more than faith and reassurances of the bullshit artists, you are going straight to HELL.

In summary - you're an evil piece of shit and you're going to HELL, but we can sell you a loophole! Nothing beautiful or wonderful about that.

Sacrilegious Sunday Stand Up - Week Two

In a shameless attempt to get more readers, and hopefully get repeat visits to this blog, I have decided to feature my favorite God  mocking  lampooning comic routines each Sunday. 

Got a recommendation - leave it in the comments!

Tim Minchin - Thank You God!

Birth Pangs and Really Bad Apologetics concerning the genealogies of Jesus.

This blog post is not meant to disprove any god. Not even the Christian one (in fact nothing I ever write can disprove god)

So, if you read it, and then come at me and say it doesn't disprove your god, well... your correct, I literally just told you that. I expect someone will do it anyway.

What it is meant to do is refute one really bad apologetics talking point.

We all know there are contradictions in the bible. Some Christians accept this fact, saying that while the bible is divinely inspired it was written by men and they make mistake (which in my mind means you can't trust any of it without just picking and choosing which parts you believe).

Others though will cling to a belief that they are just "apparent" contradictions. Any contradiction in the bible can and have been explained. In my humble opinion, a lot of these reconciliations seem like something they just pulled out of there asses, but maybe they prayed earnestly and God gave them the answer (which he pulled out of his infinite ass).

One of these apparent contradictions is the genealogies given in Matthew and Luke for Jesus. Both trace Jesus' lineage all the way back to the line of David (Luke's even goes all the way back to Adam).

The actual purpose of either lineage was to give Jesus the correct pedigree!

Since Jesus came from God, Joseph's genealogy as stepfather should have been irrelevant.

Thing is, after a certain point (After the lists split off from King David) there are a lot fewer names in Matthews's lineage than in Luke's and apparently, they both give Joseph (Masry's husband) a different father. Matthew calls his dad Jocob and Luke calls his dad Heli. It seems like a pretty cut and dry example of a contradiction right?

"Wrong! You are wrong. Stop being a stupid atheist in your stupid atheist's lack of understanding ways! Matthew was a Jew and they were Patriarchal... you dumbass atheist," I imagine them saying, "and Luke was written for Gentiles and for some reason I'm going to claim the Gentiles were a matriarchal society and that therefore the genealogy in Luke is for Mary and they just said it was for Joeseph because. That's why!"

See, they even helpfully changed Joseph to Mary and drew an arrow

Apparent Contradiction FIXED! Why am I even writing this? It's solved!

FUCK!

And then, boy will I feel really fucking stupid! I might cry, I might stop writing...

Or I might think about it.

First I'd challenge them to find any other genealogy that terminates at a father when it actually meant the mother. I'd ask them to prove to me it was actually done that way. There must be historical examples in order for them to make that kind of claim right? I'll assume so... you can assume it too because then we get to the fun part. Let's do math! (Actually, I hate math, but.. yet it's still the fun part)

Okay, so if you look at the graphic above (you know the one that fixes everything) then you will notice that they had to use a really small font on one side and add a space between lines on the other. In other words, the maternal line for Jesus (Luke's genealogy) has a shit ton (actual measurement term) more names than the one for Joseph (Matthew's).

In fact, after the supposed intermarriage that both genealogies agreed on Luke has 18 names before it gets to Joseph (Mary in the graphic above) while Matthew's Gospel only has 9.

So let's assume that all the wives of the men represented in Matthews lineage had these children at the average age of 20 (They might have had others when younger, this would be pretty old for a first child at the time). There are 9 men on the list from Zerubbabel to Joseph.

If their wives had the children listed at the ripe old age of 20 and there are 9 names to account for we get 180 years. Maybe these were all second or third children, so it's possible. They could have had these kids at the average age of 20.

So... 180 years, maybe a few more or less.

So 180 divided by 18 (that can't be right, hold on... let me count it again. yep 18) that gives us... U'hm 10. So the average age that each woman represented in Luke's genealogy would be 10.

AVERAGE AGE 10

That's not Mary's age, that's the average age everyone in her line had to give birth in order for one of the lineages to belong to Joseph and the other to belong to Mary.

I would think Jesus rising from the dead may be more probable then this apologetic explanation.

"Okay Atheist, look, the one in Matthew is just missing a bunch of names you dick!", my completely fictitious apologetic spouting friend might say. Okay, so then it's not very fucking useful as a genealogy then is it? (Actually, one really did say this to me today, but just without calling me a dick. That's called embellishment for effect and I'm very immature for adding it)

Think about that for a while... then remember it that apologists will say just about anything to make the bible say what they want it to say.

Then if you want to open a whole other can of worms check out the apocryphal Gospel of James and you find out Mary's dad's name was Joachim. He's a Catholic Saint. (In case you don't know apocryphal books are ones that almost made it into the bible, such as the Apocalypse of Peter, which is where we get most of our ideas of Hell)

Why is God so angry when his children disobey?

God knows all things and has an ineffable plan, right?

• 1st John 3:20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
• Acts 15:8 Known to God from eternity are all his works
• Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good
• Isaiah 46:10 Declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure

He even knew that Jesus would have to come to die on the cross (to forgive the sins he knew we were going to commit in advance by sacrificing himself to himself) before he even created the world.

• 1st Peter 1:20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

So basically he knew in advance everything that was going to happen. From before he created the Earth he knew that man would fail again and again and again. He knew we couldn't live up to his rules.

He knew Adam and Eve Would Fail.

He knew Cain would kill Abel.

He knew he would drown millions of living things.

He knew that he would harden Pharoah's heart and kill all the firstborn children of Egypt.

(He even knew Hollywood Moses would be a white guy)

He knew the Israelites would turn to other gods, ask for water and meat, be afraid of the Ammonites and every other thing they did that was not pleasing in his eyes. He knew every time they were going to disobey. 

He knew all these things and created this particular universe with all these failures anyway. Every one single of them part of his ineffable (un-fuck-up-able) plan... and he still created it exactly that way.

And even though he created it knowing that everything was going to happen just the way it happened...

He still gets mad. 

He still punishes people, he still kills people (Just read numbers) and he still sends people to Hell for doing exactly what his supposedly holy plan required.

He required suffering from good people. He allowed the bad to prosper and in fact made them that way.

I'm sure some apologist will come to correct me with the, "No, you send yourself to hell by rejecting god" That is bullshit, we just showed that is absolutely not true. If God knew in advance that we would fail again and again and again and specifically created this world with these failed people and it's part of his super deluxe really cool divine plan and couldn't have happened any other way then we were set up to fail.

If he knew this all before the world began then the free will argument is an absolute myth. We could not have made any other choices than the choices we made.

And still, he gets mad... again and again and again.

Of course, I don't believe any of this. How can you?

Oh... and he knew I'd write this... it's all part of his plan!

Sure Jesus cured the blind man... but just so he could show off!

Today I listened to the Gospel of John (I'm a driver and I'm always listening to something). In it, Jesus cures a blind man (John 9:1-12). When the Pharisees asked who sinned (and caused the blindness) the man or his parents, Jesus told them neither. He was born blind just so Jesus could prove God's power.

Curing a blind man = GOOD
Causing a man to be born blind just so you can cure him later = DICK

So... he suffered through his entire life blind, and he was thought sinful (because that's where they thought blindness came from) and had to beg for a living just so God could flex his muscle with a miracle at the proper time.

Side Note: This story also makes it clear infirmities and disease are the result of sin. Do modern Christians actually believe this was the case? Is it still so?

A god like that either doesn't exist or he is unworthy of being considered good. Of course, there are thousands of examples like this, but I read it today and it stood out as an abhorrent action from a god that people claim embodies love and goodness.

It also utterly refutes the claim that God respects free will. I believe this is an even better example of god not respecting free will than even the story of God hardening Pharaoh's heart (so that he could send plagues against Pharoah to show off his power), at least in the Pharoah story he had done something to deserve it be enslaving God's people. Here God is just being a dick to an innocent man.

Of course, Christians will say things like, who are we to question the will of the one true living God! His ways are above us! He is all good and we can't possibly understand. Bro, I think it is you guys who make excuses for this loving god every time he shows himself to be a monster that doesn't understand.

Was Jesus smoking the Devil's Lettuce?

There are a growing number of people claiming that Jesus (if he was real) was using Cannabis Oil in his anointing oil to cure people. I haven't given this any thought since I have never read anything that claims CBD heals leprosy or brings the dead back to life. However, I just recently read the gnostic Gospel of Thomas. It's a book of Jesus' sayings that didn't make the bible (it wasn't found until later, but dates to about the same time as the biblical gospels) It is short (114 verses) but has given me a new perspective.

You can listen to the Gospel of Thomas here - it's short, less than an hour.

If Jesus was real he and his disciples were on really good drugs.

For instance:

Verse 60: <They saw> a Samaritan carrying a lamb on his way to Judea. He said to his disciples, "That man is round about the lamb."

They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it."

He said to them, "While it is alive, he will not eat it, but only when he has killed it and it has become a corpse."

They said to him, "He cannot do so otherwise."

He said to them, "You too, look for a place for yourself within repose, lest you become a corpse and be eaten."

And the last verse:

Verse 114: Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life."

Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

What do you think, was the Christian lord and savior smoking the devil's lettuce?

For even more mind-blowing fun.... look up the Gospel of Mary!

From Atheist to Prophet in one Day - Really, Really, Really Young Earth Creationism

Today I went from Atheist to full-blown prophet for the one true God. He spake unto me and made me write the following, there may or may not have been some golden tablets written in revised Egyptian involved.

God can't lie.  The book (okay pamphlet, blog post, or whatever)  says so. I God wrote this through my prophet, therefore it contains no lies and completely proves itself. 

The Earth was created at 12 noon yesterday.  Any evidence or memories you have going back before 12 noon yesterday were put there by Satan (or as I like to call him, my horny adversary) and that includes the date on this blog (whatever the date claims it was yesterday at noon,  God told me so).

These are my holy commandments and I expect you fucks to obey. Except maybe the first two, they were practice and got left in because I was feeling lazy and I really wanted there to be ten. Also, we aren't going to do the whole "Hell" thing (so I'm really not sure where that Satan guy mentioned above lives) but you might have to answer to actual human authorities for being a dick, or maybe we will make you stand in a corner for a millennia or two. The point is fear my wrath asshole!

1) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's fish even if it's Branzini which is really tasty.
2) Thou shalt go to a doctor and get that thing looked at. 
3)Thou shalt not lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape or own other people as fucking property. 
4) Thou shalt realize there is some leeway with those first four items for the safety, wellbeing, and health of yourself and others but rape and slavery are fucking no-goes all of the time... forever.
5) Thou shall get your children fucking vaccinated and take them to the doctor or hospital when sick. I gave you the science, fucking use it. Also if you make fun of the Anti-vaxxers  but don't believe in climate change science, shut the hell up and respect the Earth anyway.
6) Thou shalt be as kind as possible to animals, even the food ones for they sustain you, cause them no unnecessary pain. 
7) Thou shalt be kind to your fellow man and to yourself and when you fail in this you will apologize to them (or yourself), not me! Then actually try not to do it again.
8) There is no holy land anywhere ever and the only chosen people are the ones who are truly kind. At the same time treat the land as if it is holy, and no, that doesn't mean fight over it.
9) Thou shalt leave people who are not harming you the fuck alone.  This includes LGBTQ people and people with different levels of melatonin in their skin and even people you just don't fucking like. Side note - this does not mean you have to respect their unproven or delusional beliefs.  It doesn't mean you can't call them out for crazy shit or stop them from hurting themself or others, you can do all that while still respecting them. 
10) Don't be a dick. Also, it's okay to say fuck, I do it a lot.  It's just a word. 

My son may or may not be Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but you should really listen to that guy either way. Except about the age of the Earth (because I like already told you that shit). Oh and don't kill him... that does nothing for me. 
Oh, and since prophecy will serve to legitimize this shit I predict there are few who will not accept these words until all is fullfilled (and I don't know what the fuck that means, but someone will interpret it later).

Don't take any of this on faith. It's all provable... and if it's not then be smart enough to stop believing it.  M'kay?

Really, seriously don't covet thy neighbor's fish.

Branzini is good even if you don't like fish!

Not a real Christian?

I listen to a lot of Theist vs. Atheist conversations and debates and the same themes come up time and time again. One thing that a lot of Theists don't understand is that many of use were former born again Christians and that studying his word is what made us Atheists.

One of the only ways Christians can wrap their head around that is to declare that we were never true Christians and we were never truly saved. They declare once you believe you cannot stop believing so therefore we must have been deceived.

They can use a multitude of verses to back this up. Things like.

Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.

There are a lot of verses like this and it has led to a doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved in many Christian sects. In other words, someone filled with the power of the Holy Spirit remains saved by grace forever.

Jesus is your get into Heaven free card!

So if it's not true then God, how would we know until it's too late?

I remember when I accepted Christ. I remember standing in front of the congregation in my church tears streaming down my face with everyone's hands on me. I render absolutely believing I was feeling the power of the Holy Spirit of a living God inside me.

I remember all the other times I felt that presence. I would have sworn it was real.  I even believed, truly believed I had spoken in tongues.

I believed so much I wanted to become a preacher and started really studying the bible. I'll save my deconversion story for later, however, I was not angry at God and I didn't want to go sin or do evil. I wanted to follow God and I wanted to spread his word.

So there I was honestly believing that the holy spirit was in me and I was ready to dedicate my life to spreading the word of God. I absolutely 100% believed this.

And yet, apparently, I was deceived. Apparently, my conversion was not real. No matter how much I felt it was true it was obviously false. Of course, as an atheist, I think all conversions are false, but at that time I was a true believer.

So if the theist is right then I have to wonder...

• Why did God allow me to be deceived in his Church?
• How could I have not been deceived after all I prayed and thought it was real?
• Did God know in advance, even before my birth that I was going to be deceived?
• How can anyone justify a God who would allow his followers to be damned for a lie they couldn't help but believe?
• If you're a theist and believe that God would allow me to be deceived how can you possibly know that your own experience is real?

How can a Christian trust any of this? What about your friends and your family? If you serve a God that would allow fake conversions to happen in his holy sanctuary how can you possibly know you, your friends or your family are actually saved? How would you feel if you got into his Heaven and those you knew were doomed to hell because they only thought they were saved?

How in the Hell could you trust anything?

Even worse... what if I'm still saved? Is there a button to OPT OUT? Can I unsubscribe?

You're praying for me... thanks, but...

As atheists, it is very easy to get sarcastic and even downright nasty when someone tells us they are praying for us or praying for anything actually. First off it is definitely presumptuous on the part of the person saying they prayed. Are we supposed to be grateful? Are we supposed to suddenly fall to our knees and believe in their god? Do they actually think telling us they prayed in any way shape or form increases the efficacy of the prayer?

I stole this MEME ~ Love it. Very True

Before we go any further I guess it is important to note I'm not talking about the people who throw, "I'm praying for you", out as some kind of weapon or retort to something you said. Let's get this straight right off the bat, those guys suck. They start with a long horrendous diatribe about how evil and sinful we are followed by a very hollow snide comment that they have asked their god being to help you out. Disingenuous and fake. There is no reason on earth to be nice to these types, and they are not who I'm talking about here.

• I'm talking about the people who actually think they are being helpful.
• I'm talking about the ones who believe prayer works in spite of all the evidence it doesn't.
• I'm talking about the ones who actually believe you have a soul and it is in danger.
• I'm talking about your friends and your family. People who truly care about you.

What do we do about these people? There are seriously good-hearted people who believe you have a soul and it is going to burn in their firey pit of Hell and care enough that they don't want that to happen. I'm talking about people we love and care about who really think they are being helpful.

You will have to decide for yourself what a person's motivation truly is but when it is obvious they mean nothing but the best what do we do?

I think insulting and belittling people with good intentions is wrong, but I also don't think we can just let it slide as that reinforces their belief. If we let it slide we are giving it our tacit approval.

You could politely point out that if their god was real and created all things then he made you this way. If he's omnipotent he knew you would turn out this way. If he has an ineffable, infallible and unchangeable plan then he knew and wanted you to be an Atheist (even though he is going to send you to Hell for it later).

If God has a perfect and unchangeable plan do you think he is going to change it for you? If God is all-knowing and even knew he would send Jesus before the world was made (which also means he knew and planned for us to fail) then he already knows if he is going to do something about whatever it is you are praying about. 

By the way, I am pretty sure Christians know their prayers don't work also. That's why they have to tell you about it. That is why they have to request the help of others as in the picture above. If they truly believed in the words of their god they wouldn't need to do this. They would say a prayer between themself as Jesus instructed in the sermon on the mount. They would know it was going to be answered. They wouldn't have to enlist surrogates to do this for them. Talking to God on there own would be enough.

They have to believe things like this ~ It is the only thing that explains unanswered prayer!

You can try to explain that the bible says "Ask and it shall be given unto you." The bible claims prayer works every time. Nowhere does it claim their god will say no. Nowhere does it say prayer will be answered only if it is their god's will. However, if they don't give their god the ability to say no and that it is all part of his plan then they have to admit that their god is not answering anything.


Mathew 7:7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Matthew 7:8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks,it will be opened.

Luke 11:9 So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

John 16:24 Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full. (To me this one is truly the one that they have to ignore. It doesn't say ask for holy things or with a correct heart, it proclaims, "That your joy may be full!")

John 14:13 Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

My response has always been to say something to the effect of, "Thank you for praying for me, however, if your God is real and you believe in the power of prayer there was no need to tell me you prayed. As Matthew 6:5 says you should pray in private, and your god will reward you openly, the fact that you feel this need to tell me you prayed has probably hardened my heart against any actual effect your well-meaning gesture might have had."

I could be totally wrong about all of this though...

2nd Peter 3.8 says But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. So maybe it's the Sabbath for Yahweh right now, he's resting,  and his first priority when he's back to work will be whatever project you left him that email about when he was out of the office.

Deep inside I think they know that prayer doesn't work. Deep inside they know the only response to their prayer will be whatever you choose to say to them at this moment. You can be a dick or you can be their friend... or you can be an example.

One thing I haven't discussed yet is answered prayer. I know someone will read all this and claim their god does answer prayer.

True confession time: When I was 13 I believed in the power of prayer and even that it had worked for me. I wanted to go outside and play basketball, but it was raining. I prayed for the rain to stop. Shortly after praying it did. For a time I honestly believed my prayer had stopped the rain. 

Of course, prayer never worked when it was important. It didn't work when my family needed money or someone we knew was dying. It never once saved the day, but it did let me play basketball that day and that's an important lesson in how prayer works.  You remember the times it worked and chalk up the times it didn't to "God's Plan."

We count the hits in life and forget the misses!

Some people, however, like to claim that a god actually cured them of something. They say their god healed their cancer or they saw a video or they hear anecdotal evidence that so and so was healed and accept it as a fact.

On examination of most cure claims, we find out that it was doctors who cured the. Trained medical professionals with years and years of college who treated and cured the. 

Sometimes though a claim does look extremely miraculous and so that gets attributed to a god. To those people I'd ask the question, does God care about rats and mice? 

Spontaneous remission and regression of cancer and many other diseases has been seen and studied in rats, mice, and many other animals. To the best of our knowledge, none of them were in prayer groups at the time. Did God change his plans to heal a rat?

Almost all other forms of faith healing are frauds. Just going to go ahead and say it. It's been proven time and time and time again. 

And, quite frankly, if I am wrong... if there is a god (any god) that can heal sickness, cure disease, and help the local sports team win the big game and still lets 14k children starve each day and allows others to die from brain tumors and other childhood cancers while failing to hear those prayers... that god is just a dick and unworthy of worship!

Fat People Shouldn't be allowed to get married, they'll just live in sin together.

I am a fat guy! I am using the following post to make a point about the hypocrisy of the evangelical right. I am not bashing fat guys. With all the worrying about Gays getting married and trans-gendered people coming in and out of the wrong restroom causing such an uproar in the Christian community and the fact that punishment from God above is definitely about to seriously fuck us all up, I was wondering why God is so focused on the LGBT community.

Why does it bother God so much? Why do so many other sins seem to be okay now? I'm pretty sure you have been going into bathrooms with trans-gendered people without incident for years and years. All of us have.

Why are fat people given a pass? I'm a fat guy (right now at least. I lose, I gain, I can never stay thin) and so if I was a Christian I would have to wonder why God is giving me and so many others such a pass while being so angry at people for who they are attracted to or for not identifying with their birth gender.

Especially since the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality according to Ezekiel16:49 "this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

Fullness of bread is just another way to say Gluttony. No mention of the gay sex though.... curious.

Gluttony is mentioned in the bible many times. In Proverbs, Deuteronomy, the Apostle Paul even calls it a disgrace in in 1st Corinthians 11:16. But Christians seem to have completely forgot about this sin.

These are preachers.

Role models for their congregations

But this isn't a problem for them.

God is apparently not concerned about these guys or the millions of gluttonous congregants in churches. Nor is he concerned about divorce, working on the Sabbath, not taking care of the poor or anything else proscribed by his holy book.

Even though Jesus never mentioned gay people even one time, and even though the admonitions against it come only from Moses and Paul it is obviously the most important fight there is for the Christian right.

So anyway... let's get back to gluttony. The bible says in Matthew 7 to cast the beam out of your own eye before casting the mote out of your brothers. Is that really what you Christians are doing here?

So why aren't we afraid of fat guys going into bathrooms and giving candy bars to our kids? Why are gluttonous people allowed to Preach? Why are they allowed to marry? I know my wife and I are gluttonous together. Quite often in fact. Why aren't you assholes with your smug sense of superiority and knowledge of exactly what your holy father wants picketing me? Why can a fat lady like the one above run rampant through a Target and cause trouble when the bible says to stone Gluttons in Deuteronomy 21?

I'm guessing its because you have a lot of fat people in your congregations, and divorced people, and lovers of money, and so many other things your book says are wrong. I'm betting it hits to close to home. You probably have fat family members and fat friends. You might even be fat yourself, or divorced, and you would never think about removing that plank from your own eye. Would you?

Where Giants Come From According To Genesis.

Since I was already discussing the flood and Noah in a previous blog, let's look again at the silliness of that theme. Do you know where Giants come from?

Jolly Green Giants? Who knows where they came from?

According to the bible. Genesis 6:4 Giants are the result of the Sons of God (I'll go ahead and assume we are not talking Jesus' literal brothers here) mating with human women. 

There is a strong case to be made that this was the entire reason for the flood in the story (since Genesis 6:4 happens right in the middle of the flood story). Maybe, it wasn't that mankind was wicked or evil. Maybe that was not the kind of corruption that Genesis was talking about. Maybe the reason for the flood was that God failed to control the penises of his angels and he doesn't like halfbreeds. 

Once again in the bible, we have an all-knowing God letting things happen that are apparently against his plan. Things an all-knowing god being should have known were going to happen before he ever created the planet. He couldn't stop the angel sex orgies so he decided to drown every living thing and start again.

According to some Angels don't even have the right junk!

Such this dickless angel from the movie Dogma!

According to some biblical scholars, angels do not even possess free will (which is of course instantly disproven by Satan's rebellion),  so why God couldn't keep them from fornicating worth human chicks is beyond me.  Also, we know from the story of Lot that wicked humans can not resist trying to rape angels.  So I guess unprotected angel sex is just something that happens in biblical times.

Boom Chicka bow wow...

What mortal woman could resist angel sex?

If this was the reason for the flood though it quickly becomes apparent that this was a major fail on God's part.

After flooding the world and killing every living thing (which was major overkill) he either missed a few spots or he did nothing at all to keep this corruption from happening again.

We know in the bible that the giants came back after the flood. David and Goliath (and Goliath's six brothers) are the most obvious example, but in the Exodus there are several tribes the Israelites fear because they have giants with them and King Og of Bashan was a giant whose bed was 13.5 feet long. So whatever God did to prevent a repeat didn't work. If the story was real he killed everything with absolutely no plan to make sure it didn't happen again. Everything dead, everything drowned, a few centuries pass and "BAM" we got giants again.

Goliath had to come from somewhere.

God did nothing to fix it.

Nothing at all.

The giants came back.

Not these giants.

More like these giants.

Did the omniscient God not know this would happen? Did an all-powerful God knowingly let it happen again right after killing everything? What was the point of it all anyway?

I mean really,  even if you don't believe in this giant nonsense what was the friggin point.  He killed everything and then did nothing to change things. It seems like those crazy angels were still sexing up human babes all over the place.

I guess he finally got it right since no evidence for giants exists.

This was 100% FAKE by the way!

Andre was an awesome giant - but he doesn't count!

Or maybe he was the result of angel sex too?