Yes, Virginia, It WAS An Accident...Or Maybe Not - Making The Language Work In Our Favor

No doubt, if you travel the same information highway off-ramps that I have, you've run into (or run over) this tired old canard:

"Some random accident, and POOF! The universe came into being?"

The implications are staggering, as well as ridiculous. An accident, in the common vernacular, requires that it occurs to someone, a mistake has been made, an oopsie has plopped into someone's path.

Let's look at the word, 'accident'.

1.
a. An unexpected and undesirable event, especially one resulting in damage or harm: car accidents on icy roads.

b. An unforeseen incident: A series of happy accidents led to his promotion.

c. An instance of involuntary urination or defecation in one's clothing.

2. Lack of intention; chance: ran into an old friend by accident.

3. Logic. A circumstance or attribute that is not essential to the nature of something.

I'm sure that definition 1.c will provide some hilarity for those readers who've not been put in that scenario (counting myself among them).

So 1.a defines it as an unexpected and undesirable event - I think we can all agree that it was unexpected, but far from undesirable.

#1.b lends itself to the definition the religious use. Or so it seems. There has to be someone extant in order to foresee something, no? Definition #2 is likewise: that the universe came about by lack of intention (there was no 'uncaused cause') implies that the opposite exists, that of actual intention.  Definition #3 can actually be used as an extension of logic - the theist would be hard put to define the universe as a 'circumstance or attribute that is not essential to the nature of something.'

Let's explore the thesaurus:

1. An unexpected and usually undesirable event: casualty, contretemps, misadventure, mischance, misfortune, mishap. See help/harm/harmless, surprise/expect.
2. An unexpected random event: chance, fluke, fortuity, hap, happenchance, happenstance, hazard. See certain/uncertain, surprise/expect.

Again, operative word: unexpected. This implies that there would be an expect-er, does it not?

The Philosophy Dictionary defines it thusly:

In Aristotelian metaphysics an accident is a property of a thing which is no part of the essence of the thing: something it could lose or have added without ceasing to be the same thing or the same substance. The accidents divide into categories: quantity, action (i.e. place in the causal order, or ability to affect things or be affected by them), quality, space, time, and relation.

Seeing as there was no time or space until the rather noisy birth of the Big Bounce, this hoary old chestnut is fast growing staler by the moment, yes? Where would the noisy birth of the universe be placed where it itself is 'no part of the essence' of itself? If separate from something else, what would that something else be?

Let's see what the Law Encyclopedia says about it, shall we?

The word accident is derived from the Latin verb accidere, signifying "fall upon, befall, happen, chance." In its most commonly accepted meaning, or in its ordinary or popular sense, the word may be defined as meaning: some sudden and unexpected event taking place without expectation, upon the instant, rather than something that continues, progresses or develops; something happening by chance; something unforeseen, unexpected, unusual, extraordinary, or phenomenal, taking place not according to the usual course of things or events, out of the range of ordinary calculations; that which exists or occurs abnormally, or an uncommon occurrence. The word may be employed as denoting a calamity, casualty, catastrophe, disaster, an undesirable or unfortunate happening; any unexpected personal injury resulting from any unlooked for mishap or occurrence; any unpleasant or unfortunate occurrence that causes injury, loss, suffering, or death; some untoward occurrence aside from the usual course of events. An event that takes place without one's foresight or expectation; an undesigned, sudden, and unexpected event.

I think the sharp-eyed reader can see the point quite clearly: the word implies that someone be the recipient of, or the observer of, or discoverer of, said 'accident'.

The Wiki entry says this:

An accident an event that occurs unexpectedly and unintentionally.

 No one expected the universe to be born, because there simply was no midwife there to help with the cataclysmic birth, and no one intended anything, because again, there was no one there. Literally.

I think I've belabored the point sufficiently. Any questions?

Till the next post, then.

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Blithering Blog-viations: Dinesh D'Souza Does the Dervish Dance Of The Delusional...

Cross posted at God is for Suckers!

(For the full cartoon, click here)

I became aware of this particularly irritating conservative mouthpiece via Pharyngula, via this piece as well as this one, and as this little ditty suggests, the fellow must indeed be somewhat batshit insane.

So, no little surprise when this sock muppet vomits up this really foolish piece of "wisdom" -

World's Leading Atheist Now Believes in God

(It's been a while since I've done a good fisking, so time to stretch the joints, and go to it.)

For the past half century, the leading atheist in the world was philosopher Anthony Flew. He wrote over 30 philosophical works laying the intellectual groundwork for nonbelief.

Right out the gate, D'Snooza really blows it. 'Non-belief' has had a colorful and diversified groundwork laid for many, many centuries. I do so despise folks who make it sound like it's some fad, less than a few decades old.

 He debated Christian apologists. He was widely cited in atheist literature and at atheist conventions. What distinguished Flew was how comprehensive and fully-developed his atheist philosophy was. Other philosophers, such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, espoused atheist beliefs but those beliefs were incidental to their philosophy. Atheism was Flew's philosophy. HIs works such as Theology and Falsification and The Presumption of Atheism were considered classics of theist thought.

Here he plays the little 'atheism is a religion too' card, which would slip by the less-informed reader.

Then Anthony Flew became a believer, and his book There Is A God describes his intellectual journey. Go ahead and order this book, along with my new book, What's So Great About Christianity. Together the two books represent what atheism has always dreaded: historically based, philosophically rich, scientifically fluent, logically reasoned refutations of atheism.

As to Flew, his change of heart really doesn't represent the rest of us, since we don't have any high priests, or rely heavily on authoritative figures. There's plenty of folks who switch sides, and last I checked, religion's getting marginalized on a regular basis, to where it hardly matters as much as once it did. "As the arteries harden, the heart softens", as H. L. Mencken once said.

Flew had no say in my choice. Raise of hands: how many of you out there used this fellow as a basis? Anyone?

Note that:

A. The Flew book isn't to be released till later this month,

B. It's already received a mixed review on Amazon, and

C. D'Snooza's obviously trying to hitch a ride to promote his book.

Flew says he has a lifelong commitment to going "where the evidence leads." And now, he calmly says, the evidence leads to theism.

He's English: of course he's going to be calm about it. Yeesh.

His own past writings have been exposed as a "relic." Flew writes, "My discovery of the divine has proceeded on a purely natural level, without any reference to supernatural phenomena...It has had no connection with any of the revealed religions. Nor do I claim to have had any personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or miraculous. My discovery of the divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith."

That's all well and good: I may just get his book, but not D'Snooza's.

However, the following is good for a goggled giggle:

Flew's argument for God combines science and philosophy, and I'll let you discover it for yourself in his book.

Gee, thanks.

What I enjoyed was the way he uses simple analogies to expose atheist illogic. For instance, leading atheists seek to prove that the mind is no more than the brain. If the brain is destroyed, they say, we can't use our minds. Therefore there is nothing to minds excerpt circuits and neurons. Flew gives the example of a child raised on a remote island who finds a satellite phone. Voices come out of the machine. The child recognizes these voices as human and is thrilled by the discovery that she has found a way to interact with other humans. Perhaps there is life outside the island! Then the elders of the tribe (if I may embellish Flew's account, let's call them Big Chief Dawkins, Grand Pooh Bah Dennett, and Witch Doctor Pinker) scorn the child and say, "Look, when we damage the instrument, the voices stop. So they're obviously nothing more than sounds produced by the unique combination of metals and circuit boards. Forget about learning about other humans. From all the evidence we have, we are the only living creatures on earth. So go back to making sandcastles." Who are the real dummies here?

I really do hope that D'Snooza's quoting out of context, because that's the fucking dumbest analogy I could've ever read. Complete non sequitor. First off, a human being is not 'receiving signals' from elsewhere. The human body is entirely self-contained: IOW's, the brain is the sole source of our thoughts, responses, cogitations, etc. Are there any studies (I mean, serious studies, not cobbled up by a kook in a tinfoil hat) that even point to an outside source? Are we just meat puppets for your little cosmic baby sitter?

Of course, this is a squalid effort to portray atheists as blinkered, stubborn individuals who refuse to consider evidence contrary to what we as individuals would rather 'believe', but where is the evidence? Flew posits that the teleological argument is powerful in and of itself, and it is a toughie, I'll grant that. But since this universe seems to be a black hole factory, and the abounding evidence that if there was a designer, the clown would be fired from the interior/exterior design department of any retailer in the US, we can pretty much scotch the whole concept. That is, if anyone minds the sheer incompetence of the job.

Anthony Flew has been banished from the atheist community. Anthologies have been reprinted removing his essays.

Community? We still don't really have a community. Such is the way with free-thinkers. Which anthologies? I'm seriously curious.

Atheist websites condemn him as an apostate. (Atheist toleration does not extend to former atheists.)

To which I reply:

"For one man to say to another, "I tolerate you," is an assumption of authority -- not a disclaimer, but a waiver, of the right to persecute." - Ingersoll

And since no one is tarring and feathering the man, I can safely assume that simple disagreement doesn't constitute actual intolerance.

He doesn't even make the case for Christianity, as I do.

?!?!? When exactly was that, D'Snooza? When you trotted out this little gem?

But perhaps God’s purpose in the world (I am only thinking aloud here) is to draw his creatures to him. And you have to admit that tragedies like this one at Virginia Tech help to do that!

Really, truly, these conservative mouthpieces just leave me a-goggle, when truculent dipsticks open their mouths and begin babbling some of the worst sort of nonsenses.

 But Anthony flew out of the atheist cuckoo's nest, leaving anger and confusion among the unbelievers.

Really, now: I know there's probably some ticked off atheists out there, but then, this is one guy, out of a long, long list of non-believers. D'Snooza would have the average believer think we were on the fucking ropes here.

Not even close.

And religion is the cuckoo, here, folks. Brief synopsis: the cuckoo bird lays its eggs in another species' nest, and the offspring end up hoarding the food and shoving its nest-mates out. History will bear out this analogy. Christianity alone has laid its eggs in far too many cultures, and forced its backwards ways on too many folks for far too long.

 And now Flew tells us why he rejects atheism. The atheist monopoly on public debate is over: the theists are striking back.

 Monopoly? What planet is this guy living on? Bizarro World? The US is virtually inundated with crap about religion, it's fucking everywhere. Challenging the delusory status quo is the American Way, it's what we do, in the (far too) slow  maturation process of humanity.

Really, these cheap histrionics pretty much make Dinesh D'Snooza (who needs to seriously wake his ass up) the latest version of the Jerry Springer of journalism.

Is anyone reeling from the impact? Slapping the ring tarmac? 'Cause I'm telling you, folks: I'm still waiting for a knockout punch, and thus far, am still standing with my dukes up. I'm still waiting for a contender.

This is the Apostate signing off. Till the next post, then.

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Skepticism - It's Bad For Business

Cross-posted at God is for Suckers!

I was walking down Mission Boulevard in Hayward, when I noticed that a large local Bible book store had gone out of business. It's been there since I can recall - well over two decades. (I wish that I could wax rhetorically about it - hearing the hollow wind voicing imaginary voices, sagebrush bouncing past my feet while going on about the whisper of non-existent ghosts being silenced. Alas, it was simply a large, empty shell. Oh well.)

Sufficient to say, it put a spring in my step while I stepped through the crosswalk - but the resident religious loonie was crossing also, and he blathered out his 'Gawd bless you!', to which I replied, 'Ain't no such thing' in passing. This cat hangs out in the local Starbucks, reading his dog-eared bible, chatting with the staff, running over to the door to open it for people, and occasionally telling them the same stupid thing: 'gawd bless you'! I keep saying my little ditty in passing. Getting more than a little tired of him, truth be told. He laughs like Phil Sebben, sans personality (or inflection).

But today I was in the local Safeway, waiting in the Express line, when my eye chanced upon one of those little wire racks containing some of those pocket astrology guides. I'm guessing you know which ones I mean. It then occurred to me, that there's big business in magical thinking. So, there's mucho dinero in the magical thinking industry. How much?

Here's a guesstimate, from MYPATHTV:

The New Age marketplace alone accounts for $44 billion in spending by about 40 million Americans.
Source: LOHAS

Astrology? Here's a real eye-opener, from adherents.com:

"Currently the U.S. boasts some 10,000 professional and 175,000 part-time astrologers... Their clientele consists of an estimated 20 million people, who--during 1969--spent more than $150,000,000 on personal horoscope material. "

I can't seem to whip up some more topical figures(enough Google hits to intimidate even a Google-whacker like myself), but I'm guessing (at the prevalence of astrological TP in the grocery stores) that the percentiles have increased. Let's not even go into those tabloid headlines that seem to mug you while you're waiting in line ('Devil's Face Seen In The Smoke Of The WTC attack!, for one example).

Religioustolerance.org lists the believers in astrology alone at a staggering 31% in 2003 for the USA alone.

Here's a guesstimate, from Hallmark cards (a snippet):

Trends
Christian fiction has exploded in popularity in many Christian stores.
Christian music is seeing growth as a genre, jumping from 4.5 percent of the market share in 1997 ($549 million) to 6.3 percent in 1998 ($863 million), according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
VeggieTales, a sales phenomenon in 1998, has spurred growth in children's products and is becoming a staple.

Publishers Weekly states that religious flicks are making money (albeit not hand-over-fist), and, seeing as how the Passion, that bondage-based religious porn film was a blockbuster hit in 2004, this is no newsflash that the American people are heavily invested in belief.

So, yet another degree of angle added to the uphill battle for us: atheism is not only a stripping away of children's fantasies, a denigration of tradition, and a forced admission of reality, it is in fact, an attack on numerous cottage industries that are flourishing within in the cultural meme.

So we need to start questioning not only the epistemology and the source, we should also question the mouthpieces: just whom is in whose pocket? And when we have moronic, easily debunkable crap such as Medium, Saving Grace, and the Ghost Whisperer (only one of these is based on a 'real life story') on the TV airwaves, perpetuating the myths that we as educators are struggling to overcome.

So just bear in mind: when you attack religion, somebody's livelihood is threatened.

Because the metaphor of the ivy growing is so very apt in this infectious meme, I shall (mis)quote Titania, from Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors:

If aught possess thee from me, it is dross, usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss; who all for want of pruning, with intrusion infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.

The roots run deeply: as gardeners, we are apt to lose ourselves amid the chaotic foliage that springs from religion, wade through the spun hedges of twisted labyrinths that seem to sprout wholesale from the minds of those whose imaginations are stronger than their self-awareness or grasp of reality.

Recall this, as the mental calluses spring from the use of metaphorical trimming shears; that we do this to benefit others, members of our species, that the garden may grow free of those infectious weeds of religious fanaticism that have so plagued our history from past to present.

For some day, the mind of Man will be free of the deep roots of that ivy that so clutters it: perhaps not tomorrow, or the next day. But soon.

Till the next post, then.

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Atheist Nation? Ben Stein Botches The Blandishment

Cross posted at God is for Suckers!

“Equal rights for all, special privileges for none” - Jefferson

I've been reading about Ben Stein (you remember this guy? Visine commercials? Ferris Bueller's Day Off? He's got a lotta accomplishments racked up) over at Pharyngula, mostly about his shenanigans vis-a-vis that ridiculous new piece of dreck, Expelled.

As the goodly professor Myers puts it, "Did you know that 'scientists are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator'"?

I wasn't aware that such an invention as a patented mind-reader had been developed. Or perchance the US government is in cahoots with them thar durn nasty ole 'evilutionists'?

The short version is "WAAHHH! Why won't these big frelling meanies let OUR side of the story be heard?"

Shorter response: "Science. Not a democracy. Never has been."

So, I was scoping out Snopes.com, when I stumbled across this sow's ear (I borrowed the snippet in toto from this message board as Snopes seems to have some kind of anti-paste 'n copy thing on their website):

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:
I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up?

Well, I've not a clue who Nick is, but I know who Jessica is (I'm assuming Simpson?). And while I'm something of an intellectual snob, my eyes light up when that little ditty from that dreck 'Dukes of Hazard' comes on - you guys know what I mean, right? I can't stand country western, but there's something so...hypnotic about those gyrations.

Anyways, moving on. No, life goes on, despite the vicarious thrills of the tabloids for the duller amongst us.

Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Ditto. I've already forgotten Cruise's trophy 'I'm not gay' wife's name, anyways.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

I can get along with that.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu.

I'm down with most of that: but if that manger scene's on government property, I think that's a violation of SOCAS - that is, unless there's equal time for Ramadan, Hanukkah, and other varied superstitions.

If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

Curious: I've never heard of public displays of Menorahs.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.

No one should be pushed around for any such thing - that's (one of) the great things about the U.S.A. Of course, they shouldn't get special privileges either, regardless of their beliefs, or lack thereof.

Can you hear the bleating of the martyr yet? Here it comes...

I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.

If by 'pushed around', you mean that they don't get special treatment anymore, boo-fucking-hoo.

I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country.

I have no idea where you pulled that egregious bit of bullshit from: probably your ass, Bendy-Boy. We were founded on secular values, but most distinctly not atheist ones. In fact, both Locke and Paine were anything but pro-atheist (though Franklin had a bit of a correspondence with David Hume, as I understand it).

I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Right back atcha, Bendy. Neither atheism nor theism are mentioned in the Constitution. Yeesh, for a fucking lawyer, you sure don't understand the term objective.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

Probably the same fucking place people got the stupid idea that the European royalty ruled via divine fiat? People always need someone to look up to, live vicariously through, and otherwise drool because the grass always seems a little greener on the other side of the pasture. Worship away, Bendy-boy. Just do try to keep it to yourself a touch more, wouldja?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

Or in the words of Ned Flanders: "I wish we lived in a place more like the America of yesteryear that only exists in the brains of us Republicans."

Which America would that be? The suburban utopia of Ozzie and Harriet? Bad news, Bendy: that was a fictional show and nowhere near being reality. Obviously Bendy's caught this godly glaucoma, the whiny carp of how 'things were better in the good ole days!'

What do you expect, from a Republican as well as a Nixon apologist?

Until next week, the peanut gallery is closed. This is the Apostate, signing off.

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Allegories Gone Wild - The Veiled Prophet And The River Of Nothingness

Cross posted at God is for Suckers!

This is one of those Internet click-click-click-click-WTF? moments that provide us with a glimpse into the wild river raft ride of other people's imaginations.

This one is a good one, albeit a tad...scattered.

(In the voice of Rod Serling): "Witness if you will, an old man, wracked and ruined by decades of alcoholic abuse, grasping at the strands of ambiguous hope by defining his own epistemology..."

So one David C. Owens, who styles himself the 'Veiled Prophet' (and America's premier visionary artists, although he has no Wiki or Answers.com page), is kind enough to share not only his art (which is middling fair, but he's no Dali by any stretch), but the strange fevered visions he's had (and none of them too original, I might add, let's skip the fact that his English is not good, either):

Ladies and gentleman, meine Dame und Herren, I give you...the River of Nothingness!

2012 The River Nothingness: Is there the slightest things you can do to change the equations of what will determine how you end up? Yes, there is - but - 'doubt' is the word for all the too many who will not care enough until it is much to late!
River Nothingness 2012 Facts about 12 21 12: The SOULLESS abomination! - Contrary to those misleading and teaching otherwise - after one has knowingly chosen to lead a cruel and unkind life ~ Just as all to many of those who've gone before them that waited until the last few moments of their life ~ Thinking they've out smarted their soul ~ They will find out ~ There is no such thing as death bed forgiveness.
12 21 12 Facts: There is no true God that would  and is going to force any innocent soul to return to a past [host] Bearer that has and does knowingly profane them self with the use of unkindness, anger, hate, rage and conniving disrespect for decent morals!
2012 End of the World: What and when an individual thinks they might  have been able to hide from humanity they can not hide from the companionship of the innocent soul, within!

Odd, how this predilection for apocalypse in 2012 seems to have spread like wildfire, no?

More incoherent babble:

December 21, 2012 River Nothingness: Past and present intents and all the conniving of even  future thoughts and ideas are known by your soul. And, no innocent soul, knowingly will chance that experiences twice!
And, thinking for even a second that one could fool a new soul when your  past companion is not around - that by itself is condemnation!

Sadly, there's no explanation for this ' past companion' nonsense. In a world where context is everything, this is rendered into gibberish.

More drivel:

Yes, you're having, not so strange, returning of Déjà vu and wonderful enlightenment is running close to wild as you comprehend again, and again things you already know - and your memories of remembrances are looking forward to circumstances you know to be the truth of how you have to protected you soul. Or, oh so real - And, oh so real! And, it is real! The River NOTHINGNESS of the SOULLESS!

Wait - so our 'souls' will drown in the River of Nothingness of the Soulless? Say whaaattt? And how does this come about? By being mean to people.

I kid you not. He seems to repeat the phrase deja vu a lot. He claims also to have painted multiple pictures on New Year's Eve, which is described like this:

The Lord's Lamp the first of David Owens Art Paintings Millennium Pictures from the special "Millennium Art Event" where World Art History was made, seen and watched as America's Greatest Visionary Artist was  documented by independent witnesses as his Visionary Art concept turned from vision(s) and turned into reality taking place in Covina, California (USA) starting in the early a.m. hours of December 31, 2000.

Which I find fairly amusing, because it was this tiny event apparently hosted in in his own living room, with pictures of folks (first names only) that nobody knows.

There are implicit nods to Shamanism, a large degree of apocalyptic vagueness, and a whole pile of weird, underdeveloped theodicy

Here's a pretty stupid video, since his link on 'Three Kinds of Demons' is broken.

Till the next post, then.

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The Story Thus Far...

As some of you may have noticed, I'm not posting very much, making my rounds, or engaging in conversation as often. The back story behind this is as such:

In April, I found a part time job with a Mountain View contracting firm, doing what's known as re- and de-installing (we'd go around as a team to Fortune 500 companies, and move companies' PC's en masse - pulling out cables, PC's, the movers would move equipment to the new site, we'd re-install the PC's, etc.).

So I was doing that for a few months. Then they sent me to Google. I realized then, that this was my big break, and brought my A-game. Sure, it was mostly throwing freight, clean-up, re-installs and de-installs, but I threw myself into it.

Apparently, I caught someone's notice. I started becoming a regular part-timer. Then, two or so months later, I was brought on full time. I went from throwing freight to ticket processor. Then I got assigned to process tickets for the new hire coordinator. He got the axe (to this day, no one will tell me exactly for what, but it had to be pretty damn bad, since they're extremely tolerant there), and voila! I now have a full time position, with benefits, and I have a comfortable yearly salary.

The bulk of my work days now are cram-packed with social interaction, so by the time I come home, I'm just winding down, and so please forgive me if I seem a tad less...the social butterfly lately.

So I do my eight hours, upon which I go to the Googleplex and practice Tai Chi (somewhere between one to two hours worth), eat dinner, and by the time I get home, I'm fairly exhausted.

Oh, and I can speak my mind. Pretty much everybody knows I'm an atheist (one of my co-workers is as well, and we cover the gamut from evolution to religion, in loud tones), and one of the other guys is a conspiracy theorist (with biblical scriptures tattooed on either forearm, Matthew 10:34 and 1 Peter 8, to be exact), and for the record, he doesn't go about touting Youtube videos to support his wild-eyed theories anymore. (I've made it abundantly clear that Youtube is the National Enquirer of the Internet, and I and the other atheist make savage fun of this with comments like "It's true! I saw it on Youtube! HAW-HAW!")

I can guar-ran-tee you, my online persona is very much like my realtime personality: I hear bullshit, I call it manure. I've had some real interesting discussions right there in the warehouse, in earshot of everyone.

I have been told to shut up occasionally (not by any of the bosses), to which I reply, "No. It's called the First Amendment."

So, life is good now, got work and money in the bank. Found a niche, a second home so to speak. And freeee fooood!

Damn, ain't it wunnerful?

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Allegories Gone Wild - An Oval Earth And Seven Firmaments...

Cross-posted at God Is For Suckers!

I'm going to kill two birds with one stone on this one.

One of the major claims in Islam, is how eerily it corresponds with modern science as we know it today.

This site makes a number of extravagant claims, which would appear to the untrained eye to be 'miracles', but which come apart under a small amount of investigation.

First up:

Roundness of the earth

He has created the Heavens and the Earth for Truth. He wraps the night up in the day, and wraps the day up in the night. (Qur'an, 39:5)

In the Qur'an, the words used for describing the universe are quite remarkable. The Arabic word which is translated as "to wrap" in the above verse is "takwir." In English, it means "to make one thing lap over another, folded up as a garment that is laid away." For instance, in Arabic dictionaries this word is used for the action of wrapping one thing around another, in the way that a turban is put on. The information given in the verse about the day and the night wrapping each other up includes accurate information about the shape of the world. This can be true only if the Earth is round. This means that in the Qur'an, which was revealed in the 7th century, the roundness of the world was hinted at.

However, it should be remembered that the understanding of astronomy of the time perceived the world differently. It was then thought that the world was a flat plane and all scientific calculations and explanations were based on this belief. However, the Glorious Qur'an has employed the most definitive words when it came to describing the universe. These facts, which we could only correctly fathom in our century, have been in the Qur'an for a vast length of time.

And then,

The seven firmaments

It is He Who created everything on the earth for you and then directed His attention up to heaven and arranged it into seven regular heavens. He has knowledge of all things. (Qur'an, 2:29)

Then He turned to heaven when it was smoke. In two days He determined them as seven heavens and revealed, in every heaven, its own mandate. (Qur'an, 41:11-12)

Deflated, two minutes flat.

The Wiki entry not only says this about a spherical earth,

"The concept of a spherical Earth was espoused by Pythagoras apparently on aesthetic grounds, as he also held all other celestial bodies to be spherical. It replaced earlier beliefs in a flat Earth: In early Mesopotamian thought, the world was portrayed as a flat disk floating in the ocean, and this forms the premise for early Greek maps like those of Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus."

But also puts the lie to the 'original' claim of the 'seven firmaments', thusly:

"Other speculations as to the shape of Earth include a seven-layered ziggurat or cosmic mountain, alluded to in the Avesta and ancient Persian writings (see seven climes). In fact, the Earth is reasonably well-approximated by an oblate spheroid."

(The Avesta, for those of you interested, are the sacred texts of Zoroaster, and has been dated linguistically at about 1000 BCE, but the written format is dated Second CE).

And, for the icing on the cake,

"Yajnavalkya

Yajnavalkya (c. 9th–8th century BCE) recognized that the Earth is spherical in his astronomical text Shatapatha Brahmana. This is also recognized in another Vedic Sanskrit text Aitareya Brahmana composed around the same time, and in a later Sanskrit commentary Vishnu Purana.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras (b. 570 BCE) found harmony in the universe and sought to explain it. He reasoned that Earth and the other planets must be spheres, since the most harmonious geometric form was a circle.

Plato

Plato (427 BCE - 347 BCE) travelled to southern Italy to study Pythagorean mathematics. When he returned to Athens and established his school, Plato also taught his students that Earth was a sphere. If man could soar high above the clouds, Earth would resemble "a ball made of twelve pieces of leather, variegated, a patchwork of colours."

Aristotle

Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE) was Plato's prize student and "the mind of the school." Aristotle observed "there are stars seen in Egypt and [...] Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions." Since this could only happen on a curved surface, he too believed Earth was a sphere "of no great size, for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be quickly apparent." (De caelo, 298a2-10)

Aristotle provided physical and observational arguments supporting the idea of a spherical Earth:

• Every portion of the earth tends toward the center until by compression and convergence they form a sphere. (De caelo, 297a9-21)
• Travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon; and
• The shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round.(De caelo, 297b31-298a10)

The concepts of symmetry, equilibrium and cyclic repetition permeated Aristotle's work. In his Meteorology he divided the world into five climatic zones: Two temperate areas were separated by a torrid zone near the equator, as well as two cold inhospitable regions, "one near our upper or northern pole and the other near the ... southern pole," both impenetrable and girdled with ice (Meteorologica, 362a31-35). Although no humans could survive in the frigid zones, inhabitants in the southern temperate regions could exist.

Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes (276 BCE - 194 BCE) estimated Earth's circumference around 240 BCE. He had heard about a place in Egypt where the Sun was directly overhead at the summer solstice and used geometry to come up with a circumference of 250,000 stades. This estimate astonishes some modern writers, as it is within 2% of the modern value of the equatorial circumference, 40,075 kilometres. However, the length of a 'stade' is not precisely known; Eratosthenes' figure falls short if we do not use a fairly generous estimate for this length.

Earliest known reference to a spherical earth - 17 centuries pre-Koran. Earliest known reference to seven 'firmaments' (read: atmospheric layers) - 5 centuries prior.

For your entertainment, here is a fairly stupid video making proclamations of all sorts of easily explainable 'miracles'. The crow was obviously taught the word, the lion had indigestion, clouds constantly form 'allah's' signature, and the video also has a known falsified picture of an alleged 'Nephelim'.

Till the next post, then.

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