Recent Comments

1. 18 days ago on For Heaven's Sake

   Yes, “one party is driving us into Sodom and Gomora a lot quicker than the other”

   According to Ezekiel 16:48-50, the sin of Sodom was pride, idleness, being haughty and refusing to help the poor and needy. No mention of homosexuality.

   Genesis 19:4-11 does suggest that the men of Sodom sought to “know” (KJV) the male visitors in the Biblical sense, and in the NIV says “have sex with them,” but it does not say that this is why they were destroyed.

   The Trumpublican Party, led by a prideful and haughty man who…

   Has been married three times, cheated openly on all three wives, and father at least five children (that we know of) with three different women (that we know of) and paid hush money to a porn star and Playboy nude model.

   Was adjudicated liable in a court of law of sexual assault, with more than 20 additional cases pending.

   Has been convicted of 34 felonies so far, with many more still pending.

   Has been found liable for business fraud.

   Has been found liable for running a fraudulent “university.”

   Has been found liable for running a fraudulent children’s charity.

   .

   The Democratic Party …

   No Democrat (including Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden or Harris) has ever been married more than once.

   The Democratic Party stands for helping the poor and needy. Republicans, the party of Sodom, not so much.

2. about 2 months ago on Non Sequitur

   No, the first three commandments are all about self-glorification. “Theologically speaking” they may have reasons for WHY they believe their god is so insecure that he can’t stand a bit of competition or demands constant praise from sycophants, but it doesn’t change the fact of what those commandments say.

   In the meantime, “theologically speaking,” @dot-the-i simply overlooks the main point: that truly evil crimes against humanity were omitted while these ridiculous self-patronizing took their places, again, with a few basic law-and-order standards copied from the Hammurabi Code.

3. about 2 months ago on Non Sequitur

   The Ten Commandments.

   God could have gone with…

   “Thou shalt not rape”

   “Thou shalt not kidnap”

   “Thou shalt not claim the right to own other human beings as chattel property.”

   But nope. He went with three commandments that glorify himself, threw in a few basic law and order standards that were copied from the earlier Hammurabi Code, along with “thou shalt not covet.” Thou shalt not covet? That is the whole basis of the modern American economy — admen trying to get people to covet things they don’t have and talk them into buying tons of overpriced junk they don’t need.

4. 4 months ago on For Heaven's Sake

   You: “I returned to my faith … Because of reason.”

   Sorry, not buying it. Your only “reason” was that you accept as a priori fact that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God and, based on that self-validating source, “reason” then becomes to accept the Bible because the Bible says so (though actually it doesn’t — even when Paul says that “all scripture is God-breathed [2 Timothy 3:16], he is referring to the scripture that already exists in his day — the Old Testament).

   You have already admitted that you filter out any objective evidence that does not pass through the “filter” of your pre-determined conclusions.

   Even you realize how absurd this is. You would not accept a Muslim arguing that the Qur’an is the Word of God because it says so, and only accepting as “evidence” supporting materials from the Qur’an itself or the Hadiths or other Islamic texts.

5. 4 months ago on For Heaven's Sake

   When you refuse to accept any actual, objective, neutral evidence that has not been filtered through the prism of your pre-determined conclusion, you acknowledge a complete lack of objective or ration consideration and disqualify yourself from any serious analysis.

   You are an intellectual and moral COWARD. You have never actually tested your “faith” — you have never actually challenged your assumptions with objective, external EVIDENCE — which you filter out through your prism of pre-determined conclusions. And in so doing, you acknowledge a complete lack of objective or rational consideration.

   By consciously rejecting anything that does not just reaffirm your predetermined conclusions, you disqualify yourself from being taken seriously in any rational exchange.

   You refuse to test — to really challenge — your beliefs with real, actual, objective fact-based EVIDENCE from the real world, because YOU ARE AFRAID. You know your faith — the legacy of primitive sheep herders and fishermen who didn’t know where they sun went at night — can not stand up to any objective, factual challenge.

   It is YOU whose house is built on the sands of superstition and primitive mythology.

   It is YOU whose theological assertions do not carry the slightest shred of fact-tested credibility.

6. 4 months ago on For Heaven's Sake

   Jesus did not choose Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul lied. He made up a whopper.

   Paul was a long-time persecutor of the followers of Jesus and then found a way to infiltrate and undermine from within.

   And, considering how completely opposite today’s conservative “Christians” are from the teachings attributed to Jesus, it appears he was actually quite successful.

   You are not a follower of the teachings of Jesus.

   You are a follower of the apostate, Paul.

   You are not qualified to analyze religious questions, because you just blindly accept what you were born into, and refuse to seriously question or to consider any evidence that contradicts your a priori assumptions.

   In contrast, I started out from the same place as you, including fully devout, but when credible evidence contradicted my beliefs, I struggled through the very difficult process of self-examination and re-evaluation.

   “Free or not?” For you, the answer is “NOT!” It always amazes me how conservatives are so eager to talk about “freedom” while trying to control and micromanage every aspects of everyone else’s private lives.

7. 4 months ago on For Heaven's Sake

   I was raised Christian, and was a true believer. Bought the whole line. Active in youth ministries. Four years of seminary. As a result, I became quite conversant in the scriptures, the creeds and much other material.

   The issue was that, the deeper I got into it, the more I found the numerous direct, internal contradictions, moral absurdities and outright atrocities that permeate the faith and which are used as scare tactics to control people.

   Before Jesus (Old Testament) and after Jesus (the apostacy of Paul and construction of a dogma-driven church, the religion was one of harsh, often cruel, legalism.

   But in that brief time called the ministry of Jesus, there was a teaching of love, kindness and compassion which Jesus made the foundation of his moral teaching and the basis of his views on “salvation” until Paul came along and corrupted it into something perverse. I have great admiration for the teachings attributed to Jesus; not so much for Paul and the corrupt faith that followed.

   And no, I don’t need your moral “authority” to dictate what “filters” I need in order to stand up for TRUE moral decency and something that actually resembles the teachings of Jesus, which your harsh cruelty certainly does not.

   And as long as right-wing “Christian” extremists seek to wield the cudgel of legal authority to impose their beliefs on others, you can be sure I will stand up to them and, yes, very vocally so.

   As for “she,” “he” and “him,” I see that the people who don’t want to respect others’ preferred pronouns get their dander up pretty quickly if we don’t use the pronouns they prefer for their imaginary friends.

8. 4 months ago on For Heaven's Sake

   Yep. God does not grant blessings freely, of love. She wants to make us beg. Grovel. Tell ourselves we are nothing.

   “Our father?” What kind of parent belittles their child and demands self-effacement as a condition for beneficence?

   Real parents love their children UNCONDITIONALLY and try to build up their children’s self-esteem, not put them down, tell them they are conceived in sin, dirty, worthless.

9. 4 months ago on For Heaven's Sake

   A prayer of thanksgiving or quiet communion with a higher power may be uplifting and set a positive frame of mind in something of a meditative way, but prayer of supplication — asking god to cause a specific outcome — does nothing to cause actual change and, yes, is an act of begging.

   And yes, as recorded in the gospels, Jesus did teach private personal prayer, not in the places of worship, but as individual, personal communion, without vain repetitions such as are found in the prescribed texts of prayers in liturgical rituals.

10. 4 months ago on For Heaven's Sake

    So glad you agree that Jesus commanded that prayer be personal, private, SECRET and expressly criticized public prayer, including in the place of worship (synagogues).

    Yet the Catholics love to hold their grand public spectacles and public prayers, before men, replete with vain repetitions (scripted text). And same for Protestants, Evangelicals, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists and all the rest who give lip service to acceptance of the Bible but ignore what it actually says.

    And what is prayer?

    Prayer is not an act of faith — it is a demonstration of lacking faith. Praying for a specific outcome is an act of doubt, not faith. If you really had faith in “god’s perfect plan,” you wouldn’t need to beg her to change it.

    Praying to ask for something is where you talk to an imaginary friend you believe to be all-knowing, all-wise, all-loving and all-powerful who has a perfect plan and makes sure everything follows that plan — and try to get her to change her mind.

    Praying for things is kind of like, “When you wish upon a star” except that the star isn’t invisible.