Right to Die vs Right to Life

The abortion issue revived my memory of the ridiculous battle over the living corpse called Terri Schiavo.   To refresh your memory, Terri Schiavo was a pretty woman married to a loving husband.  According to the religious ceremony she probably had to submit to, she was "given away" by her father.  From that point on she belonged to her husband and his family (as the Book of Ruth demonstrates by example).

...until she entered a persistent vegetative state, with only her brain stem working and not all that well at that.  Hubby wanted to pull the plug, erm, feeding tube, because supposedly, Terri would never have wanted to be kept alive as a blind, paralyzed, fat, stupid-looking stalk of broccoli in a hospital where her mewling parents could delude themselves into believing every drop of drool was some loving utterance.

...and then the stupid Christian dolts who believe "every life is sacred" (until it isn't) decided that this was wrong.  They had nothing to go on other than the Ten Commandments, which were written thousands of years before electricity and feeding tubes were invented.

Sadly, the shell continued breathing on its own, and this is where I still have to facepalm occasionally:  one of the Christians interviewed on the telly said that the soul resides in the breath.  The picture to the left shows a horse thief that has been stoned to death.  His soul is a teensy human body being regurgitated out of his mouth then rising to heaven.

Now, if only they and their cretin followers had the insight to know how ridiculous that was.

...and if only they knew that they were arguing for abortion with that statement!

If the Catholic Church believes that the soul resides in the breath, then any fetus that has not taken a breath has no soul and therefore killing it is equal to killing an animal (they also believe that animals have no soul, as evidenced by the belief that a horse thief can get into heaven).

To be consistent, the Church's position should be that euthanasia of a human body shell or abortion of a fetus does not involve the separation of a soul from a body and is therefore not murder.  They should have envisioned Terri Schiavo coughing up a Barbie Doll version of herself, which would be hauled up to heaven by angels or saints or something.  The silly court battle over who had the right to decide what to do with the shell, the husband or parents, could have been prevented.  Congress could have done the people's business instead of interfering with these peoples' business, and the president could worry about how he could stop killing thousands of muslims instead of how he could prevent the death of one Christian.

Yeah, this issue still pisses me off.  What a colossal waste of time, money, and angst.  Christians should really worry about more important things, like being kind and taking care of poor people and shit.
Anywho, I always love the expression on theists' faces when we have this exchange:

Theist:  so you're an atheist?  Then where do you go when you die?
Me:  I don't believe in the concept of a soul so that question is irrelevant to me.
Theist:  [blank stare]

The big "A"

I follow several blogs and this post on Richard Carrier's blog piqued my interest:  Abortion Redux.  The "25 most influential atheists" have been polled on the subject of personhood of infants, which was inspired by a PZ Myers post on his blog.

The critical thing for me is that of the 25 most influential atheists, only three are women.  Sure, women can be either pro- or con- in the abortion debate, but it seems to me that people with wombs should be consulted a little more often about this.  Asking 22 men who are atheists about their opinion is about as valid to me as asking 22 Catholic Cardinals.

In deference to the seriously influential atheists, if these are important questions, then why aren't all atheists being asked?  It seems to me that important social issues that religions have laid claim to deserve thought from all of us, being free-thinkers and all.  I mean, why on earth would I need 22 men and 3 women to influence my thinking?  I am willing to consider their positions and justifications but I'm not so stupid that I can't come up with my own thoughts.

Here are the questions:

(a) Do you believe that a newborn baby is fully human?

(b) Do you believe that a newborn baby is a person?

(c) Do you believe that a newborn baby has a right to life?

(d) Do you believe that every human person has a duty towards newborn babies, to refrain from killing them?

(e) Do you believe that killing a newborn baby is just as wrong as killing an adult?

I have a problem with all of these questions because 1) the womb is out of the picture, therefore the woman's right to control what happens to her body has been made irrelevant for the purposes of questioning these men about how women's bodies should be treated and 2) what about mercy killing/euthanasia?

This presumes that all newborn babies / former fetuses are equal in viability and "humanity."  But what of the former fetus that is born without a head?  What of the former fetus that has a head and all the nerve structures necessary for feeling pain but no skin?  or no kidneys?  Parents have two choices in these cases: they can take extreme measures to prolong the suffering of their former fetus in an effort to keep themselves from going to hell, or they can have the nurses pump morphine into the fetus and let "nature take its course."

Option #3, euthanasia, almost never comes up in these situations.  If you can keep a former fetus from feeling the pain of its death after you let it linger in the ICU for days or weeks destroying its parents' finances, why not give it some morphine and then a little extra to relieve its suffering forever?

The questions are almost always loaded on the side of normal, healthy pregnancies, the type that never get aborted in the final few months when the fetus has the viability to become a former fetus.  Late-term abortion is the agonizing choice of women who face their own death.

So let's ask these other questions with this ultimate question in mind:
If a woman has six children and her husband has died, and her seventh pregnancy will most certainly result in her death and the death of that seventh fetus, is it wrong to deny her the option to terminate that pregnancy?

(a)  Do you believe that an adult woman is fully human?

(b)  Do you believe that an adult woman is a person?

(c)  Do you believe that an adult woman has a right to life?

(d)  Do you believe that every  human person has a duty towards women, to refrain from killing them?

(e)  Do you believe that killing a woman is just as wrong as killing a man?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, how could you deny a woman the right to a life-saving abortion?

God hates "God's Country"

My college years were spent in Wisconsin, which I was informed by some townies is "God's Country."  Since then I have lived in a few other states that claimed to be "God's Country."  In the Northeast the word "country" signified hick music and toothless miners, so they made no such claims.  (I suspect a superiority complex - no need to assign a deity to the best city in the world)

And now 100,000,000 people, mostly in "God's Country" are being tormented by ice, sleet, snow and wind.  God hates the Midwest, obviously.

It's up to the atheists to make that declaration.  Fundy televangelists were quick to blame Katrina on New Orleans' lack of morals, but where is God's wrath when the midwest is attacked by an "act of God?"

If they look hard enough they can find reasons why God would smite the people in his "country." 

I think hubris is reason enough.  Bigotry is a good one. 

I was going to make a list but I live amongst these people.  Suffice it to say, winter sucks, and that's all there is to it.  And New Orleans is in a part of the country that's subject to hurricanes.  And California is prone to earthquakes.  These things aren't "Acts of God" because 1) there is no god and 2) there is no agency to any of this.  Weather just happens.

Women's Ministry

I have a theory about church calendars: they suck in people with social events that have nothing at all to do with theology, so the people become so dependent on the church that they really can't leave even if they do crack open the Bible and see what an incoherent mess it is.

In my case, just having a great organist was enough to keep me coming for awhile. As a child I kept going because I enjoyed singing in the choir. That's the Episcopalian way. It's probably why the Episcopal church is losing members. And now that the "faithful" are mainly blue-haired old ladies, it's too late to start up a softball team.

As I drove through small towns in Indiana over the weekend I kept wondering what there was do to in these places besides work the farm and go to church. Some of these towns were so small they didn't even have bars!

Some of the people I know here are in churches that fill up their schedules with the kind of thing you'd have to live in a small town to find interesting. In a big city you'd have a million more interesting things to do on a Saturday night. In a small town you might have a choice between church bingo and a spaghetti dinner at a different church.  So I have a bit of sympathy for small-town Christians.  They don't know any better.

Then there are the big-city megachurches.  I wondered how hard they work at providing for their sheeple's every social need.  So I took a look at the website for Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.  Amazingly, they have a Women's Ministry.  Perhaps they figured out that Osteen is damn creepy so they put a woman in charge of keeping the women in line.  I know I'd never want to be in a room with that used car salesman.

Their schedule is truly frightening.  They have a series of psychobabble "courses" and they promote it with this lovely line:  "We would love for you to join us for the entire series and join your faith with ours to see God’s abundance brought forth in the area of your finances in 2011!"  (Osteen is famous for "prosperity theology")

They also have a movie night.  What does watching "Secretariat" and eating popcorn have to do with being a Christian? 

Osteen has also brought his wife into a leadership role as "co-pastor."  This is something I think I've seen before, though it's not like I obsess about churches.  Still... the preacher's wife is supposed to be a kind of adjunct preacher in these fundy churches.  Osteen and his wife have a blog together.  I'd post the header photo but it's just too creepy.  Their most popular post has this gem:  "Today, you may feel like you're in the back of the line and nothing is going your way, but get ready because God is about to turn things around for you!"

Yep, self-centered theology at its best!  I haven't read all their blog posts but I have read enough to be thorougly disgusted.  There's nothing about charity, kindness, being part of a loving society, etc.  Meanwhile, "evil" evolution is starting to probe how these behaviors are adaptive and part of our instinctive behaviors.

So.... it's not really theology that's appealing, though being taken care of by a sky-daddy after your death is a comforting idea.  The real draw for country people is having something to do, and for city people it's almost the same.  If you were new in Houston and wanted to make new friends, the ladies' night out movie and popcorn event would be a safe way to meet people.

Fortunately, in the age of the internet we can find friendships online or through online searches for events we find interesting.  If I were to move to Houston, I'd look for atheist meet-ups, or a club that would involve my hobbies.  If I were to move to small-town Indiana I probably wouldn't get out much, but I do wonder how long it would take for me to feel lonesome enough to go to the local church's spaghetti dinner or bingo night.   And then once I did I'd play "spot the other atheist" in the room, looking for the other people who roll their eyes at the mention of God or praying.

Punching People for Jesus!

This is hilarious!



It's funny how often atheists receive anonymous threats like this. Unlike the rest of us, who use most of our brains, Christians use only the amygdala. Speaking rationally to Christian trolls is a waste of time, unless you need a good LOL at the moment.

Alternative Explanations for the Miracles of the Bible

Let's start with the New Testament, since Christians are nuttier about believing the Bible to be historically accurate than Jews.

 

Virgin birth. There are many possibilities here.

1. It's a meme of the religions of the time, and could easily have been attached to the mythology around Jesus after the religion started taking off. This story added credibility to Christian claims, because it's something the people would expect of a deity.
2. Mary, or Joseph, or the family, or the followers, LIED. Not as likely as #1 above, but possible. Getting people to believe it wouldn't be as hard as it would be today.
3. Mistranslation. The first writers/transmitters never said this but it got translated this way. And Catholicism loves it that way so they perpetrated it.

Food and Beverage Miracles.

1. Completely made up.
2. Something unusual happened that wasn't very impressive, so it was exaggerated to be worthy of mythical/miraculous status.
3. Trickery.  The disciples put wine into water barrels, or had a stash of bread and dead fish at the ready. 
4. Numerology.  Any time miraculous numbers are mentioned in the Bible you have to suspect a total dissociation from reality due to possible magic numbers being used to make some point.

 Healing. Really? We don't have to look further than examples of faith healing today to know that they could have been false then but here goes: 

1. Lies. Gotta convince the masses to convert, so some miracle stories are in order. Easy stories to make up. It's not like people in Italy or even Lebanon would have been able to verify something like that.  How many people were named Lazarus?  You would be hard pressed even in a well documented society to figure out which one was named.
2. Fakes. Shills brought out to fool the crowds. How hard would it be to fake a withered hand? Blindness? Lameness?
3. Spontaneous healing, due to the effect of faith on the mind of the believer, not intervention by a deity or a magical power. Or, the person is so swept up in the moment they have momentary improvement. Did anyone follow up on these people a year later? No, of course not.
4. Actual sick people being made to look more healed than they are. The disciples support the lame person in such a way that they seem to be walking, or straighten out the "withered hand" by force.
5. Confirmation bias. Would Jesus' followers really document the many times he was unsuccessful? (assuming any of it is historical)

Miscellaneous points

 

The fig tree. My favorite. Jesus couldn't make the tree bear fruit out of season so he zapped it. Wouldn't making the tree bear fruit have been a much better miracle than setting it on fire? If this is historical at all, what is the time frame? Could it have been a set-up? Could it have been the highest point during a lightning storm?

 

Calming the storm. This sounds a lot like Moses parting the sea, so right there I suspect it's fabricated. If the writers are trying to convince the heathens that Jesus was indeed the heir to the Judaic tradition, having him do something Moses-like would be a good start.  This is probably the easiest thing to make up, and not being able to find witnesses wouldn't prove anything because lack of evidence would just be lack of evidence.  Could a storm suddenly stop on its own? Sure. It happens often enough that a coincidence is possible if there's historical accuracy to this story.  Confirmation bias here, too.  If you tell the sky to shut up often enough, one day it will obey you.

 

Turning water to wine.  This one is just stupid. It's not that hard to switch containers.


If you're going to believe the miraculous claims of one group of bronze-age people without question, you have to believe all of them.  I don't see Christians pointing to the miracles of other religions as evidence that miracles happen, only the ones from their own religion.

Comment Moderation is OFF!

People have been responding to the blog, and to each other, so I have taken comment moderation off.

Christians, bear in mind, most atheists who hang out on internet blogs have heard it all before and we weren't impressed.  You won't convert us but we find you entertaining.  We prefer thoughtful, reasoned, well-read Christians for our web entertainment, so if you're the typical Christian web troll who's going to threaten us WITH ETERNAL DAMNATION IN ALL CAPS AND WITH MENNY MYSPOILED WORDS... expect us to point and laugh.