My Take on Miracles...

I had a very interesting conversation with my family while driving around Atlanta a few days ago, and I just remembered that I wanted to post about it.

My immediate family members are all practicing Catholics. My two younger brothers and I went to a convent-grade school/junior high, a Franciscan high school, and my middle brother and I are currently attending a Catholic college. I've studied my faith, its history and traditions, and the Bible fairly extensively. I'm certainly not the best Christian or Catholic ever to walk the face of the planet...but I know my stuff and I practice what I preach.

However, my family also raised me to use my brain...this sometimes can catch my mother off guard when it comes to matters of faith. She is a wonderful woman and easily one of the most truly Christian women I have ever or will ever know.

I have begun to label myself a Deist Catholic. Deism is a philosophical interpretation of God and faith applied to religion...Deism.com defines deism as such:

Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation.


While I don't buy into the deist philosophy one hundred percent, I very much appreciate its emphasis on using one's own brain to figure things out.

With the background set up now, I can get to the conversation.

My mother is intrigued by miracle stories, both modern and Biblical. I...am skeptical. The topic of conversation in the car on this particular day was the multiplying of loaves and fish (...the story would have first appeared in Mark, as it was the earliest Gospel written, so I'm going to refer to this particular version...Chapter 6 verses 34-44). Mark writes that Jesus went out to a deserted place; this means of course that he probably was out in the desert. Some 5,000 people followed him in the hopes that he would preach to them.

I don't even like to drive around for work each day without a bottle of water and an apple in the car...the idea that 5,000 people picked up and ran headfirst into the desert and then many hours later said to themselves, "CRAP! We didn't bring any food!" is one hundred percent ridiculous. The solution is somewhat less miraculous and awe-inspiring but just as important to Jesus' message.

When the people in the front of the crowd with food saw that Jesus was instructing his Apostles to share their food with those people who maybe hadn't realized how long they would be outside and hadn't brought enough sustenance, they acted in accordance with the instructions and began to pass around their own food. These acts of goodwill made their way among all the people present until all 5,000 people had enough to eat. I mean...they followed him to learn, right? The miracle story isn't about Jesus' power...it's about his revealing man's capacity and willingness to help himself, which is a great message!

My mom did concede this particular argument to me, which is always nice.

I won't claim to have a realistic interpretation of every miracle story or a logical explanation for every religious phenomena. And I'm certainly not an authority on all things Christian...but I would implore all Christians to think for themselves once in a while. God gave you a brain so you could use it.

That's all I've got.
Peace out.

Creationism Museum

A few weeks ago, a creationist-themed "natural" (I use the term loosely) museum opened in Kentucky. I could not be more disgusted.

Religion and science can indeed happily coexist...I am a Christian, and I believe that God sparked the start of the evolutionary process. There you go.

The problem is that religion cannot and should never be substituted for science (or vice-versa). To just throw existing, accepted science out the window and replace it with conjectured garbage based on religious texts is hogwash and irresponsible especially when the garbage is being force-fed to children without the wherewithal to know better.

Jonathan M. Gitlin of Ars Technica recently took a visit to the Creation Museum. I highly recommend reading the article.

Some of the pictures are laughable. Eve standing fully-clothed in a Victorian-era gown next to a velociraptor that is eating vegetation...yeah, the dinosaur with the razor-sharp-teeth was a vegetarian before the Adam's Fall...

That's all I've got for now.
Enjoy your evenings, everyone!
Peace out

End of the world

Good run...

This is something I've been meaning to post about since I got home.

Last Friday, I was watching the History Channel, and I saw the most wonderfully ridiculous program. The show talked about the signs of the "coming Apocalypse" centered around a strict, Christian interpretation of the Bible. Now, for those of you out of the loop, I wag my finger at strict-Christian-fanatics as much as I do for the Left-Wing-lunatics; needless to say, I had a good laugh.

"Experts on the Apocalypse" (I'm not sure exactly how that works...Biblical scholars probably, but that was the term the History Channel used...) say that "the signs are all around us." Death, natural disasters, plagues, starvation, and loose morals all point to the Second Coming and the end of the world.

Now, I'm no scholar or historian, but I'm fairly certain that all of those things have always existed (some in fact have actually decreased significantly since the time of Jesus...don't see too much leprosy today).

So, I watched for the hour it was on, and enjoyed a few chuckles. But the biggest laugh came just a few minutes before the end of the program.
After the Bible-thumping session ended, the narrator's voice became even more ominous. He said , "Maybe the end of the earth won't take a supernatural form. We humans in fact may be bringing about our own demise..."

You guessed it! Apocalypse-by-Global-Warming has made it all the way to the Right of the political spectrum...all the way.

This bizarre union of Right and Left made me start to think. Man as a species has been obsessed with Armageddon since well before the birth of Christianity; it's become a sort of religious-necessity...man expects the world to end, but only in the way he envisions it. Christians think the Second Coming will bring about man's true end...

(aside: I always wonder what will happen to the Earth when man's all dead...and the animals...will Earth just be a rock floating through space with some animals on it? ...maybe that's all it is now...oooo...deep)

So, this train of thought eventually brought me back to Global Warming. Weeks ago, one of my room mates put forth the idea that Global Warming was a religion for atheists...There are rituals (neurotic recycling), congregations (protests and rallies), and there is a system of beliefs (the world is getting warmer, SUVs are evil). There are even different sects (those that lump in anti-globalization and anti-corporatism) and hypocrites (celebrities who travel the world in private-jets preaching against SUVs)

And of course, Global Warming, just like the Second Coming, will bring about the end of the mankind's reign on this planet...it is very much like a religion in many ways, and mankind's need for a belief in the end of the world explains why it has spread like wildfire.

Food for thought...thanks to the Macrocosm's author for his thoughts...check his blog out in my "Friends" section...if he would ever update it.

That's all for now...next post will probably be on censorship.

EDIT: It has been recently been pointed out to me that the idea of Global Warming as a religion was originally put forth by Rush Limbaugh. So, I thought I might give him some credit for it too. Thanks Rush.

Nice weekend...and Creationism

This weekend was a whole lot of fun...climbed, hung out with close friends, and just had a good time over all. And only one week until Spring Break.

We had a game day in PT this morning as we do after every Friday APFT. We played the Air Force guys in War Ball...it's like dodge ball but with more people and more fun.

So, my political rant for today will be about something close to a great many Conservative's hearts...Creationism.

I'm just going to say it up front. Creationism is not science.

I consider myself a good Christian. I believe in God, and I believe that He plays as much of a part in our world today as he did eons ago when time began. I am very open to the fact that the Big Bang was probably God turning on the lights...

However, the idea that every species that our world has ever seen was in fact around at the time our world came to be is ridiculous...even laughable.

Fossils are age-tested to a very particular degree...are they 100 percent accurate? No...but we can be absolutely sure that they are older than 10,000 years. And what about the stars? We know that light travels at precisely 299,792,458 metres per second. That is a definition, not a measurement. If the universe is only 10,000 years old, how can we see the stars? It can indeed take millenia for star light to travel to our planet.

The theory of evolution is indeed a "theory." So is gravity...

Problems with linguistics and our understanding of the meanings of words are not ample justifications for dismissing all of the observations scientists have accumulated pointing to the truth behind evolution.

The science behind Intelligent Design is anything but intelligent. In a very important legal battle, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), Michael Behe testified that "no scientific evidence in support of the intelligent design hypothesis has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals." Michael Behe is an advocate for intelligent design. Apparently, they bury themselves.

How does creationism account for vestigle organs? I for one no longer have an appendix...did God really just shove an organ into humans who's sole purpose was to burst and cause pain? NO! The appendix is an organ that was at one time used in the digestion of cellulose; humans don't need it anymore because we have evolved. "Old world" monkeys still use theirs, though it has a different name, cecum. There are people born without appendices...and wisdom teeth! I actually personally know of at least three people who come from familes who simply do not grow wisdom teeth...they are what we would call "higher life forms," heh.

Creationists are entitled to their opinion that God created the world...but to deny the evidence that is right in front of their faces is ignorant.

God and science don't have to be separate. Many people like myself neither deny the existence of God or evolution. We believe that a process as complex and far-sighted as evolution could only be have originally thought-up by the big-guy. Why are you so close-minded?

I don't mind religion class...believe me...I've been attending it since I was 6...but keep it out of my science classes please.

I didn't cite any sources tonight...I'm at work without a whole lot of time...at some point tonight, I'll try my best to throw up a second post with links to evolution and creationist stuff.

Time to close...peace out