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Cute.
Maybe the Magic Man has retired.
I’ve been reading your blog. Congratulations. You have decided to reject the breathtaking stupidity of Christianity and you have accepted reality. People like you are rare. What makes you different from the others? Obviously you are intelligent. It’s fair to say Christians who remain Christians after they grow up are just plain stupid. They might be very successful in their careers, but people who continue to believe in the resurrection, heaven, and hell, have got to have something very wrong with them. Religion is a terrible mental illness. Some people like yourself have what it takes to recover from the Christian disease. The rest will waste their entire lives because they don’t have the ability to realize they are living in a childish idiotic fantasy world.
I suggest maybe you should visit some Christian blogs and explain your story. You might cure someone. Unfortunately Christians are hopelessly stupid and brainwashed so you might just be wasting your time.
@bobxxxx
Thanks for your kind words. I think the difference between me and others was I had an open mind and decided truth was important — no matter where it lead me. But it’s really hard to know everything that affected me and made me open to rejecting something I had complete faith in.
One of these days I will write up my conversion and de-conversion story, but I’ll have to wait a little while longer before it can be public.
I don’t think all Christians are “hopelessly stupid and brainwashed.” Many of my friends are Christians, and many are very intelligent. They might not be able to break free of religion, but they are still good people. There are good and bad atheists, and there are good and bad Christians.
Love it! LoL! :-)
Ha! Why do we need a creationism museum? What we need is a creationist zoo! Each “kind” of animal will be represented, just the way it was on the ark. Each animal will be displayed with a map, showing how the creature left the middle east and got to it’s current habitat after the flood. There will be empty cages for all those animals that didn’t make it, like the dragon, the unicorn and all the dinosaurs. And a few empty cages like this one, just in case God takes it into his omnipotent head to pop a new one into existence.
Well, Christians would argue that you can’t test God. Maybe if you prayed enough he would oblige? He did say in the Bible that whatever you pray for, He will grant. Not sure whether a magically appearing animal or a moving mountain would be more impressive though…
“God moves in mysterious ways”… i.e., we don’t know, and we don’t want to think too hard about it either.
“Each animal will be displayed with a map, showing how the creature left the middle east and got to it’s current habitat after the flood.”
Of more than passing interest, the historical record reveals that dry land was originally created as one land mass before the flood. The bibile also records the exact date that the land mass broke up. The reason why the newly formed continents were moved apart is also revealed.
Did you know that Darwin climed to the top of the Alps, some 7 miles above sea level? He could look down at the clouds below. At the peak, he made a remarkable discovery: embedded in the rock was a sea shell, which still retained its color. Just how did the sea shell become embedded in a rock 7 miles high? The answer is recorded in the bible:
(Gen 7:17 KJV) And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
(Gen 7:18 KJV) And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
(Gen 7:19 KJV) And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
(Gen 7:20 KJV) Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
[From Dan: I removed the rest of this comment and the link, because I consider it spam. It has also been posted on other sites. I'd rather not be promoting David's public school bible science studies. David, you're welcome to post here, but please don't post spam for your books.]
I have a lower criterion for god’s existence: all He has to do is put some new life into my peanut butter jar.
Maybe the invisible dragon (thanks, Dr. Sagan) is already in the cage.
“Of more than passing interest, the historical record reveals that dry land was originally created as one land mass before the flood.”
Um … yeah. A reading of any description of plate tectonics will answer many of your questions, cdavidparsons. From that you should learn not only how the plates move, but the scale of time they move in. As an added bonus, you’ll learn about mountain formation and how those darn fossils got up there. Why, maybe you should look into getting a geology textbook!
bpdlr, testing God is a standard Biblical procedure! Although this test does differ from Gideon’s wool-wetness test (Judges 6:36-40), Elijah’s fire-lighting test (1 Kings 18:36-38) and Isaiah’s solar-perturbation test (2 Kings 20:8-11). A key element that is missing is the holy man asking that it be done (and it’s real, not part of a fictional story).
Dan,
I too have started to read your blog rather regularly. My life’s journey thus far has proved eerily similar (albeit much less intense) to yours, and it’s a breath of fresh air to read about someone open minded enough to question their own beliefs. What I love about science, and what draws me to it, is its inherent sense of infallibility, that no matter how factual something is, new real evidence is always allowed a platform (note: real evidence) and the system as a whole is never immune to great upheavals that can overturn its once-believed foundations.
Okay, I don’t know if that made any sense, but what I’m getting at is that you should keep writing here, and elsewhere if possible, and continue to spread your critical and open-minded approach to life. We need more de-conversions.
-Brian
As soon as cdavidparsons finishes High School he should have the answers to all those questions he asks.
ID is so simple to criticize, it’s not even fair to you. However, I suggest that you check out this youtube vid for starters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW_2lLG9EZM&feature=related
Wow. For one, vast mis-representation of ID.
For instance, true ID science speaks nothing of ‘God’ – it only looks for design in biological systems. Sure, this is going to be popular among theists (I am one), much like the ‘Big Bang’ theory is, because it can be ‘used’ for apologetics purposes. That, however, does not invalidate the ID enterprise, however.
Secondly, would it be any fairer to replace the cage with a
bucket, and post a sign stating that the purely materialist darwinists are waiting for biogenesis to occur, in order to prove that all living thing simply were organized from non-living matter and one day – ‘pop’…
“Look – the mud! It’s moving! It’s alive!”
Nope. Don’t think that would be quite fair at all, would it?
saintlewis -
That’s all correct, as far as it goes. Technically, the sign should read ‘creationism’ instead of ‘intelligent design’ in order to be accurate. And your analogy seems to be correct, at least to me.
On the other hand, the line between ID and creationism seems to be very porous. The great proponents have a habit of slipping and acknowledging their religious motivations. From the Wedge Document to the history of “Of Pandas and People,” we see that Intelligent Design is being used as a way to gain a foothold for creationism. So in a broader sense, the sign is quite accurate. Advocates of ID have a nasty tendency to be creationists, mouthing ID talking points while waiting for their all-powerful designer to appear.
Yeah, saintlewis, your theory breaks down when you get Behe in front of an audience and he tries to explain what cre…intelligent design is all about.
Intelligent design doesn’t posit a mechanism for organisms to be created, and just appearing in a cage one day is as valid as appearing in a field. On the other hand, ask an abiogenecist what to put in the cage to make life, they’ll tell you, down to precise ratios, and give you a ballpark estimate for when you should expect slime to occur.
God doesn’t jump through our hoops. That would make Him a lesser being.
“God doesn’t jump through our hoops. That would make Him a lesser being.”
Can you be sure of that? Throughout the bible we see instances where God responds to challenges, such as in the case of Isaiah and the priests of Baal. Consider this empty cage to be the modern equivalent of the pile of dry tinder.
Maybe it was small like a flea. Which reminds me, how did Noah get all those bees, flies, mosquitoes, fleas, etc. on the big boat, 2 of each, one of each gender, and then also get them to have sex with each other? Now that’s truly a miracle. God must exist.
But wouldn’t god, in her wisdom, intelligently design a creature shaped so that it could immediately escape the cage? Perhaps the creature was there last night and we missed it! ;)