Rioting Mind

Happy Blasphemy Day!

2010-09-30T16:38:00.001-05:00

New Warhammer Game

2010-08-10T23:05:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine is about to start up the new version of the Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing Game. I don't know much about the new system so it will be fun to learn. I thought I would just post my characters history here. We had to be from Marienburg and we had to give our character some driving force in their life. The game master gave us a different history than the canon, so this will be fun. Here is the history of Torendil Argentpatois Wood Elf Waywatcher:

It has been 8 long years since I lost them. It has been 8 long years we have had to barricade ourselves from the others. Everyone is losing hope. Things were supposed to improve and have instead only gotten worse. It has been 8 long years of hopelessness, fear and barely surviving.

I was born in the forest. I have longed to return. The last 8 years has only made that longing worse. My parents, Alane and Larandar, were sent here, shortly after I was born, as envoys to the proud humans and our snobbish cousins. The envoy set up on one of the few uninhabited islands within the deltas of Marienburg.

We set up houses and a community, even raising what little of plant life was there. I grew up with the trees planted upon our arrival. They were nothing compared to those that we left behind. How I long for those giant majestic trees. My sister was born without ever seeing those trees.

Gallina was born 15 years after our arrival; I was 20 at the time. There were not many elves close to my age. Most were either adults or Gallina’s age. I often got into trouble because I didn’t fit in. The human children would make fun of me and the young ones only wanted to play baby games. I once ran afoul of the human authorities. They beat me and dragged me back to our island. I was sure my parents would have a word with me over having to obey the humans because we were representatives of the Queen, but instead I was greeted by Ravandil Surefire. Ravandil was the only real guard we had and the only one we needed. You never saw him but he saw you. After the humans left, he seemed to appear out of the shadows near me.

“Torendil, you will never honor the Queen if you continue down this path.”

“Why should I care, we are never going back to the forest.”

“You think the Queen’s eyes are restricted to the forest? There is much you have to learn. I can teach you, come back here tonight.”

I came back that night. Ravandil was a Waywatcher and he wanted to train me as his apprentice. I am sure my parents wanted me to be diplomat like them but that was never my calling. I trained every night with Ravandil. He showed me everything it would take to be a Waywatcher and protector of our home. I was starting to appreciate our lives here but then everything changed. That was 8 long years ago.

It started with rumors of some human hero coming to “save” everyone from the current leaders. They besieged the town and the internal fighting got worse and I had to help Ravandil keep the others out of our community, it took all my training. I don’t know how long the siege had been going before it happened, the event that changed everything. Even during the attacks my parents still felt the call of their duty and continued to be envoys to the current leaders. The explosion could be seen the city over. My parents and a few of the other elders were in the tower during the explosion. I learned all of this a few hours after the explosion, Ravandil told me. I told my sister.

Things went from bad to worse. I had no time to grieve as the celebrations gave way to food riots. We had to fight for what little food we could find. Ravandil was in charge of our island and he decided to secure our borders. We built barricades to keep the others out. The only problem was that it kept us in too. It was up to Ravandil, myself and a few of the other elders to secure our island and gather the food we needed. This kept us busy and still some of the scum came to steal from us. We left the heads with arrows in each eye socket just outside the barriers to deter others. This only worked for so long as the food shortage became worse. Apparently some of the humans were blaming us for their problems, as if we even cared about them. There was a large riot that encompassed the entire city. We fought because that is all we could do. Keeping the humans out was impossible. Ravandil forced the young ones and myself into a cellar. The last thing he said to me was, “Keep them safe.” We could hear the fighting outside. I don’t know how long we waited but it was well after the sound of fighting had died away before we came out. Ravandil and most of the elders were dead. Most of the houses had been destroyed, a few even burnt down. The trees were in a similar state to the houses. I cried but the young ones didn’t understand as they had never seen the forests. A few elders survived the battle, hurt and the spirit broken. The riots passed by us and ended a few days later. From what I can tell, the hero, that came to “save” everyone, was found dead.

I was finally able to mourn the passing of all our brethren, my mentor and my parents. The city started back like it was before the war, but slowly declined from there. I decided to keep the barriers around our island up and even fortified them into walls. We barred ourselves off from the city. Gallina wanted to take up where our parents left off. I was reluctant to let her, but finally caved on one condition that I would be her personal bodyguard. The lords of the city disregarded her, not even granting her an audience. She was persistent and asked every day. The lords finally granted her an audience but did not listen to her requests for assistance. Gallina lost hope that day. I knew what I must do on that day. We were not wanted here. It is time to return to the forest. My people’s spirit is broken. It will cost a lot of money for moving and for supplies. I cannot just muster them all at once but I have been working on it for the better part of these last 8 long years. Making connections with some of the scum, but I will do whatever it takes to see that my people make it back to the forest. 8 long years have passed and several more years lie ahead but we will walk among the forest again.

TF - Resurrection Time.

2010-08-09T14:10:00.002-05:00

It has been awhile, but I am back to working my way through this book. I am still in Chapter 6 and this section is called Resurrection. It is a case study in logical fallacies.

He starts off giving a brief overview of the Resurrection story in the bible. He claims that two Mary's went to the tomb to sprinkle spices on Jesus. So here is what the Bible has to say:

Matthew 28:1 - After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

So far so good.

Mark 16:1 - When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.

Okay the two Mary's came but apparently someone named Salome came also...

Luke 23:52-56 - This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.

Okay so it is just the women here, no names.

John 20:1 - Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

Now it was only 1 woman...

Well Mary of Magdalene was possibly in all the stories...

Next Colson says that Mary and Mary were met by two angels, that told them Jesus was risen. Again going back to the Bible to see what it says:

Matthew 28:2-And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it

Well that only says one angel, maybe "Matthew" just left one out...

Mark 16:5 - As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

Well that doesn't even mention an angel, just a man in white robe and only 1 man...

Luke 24:4 - While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.

Well at least there are two guys here in dazzling clothes, I guess you could assume they are angels and not just two guys coming from a rave...

John 20:1-3 - Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb.

John 20:11-12 - But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.

Well here it was two angels but two disciples were present too...

So Colson just mashes these four different stories together and claims it is one continuous perfect story.

The next statement by Colson makes me laugh:

The ugly crucifixion, the most hideous symbol of death and shame ever devised, was converted in that instant into the holiest of holy symbols.

Well first it took several hundred years before it was considered a real holy symbol (when Emperor Constantine decided to make Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire, for more about Constantine I suggest reading this). Second I think Eli Roth and James Wan have the cross and crucifixion beat in the most hideous and shameful death devices ever devised. They are masters of whole movie genre based on torture, shame and painful death.

After that sentence, Colson begins to make his dive into logical fallacy land.

All true Christians believe that Jesus Christ has been bodily raised in victory over death.

We start with a No True Scotsman. Colson mentions an example of the Anglican Bishop of Durham, who, Colson claims, claimed to doubt the bodily raising of Jesus. David Jenkins is the Bishop. David Jenkins is a Christian because he describes himself as such, no matter what Colson says. That is the thing, whether Colson likes it or not, if someone claims to be Christian then they are a Christian. I even know a few people that call themselves Christian Atheists. They are still Christians.

I was in Sri Lanka shortly after his widely publicized statement and was told by an Angelican priest that the Buddhists and Senegalese and Muslims were using the statement to lure believers away from Christianity.

Yet more racism from Colson. To quote Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the other things." Buddhism is a religion. Islam is a religion. Senegal is a country in Africa. Apparently there are 0 Christians in Senegal and apparently all Senegalese try to deconvert Christians. No need for anything like facts to get in the way:

Muslim 94%, Christian 5% (mostly Roman Catholic), indigenous beliefs 1%

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sg.html

Next Colson contradicts his "All true Christians" statement:

Still, many who call themselves Christians today share Bishop Jenkins's skepticism, embracing the argument that many have made through the centuries that Jesus' followers simply played upon the ancient myths about a god rising from the dead, hid Jesus' body, and the created the Passover Plot.

You know the first time I heard of this plot? The Bible.

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, “After three days I will rise again.” Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, “He has been raised from the dead”, and the last deception would be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone. - Matthew 27:62-66

And

While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, ‘You must say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day. - Matthew 28:11-15

Amazing how the pharisees could understand what Jesus was saying when they barely saw him. Yet, his disciples, whom have been traveling with him everyday, are completely caught off guard by this whole resurrection.

Weird that the authors of the Bible had to insert this...

All the apostles recognized that if the resurrection was not a historic fact, there could and should be no such thing as Christianity.

Option B, making this claim made it seem like what they were saying was more true. Colson quotes Paul of Tarsus before this. There are many things I can say about Paul. Paul seems to have taken over Christianity and determined the path it was to go. The earliest known writings on Christianity are from Paul, not any of the disciples or even the Gospels. Paul was the first truly educated person to take up the banner of Christianity. He claims this because of a vision on the road to Damascus. Paul had the classic traits of someone with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. I do not doubt that Paul believed everything he wrote, but belief is not evidence.

Which brings my next point, 'All worshipers of Thor recognized that if lightning was not real, there could and should be no such thing as Thor' or insert your own favorite deity. Doesn't make as much sense. Really all it takes is belief that it is true. Once there is belief then the religion can take off, whether it actually is true or not doesn't matter.

My personal experiences in the Watergate scandal convinces me of the historic proof of the resurrection, as I've written elsewhere. I was charged with being part of the conspiracy to cover up the Watergate break-in.

He still thinks he did nothing wrong during Watergate. Colson, you were not just charged but convicted and you plead guilty. That means you admitted to being part of the cover up. When I mess up, I admit it. I screwed up at work one time and forgot to change back up tapes. One of our servers crashed and we didn't have current back ups. I admitted this was my fault. Stop using this wishy washy language of 'I was charged'.

What most Watergate buffs have failed to note, however, is that the conspiracy succeeded for less than three weeks.

Yes, he is using a modern conspiracy to try and disprove the idea that the disciples conspired. Not taking into account that there was far less communication networks then or literate people then. Colson also somehow ignores the irony of saying things like this:

After all, Christians are rightly concerned that extremists have turned Earth Day into “Worship-Earth Day.”

Just listen to a few of these suggestions for Earth Day 2010 that some of the more radical groups are proposing: taking down “global eco-criminals” like Exxon-Mobil; having school kids meditate about the Spirit of Life (that’s “Spirit of Life” with capital letters); seeking international cooperation on reducing the human population; or working for, and I quote, the “ultimate, inevitable, and necessary dismantling of industrial civilization.”

Or this screed against Global Warming.

So those conspiracies can exist but any kind of conspiracy that happened during a time when most people were illiterate and we didn't have any way of electronically recording anything and no way to spread news really fast and if it goes against Chuck Colson's preconceived notions could not have happened.

The comparison of a conspiracy today to one in First Century CE is apples and oranges. Also we have a nice example of a conspiracy working just recently in 9/11. Several fundamentalist Muslims conspired to fly planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the White House and they succeeded (the US Government didn't do it).

Think of it: the most powerful men around the president of the United States could not keep a lie for three weeks.

Not just the most powerful, but also one of the most scrutinized group of people in the world. Unlike a small group of fanatics in the mountains of the Middle East.

And you'd have me believe that the twelve apostles - powerless, persecuted, exiled, many martyred, their leader Peter crucified upside down - these common men, gave their lives for a lie, without ever breathing a word to the contrary?

Yep, they sound just like a group of radical Muslims who have done exactly the same.

As we are seeing with Islamic radicals today, people will die for something they believe to be true; but men will never die for something they know to be false.

I now expect to see a press release saying that Chuck Colson has converted to being a Mormon or a member of Heaven's Gate or just admitting that David Koresh was the second coming of Jesus. I would even be happy if Colson just said he missed out in Jonestown, among other cults. All because no one ever dies for something they know not to be true.

Besides the evidence of people dying for something that they would have to know is not true, Colson is also making the assumption that disciples were all martyred. The earliest known recording of the martyrdom was by Origen in the 3rd Century CE. We have nothing before that. How can one be sure that it happened as Origen said? And not just stories passed down to help legitimize a struggling young religion? Much like the Bible, it can only be done on faith. The evidence is just not there.

For two thousand years the historicity of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection has been challenged on many grounds. But no one has ever produced evidence of the kind that brought President Nixon down - "a smoking gun," that is, evidence that could contradict the biblical account.

Evidence, you are doing it wrong. No, the burden of proof is on you Colson to prove that the Bible happened as it says, you cannot switch the burden of proof on the negative. Your example proves that. It was not up to Nixon to prove he wasn't part of the conspiracy but it was up to the prosecution to prove that he was. Now your claim is that Jesus, lived, died and rose from the grave. You have to prove that happened. You will have a hard time proving that he even lived.

It also has not been challenged for two thousand years. Most of that time, Christians ran the show and people were tortured and killed if they remotely challenged anything in it, including the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun.

Is that not evidence of its veracity?

I was abducted by aliens when I was in college. Prove it didn't happen. Is that not evidence of its veracity?

Can you think of any other event in history that has been so thoroughly examined, has not been disproved, and yet some still disbelieve it?

Alien abductees, Muslims, Mormons, Bigfoot hunters, Loch Ness monster hunters, make that all of Cryptozoology, Zeus, Odin, Hindus, Buddhists, and countless others would like to talk to you. Unless of course you have found some way to disprove them all. Shifting the Burden of Proof is a logical fallacy.

The constant eyewitness testimony of the apostles and earliest believers to the reality of Jesus' bodily resurrection, given among those hostile to the claims of Jesus, clearly points to the resurrection as a historical reality.

If you think we have any writings from any direct eye witnesses, you are fooling yourself. There is none, zip, nada, nothing. We have people writing at least 30 years after the fact, claiming that they talked to a reliable source, who may or may not have been an eye witness, but won't mention the source by name. Some even admit to just being made up of the stories being told among Christians (Luke 1:2).

The last bit of this chapter is just an appeal to authority and the authority being the Bible. Colson just claims that since the Bible says Jesus is in Heaven then he must be in Heaven. I am still waiting for any other reports of the many prophets that rose from the dead in Jerusalem that Matthew talked about (Matthew 27:52). I am not holding my breath.

The next Chapter is an attempt to prove that the voting process that created the Nicene Creed and the Athanasius Creed were correct, about the Trinity.

Life

2010-07-19T14:05:00.001-05:00

I sometimes just have to write about life. Some of this is recent, some is just things that come up.

My sister called me and she wants to take my gf's daughter (her daughter calls me dad now which is still odd but good at the same time) to Vacation Bible School this week in the evenings. I didn't want to give an answer without talking to my gf first. Her daughter is moderately autistic. She, the daughter, doesn't understand any concepts that she can't touch or feel. Trying to ask what she did today is even perplexing to her. So I was okay with her going to VBS because she wouldn't understand what they are talking about but would have fun playing games, singing and eating snacks. The gf was okay with this for much of the same reasons. It is just being asked in the first place. Religion is assumed and I have given plenty of hints to my family about being an atheist. I just don't know when is the right time to come completely out of the closet so to speak. Everyone here prays, at work or even work related optional events. Religion is there hanging on. Like the Bad Religion song Generator, religion is the buzz in the background that influences everything.

I want to move, I want to do something different, but I have a family and I don't want to put pressure on them. Motivation is something that seems to be lacking from me. I feel no urge to do anything. I work for the sake of working. Again I am just not motivated to do anything. It is as if something is missing in me that helps other work hard and get ahead. It is depressing at times.

I think back about all the times I let other people decide things for me and regret it. I want to go back and change certain moments, but I know I would not be me then and unsure of how things would have turned out. I am happy as to how I have turned out overall. It is just things overwhelm and some things just have to be said. I have been holding those things back lately and it shows at times.

I worry too much. I worry about my relationship with my gf. I worry if I am doing everything I can for her. I don't want to lose her. Everything is okay, she tells me this, but I still worry. I worry I am not doing enough for my family, like there is so much more I should or could do, again like there is some motivation that drives people at being a better person for the family that I don't have.

I want to go back to school, but I am scared. I am scared of the consequences for my family. Right now we depend on my job. I would have to lose it, probably get a part time while at school and my gf would probably have to get a job. Then we would have to find someone to take care of the kids. This task is so daunting to me.

I wish I could just be a better person than I am.

TF - Chapter 6 - Penal Substitution and Racism

2010-06-24T10:47:00.001-05:00

This next section is on Penal Substitution, but Colson does not even try to justify it. He just asserts that it is good. Colson is saying that it is good to kill an innocent man instead of the guilty party because the innocent man wants to be punished. This goes against pretty much every one's morals. The same morals that most Christians, and I am sure Colson himself, claim to be from God. That would mean that Penal Substitution is an immoral act committed by God.

Often to get around this immoral act, Christians will say it is similar to someone paying a traffic fine. Even if we ignore the difference between fines and the death penalty, this still does not make sense. Jesus is God, so thus God is paying money to himself, in other words nothing is exchanged and thus the fine cannot have been paid.

These are the major issues with Penal Substitution, but Colson acts as if they don't even exist and that everything is nice and dandy. Colson even starts off by claiming that Christianity is facing some sort of evil conspiracy working against it at all times.

When you understand, as inmates, the poor, and the marginalized do, the radical nature of Christ's message, it's no wonder that those opposed to God's rule ordered him crucified. He was a dangerous threat to the evil world order.

This is not reality. Colson has now entered fantasy land where everything and everyone that do not agree with him are conspiring against him. I find this particularly funny considering Colson's past and his own involvement in an attempt to cover-up and conspire against Democrats. One would think that with experience in how hard it is to conspire and cover-up something relatively small, that he would understand the impossible logistics of covering up something as massive as he is claiming here. Then again he can always opt out of reality and claim it is supernatural in nature.

Next, Colson briefly describes some scenes from his favorite snuff and antisemitic film The Passion of the Christ. He also makes the mistake of claiming that Jesus suffered the worst possible type of death sentence in crucifixion. The Romans were amateurs compared to Torquemada.

If you can still imagine yourself as a prisoner, think about what the scene at Golgotha reveals. Being nailed to a cross was an invention of the Romans, considered the most painful death imaginable, with prolonged suffering often lasting hours. None of us can get out of our minds the grisly portrayal of the crucifixion in Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. Watching that film was one of the most sobering and convicting experiences of my life.

He even makes the mistake of claiming the Romans invented crucifixion. It takes no time at all, especially in the age of the Internet, to research this claim. It is patently false. From Wikipedia:

Pre-Roman States
Crucifixion (or impalement), in one form or another, was used by Persians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Macedonians, and Romans. Death was often hastened. "The attending Roman guards could only leave the site after the victim had died, and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the victim."^[30]
The Greek writer Herodotus described at the conclusion of HISTORIES, BOOK IX (120-121), the execution in about 479BCE of a traitor; "they nailed him to a plank and hung him up...this Artacytus who suffered death by crucifixion." (Translation, Aubrey de Selincourt.)

This is yet another time that Colson seems more interested in emotional pull and less in facts. I have to ask again, if I can't trust him with what I know to be true, why should I trust him about the unknown? Or as Saint Augustine of Hippo said:

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

Colson goes on about how awesome God is for killing an innocent person instead of himself and how loving that makes God. Near the end of all this comes this exact quote:

Everyone is like the first thief or the second, or perhaps one of the crowd, standing around with their hands in their pockets. Remember the great Negro spiritual "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" Well, you are.

Negro is still totally appropriate, right? It does nothing to hearken back to the days of slavery and inequality, that many are still trying to fight for and against. This is just blatant racism out of no where. Colson could have easily chosen any number of other words instead of Negro. The most appropriate being African American, but slave or black would have been far more appropriate than Negro. This just gives more of an incite into the mind of Colson, that he chose this particular word here. All this talk of tolerance and love is shown to be for only those that look like Colson, disgusting.

Edit: If you want to read many different and in depth reviews of Penal Substitution, the cases for and the rebuttals against it, I suggest reading Ken Pulliam's blog Why I De-Converted from Evangelical Christianity.

Random Stuff

2010-05-21T13:45:00.001-05:00

I have been using Stat Counter for awhile now, just to see what my most popular pages are. The two biggest are from Blasphemy Day and my Warhammer game. People are hitting them searching for images. I am sad to announce that the Warhammer game ended prematurely. My players just couldn't get a regular schedule going to keep playing. It lasted more than what I posted and was even close to the end but it was just not to be. Oh well.

So I will have to come up with something gaming related to talk about in the future, that seems to get a lot of hits. Hopefully tie a few things together or something. Thanks everybody for reading, I do appreciate it.

Edit: I have been playing WoW again too.

Draw Muhammad Day!

2010-05-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

My submission for the day:

I forgot

2010-05-12T15:07:00.000-05:00

But here is Muhammad!

I drews him meself!

TF Chapter 6 - This means WAR!

2010-05-12T14:49:00.001-05:00

I, again, have to question the idea of using war terminology that Colson is using to represent his religion. This book was first published in 2008, which is well after another group of fundamentalist religious zealots used war terms and attacked Americans and others in the World Trade Center Towers. It is as if he wants to be associated with this kind of right wing militarism.

Colson even goes on to compare Christianity to an occupying force:

His [Jesus] own ministry and then by establishing a peaceful occupying force, His Church, which would carry on God's redemption until Christ's return.

There is no definition of occupying force that allows you to include peaceful. It is impossible. The idea is that you install your force by, well, force.

Then of course there are the specifics of Christian history. What was so peaceful about the Crusades, witch hunts, the Peasants' war, St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Thirty Years' war, and so on? These altercations involve the groups that Chuck Colson's Christian foundation is built upon, and the foundation that all Christians' faith is built upon. "For all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

Colson goes on, dropping the military analogies, talking about bringing the Gospel to prisoners. How the prisoners get excited upon hearing how Jesus will free you. Then Colson talks about how people are excited when the Bible is translated into other languages, and oppressed people here a redemptive story. This really doesn't surprise me. People have an innate sense of justice, including babies. The oppressed want to hear about how at some point in the future they will not be oppressed and how those oppressing them will receive punishment. The prisoner wants to hear how his "sins" will be washed away and new life can begin in freedom. The fact the Bible tells them this will happen does not make it true. That they, prisoners and the oppressed, want this to be true, does not make it true.

The one thing Colson does get right in this chapter is stating that Jesus was not a white Anglo-Saxon. Jesus would have been Semitic and born in the Middle East. He would have looked like anyone living on the West Bank today. He would have looked something like this:

From Religious Tolerance: What did Jesus look like?

Moving and stuff

2010-04-27T14:19:00.003-05:00

Well I am moving into a for real house and out of the apartment this week. Hopefully after getting settled over there I can finally get the pictures from DC on the computer and on here. Also I will continue my drudgery through Colson's book. I might even share some pictures of the new place. We are renting the house but it is bigger and we need the space because I have baby boy that will soon be born. Next year I am seriously considering going back to college for another degree.

So, some simple updates of things going on in my life.

Edit: Oh and look I found a picture of Muhammad.

TF - Chapter 6 - Invasion

2010-04-07T15:32:00.002-05:00

Chapter 6 is entitled Invasion and it starts off as militaristic as the last chapter ended. Colson starts the chapter talking about his part in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. Here is how Colson describes it:

The officers were briefed in the wardroom in preparation for a landing, ostensibly to protect American lives and property. The planned invasion was labeled "Hard Rock Baker" - a covert plan to restore Guatemalan government to its pro-American leaders. The CIA was directing the operation against the newly installed leftist-leaning government of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán - a classic case of gunboat diplomacy. We listened on the shortwave radio to Radio Moscow and Pravda denouncing the American "invasion" in Central America, while President Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dallas, denied Americans were anywhere in the area. "Hard Rock Baker" was not publicly disclosed, in fact, until the mid-1990s.

Once again, as it seems with a lot of this book, there is so much wrong in such a short amount of space. So one sentence at a time. What American lives were at stake in Guatemala? What America was doing there was protecting its own special interests, it had nothing to do with American lives and properties. The United States was there chasing down a supposed communist threat.

The invasion was not called "Hard Rock Baker", it was called PBSUCCESS. PBSUCCESS was the selling of weapons to resistant groups and helping them overthrow the Guatemalan government. Operation HARDROCK BAKER was a naval blockade searching for weapons so that the Guatemalan government couldn't be better armed. HARDROCK BAKER had nothing to do with setting up an invasion. This was an illegal act by the US in order to intimidate President Guzmán and the Guatemalan government. The only thing covert about it was the denial by the US government that it was happening. US military boarded and searched British and French freighters ignoring International Law.

The CIA was directing the operation, but calling the government newly installed sounds like President Guzmán and his people took over. Guzmán was elected president in only the second-ever universal-suffrage election in Guatemala. He was elected peacefully, a first in Guatemalan history, and democratically. The US was overthrowing a democratically elected government to set up a government that is loyal to us, some might even say a puppet government. People today wonder why Iraq and others are worried about us doing the same in Iraq. It's because we have a history of doing it. Colson also throws in leftist-leaning because liberals are scary and should be feared, yet more political agenda thrown into a book about religion. Can anyone show me in the Bible where it says Christians should try and manipulate the government?

Guzmán may not have been entirely innocent. He did meet with the Guatemalan communist Labor Party to discuss a new land policy. He was able to put that policy into affect before the US ousted him. The policy had the government take land from the elite rich land owners and give it to the poor. There were stipulations, the land could not be currently in use and the owners were paid for the land. It was forced but the land owners were also properly compensated at fair market value for the land. Guzmán was forced to sell some of his own land. This was the communist entanglement that the US feared. Also the policy took some power away from US friendlies inside Guatemala.

It was not just the Soviets that were denouncing our actions but allies like Britain and France. Also if you call it an invasion and then someone you don't like uses the same word. You can't just throw their use of the word in quotes to try and discredit their views of your actions, because you have the same view.

The rest of what Colson writes in this paragraph is actually true. He did misspell HARDROCK BAKER again. What all this has to do with Christianity, I don't know, nor does Colson explain. Instead he goes on to talk about the invasion of Normandy and the lives lost there. He finally concludes this opening section of Chapter 6 basically claiming that the attack on Normandy and the battle against Germany appears preordained and somewhat miraculous. Basically he is saying God was on the side of the Allies in WWII, without saying it. Funny, the Germans thought the same, "Gott Mit Uns". Colson can say he is right because he won, might makes right of course.

1 Year

2010-04-01T14:30:00.000-05:00

I have been blogging for 1 year now. I am amazed I have made it this long. No worries I plan to keep on blogging.

Also at some point, I will download pictures from my vacation and add them here. I am pretty slow about doing that type of thing.

Thanks to everyone that has been reading.

TF - Chapter 5 - The Blame Game

2010-03-31T15:35:00.001-05:00

I actually think Colson gets some things right here. Colson deserves credit for both what he gets wrong and what he gets right. Although he starts off with a beautiful example of projection:

Our culture's refusal to accept the truth of original sin has created a mentality of wholesale denial. We find the judgment in the word "sin" a far greater offense than the failings to which it's applied. When our own behavior might be described as evil or sinful, we compartmentalize our thinking, profess ourselves victims, or find ourselves generally astonished that any such darkness could have emerged out of us.

Colson has been talking about how Christians are persecuted because people are questioning the veracity of the Bible. He went so far as comparing it to the actual physical persecution some Christians have received across the world and throughout history. I guess when it comes to compartmentalizing and making oneself out as a victim, Colson is an expert.

Colson goes on to talk about how people make excuses. This is where I agree with him and think he got something right. Many people are too willing to pass the blame around and not take responsibility for their actions. Personally, I take responsibility for what I have done. We had some issues at my work this past week and it was my fault. One of the first things I did was tell my boss that it was my fault. The root causes do go back further than I have been working here and I am trying to change those now, but that particular incident went back to something I didn't do before I left for vacation.

Finding the root cause of something and shifting blame are two different things. That is something that Colson does not seem to understand. He conflates the two ideas and calls them both the same. For example talking about terrorist Zacarias Moussaoi:

But the jury, after long deliberation, decided to sentence him to life in prison instead of the death penalty. When jurors were surveyed after the verdict, nine of the twelve explained the lesser sentence by noting that Moussaoui had a troubled childhood. A dysfunctional background excuses someone for knowingly take part in a plot to kill thousands of innocent civilians?

To answer his question, no it doesn't as Moussaoui was convicted and sentenced to life in jail. Colson seems to be out for blood here, the old an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth Deuteronomy style revenge (revenge because that it is what it would be, not justice). What did Jesus have to say about this?

You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. - Matthew 5:38-39

Moussaoui was held responsible but the jurors saw fit not to kill him and showed compassion giving him a lesser sentence. For some reason I think Jesus would be more proud of the jurors than the blood thirsty Colson (YHWH may be a different story though).

Colson later uses a prisoner as an example of the same thing, saying:

One prisoner told Dr. Dalrymple that he had become depressed after "his trouble came upon him again." His "trouble" was breaking and entering into churches, stealing their valuables, and then burning them down to destroy the evidence. The doctor wondered whether this "trouble" had come about because the prisoner had been forced in his childhood to attend too many church services by a hypocritical family. "Not at all; it was because in general churches were poorly secured, easy to break into, and contained valuable objects in silver." The man blamed his actions on lax church security. The prisoner thought this only reinforced his compulsion to steal.

Contrary to the Moussaoui story, here is a man that is shifting all the blame onto others. This is what I too would speak out against. This is far different then finding the underlining issues.

In the last part of this chapter, we stumble across some of the best irony ever written. After going on about how people should not shift blame, Colson says:

As we've seen, Satan practices his deception not only on individuals but on whole cultures. He uses false religions and false ideas to ensnare cultures in evil. If he can turn a whole people toward worshiping a false god, he can compromise millions of consciences at once.

Yes, that is right it is all Satan's fault. Colson just shifted the blame from everyone in the world to Satan.

He goes on again to say that questioning the veracity of the Bible's truth claim is letting Satan do his work. Comparing it to Nazi's taking over the world. Yes, he seriously did this. He then says just like the allies invaded Europe, God has invaded this world, and ends the chapter. Why the stark military references at the end? Colson is really appealing to the idea that everything is a war and we all have to fight. Sadly some people will take this seriously (Hutaree Militia). Colson and the others that inspired this group using military jargon will then back as far away as possibly saying things like 'We were talking about a spiritual war not a physical one'. Again I am reminded of something attributed to Jesus:

"Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." - Matthew 26:52

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

2010-03-22T16:10:00.003-05:00

Well before I left but also before I had time to respond. It was just pointing to another blog that is claiming the statistical data for atheists being underrepresented in prisons is a lie. The site is Thoughtful Faith and the post is called Atheists in prison.

He starts by looking at Scottish prisons.

A higher percentage of Scottish inmates claim to have no religion in comparison to the general population. According to the Scottish Government’s Statistical Bulletin, Prison Statistics Scotland 2007-8, Table 8, 34.1% of the prison population has no religion. This compares with 19% of the general Scottish population answering that they had no religion, according to the ICM research faith survey conducted for the BBC in November 2005.

You can find the prison numbers on page 21. Scotland has a total of 7,154 males and females in prison. 2,442 list none as their religion. The faith survey he links uses an even smaller number of people, 1,019. Of the 1,019 surveyed 227 listed no religion. I am actually looking at the 2001 Census, which surveys everyone. It gives a more accurate number of 27.55% listing as no religion. Still the number of atheists in jail in Scotland is more than the population by 6.58%. I am fairly sure that 6% would fall within standard deviation. Also that just because one small subset in one area is equal does not mean that it is equal everywhere.

This is a bell curve:

When dealing with statistics one has to understand what a bell curve is and what it means. Notice the majority of responses will fall into the middle range around the mean, which is usually simplified to average. You will have outliers on both ends of the spectrum. So having a small prison system that lies outside the mean is to be expected.

He also uses stats from England and Wales.

A higher percentage of English and Welsh inmates claim to have no religion in comparison to the general population. According to the March 2000 report, Religion in Prisons, 31.9% of inmates claimed to have “no religion”, of whom 0.2% who specifically answered that they were “atheists” and 0.1% who answered that they were “agnostic”. The national census, 15.5% of people in the general population answered that they had “no religion” and 7.3% gave no answer at all. Therefore between 15.5% and 22.8% of the general population were atheists, in comparison with 31.9% of inmates.

First off, if they don't claim to be an atheist you can't just relabel them as atheists. So atheists consisted of 0.2% of the prison population. By his own links, he shows that the census didn't even distinguish between atheists, agnostics and other non religious people. So there is no way to compare the numbers here, without just making stuff up.

Finally he gets to America, which is what the original subject of atheists in prisons is about (apples, oranges, what's the difference).

The United States keeps no official statistics on religious beliefs of inmates. The claim that atheists were under-represented in prisions was seemingly started, by Rod Swift, who wrote it on his website, and publicized the claim through the internet and sceptical magazines. He claims that he received an email from an employee of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Denise Golumbaski. According to this email, 0.2% of those surveyed specifically answered they were “atheist” and 19.8% give no answer. This compares with 0.5% of the US population at the time who identified as atheist, and 4 to 6% (according to Gallop) who gave no answer.

Rod Swift was one of the two sources I originally quoted. The other source I found was from the Skeptic files. It verifies the findings of Rod Swift over a longer period of time than just a single year.

In the end, there are many factors that make up why people are in prison and claiming any one is a bit silly. I actually agree with his last statement, well except for the first and last part.

Although all three surveys indicate that people of “no religion” are overrepresented in prison, there are many complex factors which could be linked to criminal behaviour – including levels of education, age, economic well being. It may well be, for example, that atheists tend to be younger and more active – and therefore more likely to display criminal behaviour for reasons which have little or nothing to do with the atheist worldview. Nevertheless the claim that atheists are under-represented in prison is contradicted by the data in England, Wales, the US and also in Scotland.

I leave you with Norway via Russell's Teapot:

Edit: Apparently FreeThoughtPedia thinks they own the rights to Russell's Teapot just because they were one of the many hosting the image. So I have grabbed it from another source.

Vacation

2010-03-12T09:51:00.000-06:00

Today I am leaving for a week long drive to Washington DC. I am going with my Girlfriend and her daughter. We are just taking our time, probably going to stop at a lot of places along the way. I already plan to go to Kittyhawk, NC on the way out there. I am very excited about going as I haven't been to DC since High School. I will take lots of pictures and post them or links to them here.

Free Will and the Problem of Evil Redux

2010-03-03T09:42:00.000-06:00

I want to add to my last post. I forgot to mention this, but I have two questions for any believer about free will.

Is there free will in Heaven? Can someone sin in Heaven?

If you say yes to free will and no to sin, then why the need for Earth? If free will can be had without sin, how can you blame the problem of evil on free will? Obviously it will be circumnavigated in Heaven

If you say no to free will and no to sin, then why give us free will in the first place? I have been told the reason for free will is because God doesn't want automatons, but if he takes free will away in Heaven that is just creating an eternity of automatons.

If you answer yes to free will and yes to sin, isn't there a chance that everyone will rebel and fall again? That doesn't seem like a good plan to me. It is like asking for everything to start over again.

If you answer no to free will and yes to sin, then well uhm so God will force people to sin? WTF?

TF - Chapter 5 - The Problem of Evil

2010-03-02T11:58:00.002-06:00

This could also be called 'How to Solve the Problem of Evil Via Red Herring'.

Of course the reason everything in the world is not perfect is because Satan appeared as a serpent (find Biblical quotes stating that it was Satan) and tricked Eve into eating a magical fruit that allowed her to tell the difference between good and evil. Yes, someone who could not know that they were committing evil has damned us all. That is Colson's premise and the premise of most Creationist Christians. Colson does nothing to prove his premise but just states it and goes on.

Colson starts off describing the problem of evil and describing it well.

But why would God bring a world into existence that would be characterized by such evil and suffering? What about "acts of God" like hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, and famine? Humanity is afflicted with cancer and a thousand other diseases. Can all the evil of the world be attributed to humankind's failings? Is God truly innocent? He put Adam and Eve in a situation where He knew, if God is omniscient, or all-knowing, that they would fail.

The last bit is a bit of a red herring but could easily fall into the discussion. It is usually the excuse for evil, but it ignores natural disasters. Epicurus is credited with the first asking of the problem but Sextus Empiricus wrote the oldest extant version of it. It states:

If a perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.
There is evil in the world.
Therefore, a perfectly good god does not exist.

It has changed some since but the basics of it are still the same. The way I like to hear it is, as stated by David Hume:

"Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?"

So what is Colson's answer to the problem of evil? Free will causes evil and God wants us to have free will. He never describes what free will is and how that is compatible with an omniscient God ( you can't do anything without God already knowing what you are going to do, thus free will is more of an illusion, as your choices are known ahead of time and in a sense predetermined). He also never explains how free will causes natural disasters. Instead Colson tells the story of a pilot that ignores his instruments and kills almost everyone on board. What this has to do with anything, I have no clue. It is a nice Red Herring.

Next Colson claims that evil is only here because of sin. So, yes because a rib-woman ate a fruit, we have to deal with natural disasters. He backs up this assessment by telling a story of asking a bunch of prisoners, in his church service, what they thought the cause of the increase in prison population. They, according to Colson, all answered sin. So obviously it must be sin. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with a war on drugs that targets victims and not the root causes of drugs? Also if it is sin, then surely countries that are more religious will have less crime than non-religious ones? Let's look at the stats.

According to a Gallop poll in 2007-2008 the top ten most religious countries were:

Egypt
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Indonesia
Congo
Sierra Leone
Malawi
Senegal
Djibouti
Morocco

The least 10 were:

Estonia
Sweden
Denmark
Norway
Czech Republic
Azerbaijan
Hong Kong
Japan
France
Mongolia

The top 10 countries with highest prison percentage:

United States
China
Belarus
Bermuda
Kazakhstan
The Virgin Islands
The Cayman Islands
Turkmenistan
Belize
Suriname

So what's it mean? Well nothing as there seems to only be a slight correlation and correlation does not equal causation anyway. There are many factors that go into prison populations, most of them are socio-economical. Laying it all at the feet of sin is just ridiculous and ignores a vast number of issues. Plus it doesn't answer the question of evil and natural disasters. This is all just one giant red herring to make people forget about the problem.

Colson never answers the problem of evil in this chapter. He goes on about Satan and sin and anything to throw off the fact that his God has the power to stop natural disasters that harm innocents but never does anything.

TF - Chapter 5 - Allegory and Real True History

2010-02-24T12:02:00.003-06:00

Chapter 5 - What Went Right, What Went Wrong

This chapter just starts out wrong. It is so fractally wrong that I don't even know where to start. I could spend posts on the first page alone. I am just going to cut to the point. Colson states that the Bible is a historical document that is completely accurate and infallible. That about 6,000 years ago God gave two babies a gun and they shot things, so God blamed the babies. Well not quite that but I will quote Good Omens on the wisdom of the placing the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden:

"If you think about it *sensibly*, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a neon finger flashing on and off saying 'THIS IS IT!'?"

My favorite line in the opening of this chapter is:

Their [Adam and Eve] story is rendered figuratively but orthodoxy teaches that these are historical events.

This sounds like something White Goodman would say:

Kate Veatch: That... is a really interesting painting.
White Goodman: Thank you. Yeah, that's me, taking the bull by the horns. It's how I handle business. It's a metaphor.
Kate Veatch: I get it.
White Goodman: But that actually happened, though.

Also, since when did orthodoxy teach this? Orthodox meaning adhering to the Christian faith as expressed in the early Christian ecumenical creeds. If Colson wants to make claims that the early church has always taught that the Adam and Eve story was true history, he needs to provide proof of this. He does not. Why he doesn't is simple. There is no proof and some proof to the contrary.

Origen of Alexandria (185-254CE):

"For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally." (De Principiis IV, 16)

"And with regard to the creation of the light upon the first day, and of the firmament upon the second, and of the gathering together of the waters that are under the heaven into their several reservoirs on the third (the earth thus causing to sprout forth those (fruits) which are under the control of nature alone), and of the (great) lights and stars upon the fourth, and of aquatic animals upon the fifth, and of land animals and man upon the sixth, we have treated to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world." (Contra Celsus 6.60)

St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430CE):

"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation." (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408])

"With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation." (ibid, 2:9)

St. Augustine also defended the idea of a young Earth. St. Basil of Caesarea believed in a literal reading of Genesis. In other words, there was no overriding consensus on whether the creation accounts were literal or allegory. Today, Christians are still arguing over whether it is allegory or literal. The difference is there is no evidence for it being literal and quite a lot of evidence supporting evolution, the age of the earth, the age of the universe and so on, thus making a literal translation false. So one can stick with a literal translation like Colson does here, or one can join the 19th, 20th, and 21st century, instead of living in the 5th century.

Post 101

2010-02-09T16:49:00.000-06:00

That last post was number 100 for me, so uhm yay me!

Anyway, more to come as I continue to dredge through the horror that is The Faith by Chuck Colson.

I think I will have to stop occasionally and write about other things, but we will see as I go. 4 Chapters down only 11 more to go.

TF - Chapter 4 part 5

2010-02-09T16:04:00.002-06:00

The next section of the book is just patently false. It is called "The Rejection of Truth Undermines Cultural Development". Really? Wow, just wow. Apparently, according to Colson, Christianity has created "the greatest society in human history." It was during the 18th century that the enlightenment destroyed the truth and culture and led to the Holocaust, somehow. He doesn't connect how these things caused the holocaust but that they did in his imaginary world. He is also trying to rewrite history saying that America is a Christian nation founded by Christians. This is such bullshit and I have debunked it before, but right now I will just point out Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. (emphasis mine)

I know this won't stop the revisionists but you can't put it any better than that.

He starts off talking about how the Romans adopted Christianity, then jumps over a large expanse of human history, and starts mentioning the enlightenment. Now why would Colson jump over the middle ages? Maybe just maybe because Christianity ruled supreme during that time and culture was lost. You know all that culture that the Greeks and Persians made before Christianity, without Colson's "Truth". The middle ages ended when people started to look back at what the Greeks had learned before Christianity burned everything away (quite literally at times). The Renaissance changed all this by going back to the Greek philosophers and growing the culture that had been stubbed and decayed by Christian "Truth". The Age of Enlightenment followed the Renaissance in time and direction. Colson wants people to think that the Enlightenment was the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages were the Enlightenment. As much as Colson tries to separate the US from the Enlightenment, it just can't be done. Go ask a historian about famous men of the Enlightenment, you will hear the names Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin. The US Constitution is an excellent example of an Enlightenment document.

This is also a very Euro-centric view of the world and fundamentally racist. Middle Eastern countries, where Islam was flourishing, gave us Algebra (it is an Arabic word, Al-Jabr). While the Far East was producing black powder and had created many cultural advances not found in Europe. Colson is not directly comparing, but he doesn't have too, to African societies and American societies. It is implied that they are just some savage races that needed white men to come teach them everything. Mesoamericans couldn't come up with things like the number Zero on their own. Africans couldn't create one of the longest standing civilizations ever in Egypt.

There is only one response to this kind of racism: Fuck you, Chuck Colson.

Now what factors really lead to the Holocaust? Could it have possibly been antisemitism prevalent in Europe that stemmed from protestant Christianity taken to the extreme by the Nazis? Well I would need evidence of that now wouldn't I? How about from Martin Luther, the founder of protestantism, himself? From his book entitled Von den Jüden und iren Lügen, which in English translates as On the Jews and Their Lies:

There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses — namely, that God has struck [the Jews] with 'madness and blindness and confusion of mind.' So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite all their murdering, cursing, blaspheming, lying, and defaming; we protect and shield their synagogues, houses, life, and property. In this way we make them lazy and secure and encourage them to fleece us boldly of our money and goods, as well as to mock and deride us, with a view to finally overcoming us, killing us all for such a great sin, and robbing us of all our property (as they daily pray and hope). Now tell me whether they do not have every reason to be the enemies of us accursed Goyim, to curse us and to strive for our final, complete, and eternal ruin! (emphasis mine)

There were many factors that lead to the Holocaust and Christianity was one of those factors.

The next and last section is called "Rejecting Truth Leads to False Gods". This whole section is based on the assumption that people have the need to worship something. If it isn't Colson's brand of Christianity then they must be worshiping a false God. Colson goes on to tell you what it is that you in the modern age worship:

The postmodern age has anointed secular tolerance as its god. Tolerance once meant listening respectfully to all points of view, freely discussed in our common search for the truth. But the creed for the new god of tolerance is that knowing truth is impossible. So everyone is free to think and act as he likes, with one exception: those who have the audacity to believe that they know the truth, particularly if they think God has revealed it to them, are not tolerated. The result is that those who crowned the new god of tolerance have become the absolute arbiters of culture. The new god of tolerance becomes, in the guise of liberalism, an absolute tyrant.

I could spend several posts on this paragraph alone. It is made up of straw men, red herrings, false dichotomy, persecution complex, outright lies, projection and is one giant Gish gallop.

Breaking it down, I want to know where the temples are to this new god known as Tolerance or a statue or just some altar of some kind. I do like the use of anointed, which anointed one in Hebrew is messiah, that is the first bit of projection. Where has the meaning of tolerance changed? Miriam-Webster dictionary? Tolerance. Dictionary.com? Tolerance. Can someone point me to where this has changed? Because using the phrase "once meant" means it has changed. Wait, when did truth have anything to do with tolerance? So is it just maybe that Colson is changing the definition of a word so that he can attack that definition? What is the definition of straw man, again? I have already discussed his straw man of "knowing the truth is impossible", there would be no reason to do any kind of science or study if that were true. There is a difference between doubt and reasonable doubt. Well yes people are free to think and act as they like, but they are also held responsible for those actions. In some cases it is the government in the form of laws and law enforcement that hold the person responsible and in other cases it is other people (people won't trust a known liar, just so you know Mr. Colson). Oh yes, it is the Christians that are being persecuted and they are the only ones trying to keep real tolerance alive. You know tolerance like Proposition 8, the Manhattan Declaration (Colson helped write this as I have mentioned many times before), trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, and various other "tolerant" actions. Maybe Colson should go back and look at the actual definition of tolerance again. Or is it just tolerance for those that believe the same as him in his world (which is pretty much the opposite of tolerance)? Now point to me where secular laws are being made to undermine the rights of Christians. Just one example, like those three I just gave off the top of my head. Those three examples where Christians are taking and trying to take the rights of others away. I also love the random attack against liberalism in the last sentence, remember Republicans equal good, Democrats equal evil, no reason ever given for this.

Moving along, and even ignoring where Colson compares the right to choose whether to have an abortion or not to molesting a child or not (yes he is a disgusting troll). No I want to talk about this next statement:

The only thing the god of tolerance hates more than Christians making truth-claims is Christians proving them. Beginning with a facility in Houston, Prison Fellowship now runs residential programs, "spiritual boot camps," within prisons in locations scattered across the country. This is called the InnerChange Freedom Initiative - or IFI. We have, since the beginning, contended that these demonstrate the truth of the Gospel in transforming lives. In 2003, the first peer-reviewed academic studies validated our claims. University of Pennsylvania researchers reported that IFI graduates had an 8 percent re-incarceration rate versus 20 percent in a comparable control group (and 67 percent nationally). Prison officials were astounded.

It was the first empirical evidence that this faith-based approach to correction works - in other words, that the Gospel is true. And that's when Barry Lynn of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State decided to sue. To prove our truth-claims proved an outrage that tolerance could not abide.

First the court case. Prison Fellowships was not sued because it was true. It was sued because it was using government money. In other words the state was endorsing a religion, which is unconstitutional. There is no one trying to stop IFI from offering their services, which is what would happen if they were trying to stop the IFI. IFI lost that case and had to pay back 1.5 million in tax payer money and Colson even admits this in a end note.

Second, if the IFI numbers are correct (notice how quick he is to point out peer-reviewed when it fits his conclusion, but those same peer-reviews are wrong when they don't i.e. the theory of evolution) then there is something to the work. Obviously Colson believes that the numbers prove his religion too. Now if I can prove the numbers are actually statistical manipulation, then would that disprove Christianity to Colson. I seriously doubt it (remember my post on falsifiability).

So looking at the study (you can read the whole thing here), notice on page 5 that it says:

Among the total number of IFI participants, 24.3% were incarcerated compared to 20.3% of the comparison group during the two-year post-release period.

That says that recidivism for Colson's group was higher than the control, but Colson is claiming that only 8% of his group were re-incarcerated. Where does Colson get his 8% number from? Easy, Colson defines who graduates from his program and who doesn't. Then Colson only had the graduates compared to the control group. Considering there are several factors for graduation from the program, including getting a stable job (a major factor in re-incarceration) and not getting arrested for 2 years (so if you get arrested you don't get included in Colson's numbers to see if his group gets arrested less). Colson is stacking the deck. He is conveniently leaving out bad data to suit his needs. This is also called lying by omission. Colson proves he is a liar again.

TF - Chapter 4 part 4

2010-01-27T16:01:00.001-06:00

"Why Truth Matters" is what Colson names this next section.

I agree with his first claim, that the truth is the heart of what they believe. Of course I would quantify that with what they claim to believe. The first claim he makes I really don't understand. Colson claims that postmodern Christianity is similar to Montanism. The reason Montanism was considered a heresy was because they believed that sins could not be forgiven. What this has to do with moral relativism, I have no clue.

According to Colson the only thing worse than being like a heresy such as Montanism is becoming more like the theological liberalism of the 19th century. Colson even condemns these theological liberals of claiming that the only way for someone to truly know Christ is too experience him for themselves, meaning an inward reflection. Colson never says why this is bad except that it is eroding conservative churches. I have a feeling why he lists this first as the problem. Colson is part of the Family. They are a group of Christians who are all politcally motivated. They are also all conservatives. This is all about Colson wanting to keep power for himself and his cronies. To do that he is demonizing, quite literally, any liberal idea. Colson provides no evidence, even Biblical evidence (partly because Jesus has some very liberal ideas and the early church were communists), to show why liberal thinking is bad. To me, this is just a blatant attempt at a power grab. Colson finishes this part by claiming liberal Christianity is not Christianity at all but another religion entirely. No True ~~Scotsman~~ Christian would ever be liberal!!!

His next claim is "Without Truth the Gospel would be Perverted". Actually it would just mean the Gospel is false. What Colson claims is that without some absolute truth given by God then we cannot even love our neighbors fully. He references a quote by Katherine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the U.S., where she states the mission of the church is to love each other instead of bickering over doctrine.

But as we have seen, right doctrine leads to the love of neighbor Schori would like to see practiced. And without first loving God, the first commandment she ignored, we can't love our neighbor with the consistency and stamina this world demands. (Bishop Schori's answer reveals that the current fracturing of the Episcopal Church is not primarily over gays being ordained, but over the authority of Scripture.)

So much stupid, so little time. First, just because in this one snippet of a quote Bishop Schori (because that is what she is whether you like it or not) did not mention loving God, does not mean that she does not love God enough. I fully expect Colson to preface everything he talks about now with how we should love God. Like in this article by Colson. He quotes Martin Luther King.

Martin Luther King said it beautifully: He whom you would change, you must first love.

Well obviously Martin Luther King was wrong because he is patently ignoring the first commandment (as stated by Jesus in Matthew 22:34-40). Oh wait this comment supports Colson's ideologies so it is okay.

Second, just saying that someone can't love their neighbor "with the consistency and stamina this world demands" without God is demonstrably wrong. Does anyone really believe that Christians are the only people on the planet that can love their neighbor consistently? Amnesty International, Red Cross (especially its founder Clara Barton), Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), and many many others would all like to have a word with Mr. Colson. (This point is especially poignant in light of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti just the other day.)

Third, when did Colson ever prove "right doctrine leads to the love of neighbor"? In fact when has he ever even stated what "right doctrine" was? So far all he has done is attack straw men of his critics and tell stories of history made up in the mind of a non-historian. Nothing in this book so far has even labeled what is and is not right doctrine. I would think that was all a book titled The Faith: Given once, for all - Jude 3 would be concerned with, not avoiding the issue altogether. Then again, I can give a pass for this as this is only Chapter 4 and page 65 of 225 (29% of the way through).

Fourth, I love Colson's condemnation of them and deflection of what he really is against. Saying that they arguing against scripture not about gays. This similar to calling an atheist a fool, then saying that you didn't say it you are only quoting scripture. It always warm the cockles of my heart to see that great example Christians set in accordance with scripture (Titus 2:7-8). Colson claims he is not condemning homosexuality here but that scripture does and Bishop Schori is wrong according to scripture. Yes, Bishop Schori, who earned her Master of Divinity in 1994, knows less about scripture than Chuck Colson and his Juris Doctor law degree.* For some reason I am going to take her word over Colson's word when it comes to scripture.

Colson goes on to write that this perverts the church. Claiming that therapy takes the place of truth, and that "we learn how to cope with our problems instead of curing them." I don't think Colson knows what therapy means. From dictionary.com:

Therapy:
1. the treatment of disease or disorders, as by some remedial, rehabilitating, or curative process: speech therapy.

2. a curative power or quality.
3. psychotherapy.

4. any act, hobby, task, program, etc., that relieves tension.

Therapy is a curative process, just because you don't "believe" in it doesn't make it so. In fact, therapy is exactly what you, Chuck Colson, do in your Prison Fellowship program. Words have meanings.

Colson's next part is called "Rejection of truth Results in Biblical Illiteracy". Here he claims that abandonment of the Truth (interpreted by him as the Bible) creates biblical illiteracy. Well that is a no brainer considering his definition of truth equals the Bible. In other words, what Colson said was abandonment of the Bible leads to biblical illiteracy. He also claims, without any referenced sources, that most people think "God helps those who help themselves" is a biblical statement (it was written by Ben Franklin and Franklin was not a Christian). Colson then makes the statement that only 1% of adult believers believe or accepted all 13 basic teachings from the Bible. Again Colson does not tell us what those 13 teachings are or who decided them, nor does he reference where he got this 1% number. So again we have Colson telling us the world is evil because he says it is evil and you need to listen to the Bible because he says so, but he doesn't have any real time to explain why. So I guess I have to assume that why is coming at some point in this book.

The next section is much longer and entitled "Rejection of Truth Leads to Ethical Confusion". It is longer because it is about gays. According to Colson, denial of God's revelation, i.e. the Bible, destroys any attempt at dealing with ethical questions. Basically if you don't believe the Bible is true, you are an unethical baby killer or something. He never says why but just goes on saying that it is self evident when concerning gays. Then Colson tells another one of his little anecdotes without names or places. He claims a doctor, who was a Real True Christian (tm) (Colson spouts off the checklist for the doctor), asked him about homosexuals point out that it seems to be a natural instinct and desire. Colson responds with nu-huh, God says it isn't natural. That argument doesn't even look good typed out and framed by Colson. So Colson goes into the Bible verses that prove his point (only if you consider the Bible a perfect authority on such things of course). He reiterates the "look at the trees" argument for proof of God citing Romans 1. Ending with the Romans 1:24-27, where he writes it out as: "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity ... their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones ... [and] the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another." Obviously, he is skipping some stuff, here is the full verses of Romans 1:18-31:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

So according to Paul of Tarsus (the author of the book of Romans), people became homosexuals because they stopped worshiping God and started worshiping false gods. They also became "filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." Yeah that pretty much describes every gay person I have ever met, wait no it doesn't. It is odd that Colson doesn't mention these other characteristics or the why God gives them over. It is almost as if he is cherry picking or quote mining what he wants from the Bible. Furthermore, why doesn't Colson advocate the killing of homosexuals? It is in the Bible and the Bible is the Truth (with a capital tee). When the death penalty for homosexuals was proposed in Uganda, Colson ran as far away from it as possible. It is as if he thought the Bible was not right about killing homosexuals, even though it says to do it. Colson was quoted as saying:

Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University Timothy George, and Princeton University professor Robert P. George said in a statement that the bill "is a source for grave concern."

"The harshness of these proposals is, we believe, inconsistent with a Christian spirit of love and mercy," they said. "Measures must be taken to encourage faithful marital love and to discourage sexual immorality of every type. It is critical, however, that these measures be shaped in a just and Christian manner, and not in a punitive spirit. Harshness and excess must be avoided."

Colson told CT that he spoke against the legislation because it addresses human rights, a universal, moral question. "When you’re talking about human rights and liberty, they’re inherent to the presentation of the gospel. I wouldn't see this as singling out anyone," he said. "If you put a person in prison for life for an act of homosexual behavior, that is horrendous, that is so harsh. It’s totally contrary to the Christian understanding of the compassion."

Colson said the statement was created after he helped draft the Manhattan Declaration, a call to reaffirm Christians stance on abortion, same-sex marriage, and religious liberty. "Those of us who have a platform and those of us particularly who are talking about marriage at the moment have an obligation to speak out on it," he said. "There will be differences, and some people will call it meddling. But that’s okay. We'll get by."

If the death penalty were removed from the bill, Colson said he is not sure whether he would still oppose the law.

"I can’t say that I think civil prohibitions against homosexual behavior are morally wrong. I can’t say that because we had the anti-sodomy law for years in America for years. If I lived in those states, I probably would not have probably voted for them, but I could understand why people would legislate in this area, even for public health reasons," he said. "I think I would be opposed to legal sanctions against people who are private, consensual sexual behavior." - http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/decemberweb-only/151-41.0.html?start=2

That is weird, when it comes to actually putting "the Truth" to the pavement, Colson backs as far away as he possibly can. Like his morals have evolved from that of the Ancient Hebrews. That's unpossible because that would mean Colson is a moral relativist and he clearly states that is anti-biblical.

Colson next talks about Rick Warren appearing on Larry King's show. Rick apparently made the comment: "stand a naked man and a naked woman together and you can see how God has designed us." Colson then says Larry was speechless. Well yeah, this is one of the most monumentally ludicrous things to say. In that case stand a naked woman and a male Orangutan together and you can see how the Orangutan has a penis that will fit the woman also, but that is an abomination. Just as it is also ludicrous to claim that homosexuality isn't natural. If it is not natural why is it observed in several different species naturally? Or what about whiptail lizards, which are all female, they have sex with one another to stimulate ovulation and thus have fatherless children?

Colson ends this section with a red herring and a pseudo attempt to poison the well. He talks about AIDS. He doesn't say why AIDS is linked to anything about homosexuality, instead it is just implied that AIDS is a homosexual disease. This is not true. Colson is just an ass. He points out that Catholics run the most AIDS charities in the US. That is true, but they also use that charity to try and blackmail city councils. So yes, AIDS charity is something that needs to be taken away from these theological bullies. More people should give to secular AIDS charity groups like the Treatment Action Campaign.

Only one more post for the end of Chapter 4 and it will be to take on Colson's "successful" Prison Fellowship ministries.

*No, this is not an appeal to authority, because Schori has an actual degree in the subject being referenced. It is similar to citing a biologist when discussing biology.

TF - Chapter 4 part 3

2010-01-19T14:46:00.001-06:00

So after lying about what the Bible says and then making some weird unsubstantiated remark about skepticism, Colson ends this part of the section saying that the world is not like the Matrix. That is right we are not living in a computer simulated world and our bodies being harvested as batteries. Okay that was a cheap shot and slightly uncalled for. Although he did say that the Matrix was widely popular on American campuses, I think it was more popular than just that but whatever. What he meant is that we are not just a brain in a jar, that our senses are reliable and what we see is really real. The only support for this is because the Bible says so.

To be perfectly honest, we cannot know for 100% certainty that we are not a brain in a jar. That does not mean that the brain in a jar scenario is a good explanation. It is unfalsifiable and falsifiability is part of a good explanation. If something cannot be proven false then you can never know if it is true. Take Bigfoot for example. If Bigfoot exists, then we should find some evidence of its existence. So we should be able to capture it, but we have not. The claim for not being able to capture it, is because it is very elusive. So capturing would conclude there was such a creature but not capturing one does not make Bigfoot false. Then we are bound to find bones or droppings from Bigfoot. Yet again not finding these things does nothing to falsify Bigfoot. There are many reasons for why you won't find these things given, but the main problem is that it is impossible to prove a universal negative. So to prove that Bigfoot doesn't exist, there would have to be a claim about Bigfoot that can be repeatedly tested that would prove or disprove Bigfoot. No such claim is ever made. Thus Bigfoot is unfalsifiable. The concept of being a brain in a jar falls into the same category along with deities.

Now if someone was actually able to posit a claim that could confirm or deny the existence of a particular deity, then that would make the deity falsifiable. Some Christians start out saying that their God is falsifiable and make a claim that is supposedly falsifiable. Usually it is along the lines of the Bible is inerrant or the Bible claims this happened and thus God. Well in the case of the first claim, it fails from the start, because the Bible claims the Earth was created before the Sun. When you point this out to someone who makes this claim, they will immediately start denying facts. Thus making their claim once again unfalsifiable. As for the second claim, just because the Bible is right in one part does not mean it is right in the whole, nor because it is wrong in one part mean it is wrong in the whole. This is a logical fallacy known as the composition fallacy. Again this would make God unfalsifiable.

Unfalsifiable and lack of evidence are the main reasons why I deny most supernatural claims.

Next Colson claims Richard Dawkins denies truth. His basis for this is a quote from the Article "God vs. Science" in the November 2006 issue of Time Magazine. Here is what Colson says:

Richard Dawkins was asked in an interview with Time magazine whether good and evil have no meaning. Dawkins replied, "Even the question you're asking has no meaning to me. Good and evil - I don't believe there is hanging out there anywhere something called good and something called evil. I think that there are good things that happen and bad things that happen." The attacks of 9/11 are not intrinsically evil, and bringing relief to tsunami victims is not intrensically good? Preposterous.

First the actual question he was asked was:

What you've said implies that outside of the human mind, tuned by evolutionary processes, good and evil have no meaning. Do you agree with that?

So yes Dawkins is saying that there is no outside source of good and evil. There is nothing that is intrinsically good or evil. What Colson claims is intrinsically evil are acts of good and evil. Which Dawkins fully admits are real. If things are intrinsically good or evil, show me the evil cell or the good gene. Show where evil and good exist outside of the human mind. Actions can be good or evil depending on how we view them. There are people who think 9/11 was a good action and divine.

Colson continues on saying that if Dawkins admitted to there being a moral Truth (capital tee), then this would overthrow Dawkins' atheism. This is the old, all atheists know there is a God but are repressing that knowledge because they love to sin, repackaged a bit. Colson is saying he knows what Dawkins thinks and that Dawkins only denys moral absolutes because it would prove God. This is arrogance at its finest. Claiming to know what a person is thinking and that it is exactly opposite of what they are saying. Ray Comfort does this. Ken Ham does this. Random bloggers do this. I find it an interesting that it is the Christian Fundamentalist Evangelical sect that thinks they knows what everyone else is thinking and are not afraid to tell everyone what everyone is thinking. It is a level of arrogance and pride that just knows no bounds.

Colson talks about how C.S. Lewis was an atheist (which is debatable considering Lewis was quoted as saying he was "very angry with God for not existing" in his book Surprised by Joy) who turned to Christianity because of moral absolutes. C.S. Lewis had a lot to say about moral absolutes, which he called Natural Law. Lewis also talked about pride and arrogance. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:

There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

To continue with Colson's thought here, first Colson would have to prove moral absolutes. Instead all he does is posit the claim that they exist and the Bible is their source. If that is true, why does Colson not advocate the stoning of children, the stoning of women who are not virgins on their wedding night, not shaving, not planting wheat and barley in the same furrow, not wearing polyester, or not eating shellfish. Because if the Bible is the source of absolute morals, then these things are still absolutely wrong. Yet you will see virtually no Christians that spout moral absolutes doing any of these things (I say virtually because I don't know of anyone that follows these rules, but that does not mean they don't exist). What we see is morals changing throughout history, which is the definition of moral relativism. What is happening is we are becoming more and more inclusive as to who we consider to be like us. Initially it was only family. Then it encompassed the tribe. Cities were next, followed shortly by states. Then it became people who share skin color, and lately it seems to have divided into beliefs and somewhat nationalities. I dream of a day that it will encompass the world and we will all realize that there is very little difference between each person on the planet. That is the dreamer and ideologist in me.

Colson then quotes some percentages of people who believe in moral absolutes and according to Barna the majority of people do not. I would guess because it is demonstrably false, but then again evolution is demonstrably true and less than a majority believe it.

Colson then tells a story, which he claims is true but provides zero details to verify any of it (no names, no city, no school). Colson claims that a lady, who graduated from his Prison Fellowship's Centurions worldview program (he has to plug what he sells), living in the Bible belt (adds to the scare factor, atheists are taking over your home!!!zomg!!!111!!!eleventy!!!) started a 13 week bible study for seventh graders (average age - 12 to 13). She had 43 sign up to attend. At week 10 there was supposed to be a religious comparison study between Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Supposedly the 7 of the 8 group leaders refused to teach it because "the claim that Christianity was true." I have serious doubts that it was exactly like this. I grew up in the Bible belt and I grew up believing that Christianity was true. I hardly would have been one of the 8 "serious Christian students". I questioned the way things were than most of my other fellow Sunday school students, yet I still believed that Christianity was true. What you can't do is lie to teenagers, especially demonstrable lies. As I said I can't determine the validity of this story, so I don't know what was actually said.

What I can do is find out as much as I can about Prison Fellowship's Centurions worldview program. You can read all you want about the program from the link. I am just going to point out a few things. 4 of the 15 books noted as required reading are Chuck Colson's own books and are not including in the cost of the program (2010 curriculum and 2009 curriculum and study guide). Food, board, and travel are not included in the price of the program. Sadly there is nothing listed about comparative religious studies, so again there is no way of knowing what was said in the class.

Colson ends the section with saber rattling. Telling people things like, see if this is allowed to continue Christianity is dead. Therefore you must by my books and come to my classes (only $1500 now!) or else you let Christianity die and you don't want to be known for letting that happen, do you? Okay he doesn't actually say buy my books, but this is just a simple call to proselytizing and a fear tactic at that. Yet another emotional plea with no substance to it.

The next section is aimed at Christians. It starts off good, admonishing the church for not doing more good works, especially fundamentalist mega-churches but quickly deteriorates. Instead of blaming leadership and the direction they have taken these churches (which Colson would be a part of), it is all blamed on postmodernism. Of course he also mentions it is the "postmodern Christians" that are saying the church is dieing, and somehow it is their fault also. I want to quote Colson here because it will come up again later, but this is the first time he mentions his Prison Fellowship and how well it works:

This distaste for doctrine has led some postmodern Christians to adopt the mantra "We want deeds not creeds." But wait a minute. For over thirty years, the movement known as Prison Fellowship and I have been taking the Gospel into the prisons, demonstrating the transforming power of Christ to turn the most reviled sinners into saints. No one would argue that these have not been worthwhile deeds. But if my creeds I believe are false, then my efforts have been totally missplaced; I cannot be sure that my deeds, however noble, are really good. It is the creed that makes me carry out the deed - that keeps me going into the most rotten holes in the world - and gives me the message I preach. The same is true of any Christian movement based on faith.

I will go over how well Prison Fellowship actually is in another section, when he actually prints numbers, right now I want to focus on the last part of that paragraph. Colson is saying that he can't know good actions from evil actions without the Bible telling him. He cannot assess the harm or help he does for other people without Christianity. In other words, he can't tell what other people are feeling. I am asking in all seriousness, is he a sociopath?

Well let's check the symptoms:

* Persistent lying or stealing - I don't know about the stealing but so far the lying is right.

* Superficial charm - He is a political and Christian leader...

* Apparent lack of remorse or empathy; inability to care about hurting others - He just stated that without the Bible telling him he is hurting someone, he couldn't tell.

* Inability to keep jobs or stay in school - Well his last real job, adviser to the Nixon Administration, he lost for breaking the law. He does have a degree, so not so much on this one.

* Impulsivity and/or recklessness - I don't know enough about him to answer this one.

* Lack of realistic, long-term goals — an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals - He seems to be able to make long term plans, even if they aren't very good, so this one he doesn't have either.

* Inability to make or keep friends, or maintain relationships such as marriage - I don't know about friends, but he has been married twice now. The second marriage has been for a long time.

* Poor behavioral controls — expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper - He posts some weird things on his blog on occasion, but I have yet to see the angry vitriol of some other bloggers.

* Narcissism, elevated self-appraisal or a sense of extreme entitlement - Yes, read just about anything he writes.

* A persistent agitated or depressed feeling (dysphoria) - Not that I can tell from his writings but that is not the way to fully diagnose something like this.

* A history of childhood conduct disorder - Not that I am aware of.

* Recurring difficulties with the law - He went to jail for his role in Watergate and is a member of the political group the Family.

* Tendency to violate the boundaries and rights of others - The Manhattan Declaration.

* Substance abuse - Not that I am aware of.

* Aggressive, often violent behavior; prone to getting involved in fights - Again not that I am aware of.

* Inability to tolerate boredom - I don't know.

* Disregard for the safety of self or others - Not directly, but he writes often in this book how Christians shouldn't worry about diseases and help those people, because God will protect.

* Persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social rules, obligations, and norms - Yes, he is actively fighting change in society, because he doesn't like it and claims it does not fit with his faith (even though there are people of the same faith as him that he is fighting against).

* Difficulties with authority figures - He still doesn't think he did anything really wrong during Watergate and that it was wrong for Deep throat (Mark Felt) to talk about what they did.

9.5 of 19, not bad...

TF - Chapter 4 part 2

2010-01-14T10:46:00.002-06:00

The next session is about the Question of Truth and Colson starts right out of the gate with a straw man. He claims that western culture dismisses the idea of truth and reality. Especially Colson's definition of truth as "a common and knowable reality that exists independent of our perceptions". He even claims that mentioning truth and reality to a university professor will bring scorn from them.

Science is (according to Webster's dictionary) "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world." The purpose of science is to produce useful models of reality. Science is all about learning truth and reality. The more we can learn about what is going on the more we can shape our lives to better serve life as we know it.

After making that straw man, he claims it exists because rebellious human nature doesn't want to obey a higher authority, especially God. I have no clue how he got to this conclusion. Apparently 1 + 1 = 4,000,000,000 in his world. People don't like to obey a higher authority? Really? I guess that is why Anarchy reigns and people just do whatever they want, disobeying the law because it comes from authority. So really what Colson is saying is that one straw man plus another straw man equals God is awesome. Yeah, it still doesn't make sense.

To prove this point, Colson discusses the Bible story of Jesus before Pontius Pilate. Colson tells a different story than that I have ever read in any of the Gospels (which you can read here, here, here and here). Colson makes this claim:

For educated Romans like Pilate, as with many of today's intellectuals, religion was only an expression of culture and a means of securing political allegiance. Imagine his reaction to this pretender to the Jewish throne, this Jesus who claimed to have cornered the market on truth. How presumptuous, and what a threat to Pilate's pretension. Pilate no doubt believed above all else in the truth of the Roman garrison - in skepticism's refuge, power.

Now go back and read all those accounts of Jesus and Pilate. The only one that discusses truth is in John (which was the last Gospel written at around 100 CE that is 70 years after what it talks about occured). There Pilate is so furious with Jesus that he tries to free Jesus without causing a riot. In all of the Gospels, Pilate finds no reason to convict Jesus. This tends to go against what Colson is claiming, that Pilate was upset and thought Jesus was a threat, because if that were true he would have agreed with the masses right away and crucified him without hesitation. COLSON LIES ABOUT WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS! Why should I ever believe this man? Why should I trust that he has the "Truth" when he can't even tell me the truth about things within the Bible? These are things I can easily look up or things that every Christian growing up should know anyway and Colson has the gall to lie straight up about them. What a fucking self righteous cock.

As to that last part of the quote, "in skepticism's refuge, power", what does that even mean? Is this some kind of projection, saying that skepticism is authoritarian in nature, when in actuality Colson's brand of Christianity is far more authoritarian? Skepticism is just a questioning attitude. Someone who just wants some hard evidence to back up claims, even ones that people have believed to be true for a long time. Where does power come into this? There was a time when those in authority made skepticism of religious subjects all but illegal. That was during Medieval period and Christianity was the only authority. That time period set us back in technology and advancement. It wasn't until the Renaissance period did people begin to question and enlightenment followed shortly behind. Does Colson want to go back to the Middle Ages? Or does Colson just write without thinking?

TF: Chapter 4 part 1

2010-01-11T14:55:00.000-06:00

"Truth" - with a capital tee

Colson starts this chapter by saying because he has proved that God exists and that the Bible is the word of God, then we can know that there is some ultimate Truth (with a capital tee). He also says that a Christian can know truth, which he defines as "the way things really are", through the Bible and three other ways: Truth in the book of nature, Truth through reason, and Truth through conscience.

Truth in the book of nature is described as look at the beauty in nature, see since it is beautiful there is a God. This of course ignores the ugly side of nature, which I pointed out in chapter 2 when he put forth the same exact argument.

Truth through reason is about reasoning the why's of creation, to Colson. He even makes this beautifully cognitive dissonant statement:

Christianity does not consist of a hidden body of teachings disconnected from everyday realities, nor does it insulate itself in a realm of subjective notions that cannot be disproved.

Colson does not live in reality. That is what that sentence says to me. He lives inside his own head and does not know what reality even looks like. The only reason I will continue on with this book is because my mother asked me to read it. If I was reading this on my own, I would have stopped after reading this sentence. Because it is that divorced from reality.

Gos is the ultimate unfalsifiable entity. No matter what the facts show God could have done it that way. You can't prove that God didn't do it the way science discovered, especially when you posit that God exists outside of our space-time. God has always been and will always be an unreasonable answer, because it is unfalsifiable.

Truth through consciousness. God exists because people know good from evil. Ignoring the fact that the idea of evil has evolved over the last few years and even more so over the last few thousand years (look at slavery, human sacrifice, and equal rights movements), Colson states that there are moral absolutes "written on our heart". Then they must also be written on the hearts of every social animal in the world, because dogs, chimps and monkeys all show signs of knowing good from evil. So how do they fit with the idea of morality coming from God for humans? Colson never mentions them, instead he attacks a straw man of moral relativism. Colson claims that because people think it is wrong to kill Jews or to push an old lady into oncoming traffic, then that means that postmodern relativism is wrong. In fact this proves that morals are relative. In Nazi Germany many people determined that it was okay to kill Jews. Before that many Christians, including Martin Luther (Luther advocated the killing of Jews also), thought that Jews were lesser people. These ideas have changed and evolved, morals have changed over time. Just because a majority of people are against the murder of Jews, does not mean that that has been the case throughout history. Morals are relative to the time, place, and situation.

Colson himself holds a moral view that is slowly going the way of the dodo. He was one of the authors of the Manhattan Declaration. He thinks that allowing same-sex couples to marry is immoral. Currently he is in the majority, but support for same-sex marriage is showing an increase in support over the last 2 decades. It is becoming less immoral overall in America. There could come a time (personally I hope it will be very soon) where it will be immoral to deny this right. Much like when it was finally legal to marry someone of a different race. It seems crazy to us now, but at the time it was hotly debated. Again it was a change in morality.

If I was being more optimistic, I would say that Colson just doesn't know what he is arguing against. I think Colson is knowingly lying for Jesus. It is an ends justify the means tactic. His lies also grow from his self-righteousness too. Fred Clark covered this (here, here, here, and here) so much better than I ever could on his blog, Slacktivist (which I cannot recommend reading enough).

Before I go on, I want to talk about the Code of Hammurabi which Colson mentions here. Hammurabi was a Babylonian King who ruled from 1796 to 1750 BCE. Hammurabi claimed that he talked to the Gods and that they dictated these laws to him on top of a mountain. This is one of the first recorded set of laws in human history (there are a few others from the same area that predate it but not by much). This code predates Mosaic Law. The two sets of laws are very similar and even the story have how they were received are similar. It is almost as if the ancient Hebrews borrowed the story and the laws from the Babylonians.

TF - Chapter 3 part 2

2009-12-31T11:55:00.002-06:00

The last half of this chapter is a rehashing of things I have covered before on my blog. Instead of posting about them again I will just link to what I wrote before.

The first of these last two sections is on Textual Criticism. Colson is not theologian nor is he a biblical scholar. I would think it is a safe bet that he cannot read ancient Greek nor can he read ancient Hebrew. Colson has a law degree. Yet, in this section, Colson makes no references to any outside materials. The one end note in this section just talks about the date of P52, which is a small fragment of the Gospel of John. Even then he is dishonest with it, not mentioning that it is only a fragment of a few verses. He also doesn't seem to know about textual and higher criticism, which are two separate things. Instead he treats them as if they are the same thing.

The first claim he makes is:

Beyond the archeological discoveries, the truth claims of the Bible are supported by the uncanny coherence and unity of the Bible itself. It consists of sixty-six books, or seventy-three, as in the Catholic tradition, written over 1,500 years by forty people in three different languages, and yet there's a remarkable harmony and consistency in the overarching story. The ancient manuscripts possess an astounding consistency and integrity.

I have heard this claim before and it is ridiculous from the premise. First off it is not really that hard to add to a series that you have read. Fanfic exists for a reason. Also, has Colson or anyone who makes this claim ever looked in the Fantasy/Science Fiction section of a bookstore? In the Star Wars section alone there are several authors who have read the previous work (or at least glanced at it) and created a "coherent" arching story line through it all. Does this mean Star Wars is true now? I can hear the objections already, well that doesn't go over 1,000 of years and different languages (actually it does go over different languages) and the original author is still alive. So let's use the example of the Vedas. They were compiled from 1500 BCE to 500 BCE. That is 1000 years which is close to 1500. They were of oral tradition before that, much like the Tanakh. The original authors are unknown but the Vedas claim to be directly from Brahma. It is highly likely that there were several authors involved in the creation of the Vedas. So why should I take the Bible as truth and not the Vedas?

Next, does the Bible contain an "uncanny coherence and unity"? Let's refer to the skeptic's annotated Bible. They have a list of 442 contradictions found in the Bible (that is not counting the near 1500 absurdities they have listed also). That doesn't seem very coherent or unified to me. Also what is the overarching story in the Bible? I see the claim that the overarching story is the same throughout but no one bothers to say what that story is? Is it Good Vs. Evil in God's triumph over Satan and sin, or is it how God wants to have a personal relationship with everyone, or is it about the prophecies of the end of the world, or maybe something else? What is it? Each of these things I listed are in the Bible and they are each very different stories.

Colson never talks about his claims or present evidence, he just makes the claim and expects to be believed. I am sorry that is not enough for me, especially from someone who has been convicted of obstruction of justice for his actions in the Watergate scandal. That was before Colson was "born again" so surely he has changed now. He would not make any hypocritical responses or show no reason to not be trusted today, would he? If Colson expects to convince anyone of what he is saying, he needs more than words, he needs facts and evidence. This is the problem for most fundamentalist evangelicals, facts and evidence. I am expected to take their word on everything they say because they are speaking for God. Well there are a lot of people speaking for God what makes you so different than the others? I want facts and evidence. If you don't bring those you might as well leave.

For his next claim, Colson compares apples with oranges. He goes on about how there are so many copies of the Bible and not the Iliad or other random works of fiction that are not considered the word of God today. I have covered this before here and here.

He ends his section on textual criticism with the claim:

Why are the manuscript copies of Scripture so accurate? Jewish tradition provides one answer. According to Hebrew practice, only eyewitness testimony was accepted; and when copying documents, the Jews would copy one letter at a time - not word by word, not phrase by phrase, not sentence by sentence.

Again no notes on where he got this information. Is it really that hard to document your sources? I can't find a source for this anywhere. What I have found are talks about how Jewish copyists did things during the Middle Ages and brief overview of Textual Criticism in the Jewish study Bible. If anyone can find where Colson got this information from let me know.

The next part of the chapter is about how the Bible has changed lives. This is suppose to mean that the Bible is true. Ignore all the stories from every other religion in the world of people whose lives were changed by them (here, here, here, here, etc). This line of reasoning makes every religion true and atheism true, which is just not possible. So what does Colson do to show that this is true only for Christianity? Absolutely nothing, instead he goes off on Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris:

The latest wave of atheist literature of the Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris genre ignores the centuries of careful scholarship and evidence; taking verses and sections out of context, these authors argue that the Bible is a dreadful book filled with violence and war, and reflects a mean-spirited God who represses people - a "celestial dictatorship," in Hitchens's words. (The principles of interpretation these authors employ have been scorned even by secular peers.)

The article that Colson is quoting is "An Atheist Responds" from the Washington Post July 14, 2007 (Colson actually cited this source). Here is the quote:

It's uncommonly generous of Michael Gerson[" What Atheists Can't Answer," op-ed, July 13] to refer to me as "intellectually courageous and unfailingly kind," since (a) this might be taken as proof that he hardly knows me and (b) it was he who was so kind when I once rang him to check a scurrilous peacenik rumor that he was a secret convert from Judaism to Christian fundamentalism.

However, it is his own supposedly kindly religion that prevents him from seeing how insulting is the latent suggestion of his position: the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.

Hitchens is calling God's rule a celestial dictatorship, because that is what it is. A dictatorship refers to an autocratic form of absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by law, constitutions, or other social and political factors within the state. How is that not describing God's rule?

Also point out where they are quote-mining. Show don't tell. Give examples, because I can point to several places in the Bible where what they say is absolutely right (the Book of Judges and Daniel 4:24-26 come to mind).

I also love the appeal to unnamed secular sources at the end. Again I ask how hard is it to list sources or even just names of some of these "critics"?

He follows that up with a list of questions:

I would ask Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and company, if this book is so evil, how has it survived all of these years?

I don't really fall into any of those categories but I can give answers. By force. It survived long enough to become the state religion of the Roman Empire. Then it was mandated to the people. After the fall of the Roman Empire, we have the Middle Ages, where Christianity ruled supreme. The inquisition, the crusades and colonization of the world forced people to accept Christianity or die. After that, most people accepted it as the truth because they never questioned it or looked into it very deeply. Low educational standards helped to keep people from looking into it also. The more educated a country the less religious they are, with the US being the only real exception to that rule and religiousness in America is falling.

Edit: This is not the only way Christianity flourished. I would also say a cult of personality helped it at many times (much like most mega-churches today, that struggle when the pastor leaves or dies), plus many other sociological reasons. It is not a simple answer to give.

Why has it been the bedrock of forming the most humane civilization in history?

I have no idea of what civilization you are talking about. The only civilization ever formed on the Bible was Europe in the Middle Ages, I doubt you would call that humane. If you speak of America, I wouldn't call us the most humane (death penalties, high crime rates, health care for only the elect few, etc) and it would be extreme revisionist history to claim the US was founded on the Bible. Just point to where the Bible or Jesus is mentioned in the US Constitution or even the Declaration of Independence (God and Creator are mentioned in the Declaration but Jefferson's God and Creator was not the Christian God, but it does not specify which God or Creator).

How does it continue, if it is mean-spirited, to spread love around the world and turn hard-hearted criminals into gentle lambs?

Psychological reasons of the human mind. Christians cherry-pick what they read in it and into it. The same reason some Muslims can find peace and love for all things in the Koran and others find justification for killing infidels. The Crusades were a Christian undertaking. The killing of abortion doctors has been a Christian undertaking.

How could reading it have resulted in such people as Augustine and St. Francis?

How could reading the Koran resulted in such people as Benazir Bhutto, André Carson, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This is a retarded question and can support any religion or just about anything.

Why would the Chinese, in the midst of atheistic madness, turn to it as their refuge?

Don't try and load the question or anything there Colson. Define atheistic madness. Mao was power hungry and it had little to do with atheism, except that Mao disliked religion (Christianity was never outlawed in China). Most people didn't turn to Christianity. So how did those people survive?

Finally Colson says that because people have predicted the death of Christianity and it hasn't happened yet, then it must be divine influence keeping it around. Non sequitur much? So by that logic, since people have predicted the death of atheism, then it must be divinely inspired also (possibly even more so since atheism is on the rise)...

That is it, that is all his evidence for the Bible being true and infallible.

TF - Chapter 3 part 1

2009-12-30T13:28:00.001-06:00

Chapter 3 is entitled "He Has Spoken". I want to point out the title and the purpose of this book because Colson follows neither of these here. Instead he continues his Quixote-esque crusade against the army of straw men he constructs. He employs a plethora of logical fallacies, old arguments and make believe to destroy these straw men. Let's just dig right into it all.

Colson starts off with the story of a man named Speratus. There is great detail about how Speratus lived and interacted with his family and community. What he dreamed and hoped of for the future. Finally his brave efforts in preserving part of what we would call the New Testament. This is all just part of Colson's make believe world. Colson is trying to reference the Scillitan Martyrs. The thing is, all we have of what happened to them is what is the equivalent of a court transcript. We know nothing of their lives except there response to being told to "Swear by the genius of our Lord the Emperor." To which they refused. Speratus did quote Paul's letter to Timothy and did have a satchel containing letters of Paul. What they were being asked to do was to swear loyalty to the Empire, they were not asked to renounce their faith. They were put to death as traitors to the Empire. The actions of the government seems very similar to the right-wing 9/12 project and tea party movement going on in America right now, which Colson is a part of (see the Manhattan Declaration). Speratus and his fellow Christians died for being ~~un-American~~ un-Roman. I find it amusing that Colson, who has called people un-American, is hoisting these men up.

Colson talks about the house churches of China in the 70's. He makes it as if these people are being persecuted for their religious beliefs, which is true for the time period he choose. That time period was a ten year period between 1966 and 1976, when even registered churches were being closed. Currently, if the church is registered with the government it can continue operation, albeit with some influence from government officials. Churches have never been officially outlawed in China. Colson never says that people were martyred for their belief but implies it. From what I have read the common punishment for underground unsanctioned churches is heavy fines and sentencing to forced labor camps. I do not advocate these things and I think they should be allowed to worship how they please, but this is not execution.

Wang Mingdao is mentioned specifically by Colson. It is never mentioned why Mingdao was arrested but again Colson implies it has to do with his Christianity. In actuality, Mingdao was arrested for speaking out against the government and not registering his church with the government. I think it was wrong that he was imprisoned and I believe in the right to free speech, but this man was not arrested for his beliefs. He was arrested for being ~~un-American~~ un-Chinese.

Even if both of these groups died for Christianity, that does nothing to prove that Christianity is true. I can cite martyrs from every major religion. Martyrs just show that some followers are willing to give their life for what they believe to be true. Notice the word believe in that last sentence, that is the important part. Martyrdom is not a statement of truth but a statement of belief. Every Christian in the world could die for their beliefs and it would not prove whether Christianity was the truth or not.

Colson writes all this so he can pull the Christian persecution card. He equates the persecution people face in the Middle East for being Christian (which is punishable by death in some Muslim countries) with The Da Vinci Code being printed in America.

Just as in ancient North Africa, Christianity today in North Korea, much of the Muslim world, and elsewhere risk violent punishment for even possessing the Scriptures. Pakistani Christians must hide their bibles or endure severe attacks by imams and roving gangs.

In America and elsewhere in the West, the Bible continues to be attacked, if more subtly. Every Christmas and Easter the media runs programs with titles like "Who was Jesus?" Their advertising suggests that new scholarly discoveries transcend the narrow confines of faith and provide a greater truth devoid of the supernatural. Conspiracy theory books like The Da Vinci Code and articles related the publication of ancient Gnostic texts like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas abound.

That first paragraph was the entirety of the paragraph. The second paragraph continues on. Colson shows that he is more concerned with what is happening in America than with what is going on elsewhere in the world. He is just using the first paragraph, the one of actual persecution, to make it seem like American Christians are being just as persecuted as all the other Christians around the world. My response is to quote a book:

The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished. - Proverbs 16:5

Colson continues on for another 2 paragraphs about how Christians are persecuted in America. How people make fun of them for saying they believe in Jesus and so forth. I personally have never seen this where I live. Instead people ostracize you if say you don't believe in Jesus. I have heard it is different on the East Coast but that is not all of America. Last I checked the most populous religion in America was Christianity. There have been a few non-Christian presidents but only early in American history (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe come quickly to mind). A list of the presidents and their religious affiliations can be found here. In recent polls, it seems that the last person most Americans would vote for is an atheist ( Gallup poll, and yes the percentage is changing but it is slow). Colson's claims of persecution, especially after listing real persecution, is just ridiculous. I don't see him going to jail or being beaten to death for writing and publishing this book.

The next section of Chapter 3 is the claim that the Holy Spirit helped write the Bible. Colson makes the statement that the New Testament was decided to be written by the apostles and they started writing about Jesus' life 20 years after Jesus' death. He provides no evidence to back this up. What we do know is that the earliest of the Gospels, Mark, was written around 70 CE, that would be close to 40 years after Jesus died. The purpose of the writing was not to create the New Testament, but to convert Greeks to Christianity and strengthen the beliefs of current Greek followers. It was a Chick tract, albeit much better than anything Jack Chick has ever thought about printing. Paul's letters started appearing around 40 to 60 CE but they say very little about the life of Jesus.

This book was written for believers, so I will grant some slack when Colson takes the Bible as exact history. Personally, I would want secondary evidence backing up the stories presented in the Bible. Especially things like the day of Pentecost and the resurrection of 500 on the day Jesus was crucified.

Next, Colson covers his version of the canonization of the New Testament. I say his version because he cites no references for his claims and I have never seen anyone seriously make the claims he does. Let me quote:

The young Church first embraced the written records from Paul's careful explication of Jesus' teaching. Paul's letters to individual churches were copied and exchanged among all church communities. Not long after his death in AD 66 or 67 every new center of the Church had a set of the most recognized letters of Paul. In the same way, manuscripts with the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, circulated and were copied by the churches and were quickly accepted as authoritative.7

Notice the reference note. Here is the end note:

7. The differences in the four Gospels were duly noted. The early Church Fathers could see that the evangelists present the life of Christ in different chronological orders. They also represent Jesus' teachings from different angles with a particular audience in mind. Rather than being disturbed by this, scholars int he early Church understood that the different accounts broaden and enrich our understanding of Christ's life. They also served as proof against the one-sided interpretations that characterized false teachings in that day - and ours as well.

In other words, Colson is pulling this garbage out of his ass. Then he adds an end note to make it look he referenced a real scholar, but it turns out to be more apologetics pulled directly from his ass. I am so glad that Colson has mind reading powers that can actually travel back in time. Instead of doing things like, I don't know, listing the letters and documents where the "early Church Fathers" talked about this. Things that would give his story some credibility.

I might also take back that part where Colson is writing for believers. Unless he believes his believing readers are completely retarded, which would explain some things, then there is no reason to mention what books the Gospels are. I know for a fact that this is beaten into children in Sunday school as soon as they can understand words. Of course, this would imply that Colson is writing to the straw man atheist that has never heard of Jesus or Christianity also. I notice a lot of fundamentalist writers do this, just go back and check out any of those Chick tracts. It is a weird idea that atheists are only atheists because they haven't really looked at Christianity. Most atheists I know, not all, grew up in Christian households. Even the ones that didn't, especially the Americans, still hear about Christianity because it is the world's largest religion.

Colson next claims that Archeology proves the Bible is flawless. He uses the Hittites as an example. For a long time the only evidence that these people existed was in the Bible. So many scholars believed them to be imaginary. Well absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and in recent years there have been some findings of these people. The Hittites were real. This in no way means that every story in the Bible is real, it just means that it wrote about a real group of people called the Hittites. By Colson's logic, and the logic of many other fundamentalist evangelicals, this means that Spiderman and every Marvel comic is real. I have an X-men comic with the character Rogue blowing a kiss to President Reagan as he flies by in Air Force 1. Since Reagan and Air Force 1 are real that must mean that Rogue is real also.

Shortly after admonishing scholars for dismissing the Hittites because of a lack of evidence, Colson writes this:

The Book of Mormon, for example, talks about a civilization in North America in 400-600 BC. Not a single artifact of that civilization has ever been discovered.

Hello, Pot, this is Kettle speaking, you are black. Again absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are many other reasons to not believe the claims of the Mormons. Just like there are many reasons not to believe the claims of Genesis, Exodus and Judges, besides an absence of evidence. A lot of it has to do with evidence we have of other cultures in the area. Egyptian culture has no break or mention of there ever being a mass of Jewish slaves or their escape. There is an absence of evidence of any movement of the Jews across the desert for forty years. The land of Canaan did not fall in the matter of a few years by a conquering force. Instead archeological evidence shows that it fell from internal revolt or peasant uprisings. (Watch this show from the NOVA series on PBS).

So from what I am seeing the Bible's stories are shown to be based on real countries, but the archeological evidence is showing that in the very least a few of these stories are made up and I am not even talking about the obvious made up stories of Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel and 7 day creation. (There is just so much wrong with the Noah story, languages evolved separately in different places, and the earth with all its life formed over a period of 4.54 billion years.)

Colson's only real claim in this section is:

Then there is the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed that Psalm 22, which predicted Christ's crucifixion, was indeed dated well before the Maccabean era. For several generations, Bible scholars had believed Psalm 22 could not have been written before the Maccabean era because the practice of crucifixion, which it had referred to, had not been invented.

Now here is a real claim, that could prove the Bible. Apparently Psalm 22 talks about crucifixion of Jesus before crucifixion had been in invented. If this is true it gives the Bible some real evidence.

So first let's look into the history of crucifixion. Crucifixion started around the 6th century BCE, 600 to 501 BCE. Herodotus describes a crucifixion taking place in 479 BCE, in his Histories, Book IX, as "they nailed him to a plank and hung him up...this Artacytus who suffered death by crucifixion." So that gives a rough lower limit to how long crucifixion has been going on.

Next, here is Psalm 22:16-18 (the main verses dealing with the crucifixion prophecy, verse 1 is quoted also in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34):

Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.

I can count all my bones;
people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.

Okay the first stanza is supposed to be the actual crucifixion. The word crucifixion is not used there, just they have pierced my hands and feet. The second verse is supposed to mean that his bones weren't broken. The third verse is about the guards betting on Jesus' clothes.

Now, let's look at when the Maccabean era was. The Maccabees ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE.

Finally, let's see the date of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls generally date between 150 BCE to 70 CE.

Now putting everything together, starting with the claim: Psalm 22 predicts Christ's death by crucifixion and predates crucifixion which was invented in the Maccabean era.

Crucifixion was started in the 6th century BCE, which is well before the Maccabean era and well before the Dead Sea Scrolls. So the last two claims are easily found to be false. The Dead Sea Scrolls do not date well before the Maccabean era. They date around the same time and after. So that claim is false also. The final claim is that Psalm 22 predicts Christs death by crucifixion. I will quote Chuck Colson:

But remember, Jesus and His disciples were well versed in and abided by the Old Testament.

So the early Christians knew the Old Testament or the Tanakh. Then some 30 to 70 plus years after Jesus lived, they wrote stories about his life. Is it so hard to fathom that these writers, who had learned the Tanakh, wrote their stories to fulfill messianic prophecies? I could write a story about my friend Steve that fulfills all the "prophecies" also. Especially if I can set the story 30 years before and considering the technological level of the time, there would have been no way to prove it didn't happen. Considering the average life expectancy in the first century was 49 to 62 years old, would mean that most of your eye witnesses would have died by then too.

Once again, Colson is fractally wrong.

The Faith - Chapter 2 part 2

2009-12-17T16:20:00.003-06:00

My last post was about Colson's description of what he said were the only three choices for the origin of the universe. Colson follows up these three positions with this statement:

"The choice we make among these three options as to the universe's origin is the most important choice in life. Everything else follows from it. It's the place where the search for the truth begins."

This is the most important choice in life, so go out and ask people how much they think on it. Then ask if what they do is based on their belief in the origin of the universe. Finally do a little research to see how science works. Colson manages to keep putting strings of sentences together that are so wrong it makes me pause and reread them several times.

So instead of going directly into why this choice is so important, Colson describes a personal anecdote. This story involves Colson, an unnamed atheist and Colson redefining terms in order to trick the unnamed atheist. Personally, I believe Colson has made this entire story up, much like Kent Hovind's story about him and the unnamed professor on a plane.

To go into the story, Colson starts off by telling the UA (unnamed atheist) that he (Colson) had never met an atheist before. Colson then completely redefines the word atheist to mean, "An atheist believes the existence of God can be disproved." This is why I believe the story is fake, the UA does not immediately respond, 'No you are incorrect and are trying to shift the burden of proof. Atheist simply means the lack of a belief in a god or gods.' Instead in Colson's fantasy world the UA responds by back peddling and claiming instead that he is agnostic. Colson then decides to redefine the word agnostic as "But an agnostic is one who says he doesn't think God can be known, and you can only be agnostic if you've tried to know Him and exhausted the search." Again the UA in Colson's story just stops talking to Colson (that part I can believe especially after Colson just told the guy what he supposed to believe). Personally I would have rebutted that definition also saying, 'Again you have changed the definition. Agnostic is a person that believes the ultimate truth value of God is unknowable. You do not have to continually search to come to this conclusion. We say Pi is an irrational number because it never repeats itself, but we have only gone so many decimal places in Pi, according to your definition we cannot call it irrational because we have yet to find an end or repetition. Again you have shifted the burden of proof. It is impossible to prove a universally negative. Instead it is up to the positive claimant, that would be you Chuck, to show evidence for your positive claim in God. Furthermore atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. One deals in belief and the other in knowledge. Your first description was more akin to a gnostic atheist or a strong atheist, you are completely ignoring an agnostic atheist or weak atheist.' Again this is why I believe this is a fictional story, or the UA was just trying to be polite at an "exclusive dinner party" for the governor, instead of being pushy and antagonistic in mixed company.

Colson does admit that this was just a "clever debating ploy" (clever is not the word I would use but it is not my ego he is trying to feed). He proceeds to create another straw man, this time about science (scarecrows beware when Chuck Colson comes to town), "it doesn't answer modern science, which has rendered belief in a personal God irrational." When did this happen? Possibly with the recent study of the brain when trying to decide what would God do, but this book was out way before that study. Please someone show me the peer reviewed scientific paper that renders a personal god irrational. Here all along I thought it was the irrational claims of the Bible that made the Christian God irrational (let's face it this is what Colson is on about, he doesn't care about any other versions of God, this is evident in his only 3 choices for the origin of the universe).

Next Colson tries his hand at philosophy and presuppositions. It is painfully obvious already that Colson has no idea of anything outside of fundamentalist Christianity. In a case of pseudo admittance of this, he quotes Alvin Plantinga. Colson claims that the statement 'God is' is a valid first presupposition. He "proves" this by pointing out that Plantinga makes the same presupposition (wow a Christian agrees to there being a God). He also claims that when Plantinga is questioned on this, he responds "whether they believe that other people have minds. Is this rational?" Now Colson gets tricky and replaces naturalism with solipsism. "But Platinga points out that individuals who call themselves solipsists each believe that they alone have a mind." Naturalism does not make this claim. This is the logical fallacy of equivocation. Naturalism would point out that we can take an MRI of the person and see a picture of their brain, so where is the picture of God? What is actually happening here is that Colson is mixing Plantinga's arguments. Plantinga has an argument against Naturalism. It is basically and argument from personal incredulity. He doesn't understand how a reliable cognitive brain could come about through evolution, therefore God did it. Yes, there is a little more to it than that, but that is the gist of it. You can read all about it here.

Colson's next evidence of the existence of God is intelligent design. He claims that the universe was intelligently designed, citing the structure of human cells and DNA. He even trots out the Bill Gates quote of DNA being more complicated than any software ever written. Bill Gates is not a biologist, nor has he ever studied biology. What Bill Gates says about DNA means absolutely nothing. This is an argument from authority. If DNA is a program, it is loaded with unnecessary code, something that no intelligent agent would ever put into their programs. Also, the most advance computer programs are not written by a single person. Several programmers write out different parts which are put together by other programmers. It would seem that calling DNA a program favors polytheism over monotheism. Of course the argument against that is that God is all knowing so he could do it himself, which leads me back to junk DNA.

Colson then quickly jumps to the Strong Anthropic Principle. Which is easily defeated by pointing out that the major assumption is that life can only evolve as it did on Earth. This assumption has been called "carbon chauvinism" in recent years. Victor J. Stenger has also shown that these so called "just right for life" factors, can be varied well outside their current just right state and still produce the basics for life. Using a program he created called "MonkeyGod", Victor simulated multiple universes by varying factors claimed to be "just right" for human life according to the SAP (strong anthropic principle). Not all of the universes survived or could contain the basics for life, but several did. This utterly defeats the SAP. Colson still tries to defend the SAP by quoting and unnamed scientist:

"It is as if, one scientist wrote, 'the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.'"

He has an end note saying that the quote is from Freeman Dyson in his book Disturbing the Universe (Colson had the quote from the magazine Skeptical Inquirer in an article entitled "Intelligent Design and Phillip Johnson"). The quote is found on page 250 of that book and here it is in its entirety:

"It is true that we emerged in the universe by chance, but the idea of chance itself is only a cover for our ignorance. I do not feel like an alien in this universe. The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming."

In the book, Dyson goes on to lay out the case for SAP. Dyson is an adopter of the theistic evolution idea. Unlike Colson who is a YEC (young earth creationist).

The next part of the chapter asks the question "Is God Is irrational?" Colson goes back to his make believe Roman world from the prologue, citing it as fact. This time he does give an end note for where he got this information. It comes from the book "Rise of Christianity" by Rodney Stark. Without having read the book I can only make so many comments on it. On the very cover of the book, Stark admits he is a sociologist and not a historian. I do know that Stark actually uses faith healing as an example of miracles going on in the church to this day. James Randi and the James Randi Educational Foundation would love to see examples of this. They have a million dollars on the line for any proof of miraculous healing and have had that money on the line since the 70's. No one has claimed it yet. This review of the Stark's book tells me enough about the book. It also tells me enough about Colson's fact checking, that it is close to if not at zero.

Colson next talks about a study in the early 1990's of the spread of evangelical and pentecostal Christianity in Roman Catholic South America. Except he leaves out the bit about the people being Catholic and implies they were pagans. So instead of this being about Christianity overcoming pagan society, which it is painted as, it is more like a revival of Christianity among Christians. Colson says this is meeting the "criteria of secular social scientists as to what constitutes a rational choice." Of course again he does not mention the scientist but has an end note. The secular scientist is Rodney Stark, who is anything but secular.

Colson then tries to prove that God is not wish fulfillment by quoting the Bible.

So his logic follows like this:

The Bible says we are born with an innate sense of God.
Some scientists, that are not named nor end noted, are claimed to be studying this idea looking for a "God gene" (follow the link, it is one scientist and his study has not been replicated or published in a peer reviewed journal).
Because of these two factors and the fact that he (Colson) cannot come up with a way (argument from personal incredulity) for the straw man of evolution he created to do this, then God exists and the bible is right.

Colson then tries to take on Dawkins' book "The God Delusion". Claiming Dawkins called YHWH psychotic. Here is the exact quote: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." That is a bit more than just psychotic and Dawkins can point to scripture to prove every description he gave. If a human did what YHWH was claimed to have done in the Old Testament, no one would hesitate to call them a monster. Colson continues this Quixote quest against Dawkins with the ever popular quote mine.

"This is how Dawkins explains that belief in God is not rational: 'Any God capable of designing a universe, carefully tuned to lead to our evolution, must be supremely complex and improbable entity that needs an even bigger explanation than the one He is supposed to provide.' 'Thus,' Dawkins says, 'He's ruled out by the laws of probability.' Dawkins is saying God can't be God because He is beyond our comprehension."

Wrong. First notice the break in the two quotes. It is because these two quotes from "The God Delusion" are not even close to each other in the book. The first is a response to the SAP argument, pointing out that one would have to explain how such a complex God that could do these things could come into existence. It is found on page 176 of "The God Delusion". The second quote is found on page 68. This is the full quote:

"The deist God, often associated with the Founding Fathers, is certainly an improvement over the monster of the Bible. Unfortunately it is scarcely more likely that he exists, or ever did. In any of its forms the God Hypothesis is unnecessary. The God Hypothesis is also very close to being ruled out by the laws of probability."

Colson is a liar for Jesus. A person who thinks the ends justify the means. He has bankrupted his own position of moral superiority that he tries to cash in on at the end of this chapter. Colson is just another televangelist out for the money of the sheep. The only thing he learned from his time in prison, over his part in the Watergate scandal, is how to steal from people legally.

Colson ends his proofs of God with Pascal's wager. There is so much wrong with Pascal's wager that I will just link to the Iron Chariots page on it.

He concludes the chapter with the claim, "If we live in an exclusively material world, human life - including mine and yours - is absolutely meaningless. No matter how intense our passions, how great our accomplishments, or what side of history we choose, all of this will turn to dust in a universe doomed to extinction." Yes, if you don't believe in God then you are a nihilist. Just because the universe has no purpose, does not mean you can have no purpose. This is yet another straw man. Colson goes on to claim that only God can give meaning to life and thus moral responsibility. That we are nothing without God. I will end this with the Atheist Eve cartoon by Tracie Harris:

The Faith - Chapter 2 part 1

2009-12-15T16:16:00.001-06:00

Anything I cite from the book is used under Fair Use Copyright Laws within the US.

Been busy and I haven't had a chance to write this in awhile, but I am getting back to it finally.

Chapter 2 - God Is

This chapter starts with Colson quoting Sam Harris' book Letter to a Christian Nation and the talk of Hurricane Katrina. Colson compares the lose that so many suffered, good christian people that prayed all their life like Harris said, to his son having cancer and Colson having to wait through an 11 hour surgery before he got they good news that his son would be fine and shortly after his daughter is diagnosed with minor skin cancer which is successfully removed also. So yes, losing your everything you own, your town, loved ones and friends is equivalent to Colson having to sit through an 11 hour surgery. What an arrogant prick.

Colson then gives several straw men of worldviews that oppose his own. Describing evolution as mere chance and believers in Spinoza's God as tree hugging hippies who "join environmental groups and even flock to mountain tops to experience the 'harmonic convergence' of natural forces." He also claims that people who worship Spinoza's God, he includes Einstein as an example, are strict determinists "they don't believe people make their own decisions." Yes, Einstein who showed why determinism can't possibly be correct on the quantum level.

He takes these straw men even further claiming they are the only 3 major ideas of the origin of the Universe. He lists them as a purely Materialistic Godless Universe, a Universal Mind/God is present in all things (Spinoza's God) and a Personal God. Sorry my deistic friends that believe in an impersonal God that started the universe and let it evolve on its own is right out. So already Colson has committed the logical fallacy of false dichotomy or in this case trichotomy.

The first option is "A Godless Material Universe". Colson explains it as the idea "that the material universe is the sum and substance of all that exists and that it has either always existed or it came into existence without a cause. Therefore, natural explanations suffice to answer all questions about the nature and origin of the universe and of life." Colson proceeds to do one of Ray Comfort's standard canards of everything came from nothing. He then compounds it by saying that it is mere chance that stars were formed and intelligent life came about. These are two different claims and are both straw men.

First the idea that everything came from nothing. This is because we know the universe had a beginning, the Big Bang. So what happened before the Big Bang? To some extent that is an absurd question as time did not exist before the Big Bang, but we can still call it before even if there technically was no before. So what was there? Was it nothing or was it something? The answer is yes. It was nothing and something at the same time. This is a very complicated topic and it is best left to physicists, of which I am not, so here is Lawrence Krauss. This video is an hour long but well worth the watch.

The idea that it is mere chance is also wrong, unless he thinks the laws of physics are mere chance. What created the stars was gravity. Here are two articles from space.com on the subject:

First Star in the Universe Born With the Help of Dark Matter

The First Star: Things Heated up Quickly

This is not mere chance. There are certain ways that matter and energy react with one another. It is those reactions that create the universe. When it comes to the complexity of life, it is based off of those reactions and environmental pressures (aka natural selection). Mutations are random, but selection for mutations is not. Colson continues with an argument from personal incredulity added to the straw man of evolution he created.

Option number two is "God Is an Intelligent Presence in All Things, a Universal Mind". He starts this section by continuing to beat on his straw man of the first option:

"Our universe has an intelligible character for which the material theory cannot account. It can be investigated, reasoned about, and its phenomena translated into elegant mathematical expressions, like Einstein's E=MC^2. How can the intelligible, the predictable, and the uniform emerge out of pure chance?"

Not just wrong but fractally wrong, that is it is wrong in the whole and wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution (one exception Einstein did come up with the equation E=MC^2). What this has to do with the a universal mind, absolutely nothing. Colson is just beating his dead straw man further.

The next claim is that "many of the greatest scientists have concluded that an ultimate intelligence must be present in all things, if not behind them." Besides this being the logical fallacy an appeal to authority, he doesn't list the scientists or provide any evidence for this claim or what constitutes "the greatest scientists" except for making a claim as to what Einstein believed. No other scientists are mentioned. I personally get the feeling that Colson doesn't care about backing up any of his claims but actually thinks an appeal to random unmentioned authority is a valid argument.

Colson goes on to compare Einstein's Spinoza's God to Eastern religions, whatever that means and I think Hindus would like to talk to him about their Gods especially since Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world, and New Age spiritualism as all the same thing. Claiming that they are strict determinists. A claim that he yet again provides no evidence for. Yet he goes to demonize all these groups through the idea of strict determinism saying that Einstein "thought human beings were no more responsible for their own actions than a chicken laying an egg." I don't know where Colson pulled this idea out of but I have a clue. If you are really interested in learning about Einstein's religious views click here, they are varied and interesting. You will notice that Einstein spoke out against theological determinism, which is a Christian idea.

Finally, Colson presents his third theory, a personal god. His reason, again if you have visited Ray Comfort's site you will have heard this before, is look at nature, look at the trees and look at the mountains. He claims that because we can find beauty in the world then it must mean that God exists and the beauty is an expression of this love. He actually writes look at the trees, mentioning apple blossoms in particular. Colson can not think of any reason for flowers to be pretty other than God. This again shows the shallow thinking of Chuck Colson. He either does not, can not or will not look at the evolutionary biological reasons for colorful flowers. Here are a couple of articles from Science Daily and Wikipedia on the evolution of flowers and why they are colorful (1 2 3), hint it is to attract pollinators. This claim is also just one large logical fallacy, argument from personal incredulity, just because Colson can't understand the biological reasons for plants ("The scientist may look at the white clouds of apple blossoms as nothing more than an adaptive response, but if only an adaptive response were required, then why this dazzling display? And why should the ingenious cooperation of the blossoms and bees be called for?") does not mean that it can't be understood.

This is the only evidence Colson provides, beauty in nature followed by a scripture in the Bible. Does that mean anything ugly or abhorrent found in nature, like worms that can only live by mating in the eyes of certain primates (humans and baboons mainly) or parasites that can only live by atrophying the tongues of other animals and replacing it with themselves, proves that there is no God? He does not consider the question in his book, but I would guess the answer to be no. The blame of such things is laid down to a "fallen world full of sin". This makes the hypothesis of beauty reveling God completely unfalsifiable and worthless for science or the philosophy of science.

I am stopping my review of this chapter for now and will continue more later. Colson continues to build on these straw men and does some quote mining too.

The Faith - Chapter 1

2009-11-30T15:43:00.000-06:00

I bought my mom and dad two of Ken Miller's books, Finding Darwin's God and Only A Theory. My mom read both of them and enjoyed Finding Darwin's God. A few days ago she said I owed her two books since she read the two I bought. She gave me the first one, Charles Colson's The Faith. I am going to read it and go over it here in my blog.

Any quotes from the book will be used in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws of America.

Chapter 1 is titled "Everywhere, Always, By All"

"What we witnessed at Nickel Mines and in the times of the Roman plagues is true Christianity - sacrificial love, concern for all people, forgiveness and reconciliation, evil overcome by good. These two examples, drawn from thousands I might have selected, represent signs from the Kingdom of God announced by Jesus and lived by his followers to this day."

Well that sounds all fluffy and nice. Upon further inspection though it just doesn't stand up. First off what the victims of Nickel Mine did was amazing but not unprecedented or limited to Christianity only. In my comments over the prologue, I showed a quick search of Google can find hundreds and thousands of cases of victims doing the same all over the world. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the sole property or domain of Christianity. Forgiveness is taught by most religions, several whose origin is well before Christianity.

Second the story of the Christians in ancient Rome, was something Colson just made up. He had no evidence to back up anything he wrote. Colson does not have a degree in history, he is a lawyer. So his story at best is a wild fantasy of his own imagination. He then claims it is one of the most compelling stories he could come up with from thousands of stories. I really would hate to see how bad of an argument these other stories make.

His unsubstantiated claim of thousands of stories is just that unsubstantiated. It reminds of Paul of Tarsus claiming that over 500 people witnessed a risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:6). He gives no names or anyway to back up the claim but he throws it out there like it is convincing. Just naming a large number without giving us any way to look it up is not proof. I can claim that 500 people witnessed me flying like superman, but that does nothing to persuade you. You would want to see it yourself and talk to every individual, in other words more evidence than just the word of the one making the extraordinary claim.

Colson admits that not all Christians have lived up to forgiveness and love but he blames this on the fallen nature of humans. He also claims that "the Christian Church and the truth it defends are the most powerful life- and culture-changing forces in human history" and that the truth "has been tested and proven true over two thousand years." He does not define truth here. He just simply asserts that Christianity has some truth that has been proven over and over again. He never actually says what this truth is. I believe he is planning on stating the "truth" over the course of the book, so I am not going to harp on it too much here. It would just be nice that if you make a claim one can look it up and see if you are telling the truth, instead of just mentioning some nebulous word without defining it.

The next part of the Chapter is about Colson and his bigotry. He is visiting St. Paul's cathedral in London and is shocked to hear the gospel being preached there. The Church of England is just the Catholic Church without the Pope so it can't possibly be Christian or preach the gospel, that is never stated directly here but the fact he is shocked that the "Gospel" is being preached in a church is evidence enough.

The next part is more made up stories by Colson. He calls it a time-travelers view of Christianity. In it he picks 5 random times and places to 'observe' Christianity. Starting with 37 AD in Jerusalem, where "these new Christians are hard to distinguish from a branch of Judaism. They simply identify the Jewish teaching about the Messiah, the Son of Man, with Jesus of Nazareth. These Christians are mostly drawn from the ranks of tradesmen and laborers. They have large families, and their faith is marked by celebrations and by helping one another face life's material challenges." A comment like that should have some sort of foot note on where he researched and learned about what life was like in the 1st century, but there is none. Instead Chuck just pulled this all out of his ass. This doesn't even follow with what the Bible says about the life of the early Christians. Apparently there were many false prophets (Acts 8:9-25), the believers were quite communistic and shared all their property together (Acts 4:32-37), and they often separated themselves from the Jews in meaningful ways (Acts 10:9-23). I really have nothing nice to say about Colson for this deliberate and meaningful misrepresentation of Christianity that is so easily refuted by the Bible he claims to be talking about.

Next, he chose 325 AD and the First Council of Nicaea. He does get a few things right here. He says that the people are no longer only Jewish but from all over the Mediterranean, that they have some writings together called the "New Testament" (they had the writings, they were not canon but were treated as such, and they were not called the "New Testament"), and that most of the church leaders were celibate.

It is off to the Irish monks of the 7th Century, no specific date given here but this would be the period known as Celtic Christianity. He claims that the monks would pray with their arms outstretched to resemble a cross. The only thing I can really find on this is St. Dominic's nine ways of prayer which would have been in the 13th century not the 7th. It could have started well before what I found though. Colson also speaks of how the Irish monks sailed to Scotland where "they will call the Scottish clans to exchange their nature worship and bloody practices for the joys of heaven." Scotland is surrounded in mythology from that particular period, much like Ireland. I will quote Wikipedia on Scotland's early Christianity:

"The story of early Christianity in Scotland is as obscure as it is in Ireland. The earliest missionaries are traditionally Saint Ninian and Saint Columba. Ninian himself is now regarded as largely a construct of the Northumbrian church, after the Bernician takeover of Whithorn and conquest of southern Galloway. The name itself is a scribal corruption of Uinniau ('n's and 'u's look almost identical in early insular calligraphy), a saint of probable British extraction who is also known by the Gaelic equivalent of his name, Finnian. St Columba, the most important saint of medieval Scots, was certainly Uinniau's disciple. However, the earliest evidence of Christianity in northern Britain predates the respective floruit of either missionary. We can be sure that at least all of northern Britain, except the Scandinavian far north and west was Christian by the tenth century. The most important factors for the conversion of Scotland were the Roman province of Britannia to the south, and later the so-called Gaelic or Celtic Christianity, an interlinked system of monasteries and aristocratic networks which combined to spread both Christianity and the Gaelic language amongst the Picts."

Chuck then takes us to "one of the great English missionary societies of the 1840's." Colson claims these societies funded mission trips to the Far East, Oceania and Africa, which is true. Colson puts forth the idea of the Protestant work ethic helped push the Industrial revolution. This idea was put forth originally by Max Weber. The idea has many critics.

Finally, we go to 1980 Lagos, Nigeria to talk very little about the pentecostal churches that have sprung up there. I think there is a good reason not to talk about them, these are the churches that are killing or excommunicating small children as witches. Yet we are supposed to see these churches as forces of good in the world. Colson even praises the Nigerian churches for "bringing the faith back to the West." If that is "the Faith" then Chuck can keep his sick, disgusting, homophobic, misogynistic, evil, killing church because I want nothing to do with it.

His next section blames aggressive atheism or "anti-theism" for all the problems of the church. Naming Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Chris Hedge in his rebuke. To the point of claiming that Dawkins is only doing it for the money ("Richard Dawkins, responsible for half of those sales, can attest to how lucrative attacking God has become.") Colson then follows that up with one of the most ludicrous statements I have ever read:

"These critics say we are trying to 'impose' our views on American life - that we want to create a 'theocracy,' or a government run by the Church. But this is absurd; theocracy is contrary to the most basic Christian teaching about free will and human freedom. Christianity gave the very idea of separation of Church and state to the West. And Christianity advances not by power or by conquest, but by love."

There are just so many things wrong with that statement, I could spend days covering it alone. The biggest thing is that it is all a lie, there is no truth in it at all.

Colson continues on in this vein, blaming postmodernism saying it claims that there is no such thing as truth. He also claims tolerance for others is diluting the truth. He also makes an appeal to authority by quoting President Eisenhower. He even goes to make some persecution claims from being called names (although "Poor, uneducated, and easily led." is a quite accurate description in my opinion).

To the end the chapter Colson claims that anti-theism and Islam are the greatest threats to Christianity, America (not trying to make the US a theocracy) and the World. He also claims that Christians just need to get back to their roots and everything will be fine. The rest of the book is supposed to be about Christianity's roots.

Dark Heresy - Night 5

2009-11-19T14:30:00.000-06:00

The chase is on, everyone jumps aboard the ship in Port Suffering heading back to Scintilla. Kaltos is there to greet them in Scintilla and informs them that someone matching Skae's description, minus the mutations, was seen in Hive Tarsus, the second largest city on Scintilla, apparently recruiting soldiers. He was gone before anyone could confront him. They know his destination is Sentinel, from the reports submitted by Aristarchus. Everyone is loaded onto a ship and head off for Sentinel. The trip to Sentinel is longer than to Iocanthos, even though they are skipping the major warp pathways and going directly. Kaltos also sends his Biomancy advisor, Raltos (random rolled name), with them. This is partially because Shawn shows interest in becoming a Biomancer.

Once aboard the ship, Raltos takes off his helmet, and comments that he is glad to take that off finally.

When they arrive on Sentinel, it is quiet. After getting out of the spaceport they notice the bodies. Some are riddled with bullet holes, while others are just torn apart. No one is alive. James succeeds at a tracking roll and notices tracks going off into the desert. It is evening and thus the best time to be making this trek. They walk through the night and with Dawn coming the tracks still go on. Everyone decides to push on. An hour later a toughness test is made to see how everyone is still doing. Everyone passes.

After another hour of walking, a cave is found. The tracks go into the cave. Inside the cave, everyone can hear a whispering sound. Raltos is reminded of the legends of a xeno race known as the whisperers. A listen check is made a few more minutes into the cave, those that make it can hear gunfire. Next they come across a body of a human with weird bite marks all over it. It does have good armor and a photo-visor that allows for night vision. Alicia picks them up and puts both on.

Further into the cave, more gunfire can be heard, and they come across two more bodies. This time giant cockroach like animals are tearing and eating at the corpses. A whispering sound is coming from them. They stop eating and charge the PCs. After dispatching the whisperers, Shawn and AJ (who had to leave early and was now being played by me) equipped the new armor and helmets. Only Cheryl and James did not equip new armor. Cheryl because her chest piece already protected better and she couldn't replace the arms without replacing the chest piece. James really gives no reason for not equipping armor. With the way he is playing, I honestly don't expect his character to survive this entire story line.

The gunfire is getting louder as they venture further in the cave. Finally they reach an opening where they find 5 men garbed in the same armor as the corpses, one human corpse, several whisperer corpses, and 4 whisperers. The living men and whisperers are fighting each other. One of them men notices the PCs and aims his gun to fire on them. The players wipe out all but one of the men and all the whisperers. The last man runs towards a turn up ahead in the cave, only to have his head split open by a giant tentacle coming from around the corner.

Raltos leads the charge around the corner. Standing there in the cave is Abbot Skae in his horrible daemonic visage. Without warning, Raltos lobs a flash grenade at Skae, everyone wearing visors have to make an agility test. All the PCs succeed. Skae is blinded and stunned for 3 rounds. The fight lasts 3 rounds. First Raltos hit Skae hard in the head, followed by Alicia with a critical blow to the head with her chain axe. It only takes a few free shots after that to finish him off.

Behind Skae is an altar. On top of the altar sits a small needle like device attached to a half circle. It fits perfectly on the sphere James has and begins to spin. Raltos is amazed at the device. They start to leave. Skae is barely together but somehow manages to say, "This isn't over yet, the Dancer is coming and I will be there to see you all die at his hands." Skae stands up and tries to open a portal, similar to the one he escaped Iocanthos with, but it closes and fear crosses Skae's face. A daemonic voice is heard in everyone's head saying, "Skae you have failed me for the final time." At that hundreds and thousands of whisperers come out of every hole in the cave. They swarm over Skae devouring him leaving nothing but bones behind. The PCs aptly begin to run out of the cave. A couple of agility tests are needed but everyone makes it out fine. The whisperers do not chase out of the cave or even into the sun light.

Everyone heads back to Scintilla, this time taking the long and much safer way back. Shawn decides to do some research on St. Drusus and Drusus' dealings on Iocanthos. He finds out a lot of stuff he already knew. There are some dates missing and the actual source of the Dancer is not listed but he does discover the daemon's true name is Tsyiak. He also learns of how Drusus used Xeno technology to capture Tsyiak's soul in what the Eldar call a soulstone. Shawn learned about what soulstones were used for but little else. - "When the Eldar die, their souls are in danger of being devoured by the Chaos god Slaanesh. To prevent this, the Eldar created special Spirit Stones, which capture and contain their souls at the moment of death."

Kaltos was again waiting for them at Scintilla. He asked for the sphere and needle (the map) so that it could be studied. James, for some reason which he never explained, refused to hand it over. Kaltos nearly killed James right there. A compromise was reached where James would stay present for the studies being done on the map. The studies take about a month. They also discover a way to harness warp energy to activate the map instead of Aristarchus' or Cheryl's blood.

On one of the first days back, after defeating Skae, Cheryl goes out by herself shopping. She barely notices a flash of light in a tower, but has time to duck as a bullet barely misses her and strikes a person next to her. There is no doubt someone was aiming for her. When Kaltos finds out, he has some local law enforcement investigate the assassination attempt. He also lets none of the PCs go out without bodyguards.

That ended night 5.

Charles Colson - The Faith - Prologue

2009-11-18T15:46:00.002-06:00

tUPoC Chapter 1 Section 5

2009-11-17T13:07:00.001-06:00

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Worldviews - the heart and soul of Lisle's argument and consequently AiG's argument

"Most people today have not given much thought to their own worldview. In fact, many people do not even realize they have a worldview. Such people tend to think that all knowledge is acquired by unbiased observation of the evidence around us. This view is called “empiricism” and is itself a kind of worldview. We cannot help but have some beliefs about how the world works, how we attain knowledge, and how we should live. Even if we believe that we have no such beliefs — this is itself a belief. So there’s no escaping it. A worldview is inevitable. A rational worldview is not."

Because I never trust a liar even when they tell me what day it is, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from sense experience. So observing the world and trying to understand it by observation is a worldview.

So what is a worldview? Lisle actually defines it: "Worldview: a network of our most basic beliefs about reality in light of which all observations are interpreted." These are also called presuppositions. In the sake of argument, I will grant Lisle that everyone has a worldview and that some knowledge is derived from this worldview. I will also grant him that not all worldviews are rational. His semantic game with belief is just that semantics. He is trying to set up a 'see all scientists believe in it that makes it a religion therefor creationism should be taught in school also'. I plan to show why this won't stand.

"Our worldview is a bit like mental glasses. It affects the way we view things. In the same way that a person wearing red glasses sees red everywhere, a person wearing “evolution” glasses sees evolution everywhere. The world is not really red everywhere, nor is there evolution everywhere, but glasses do affect our perception of the world and the conclusions we draw. We will find in this book that the Bible is a bit like corrective lenses. Without “biblical glasses,” the world appears fuzzy and unclear. But when our thinking is based on the Bible, the world snaps into focus: it makes sense."

This is just Ken Ham's regular garbage and you can see him say the same thing countless times on any number of videos on YouTube.

The idea of seeing evolution everywhere because of one's worldview is completely wrong. If we only interpreted everything through a worldview then evolution would have never existed, the world would be flat, the sun would travel around the Earth and Gods throwing lightning would all still be widely held beliefs. You see something happened. Someone started to investigate things and found real facts. These facts went against what that person knew or against their worldview. Instead of trying to explain away these facts, they followed them to find out real truth.

Copernicus and Galileo both grew up knowing that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the sun, moon and all the stars orbited around the Earth. That was the worldview. Yet they both discovered facts that proved their worldview wrong. Instead of hiding these facts away, they looked into it more. What they both discovered was that the Earth orbited the sun. The solar system was not geocentric but heliocentric.

In the same way, Charles Darwin joined the crew of the Beagle as a naturalist to study the geology of South America. He collected many samples and started to notice things that did not fit with special creation or Lamarckian evolution. Things like animals on islands more closely resemble animals from the mainland they are closest too rather than animals on other similar islands. It seemed as if the island animals and plants descended from the mainland animals and plants. This amongst his many other discoveries caused Darwin to doubt special creation and helped him to develop the first Theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection.

I could show even more examples through out the history of science all the way to modern day examples of Albert Einstein and Relativity. None of these men started off thinking that their worldview was 100% correct. Instead each of them found facts that went against their worldview and they adjusted what they thought according to the facts, not the other way around. What Lisle is implying is that everyone just changes the facts to fit their worldview. He is projecting, because that is exactly what he and all creationists and Intelligent Design advocates do. This is also just a giant straw man and he knows it to be so. I can say that because Lisle has a PhD in astrophysics from a reputable school. There is no way he could have gone through his degree without learning this. He is a charlatan and con artist in the name of religion. He joins a long line of charlatans for religion including his boss Ken Ham.

"Just as a person wearing red glasses perceives the world differently than a person wearing clear, prescription lenses, so evolutionists “see” the world differently than creationists. We have the same facts. But what we make of those facts is colored by our worldview. Thus, creationists and evolutionists interpret the same facts differently. This point cannot be overstated. Much of the frustration in arguments over origins stems from a failure to recognize that creationists and evolutionists must interpret the same data differently due to their different worldviews."

This is a lie. How did evolution start, Lisle? Did Darwin go out and say, "Hey I have this idea of evolution. Now I just need to find evidence to prove it." OF course he didn't. Everything I said earlier, which can easily be backed up by facts, shows that worldviews do not shape evidence, unless you let them. In the case of creationists, they insist on not only reinterpreting data, but cherry picking the data that fits their ideas best. Ignoring or trying to invalidate radiometric dating, physics all together and geological strata to name a few things. These things were not built upon presuppositions or worldviews but on cold hard facts that Lisle and his ilk choose to continually ignore.

"Many people do not want to accept the fact that all evidence must be interpreted in light of prior beliefs — a faith commitment of some kind. Many believe that evidence should be approached in a neutral and unbiased fashion — without any previous beliefs. However, this is impossible. For this view is itself a belief about how evidence should be interpreted."

This is utter bullshit. Then how are new ideas brought about? If we can only interpret things from the point of view of our worldview then how did these worldviews diverge? Historically it can be shown that there was no "evolution worldview", so where did it come from if "all evidence must be interpreted in light of prior beliefs"? He has no answer except to possible say that the Devil did it. Invoking some sort of supernatural occurrence, because according to his definition, someone cannot change their mind from looking at facts. Reread if you think I am misinterpreting him, he said "all evidence must be interpreted in light of prior beliefs" and "We have the same facts. But what we make of those facts is colored by our worldview." So Lisle explain how men who started with one worldview and changed to a different and new worldview. Explain why I started with a Biblical literalistic worldview but after studying the facts myself, changed my mind to what you call an evolutionist worldview. How does that happen if I only interpret evidence according to my worldview? He has no answer for this.

"Moreover, in order for our observations of evidence to be meaningful, we would have to already believe that our senses are basically reliable. It would do no good to observe some piece of evidence if we did not believe our observations are real and reliable."

Actually no we don't. Most people understand that our senses are not perfect or entirely reliable. We are fooled all the time by magicians, optical illusions, psychological phenomena like pareidolia, confirmation bias and many more that I can't begin to list them all here. (As a side note, confirmation bias is what Lisle is talking about when he says we interpret evidence by our worldview.) This is why science relies on peer review. A single person can draw conclusions based on their own observations, but to determine if those conclusions are correct it is not left to any one single person. Instead it is tested over and over again, to make sure that the conclusion holds. Even after holding for several years, it will continually be tested until it fails or is replaced by something that better fits the data and explains why the previous explanation held so well. Scientists do not make a name for themselves by upholding current Theories, instead they make a name by replacing old Theories with new and improved ones. The incentive is for scientists to overturn Theories.

"We cannot avoid wearing “mental glasses” — having a worldview — but it is crucial to wear the right glasses. In the same way that a person wearing red glasses might erroneously conclude that everything in the world is red, so a person with a wrong worldview will draw incorrect conclusions about the universe. But a correct worldview can prevent us from drawing the wrong conclusions and can improve our understanding of the world."

Look up the definition of hubris and will find a picture of Lisle with this statement next to it. He is not only claiming that his worldview is correct but because of that he will never draw a wrong conclusion about the universe because of it. Not once will you see any science make the claim they are 100% right 100% of the time. This is a level of arrogance that only the devoutly religious can claim.

"For example, when I observe a magician cut a person in half, I conclude that it’s a trick — no one was really cut in half, regardless of what I thought I saw. I draw this conclusion not because of the evidence, but because my worldview prevents me from drawing the wrong conclusion."

Wrong. You draw the conclusion because of evidence. You know it is illegal to kill someone. You know that when someone is cut in half they will die. You know that someone would have to have a mental problem or an accident to occur for them to advertise and cut a person in half before a crowd. You know you are there expecting to be fooled, only a few performing magicians claim or do not refute to have real powers (though none will submit to the JREF million dollar challenge).

Now if Lisle was going off of his worldview, then he could not know if it was a trick or not. Considering that his worldview allows for miracles and the Bible states that others will come doing miracles but not be of God (2 Thessolonians 2:9). So are miracles possible or not? Instead Lisle is using facts not his worldview to come to the conclusion it is a trick. This completely refutes his own example.

"For example, suppose that your neighbor tells you that she saw a UFO last night. Your worldview will immediately kick in and help you process and interpret this evidence. As your neighbor provides additional details, you will begin forming hypotheses based on your worldview. Perhaps she saw an alien spaceship. Perhaps it was a top secret government experimental aircraft. Maybe she had been drinking again last night. Or perhaps she merely saw the planet Venus. The conclusion you draw will be influenced not only by the evidence, but also by your general understanding of the universe. If you are convinced that extraterrestrial life does not exist, then clearly you will not draw the conclusion that your neighbor saw an alien spacecraft. Your worldview constrains and guides your interpretation of the evidence. This is true of every aspect of life. From UFOs or magic tricks to fossils and DNA, our worldview tells us what to make of the evidence."

Actually, I know of someone that claims to have seen a UFO. She thinks it was an alien ship. I have no basis to think she was lying, nor do I have anyway of refuting her claim. Personally, without any evidence but her own eye witness account, I don't think she saw an alien aircraft. I don't know what she saw. Why did I come to the conclusion that she didn't see an alien spacecraft? Evidence. I believe that there is alien life in the universe. There very well could be an alien race that is more advanced than we are. I have just seen no evidence of any contact by aliens to our planet. I am not saying that it could not happen, but that I find it very unlikely to have happened without any hard evidence. An eye witness is not always reliable, here we are getting back to our senses and their reliability. If more convergent evidence came out showing that we have been or are being visited by aliens then I will change my opinion.

"At this point, we have not yet made an argument that Christianity is the correct worldview — that it alone provides the correct way to interpret evidence in regard to origins (or any other issue). But by now it should at least be very clear that everyone interprets evidence in light of his or her worldview. And it is clear that creationists and evolutionists have different worldviews, and as a result, they interpret the same evidence differently. For this reason, evidence by itself will not cause a person to reconsider his worldview. Any scientific evidence can be interpreted in such a way as to fit into any given worldview."

Yet more projection. This is not how science works, this is how Lisle does "science". Lisle has yet to explain how a new worldview can come into being if all evidence is is interpreted based on one's worldview. The history of science shows it happening all the time. It is because science goes where the facts and evidence lead, it does not cherry pick and force facts into a predetermined view. This is even before going into falsifiability.

"A creationist looking at comets concludes that the solar system is young. An evolutionist looking at comets concludes that there must be an Oort cloud. A creationist examining the information in DNA concludes that there is a Creator. An evolutionist looking at the same information concludes that mutations or some unknown mechanism has generated such information. An evolutionist looking at the similarities in the genetic code of various organisms concludes that they must have a common ancestor. A creationist looking at those same similarities concludes that those organisms must have a common Creator."

An "evolutionist" then goes looking for evidence that will either prove them right or wrong and if wrong redetermines what the evidence is pointing towards even if it goes against their personal bias or, as Lisle calls it, worldview. A creationist just sits back and says "God did it" and never looks again. The creationist will also cherry pick quotes and findings of scientists and claim it fits creationism.

"We all interpret the facts in light of our worldview. Any evidence that seems to challenge our worldview can always be explained by invoking a rescuing device. Many debates on origins are not very effective because the opposing parties do not understand the nature of worldviews, evidence, and rescuing devices. Creationists can be frustrated that evolutionists are not persuaded by the evidence; but evolutionists feel the same way about creationists. Such frustration stems from a failure to consider the real issue: people always interpret evidence in a way that is compatible with their worldview. Thus, evidence by itself will never settle the debate."

Except scientists don't use rescuing devices, instead they have hypotheses that they test over and over again until they fail. At that point they reevaluate the evidence and let the evidence point to what is happening. Then that is tested over and over again until it fails. The testing never stops. Creationists never test and never continue beyond "God did it".

Lisle has some closing remarks about the next chapter. As I refuse to buy the book, I am not going on here. I think I am just going to go over Charles Colsen's book "The Faith" as my mom is insistent that I read it. This is another clue that my parents know of my atheism and yet don't want to talk about it.

Dark Heresy - Night 4

2009-11-16T13:53:00.000-06:00

So we last left our intrepid explorers waiting for church services to start. Nobody really does anything before hand. They all go up to the Cathedral and are greeted by Abbot Skae who shows them to their seats in the front row, a place of honor. James decides to stand by the door. Kos'ke enters with Esha Raine and they are seated across the aisle from the PCs. Right before the services begin, Aristarchus sneaks in and sits with the PCs.

Skae starts to talk about a miracle that is going to take place as part of the dedication services, but before he can go on the city alarm bells go off. James is immediately out the door and he sees the truck crash into the front gate jarring it open. A bunch of blue-faced Ashleen come pouring in killing and burning everything they see.

The other PCs, Kos'ke and his men join James in viewing the attack. The first few things noticed are:

A group of men with a large bomb heading directly for the church.

A group of men with molotov cocktails heading for the city's generators.

The dustdogs have been spooked, broke their pen and are now attacking everyone they see.

James runs down to get a shot off at the bomb. He hits the Ashleen carrying the bomb and the bomb is dropped. The impact of the fall causes the make-shift jury-rigged bomb to detonate. Killing all the group of Ashleen with it.

Shawn and AJ go to cut off the warriors attacking the generators. AJ kills one rather quickly, but catches the attention of some of the others. AJ gets heavily injured during the fight. Shawn finishes the Ashleen off. Cheryl rushes over to help AJ with her medical skills.

While Shawn and AJ are fighting at the generators. James, Alicia and Cheryl notice a group of Ashleen heading towards a woman trying to protect some children. The PCs rush over to her and the children's aid, intercepting the Ashleen before they reach the children. James, Alicia and Cheryl handle the group rather easily, when Shawn calls over the vox that AJ is injured. That is when Cheryl runs to his aid.

The leader of the Ashleen is spotted. He is armored and carrying a cleaver, plus he has several men with him. He is charging Kos'ke and his men, who have just finished rounding up the loose dustdogs.

With the help of Kos'ke and his men, Alicia, James and Shawn take out the leader of the Ashleen thus ending the attack on the town. James is injured during the fight but refuses treatment. Cheryl helped AJ to the make-shift hospital. She stays and helps the overworked Priest there.

After the fight there is a commotion in front of the Cathedral. Kos'ke gathers his men and heads up to the Cathedral rather briskly. James, Alicia and Shawn join him. At the doors, Esha Raine is standing on one side, Kos'ke and his men join her, there is an Ashleen in the middle uttering something indistinguishable and the Abbot, Brother Severus and Aristarchus are on the other side. There is an argument going on between the Abbot and Esha. Esha wants to call off the dedication as obviously something is plotting against them. The Abbot is insisting that the ceremonies will continue as planned.

Aristarchus walks over and shoots the Ashleen in the head. He then says to Esha, "This is the fate of a heretic. Do you wish to stand in the way of the Church and the miracle to come?"

Esha is completely put off by this and makes the comment that the Crow Father is sitting on their shoulder and whispering his lies to them. She will have nothing to do with the Cathedral. Esha, Kos'ke and his men then leave riding immediately out of town. The gathered towns folk are quite shocked and unsure of what to do. Immediately Abbot Skae speaks up and tells everyone that this will not hinder the ceremonies that the God-Emperor looks down on them and will turn this Cathedral into a lighthouse as brilliant as the sun to shine on Iocanthos.

At this time, the PCs have some time to themselves. Cheryl stays in the hospital helping out. James goes to meditate and speak to his new daemon friend. Shawn and Alicia talk to some people around town. No one really finds anything out.

James decides he needs to speak to talk to Aristarchus immediately because he fears Aristarchus' life is endanger. He finds Shawn and Alicia in town, then picks up Cheryl and AJ on his way to the Cathedral where Aristarchus and Abbot Skae are located. When the group arrives at the Cathedral, their path is barred by Brother Severus and few younger priests. James demands to speak with Aristarchus. Brother Severus tells them that no one is allowed in right now as Aristarchus and Abbot Skae are preparing for tonight's ceremony. James is about to force his way through them, when the doors open. Aristarchus is supporting an injured bloody Abbot Skae.

Skae says he was attacked by a shadowy figure and barely fought it off. Aristarchus confirms what Skae says and has no doubt that it was Esha Raine that attacked Skae. He sends the PCs to arrest her and bring her back to the Cathedral by order of the Holy Ordos Hereticus.

Brother Lamark, who was called up during the first situation, tells the PCs where Esha is camped. He wants to go with them but his duty is to protect the Cathedral and Abbot Skae.

Alicia drives the flatbed heading towards Esha's camp. On the way she stops the vehicle and asks James how he knows what he knows. James claims the God-Emperor is talking to him directly and cites when the Emperor first spoke to them when they arrived in the future. (Cheryl, the player not her character, just realized that the God-Emperor never speaks to anyone for any reason, because basically he can't. She figured out something big but hasn't quite put together why it is a big thing, yet.) The group has a long discussion where James explains his theory that they are all being controlled by Tzeentch. He goes as far to claim that the God-Emperor is not Sigmar. He never says that he thinks the God-Emperor is an agent of Tzeentch but he does so without words (to have made that claim with words would have got him attacked by Cheryl. She already does not trust him.) After the discussion they continue on to Esha's camp. Along the way a violent dust storm kicks up. The dust storm dies down right as they reach the camp.

Upon arriving, Esha, Kos'ke and his men greet them with weapons at the ready. The only one that almost does something stupid here is AJ, but the others keep him from drawing his weapon. They tell her they want to talk. She says, "Good then there are people who are not being controlled by the Crow Father and are willing to listen, come inside I have something to show you."

Before they can even start to go inside, the dust storm kicks up again even stronger than before. Lights start flashing in the storm and evil laughter can be heard. Two groups of Shale Crows descend from the sky, one group attacking the PCs, the other attacking Esha and Kos'ke. Alicia and AJ dispatch the Shale Crows attacking them rather quickly and as soon as they do, the storm dies down. Some of Kos'ke's men are hurt but Esha and Kos'ke are fine.

Esha gets everyone inside. She then asks them to retell everything that has happened to them. After they are finished she gets up and brings them an old book. She calls it a widow's book and tells them it will help them. Shawn is able to read the book. It talks of St. Drusus and his fight against the daemon known as the Crow Father or the Dancer at the Threshold. Their final fight took place where the Cathedral is now. They thank Esha and as they begin to leave she tells them one more thing, "The Dancer's weakness is what he does to victims." Everyone realized very quickly that meant his eyes, technically he is vulnerable to Blind effects.

They hurry back to Stern Hope, it is dusk and the place is eerily quiet. There are no guards at the gate. A quick scan of the area and nobody can be seen. Tables from the Inn have been thrown out into the street and obstruct their way. The PCs park the truck and get out. Once out and walking, they notice a few bodies, some are riddled with bullet holes or las blasts while others seem to have been torn apart, all have had their eyes removed. The only light is coming from the Cathedral, a sickly pale glow.

On the way to the Cathedral, they see movement in the Abbey. Brother Lamark is barely alive. He tells them it was the Abbot. The Abbot turned into something monsterous and attacked anyone that did not go to the Cathedral. Cheryl is able to bandage Lamark and save his life.

The group head up to the Cathedral, opening the doors to reveal most of the town gathered, standing and staring at the altar. On the altar stands Aristarchus. He has ghostfire flowers at his feet and his tarot cards are floating around him. In a flash the cards gather into 9 single cards and fuse onto Aristarchus, 2 on each arm and leg, 4 on his chest and 1 on his forehead. Alicia makes the comment that they should take out the cards. The dome above Aristarchus is a black writhing mass, slowly moving towards Aristarchus almost reaching for him. A will power roll is required to even step inside the Cathedral. Everyone succeeds. Once inside they notice to people standing in the darkness behind Aristarchus, the light for the room is coming from the tarot cards. One shape is human and the other is not. As they get closer the non-human shape steps forward, it was Abbot Skae. It speaks to the PCs about how glad it is to see them and that they should now come and join him in devotion, while Brother Severus collects the blood of Aristarchus. The Skae-thing just used a daemonic power on them and all are required to make a will power roll to contest it. Alicia is the only one who failed. She drops her weapons and begins to walk forward towards the Skae-thing. Cheryl tries to take Alicia out of it to no avail. The fight starts after that.

Skae hits Alicia knocking her out of the mind control, but injuring her also. Severus is able to drop some of Aristarchus' blood onto a spherical device he is holding. James shoots the device out of Severus' hand. It goes rolling back into the shadows with James and Severus chasing it. Everyone else concentrate their attacks on Skae. James severely cripples Severus. This gets Skae's attention and Skae starts to attack James. James also attacks Skae at this point. Skae kills severus by stepping on him. James receives a message from the Watcher saying, "You are attacking the wrong thing. The arbitrator had the right idea." James quickly tells everyone to attack the cards on Aristarchus. The others attack the cards, while James continues to take on Skae directly.

During the fight, James is badly injured. Instead of getting away from Skae and letting someone else, like Cheryl who could directly fight Skae much better than James, James charges Skae and tries to shoulder tackle Skae. James bounces off of Skae and Skae would have killed James with his next blow, so James had to burn a fate point which caused a bright flash in Skae's eyes blinding him. Before he can regain his sight, the other PCs finish destroying the cards. Skae screams and runs away into the warp.

Aristarchus collapses from the altar. The congregation comes out of their hypnotism, no one in the gathered congregation died. If they had taken Skae down to 0 life, one of the cards on Aristarchus would have killed several people in the congregation to give life back to Skae. Aristarchus tells them what he can remember, everything being hazy since he received the cards from Skae. James shows the globe he got from Severus to Aristarchus. It looks like a map of the sector to Aristarchus and the planet glowing is called Sentinel or Drusus Shrine world. Aristarchus insists that they need to get back to Scintilla as soon as possible. He calls the church in Port Suffering and has a ship halted so that they can head off immediately. Aristarchus also sends a message ahead to Kaltos at Scintilla. The PCs and Aristarchus drive through the night and arrive at Port Suffering at dusk the next night. Aristarchus is taken by a Sister of Battle to the local hospital while the others are loaded onto a drop ship and back to Scintilla. That is where the night ended.

tUPoC - Chapter 1 Section 4

2009-11-13T10:40:00.005-06:00

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Evidence and Rescuing Devices

"The scientific evidence certainly confirms biblical creation and appears to defy evolution. Many other evidences too numerous to list could also have been used as examples. It may seem that evolution stands refuted. It may seem that we have proved beyond doubt that scientific evidence proves biblical creation and disproves the notion of evolution. But this is not the case."

What evidence? The stuff you made up before that was easily refuted? If there is so much then show it, don't off handedly mention it and say take my word. From what I have read so far, Lisle's word is far from trustworthy.

"The above illustrations are very good arguments indeed. But they are not an ultimate proof. They do not actually prove biblical creation, nor do they utterly refute evolution or billions of years. The reason is that an evolutionist can always invoke what we might call a “rescuing device.” That is, an evolutionist can invent a story to explain away apparently contrary evidence. Let’s see how this works with the comets’ argument for a young solar system."

Notice the terminology here. An evolutionist can "invent" a story to explain away apparently contrary evidence. Sorry Lisle this is utter bullshit as we will see in your upcoming example. Scientists start with the evidence and determine what the evidence says from there. They do not start with their conclusion and just ignore contrary evidence, that is what creationists do. Lisle is just projecting here. If what Lisle said was right, there would be no evolution. We would all be talking about creation, because science started with creation and young earth that had the sun orbiting around it. The facts changed things. The idea of an old earth, which was backed up by more and more data, which moved the age of the earth further back until we reached the current age of the planet. This was not the work of an "evolutionist" as Lisle is claiming, instead it was the work of people like Lord Kelvin, a creationist, who spoke out against T.H. Huxley. So already this idea of coming from a predetermined position is on shaky ground.

"The evolutionist astronomer believes that the solar system is billions of years old, yet he sees comets within it. He can observe that comets disintegrate quite rapidly, and he computes that they can only last 100,000 years or so. How is he to resolve this dilemma? “Obviously,” says the secular astronomer, “there must be a source that generates new comets to replace the old ones as they disintegrate.” So secular astronomers have proposed that there is an “Oort cloud” (named after its inventor, Jan Oort). The Oort cloud is an enormous hypothetical sphere of icy masses surrounding our solar system. It is supposedly far beyond the most distant planets, beyond the range of our most powerful telescopes. Secular astronomers propose that occasionally, objects in the Oort cloud are dislodged from their distant orbit and thrown into the inner solar system to become brand new comets. Since these new comets continually replace the old ones, the solar system could be billions of years old after all."

Now we see what Lisle means by rescuing device. In science we call these predictions. In other words scientists realize that comets only last a 10,000 years or so, but the fact is that the universe is around 14 billion years old, based on convergance evidence from testing of separate sites and methods. Then there is a prediction, based on these two seemingly contradictory facts, that there is a place where comets are continually formed, the Oort cloud. Now here is where you are going to find a big difference between creation "science"'s "rescuing device" and science's predictions. Scientist are actively trying to identify the Oort cloud. They have determined some objects they believe to be inside it, but they are still actively seeking it. If they don't find any evidence of an Oort cloud then they will scrap it and look for another explanation for comets. This is a strength of science, being able to change when new evidence comes forth.

"Now keep in mind that no one has ever seen an Oort cloud. By construction, it is supposedly much too far away to detect the small objects within it. Currently, there is no observational evidence of any kind for an Oort cloud. So, as a creationist, I have no particular reason to think that there is such a thing. As far as I’m concerned, the Oort cloud exists only in the mind of evolutionists. It’s just a rescuing device that “saves” the evolutionist’s view from evidence that would otherwise seem to refute it."

Actually, objects have been observed in the area of where the Oort cloud should be. Oort cloud objects (OCOs) are showing up more and more as our telescopes increase in strength.

Argument from personal incredulity is still a logical fallacy. Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it is not possible. Later, Lisle will show that no amount of evidence will change his mind, as he knows he is already right. So I ask which seems more sensible, taking what you know and developing ideas based off that and changing those ideas when new evidence arises or starting with your conclusion and cherry picking evidence that fits your conclusion to the point of ignoring and ridiculing any new evidence that doesn't support your conclusion? The first is what science does. The later is what AiG and every creation/intelligent design (ID)institution does. AiG is just more forward with stating that is what they do.

"Likewise, the evolutionist could also explain away the other arguments above by appealing to a rescuing device. Perhaps there is some kind of unknown mechanism that has contaminated the diamonds and other samples, creating new C-14 in them — in which case such things can be very old after all."

Or it could be like I posted, instrument contamination.

"Perhaps there is some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism that produces new information in DNA."

No need, duplication and mutation takes care of it just fine, like I showed previously.

"Perhaps nothing is truly irreducibly complex; it just seems that way due to our inability to imagine the stepwise process."

Actually you haven't shown anything to be irreducibly complex. No one has. Everything considered so far has shown to be not near as irreducible as creationists and IDers claim.

"The reason that mere evidences do not persuade people is that people can always invoke the unknown. This is why the above arguments do not really prove creation. Any evidence can be explained away by invoking a rescuing device."

True and creationists have the ultimate rescuing device, "God did it". How was every animal created? God did it. How did every animal on the planet reach the middle east to board Noah's ark? God did it. How did "information" get put into DNA? God did it. How do you verify this? Uhmmmm, prayer?

How do you verify there is an Oort cloud? Well through calculations, models, observations and building better telescopes that can identify smaller objects than what was possible before.

Notice the answer to the Oort cloud question is not an ending. Instead, we are still studying and trying to verify and learn more. Once a creationist says God did it, what is left to study? You have stopped, it is ended it is over nothing more to see here. That is the major difference between what Lisle calls "rescuing devices".

Now Lisle will try to justify rescuing devices because he knows he has the biggest end all rescuing device of all.

"Is a rescuing device unacceptable? Should we criticize the evolutionary astronomers for inventing a mere conjecture to rescue their opinion of vast ages rather than simply accepting the evidence at face value? My response may surprise you. The answer is: no — a rescuing device is not necessarily wrong. The fact is, we all have rescuing devices. We all have a way of thinking about the world — a worldview. Our worldview contains our most strongly held convictions about how the world works: how it came to be, the nature of reality, the nature of truth, and how we should live. No matter what worldview we have, there will always be some evidence that does not seem to fit it — at least on the surface. And therefore, everyone (whether creationist or evolutionist) must occasionally invoke a rescuing device in order to maintain rationality in his or her worldview."

Now we are starting to get to the heart of his real argument, worldviews or presuppositions.

"So I would not necessarily criticize the secular astronomers for inventing an Oort cloud (even though I don’t believe in one). After all, I don’t know for certain that there is not an Oort cloud either. The fact that we have no evidence for an Oort cloud does not prove that it does not exist. Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence, so we cannot instantly dismiss evolutionary conjectures as necessarily impossible or irrational."

I am not criticizing them for putting forth the hypothesis of an Oort cloud, I just said I think it is a figment of evolutionists imagination. That is not derogatory at all, except when atheists say the same about God. Hypocrisy is so easy to find among Christian fundamentalists.

He is right absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Instead we can lower the probability of something being true or real. Like for say a deity. The fact we have found no evidence of any deity does not mean one does not exist. The fact still remains that people claim to talk to a deity or deities and know what the deity/deities want. These people can't even agree when they are talking about the same deity much less other opposing deities. In fact they often contradict each other on the nature of the same deity. So they cannot all be right. They can all be wrong. In fact it is better percentage-wise to assume they are all wrong, especially without any corroborating evidence to any of their claims.

"Nonetheless, a conjecture must not be arbitrary. If I simply asserted that “the core of Jupiter is made of green cheese” simply because no one has proven otherwise, this would be an unacceptable position. In logical reasoning, no one is allowed to be arbitrary — to just assume something without a good reason. After all, if we’re just going to assume something with no reason, then we could equally well assume the exact opposite. Rational debate would be impossible if people simply assumed whatever they wanted and felt no need to provide a reason for their position. Therefore, people must have a reason for their rescuing device if it is to be considered rational."

Of course if the core belief is not rational, then I can reject any rescuing device your present no matter if it is reasonable through your core belief. This would be a false premise.

"As an example, consider the “distant starlight problem.” This is the argument that the universe must be billions of years old since it apparently takes a very long time for light from the most distant galaxies to reach earth. How would a creationist respond to this claim? As of the writing of this book, there is not a definitive, verified solution to distant starlight. Therefore, creationists must invoke a rescuing device to explain distant starlight. Several good models have been proposed that can potentially solve this difficulty. But since none of them have been conclusively proved, they remain conjectures — rescuing devices — at this point in time."

Has anything ever been conclusively proven by creationists? I am asking seriously.

What kind of studies are being done by creationists on distant star light? I would like to see this.

"Is this arbitrary? No, the creationist has a reason to believe that there is an answer to distant starlight. As a creationist, I am convinced that the Bible really is what it claims to be: the Word of God. As such, the Bible accurately describes the creation of the universe. My Christian worldview requires that God really did create in six days, just as He said He did. Therefore, I have a good reason to think that there really is a rational solution to distant starlight (possibly one of the existing models, or perhaps one that is as yet undiscovered). My reason for my rescuing device is that my worldview insists on one, and I have good reasons to know that my worldview is true."

Remember that false premise thing I mentioned earlier. I reject your premise that the Bible is entirely accurate. In fact I know of several Christians that do the same. So not only is this a false premise but a false dichotomy too. The Christian worldview does not require what you say, no it is a fundamentalist "literal" reading of the bible worldview that claims this. Of course if you point this out to them then they will fall back on the no true Scotsman fallacy, claiming that those people are not real Christians.

"So a rational person will appeal to his worldview as the reason for his rescuing devices. But then, of course, he must have good reasons for his worldview. Evolutionists (and other believers in vast ages) are perfectly justified in believing in an Oort cloud if, and only if, they appeal to their worldview. But appealing to one’s worldview is only rational if one’s worldview is rational. The debate over origins therefore must ultimately boil down to a debate over competing worldviews. As such, we must give some thought to the nature of worldviews and how to judge competing ones."

So now he finally gets to false premise. The next section is on worldviews and this is the bulk of his argument. Honestly I don't know of any scientist that claims there is an Oort cloud because of their "worldview". Instead it is because of facts and evidence, but we will get to all that when I cover the next and final section of Chapter 1.

I am not buying the book to cover more chapters, I will see if they have it in the local library though. Plus my mom gave me a Charles Colson book to read, claiming I owe her since she read the two Ken Miller books I gave her. So I may cover that instead.

tUPoC - Chapter 1 - Section 3

2009-11-09T11:26:00.005-06:00

The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Chapter 1 - Section 2

2009-11-06T07:37:00.004-06:00

Music Finally!

2009-11-05T18:52:00.003-06:00

"Aren't You Lucky" - Whitest Kids You Know
"Bad Religion" - Bad Religion
"Best God in Show" - NOFX
"Blasphemy (The Victimless Crime)" - NOFX
"Creation Science 101" - Roy Zimmerman
"Do What You Want" - Bad Religion
"Filler" - Minor Threat
"Fuck Armageddon... This is Hell" - Bad Religion
"Generator" - Bad Religion
"God" - John Lennon
"God's Kingdom" - Guttermouth
"Hell" - Squirrel Nut Zippers
"Hell Yeah" - Bloodhound Gang
"Jerry Falwell's God" - Roy Zimmerman
"Up There" - Satan the Dark Prince

The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Chapter 1 - Section 1

2009-11-04T10:36:00.012-06:00

Lazy and Busy

2009-11-02T14:05:00.003-06:00

That about sums up why I haven't posted lately. I have been busy at work and my girlfriend and her daughter just moved in with me. So what free time I have had I have been lazy with. Work has slowed down again and I am starting to get used to everything at home, so I should have more posts again. I am working on transcribing another night of role-playing and should have that up in a day or two. I have another night to transcribe after that one.

I plan on putting up a music special, an atheist/anti-creationism spectacular!

So more stuff coming and I haven't forgotten about this poor place.

Also if anybody knows of any sites that haven't been debunked a hundred times by other people, send them to me. I am always up for learning new things and being challenged in my thinking.

Gargantua MMO

2009-10-22T09:02:00.002-05:00

This is an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game being designed by Nemesis Games. Gargantua is a first in its field as it lets you control a giant monster trying to destroy earth. The game is about to go into testing and they need a few more testers. To be apart of this all you have to do is ask. So go ahead ask and help out, it costs nothing but the time you want to put into it.

http://www.gargantuagame.com/ - game webpage
http://nemesisgames.net/forums/forum.asp - game forum

Dark Heresy Night 3 and Addendum

2009-10-19T10:12:00.009-05:00

So I start off the night going over advancement in the 40k system and have everyone spend their experience points (exp). I give a little recap of where everyone was and made sure no one wanted to do anything more while in Port Suffering. Cheryl did the only reasonable thing in buying some actual armor to go with what she already had.

The next morning arrives, Aristarchus makes sure they are all up and ready to go. Alicia is the only person with drive, so she drives the flatbed. They drive through the wastelands all day. There is not much to see here. It is a site of many battles and destroyed settlements. Aristarchus makes small talk along the way. He first looks at Cheryl, it is obvious she is a Sister of Battle. He does not inquire about her skills.

He next looks to Shawn. Shawn is also very recognizably an Imperial Psyker, just like Aristarchus. Aristarchus just has to make a psyniscience test to see how powerful Shawn is. So again, Aristarchus does not inquire of Shawn's skills.

James is next in line. James' rifle is strapped across his back. Aristarchus asks James how good he is with it. Everyone says almost simultaneously that he is a crack shot. Aristarchus points out the shale crows. They are a carrion feeder of sorts. They will also attack weakened living things. Their main feature is that they have no eyes. It appears as if the shale crows are staring at them, even without eyes. James lines up his shot and actually takes out 2 with one shot. Aristarchus is very impressed.

Next up is AJ. AJ is in his early twenties and sometimes just doesn't know what to do, partly because this is only the second pen and paper he has ever been in. After everyone pointing out what he can and cannot do, AJ did a couple of sleight-of-hand tricks.

Finally Aristarchus turns to Alicia. She is driving and not wanting to distract her from this task, points out that driving is a most valuable skill.

As night starts to fall, they are still in the wastelands. There is no moon at night and there is a higher chance for attack by bandits at night. So they pull off the road for the night. This will also allow for Alicia to get some rest. Aristarchus starts a fire and suggests that everyone except Alicia take turns as look outs for the night.

While AJ is on look out duty, he notices what appears to be a person walking towards the camp. AJ doesn't know what to do. He yells at it first. It doesn't respond. Right as it gets to the edge of the fire light it stops. AJ tries yelling again, still no response. AJ wakes everyone up one at a time. The others try talking to it with no response. Finally James or Shawn wake up Aristarchus. Aristarchus tells it go away. It does not respond. So Aristarchus shoots it. The body crumples. Immediately everyone notices the smell of rotting flesh. Going over to check the body, it looks like it has been dead for a long time. The smell is coming from it. Shawn and Aristarchus both check it for any sign of warp and find nothing. After a short discussion on what it could mean, they all go back to sleep with AJ still on guard duty.

The rest of the night passes with no problems. At dawn they pack up and start out on the road again. About noon, the group arrives in the mountains. Cheryl and Shawn noticed the figure standing up on the ridge first. When they pointed it out, the figure vanished. It was standing with the sun behind it so its vanishing was more of a blink effect. Aristarchus immediately suggested that they should all go check it out. After a short climb, which no one had a problem with, they arrived on the ridge. There on the ground burnt into the rock was a picture of a hawk clutching a skull. Aristarchus immediately dropped to his knees, made the sign of the aquila and whispered "Throne". Cheryl recognized the symbol from her studies on St. Drusus. It was the emblem of Drusus' army. When someone touched the symbol it was still hot.

After seeing the symbol, they got back in the truck and continued down the path. It was dusk when they arrived in Stern Hope. They were greeted at the door by Brother Severus and shown where to park. Brother Lamark then met them and apologized for Abbot Skae not being able to meet them himself because he was attending to a sick girl. Lamark took them to the local inn/cantina. Aristarchus was tired and went to his room. The others had time to look around.

James and Cheryl both tried to find the Abbot with no luck. Shawn stayed at the inn and talked to the locals. Alicia went around and talked to the guards. AJ went up to the cathedral and checked it out.

What they all learned was that a lot of strange occurrences were going on, which they already knew. No one really knew what happened to the people that disappeared. Some bodies were found up on the cliff where the lights have been seen. A local leader by the name of Esha Raine is highly respected by the locals. The warlord Kos'ke has aligned himself with Esha and with the Abbot and protects Stern Hope from other warlords.

AJ was the first to see the interior of the giant cathedral. The altar is in the middle, with rooms on the back wall behind it. Enough pews to hold the town are in two sections with a large walkway between the two leading to the altar. Above the altar is a large rotunda with a mural painted on it. The mural is of St. Drusus crushing a shadowy figure under his boot and holding aloft a sword. In the background you can see crows circling. After a bit of talking and exploring everyone heads to bed.

In the morning, everyone wakes up and has breakfast in the dining area of the inn. Aristarchus shows up after everyone has ate, he looks extremely tired. When asked about being tired, he shrugs it off and just says he hasn't been sleeping well but there are more important things going on. Aristarchus leads the group to the abbey and Abbot Skae. They are greeted at the door by Brother Lamark, who lets them know the sick girl is going to be fine. He then leads the PCs into one of the lecture halls where Abbot Skae and Brother Severus are. Skae again gives them the run down on what is going on, the lights, bleeding walls and disappearances. He also discusses with them how this was all funded, basically he comes from rich nobility. He allowed for questions from the PCs and let them have Brother Lamark as a guide for the day. They asked a few questions of Abbot Skae and he answered them with no hesitation.

Once they got away from Skae, they asked Lamark to take them to the sick girl from last night. He took them directly to the girl. They asked her a few questions and Shawn tried to sense for the warp. It turned out that the sickness was of the warp but it was fading fast.

After talking to the girl and her mom, they asked Lamark to take them up to the ridge where the lights were seen and the bodies were found. Lamark grabs some water bottles, his lasgun and a walking stick. It takes them a few hours to get there and on the way they are attacked by a local animal. During the attack, shale crows circle above them. Once the animal is killed, in rather short order, the body is noticed to have been dead for quite some time. Just like the corpse that approached their campsite on the way to Stern Hope. It was also missing its eyes. At the top of the ridge, Lamark shows them where the bodies were found, now just a smoldering pile from being burned. Shawn finds no real trace of the warp, here.

They arrive back in town in the evening. Shawn and James go to locate Aristarchus and ask him to divine tomorrow and the consecration. Aristarchus gets a sense of foreboding about everything tomorrow. They all go back to their rooms and sleep.

Addendum: James called me after the session and had something he wanted to do during the night. I will add it here as it chronologically goes here.

After everyone drifted to sleep, James sneaks off and heads back to the ridge. He tries to contact Tzeentch to make a deal with him. After several unsuccessful attempts, something comes up behind him and talks. It is a daemon of Malal. He makes a deal with James, if James will get him the soul of the Dancer and his followers, then he, the watcher of destruction, will provide James with information that will help protect the innocents. James agrees to this deal and his left calf is branded with the symbol of Malal. James barely makes it back to his room before AJ wakes up. James gets zero rest for the night.

AJ is the first to wake up, he set an alarm to wake up early. He is up before dawn and is getting up around the same time as the native Ashleen people. He asks what they are doing and they respond, "Getting everything ready for Esha Raine and Kos'ke's arrival."

The others get up later and have breakfast. During breakfast a loud horn is heard, it marked the arrival of Esha Raine and Kos'ke in town. Alicia, AJ and Cheryl went outside to see them come in. They are riding bipedal animals known as dustdogs. Esha goes straight to the priory, while Kos'ke and his men head around to the warrior's camp. The players hear, for the first time, one of Esha's titles, "death singer".

Alicia goes around to the warrior's camp to get a better look at Kos'ke and his men. The rest just eat breakfast and head to the temple. That ended the night.

Promise Keepers

2009-10-13T10:47:00.004-05:00

I had forgotten about this organization until Da Bomb mentioned he was going to a meeting. My father went to a meeting in the mid to late 90's and tried to get me to go. I didn't go. I am just going to go over their 7 promises real quick.

Promise Keepers is a Christian organization founded by the ex-football coach of the University of Colorado at Boulder. You can read all about it on their own page or on the wiki page.

The Seven Promises:

1. A Promise Keeper is committed to honoring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer and obedience to God's Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, I thought that was just being a Christian, so you have to promise to be a Christian? I don't know of any non-Christians that go to this, so this seems rather redundant. Also, you have to promise this? Shouldn't this be more of a given as a Christian?

2. A Promise Keeper is committed to pursuing vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises.

So you have to promise to have male friends. Again shouldn't you be doing this already? And aren't friends supposed to be able to keep you honest? This is just another part of life. Why should anyone be told to do these things or make a promise to do them? They should already being doing it.

3. A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.

I am assuming they mean a sin free life. If you are a Christian, shouldn't you already be striving to do this? Otherwise you come off as a hypocrite, especially when you are trying to pass laws to force others to follow what you say.

4. A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.

They are really going out on a limb, you should love your family. Again who has to make this promise? This should be an evolved trait that everyone but sociopaths have. Do the leaders think every Promise Keeper is a sociopath?

What is meant by protection? I will protect my loved ones at any cost. Again this is something I don't have to be told to do or promise to do. There is a line I won't cross though, and that is when it infringes with the rights of others, especially because of imaginary threats. I, of course, am speaking of the bullshit lies like Gay Marriage will destroy regular marriages.

Lastly, if you want your family to live by "biblical values" that is fine by me. As long as you are not denying your children or any member of your family their own life, like the Nuemann's of Wausau, Wisconsin nor is physical abuse acceptable. Now if you try to implement your archaic "biblical values" on others is when I have a problem. Separation of church and state is to protect everyone and especially religions themselves. For some reason, dominionistic fundamentalists can't seem to understand this.

Examples of good "biblical values":

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)

"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." (1 Corinthians 11:3-9)

"women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

{1Corinthians has one of my favorite chapters in all the Bible, chapter 13, but is full of misogyny also}

"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers." (1 Peter 3:1-7)

"Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman." (Eccles. 25:13)

5. A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources.

Seriously, you have to be told and promise too help out an organization you support and take on as your lifestyle?

6. A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.

You have to be told and promise not to be racist???? WTF?

7. A Promise Keeper is committed to influencing his world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (see Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:19-20).

Another promise to obey the Bible. Again, maybe I completely misunderstood Christianity while I was a part of it, but shouldn't this be automatic. Isn't one of the tenets of Christianity to follow the Bible?

So there are the 7 promises. It seems to me that the founders seem to think that most of the men coming to these things are sociopaths, because all of these you should be doing anyway. I do all the ones that are not religious specific without being told too or having to make a promise to do it. This is the core of Promise Keepers but not everything.

Secular Student Association

2009-10-13T10:37:00.002-05:00

The SSA is a great organization helping to unite students in universities all over the country. Right now they are trying to raise $50,000 that will be matched by a donor. If you have a few dollars to donate it will be much appreciated.

This is the organization that got the Creation Museum tour, that I went on, together.

Dark Heresy - Night 2

2009-10-05T14:41:00.005-05:00

So after stranding my players in the future at the end of night 1, I had to go over new character sheets and have some time with each person in getting them somewhat up to date with the Warhammer 40k Universe. Only two people really know anything about 40k, James and Cheryl.

They spent about a year traveling and training from Terra to the Calixis System. They were each introduced to their Inquisitor, Kaltos. Kaltos and his advisers actually trained Shawn and sanctioned him as a psyker. Kaltos is a pyromancer and each of his advisers are one of the other psyker fields. Everyone was separated during the trip and did not get to spend a lot of time together, Shawn even less than the others. They were all given basic equipment before they arrived at Scintilla, the capital of the Calixis System.

Once they arrived, Kaltos got them all together to give them a briefing of why they are where they are. Recently, Divination Psykers have detected a lot of chaos energy started flowing into the Calixis System. Shawn noticed that this description was similar to the description given to them about Hochland. Cheryl also pointed out that Hochland and Calixis are similar in that both are more rural areas. Kaltos found this interesting. Kaltos went on to tell them that they are going to Iocanthos to help oversee the christening of a new Cathedral. There have been some psychic activity in the area, bleeding walls, strange sounds, etc. This may be related to the influx of chaos energy and the acolytes are to keep on the watch for anything unusual.

After the briefing, one of Kaltos' advisers flies the PCs to the public space station. They are given passage on an old freighter that is heading to Iocanthos. The estimated travel time is about a week (travel through the Immaterium is not always exact). The only contact for the PCs on the ship is a very weasel-like man named Sebek. Sebek is their only contact with the crew.

Sebek shows them to their "room". It is a large communal room with hammocks and a single bathroom. As Sebek is leaving, he says that he will be back by for dinner to show them to the cafeteria. When he left he locked the door behind him. This didn't sit well with Shawn and James. They now thought the ship had something to hide. James talked Alicia and AJ into action. Cheryl sat back and just observed, saying as long as they aren't heretics then she has no opinion.

James' first plan is to get Sebek into the room and tie him up, something like that. Cheryl points out you can just ask him if they will leave the door unlocked. James uses the intercom to talk to Sebek asking about the lock and about getting some battle narcotics. Sebek says he will ask the captain about the door. They usually lock it because normally they have a lot of passengers and don't want them getting in the way of running the ship. This particular trek almost never has passengers and sense the PCs are the only passengers, Sebek is sure that something can be arranged. James still settles his deal with Sebek and convinces (pays extra) Sebek to deliver the stuff as soon as possible.

Sebek shows up a few hours later with a couple of bodyguards. James scraps his plan to jump Sebek. Sebek then tells them that he discussed the door lock with the captain and that it was decided that it didn't need to be locked. He still insisted that for the most part to stay in the room as to not disrupt operation of the ship while in the dangers of the warp. James proceeds to buy "slaught" from Sebek.

James now has a new plan to go and investigate the ship for anything illegal. Shawn, AJ and Alicia agree to the plan. Cheryl is indifferent. Since James and AJ are the only ones with any kind of stealth, it is decided that they should be the ones going on this exploration. First, Shawn wants to test his new psychic abilities. So he decides to use an ability that will let him know how many people are in the area.

When Shawn does his little trick, he rolled a 9. Whenever a psyker rolls a 9 they have triggered Tzeentch's curse and have manifested a side effect. In Shawn's case there was an eerie wind blowing for 30 metres around Shawn. In other words, Shawn alerted the very people he was trying to detect. He did succeed in detecting them. Shawn let AJ and James know how many men were in the area and that 3 of them were headed this way.

James decides they should just go out anyway. So the two, AJ and James, head out in the hall and start walking. Shortly they are passed by Sebek and his bodyguards. Sebek smiles and says hello as he passes. Sebek goes straight for their room. James and AJ continue down the hall and take the first corner. They are in the living quarters of the ship and are passing room after room, most closed and locked (they never try a door). They finally come across an elevator. Inside they find that it needs a pass key to access restricted floors.

Meanwhile, Sebek has entered the PCs room. He is a bit upset at Shawn. Shawn doesn't realize that what he has done is just put up a big flashing neon sign for the ship saying "Hey Daemons! We are over here!" if even only for a second. So Shawn was verbally reprimanded for his actions.

James and AJ make a quick scan of the elevator to see if they notice in alarms or cameras. They don't notice anything. AJ finds the emergency hatch on the top of the elevator. The two pry it open and climb out. This sets of a silent emergency alarm to maintenance. James thinks they should go down because that is where the cargo bays would be, and he is right. So the two go down the ladder to the bottom floor, 2 floors down. Once they get there the elevator door is shut and needs to be pried open. Both of them attempt to pry it open with their knives. AJ breaks his knife. The doors are opened though.

Down the new hall are some large hanger like doors. There are no guards, but there are two men heading towards the elevator. James asks if they are armed. They have common laspistols, holstered on their side. Neither PC really does anything as the two men approach. The mechanics ask, "Is everything okay? We are here checking out the maintenance alarm that just went off in the elevator, what happened?"

James replies, "Sorry we got stuck in the elevator and lost, can you help us out?"

"Sure, you are passengers correct? We can take you back to the proper area."

With that the maintenance men summon the elevator and take James and AJ back to their floor. AJ attempts to pickpocket the elevator key, unsuccessfully. The maintenance man didn't notice the attempt though. They return to the room and no more attempts are made at discerning what was in the cargo hold during the brief trip.

When they arrive at Iocanthos, Sebek takes them down to the cargo area to board a drop ship to take them to the planet's surface. After they board one of the crew members ask if they have ever done this before, of course none of them had. He offered a sedative for anybody who wanted one, only AJ took him up on the offer. The drop ship then did as it is named. The drop took about 30 minutes and it was a literal free fall for most of the trip. AJ, Shawn and Alicia threw up. AJ throwing up made me laugh because that meant he missed his toughness check by over 30, that was the bonus of the sedative.

Once off the drop ship, they were first approached by a member of the local government. He started to question them on why they were there. I was proud, because the PCs pretty much told him to fuck off. Shortly after, a cherubim approached them and handed them a piece of paper. The paper had Kaltos' seal and told them to follow the cherubim to Aristarchus, their contact on Iocanthos.

The cherubim proceeds to fly over the crowded streets of the city, while the players struggle to keep up. Periodically it stops and sees that the PCs are having trouble keeping up and it just waves at them before proceeding on its route.

During this trip, Cheryl and Alicia notice a few people that seem to be staring at them. These are younger men with their faces painted with blue flames. The PCs try to pursue but quickly lose these Ashleen (what the native humans are called) men in the crowds.

The group continues to follow the cherubim down a few alleys and out of the crowds of the main streets. Down one of these alleys, a half-naked, badly sunburned man with wild dirt-caked hair and blue and white flame tattoos across his face accosts them. He starts yelling wild comments and obscenities at the group. Nothing anybody tries calms him down, nor can anyone make out anything sane in his rantings.

While they stand there, a shout is heard behind them saying, "Begone off-worlders! We don't need your kind." and 7 young Ashleen men attack them.

The men never draw their weapons and instead just use their fists. James draws his pistol. The fight is over after 4 rounds. James captures one of the men to question. The only thing the Ashleen tells them is "the wise ones have seen the darkness brought from afar." City guards show up shortly after the fight is over. Alicia flashes her badge to them and they let her handle it. James ends up killing the one hostage they have. He then drags the body out into the street and yells, "This is the fate of all heretics!"

Alicia notices that the madman disappeared during the fight. The cherubim takes them to the Ordo Hereticus compound where Aristarchus is located. Once inside, they notice Aristarchus handling some ivory Imperial tarot cards. When he sees them, he puts the cards away and comes over to shake everyone's hand.

They discuss the ambush, but Aristarchus brushes it off as a normal part of life on Iocanthos. He proceeds to tell them more about the mission and that he is a relative of St. Drusus, so this is a high honor to be part of this dedication of a cathedral in honor of St. Drusus. Aristarchus also speaks about the psyker phenomenon that has been going on in more detail than what they had been told. He tells them that he has rented a truck and supplies. He also gives them each a vox communicator so they can all stay in touch. He also says they should leave first thing in the morning and that he was going to bed to rest for the trip. The sun is setting but everyone has free reign to check out the town and talk to the locals.

Alicia decides to head to bed. AJ decides to check out the shops and see if he can find anything out from the locals. James shadows AJ to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble and to see if any more Ashleen attack. Cheryl goes to talk to the small order of Sisters Battle located in the same complex they are in.

AJ buys a new knife and heads to the bar. He doesn't learn anything from the locals. James follows AJ without AJ noticing. No Ashleen are seen any where.

Cheryl studies up on St. Drusus. She finds out that he battled a Daemon of Tzeentch that went by the name "the Dancer at the Threshold". She remembered that the only thing they knew about her parent's activity had something to do with "the Dancer". She also could not find any good pictures of St. Drusus.

That is where the night ended. Tomorrow night is the next session.

Atheist Blogroll

2009-09-30T09:16:00.003-05:00

Hi! I was just added to the Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information. I am an agnostic atheist or weak atheist. My blog is more devoted to just my day to day life but I have been on a skeptical kick since going to TAM7. I am glad to be part of such a large and growing community.

Blasphemy Day

2009-09-30T08:51:00.003-05:00

Warhammer 40K Dark Heresy - Prologue

2009-09-25T13:14:00.008-05:00

Well I have neglected my little blog for long enough.

I have started running my first Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy game. We have two nights down. The first night went about as I expected. This my first time running any kind of pen and paper RPG.

Recap of night 1.

The games starts off in Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing. This is a classic sword and board time with some technology. They have black powder type guns. Some steam work machines.

My girlfriend, Cheryl, lives with me so she is already there. Her character has a brother, so I have her write up a character sheet for him for an extra member of the PC party. She is an orphan, her parents were tried and executed as heretics. They dabbled in the dark magic. Her eldest brother, who she wrote the character sheet for, became a hunter. While she and her younger brother both joined the church of Sigmar. She has unusual eyes, one is blue and one is yellow. These are the colors of the Chaos God Tzeentch. She was also born on the 9th day of the 9th month. Tzeentch's number is 9.

First friend shows up, Shawn. We discuss his character a bit, why he is in this little town in Hochland. He is actually there because his mentor sent him to investigate a sudden flowing of chaotic magic in the area. He is to meet Cheryl and her brother at the inn to discuss matters further.

Next James and his girlfriend, Alicia, show up at my place. James' character was already drawn up, so we quickly went over why his character was at the town. He is a bounty hunter and is hunting a wanted criminal that came through the area. The criminal escaped from Altdorf jail, was seen in Talabheim and headed towards Middenheim. James' character is from Altdorf.

Alicia had to roll up her character. She made a human noble from Talabheim. She was in the town chasing the same man that James was. The criminal stole from her family as well. Alicia and James both got descriptions of the man they are looking for.

Finally, we got a hold of Alicia's cousin AJ and he decided to play also. He is playing a thief from Middenheim. He was heading to Talabheim on an errand from the Thieves Guild. He learned of man fitting the same description James and Alicia got being captured and sent to prison in the Middle Mountains.

The setting was a small inn in the town of Esk. Esk is at the edge of the middle mountains and a short distance from Middenheim. Cheryl and her brother are at the inn waiting on their contact from one of the colleges of magic. Her brother tells her this has to do with their parents. At that time Shawn shows up at the Inn. Being a wizard, he stands out among the merchants and body guards. The brother immediately sees him and waves him over to the table. The brother fills Shawn in on why they are there. He tells Shawn about their parents and their involvement with Tzeentch. He explains about Cheryl her ominous eyes and birthday. He tells Shawn and Cheryl that their parents did most of the rituals in the middle mountains out in the vast cave system there. The last thing he tells them is that the witchhunter who caught their parents and brought Cheryl before the church when she was only 3 or 4, passed away a week ago. It was shortly after his passing that the magic started flowing into the area. They ate dinner and planned to get up in the morning to check out the mountains.

As they were speaking, near the end of the conversation, James walked into the inn. He noticed the group because a priestess, a wizard and a hunter seated together is odd and possibly a joke. James proceeded on to the bar. He asked the bartender if anyone had been seen meeting the description. No one had seen anyone like that. He ordered dinner and a bed.

At this point Alicia arrived at Esk. She made a grand entrance like only a noble can. She went and took a seat at the bar near James. She also asked if the bartender had seen a man fitting the description. James being easily within earshot over heard her. He looked at her and said, "You don't look like a bounty hunter."

I honestly don't remember her response, but the conversation was quite humorous. She treated him like a noble would treat a peasant boy (James' character is only 16). James got tired of dealing with her and went back to eating his food.

Shortly after their exchange, AJ arrived. AJ, being a thief, noticed the noble and went to take a seat right next to her at the bar. Alicia just looked at him and said, "No. You are going to move now."

James said, "Just do what she says man, trust me."

AJ asked, "Why?"

Then the bartender asked AJ to move over a seat (Alicia had paid him very well). AJ acquiesced. AJ never heard the description so he was never able to give the information that the guy they were looking for was arrested and take to the prison in the caves of the middle mountains.

After all groups had ate, some town guards came into the inn carrying a man. He was hurt badly, cut and bruised. The guards had sent to get someone from the church to help heal him. All the players could hear him say "Orks" before he went unconscious.

Cheryl had first aid and was able to bandage him and revive him. He told them the following story. He was a prison guard at the prison in the middle mountains. This morning they brought in a prisoner by the name Pieter, fitting James, Alicia and AJ's description. He was placed inside a cell and started laughing. One of the other guards, banged on the door and told him to stop laughing. The prisoner replied, "You fools you have brought me to the power I was looking for." He then stopped laughing and started meditating. Most of the guards wrote him off as crazy. Then only a short while ago, Orks attacked the prison. Hundreds of them. They swarmed past the guards killing everyone that got in their way. The injured guard was guarding the back passage. As the Orks got to the cell containing Pieter, reality seemed to have warped. The door to the cell flew completely off the hinges. Pieter walks out and all the Orks bow to him on one knee. Pieter then pointed towards the remaining guards and the Orks charged. The guards ran. Only the one made it to town to warn everyone.

The town sent a runner to the major cities nearby, in hope for reinforcements. Soon the Orks were upon the town. The city has a wooden fence surrounding. Everyone grabbed arms and prepared to defend themselves. James borrowed a rifle and headed for the bell tower in the church. James and the local defenders were able to slow the onslaught of Orks down some, but eventually they pushed through the gates and the walls.

As the Orks flooded into town, they attacked everyone except the PCs. They made a very wide berth around Cheryl. James was the first to see Pieter and he shot at him a few times. Every time he did it was as if Pieter was no longer where James was shooting. It was as if reality warped around Pieter.

Pieter approached the party. He saw James in the tower and teleported him down to the ground with the others. No one was going to escape him. Pieter then summoned forth an alternate reality, a kind of bubble or pocket universe. The PCs could still see the destruction of the village by the Orks but they could no longer get to them nor could anyone outside the bubble see or hear them. This summoning put a great strain on Pieter and he was substantially weakened.

Pieter pointed at Cheryl and said, "You have something that does not belong to you." The fight was on after that. Pieter was able to go first. His objective was to knock everyone out, so he could use them in his ritual. Amazingly, AJ managed to make an incredible resist roll. Then Cheryl made a critical strike to Pieter's chest, almost killing him herself. Shawn put the finishing touches on him with a near critical magic attack. Pieter could resist 6 points of damage and Cheryl still hit him for 12 points of damage after his resist. The others were able to attack, although it no longer mattered.

Pieter sensing his end tried to invoke a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch. The PCs caught a shadowy glimpse of the Daemon before the image collapsed in on itself. What formed was a hole in the universe. It started to drag everyone into it. Pieter screamed, "This is not how it is supposed to end, I was promised..." as he was dragged into the immaterium. With nowhere to go, being trapped in the bubble, the players are also sucked into the expanding hole.

The pull into the immaterium knocked out everyone except James and Cheryl. They were able to witness what happened next. First, they were all there, except Pieter, floating in a dark void. Then they saw a giant eye, planet size, appear staring at them. They heard laughter but it kept changing in pitch, volume and sometimes it sounded human and at other times totally inhuman. A hand started to reach for them, it also was constantly shifting sometimes looking like a human hand and sometimes like a bird claw. Right as it was about to reach them, a twin-tailed comet hit it. A griffin made of light also began to push the hand back. The hand easily swatted the comet and griffin away. The comet and griffin then collided with each other and formed a new symbol, a double-headed eagle. The eagle grew in size and repelled the hand and eye. It slowly enveloped the group in a warm bright light. Soon Cheryl and James found themselves blinded by the light.

When they were able to see again, the entire group was laying in grass surrounded by trees and bushes. The others started to come back to their senses. James refused to move because he was certain he had died and was now in heaven. He witnessed his God save him from the "devil". Cheryl told the others what had happened and what she had seen. After about 5 minutes had passed, some men pushed through the bushes. They were carrying what the PCs would consider guns but they were far different than any of them had ever seen before. These men were also wearing strange clothing but on the chest piece was the double-headed eagle. The men asked the group what they were doing here. Each person gave a response of what they had went through and this confused the two men. Shawn decided to try to sense magic in the area. He couldn't quite sense magic, it was different, he felt more like a pounding in his head.

Shawn's action brought a third man over to them. This was no ordinary man. He was 7 feet tall and wore armor much larger than any they had ever seen before. (Here is a good picture of Space Marine Librarian, although the one the PCs met only had the staff and not the gun on him.) He immediately looked at Shawn and told him, "Stop. You do not know what you are messing with." AJ was struck with fear at the sight of a Space Marine. James was ready to worship the Marine as a God, to which the Space Marine replied that only the God-Emperor deserved worship. This further cemented into James that he was in heaven and under Sigmar's rule. The idea of this universe being Heaven made the Space Marine laugh.

The Space Marine loaded them in his vehicle and took them to the Imperial Palace. It was about a 30 minute drive. During that time he checked them for corruption and any sign of Chaos on them. He found nothing. He almost had to kill Shawn for trying to use magic again. Shawn was considered an unsanctioned psyker.

The Marine brought the group before Ordo Hereticus and the Golden Throne. (I changed some things up here. I made the Throne at the palace and the palace situated where Altdorf was in Warhammer. Also I made the Emperor keep his living appearance instead of a corpse. Also I had the High Inquisitors situated over the throne in a balcony. The PCs were on the floor with the throne. The Emperor looks exactly like Sigmar.) James, Cheryl and Shawn (all veteran role players) fell to their knees at the sight of Sigmar. AJ and Alicia soon followed suit. The argument over how to handle the PCs raged over them. Then they heard a voice in their heads. "I am the God-Emperor and I brought you here. You are here for the purpose of helping save the Imperium. Know that I am with you." After hearing that, the next thing they heard was an Inquisitor by the name of Praetus speak. He lobbied for the PCs to work under newly charged Inquisitor Kaltos and be moved to the Calixis Sector. There was a murmur of agreement among the Inquisitors and the PCs were sent off to Prateus' Black Ship.

Thus ended night one for the group. We proceeded to move everyone over to 40k classes.

AJ became a Scum.
Alicia became an Arbitrator.
James became an Assassin.
Shawn became a Psyker.
Cheryl became a Sister of Battle.

I R LOSAR

2009-09-10T15:11:00.000-05:00

I have been very very busy lately. Hopefully things have slowed down for a bit and I can make some posts. Keep watching this space for further details.

I have no candy.

A Quote

2009-08-26T09:34:00.001-05:00

“Why does it matter if people cling to myths for solace? Because real-world problems such as climate change can only be solved by real-world thinking. Like it or not, the harsh reality is that nature doesn’t exist to serve humanity, and turning to myths that put humans at the centre of creation only distract us from appropriate actions.”

Lawrence Krauss

Sneaky sneaky

2009-08-24T10:34:00.006-05:00

In a good way.

Aaron Gardner is a preacher, but for one day he donned a scarlet A and joined PZ Myers and 300 others in a museum tour. It was very eye opening for him.

http://pastoraaron.info/2009/08/11/scarlet-a-for-a-day

http://pastoraaron.info/2009/08/13/and-this-atheist-was-a-walking-christian-tract/

http://pastoraaron.info/2009/08/14/atheism-at-the-creation-museum/

Come on Contention

2009-08-20T18:09:00.002-05:00

It has been awhile but here is some more music.

"Come On Eileen", Save Ferris, It Means Everything
"Come Out Fighting", The Vandals, Hitler Bad, Vandals Good
"Come Out Swinging", The Offspring, Conspiracy Of One
"Come Sail Away", Eric Cartman, South Park: Chef Aid
"Coming Clean", Green Day, Dookie
"Coming To America", Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, Generations 1: A Punk Look At Human Rights
"Coming Too Close", No Use For A Name, Fat Music Vol. IV
"Confessions Part 3", Weird Al Yankovic, Straight Outta Lynwood
"Conspiracy Of One", The Offspring, Conspiracy Of One
"Contention", MXPX, Secret Weapon

No Better Response

2009-08-18T10:28:00.002-05:00

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/23988.html

That has to be the absolute best response ever to these right wing people shouting down others in Town Hall meetings.

Creo Zerg!

2009-08-13T08:32:00.007-05:00

I am finally getting to my impression of the Creo Zerg (tm).

I left work on Thursday at 11am. The drive to Kentucky took 12 hours and 15 minutes plus there was a time change where I got to skip over most of the 9 o'clock hour (9 to 10 pm is the worst hour of the night anyway...). So I finally make it to the hotel around 12:30 am. I meet Froggie/E-lad/Dale at the hotel, we shared a room to cut the cost down. Dale started posting about our adventures that night at SMRT. I was very tired but stayed up a bit and talked.

The next morning, we had breakfast and made our way to the museum. At breakfast I noticed a family of Pentecostal Holiness followers. They are usually easy to spot as the women are not allowed to cut their hair and have to wear dresses at all times. When we got to the museum, I saw the same family there with a group of other similarly dressed people. The shock and horror on their face was rather funny.

Anyway, the place has been covered pretty well and I don't have much else to add, except my pictures. So here is the link to my photo album.

Creation Hamseum

I started this post a few days ago and am now just finishing it. I realized I am not going to cover much different except my pictures.

More On The New Testament

2009-08-13T06:44:00.002-05:00

This is a lecture from Bart Ehrman on the New Testament.