Jesus was GUILTY! (And all of his followers knew it)

Posted on July 18, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

The Bible is a collection of books, written by a large number of men over a long time. The New Testament is a collection of biographies of Jesus, the history of the early church, and some letters to some of the early church from other members of the early church. And by “Early Church” I don’t mean the 8am service. I mean the Christians from the first century.

The New Testament was written within the lifetimes of the first generation of Christians, including those eye witnesses to the events described in the four Gospels. I’ll defend that proposition later, but for right now I want you all to consider something which struck me as significant about the New Testament books recently- specifically, something which is missing. We know from the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and other historical accounts that Jesus was executed by crucifixion under the charges of blasphemy (For claiming to be the God of the Jews) and sedition (for claiming to be the king of the Jews). His trial and execution are described in detail in the Bible, but many people, myself included, never consider what is missing from ANY writing of the church, from the very first generation on, within the Bible or outside of it: No one has EVER written a defense of Jesus. All of his disciples wrote and preached under the assumption that he was guilty of those charges.

This is where you all be, 

“What the WHAAAATTT?!??!”

Continue reading →

Posted in Jesus and the Bible | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Making Sense of Hate Speech

Posted on July 16, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

You may have heard the term “Hate speech” in the past couple of years. I know it was recently, because, when I was in college, nobody talked like that. Today, this is the term which means, “I disagree with that statement.” 

So why don’t people just say, “I disagree with that statement” instead of saying, “That’s HATE SPEECH!”? 

This is really simple. If a person confesses to disagreeing with a statement, then they will either have a REASON for disagreeing, or they will not. Let’s be honest- reasons are hard. They take work and thinking and logic and maybe even using Google for something other than checking email, cheating on homework, or keeping up with celebrity gossip.

Continue reading →

Posted in SocioPolitico | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Reasoning Child and Philosophy Man! |Feedback Friday!

Posted on July 13, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Welcome once again to Feedback Fridays where in I take actual viewer mail and reply to it with my own special blend of herbs and spices! This comment, presented in it’s entirety from THIS post, was the beginning of an enlightening exchange about the definition of the word “Atheist” (or “Atheism”) which continued on following posts:

Meh, …Interesting that you simply announce the definition of atheist, as if it were up to you to declare the meaning of the word. As long as we are throwing the word ‘stupid’ around, that’s in there.

And yes, not only is this his entire comment, but he chose to begin with “Meh.” Also, I’m not sure what he meant by “As long as we are throwing the word ‘stupid’ around, that’s in there.” Stupid is in Atheism? I don’t think that was his point, but maybe it should have been mine? But I digress. I replied:

Thanks for your comment, Dan,
I hope you can at least appreciate that I define clearly what I mean when I use the word. I know there is some dispute about it, but if you mean something different when you use it, at least you know what I mean when I use it.
And frankly, I think anyone can and ought to declare the meaning of words. That’s how we come to understand each other. Step one, define your terms. I find a lot of arguments stem from people either misusing words, or believing they are using words the same when they are not.

Continue reading →

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How to Determine a Speed Limit

Posted on July 11, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

We find Rent-A-Friend standing in the middle of a wooded area, next to his rad BMX bike, near a newly discovered path through the woods. With him are Blue Beard (the Post Modern Pirate), Tom (from accounts receivable) and their argumentative friend, Carl, all standing with their own sweet bikes.

RAF2K: This path is awesome! I say we hop on our bikes and see how fast we can go! I’ll bet I can reach 100 miles per hour by the time I get to the bottom of that big hill.

Tom: That doesn’t sound safe. I think we should agree to only go so fast- say, 30 miles per hour.

RAF2K: I don’t think I can do that. Especially on that wicked big hill. Well, I COULD, sure, but I really don’t want to.

Carl: Tom’s right. You’ll kill yourself. You can’t go that fast. The speed limit on this path is 45 miles per hour.

Blue Beard: There is no speed limit. It’s a path in the woods! Probably made by a herd of elk or something. We can go as fast as we want! No restrictions!

Tom: We’re gonna die. Continue reading →

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The Dangers of Transgenderism

Posted on July 9, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Transgenderism is when a man decides he is a woman, or when a woman decides she is a man. Today the kids on college campuses and all around the old internet are being taught that sex and gender are NOT the same thing- that SEX is biological, but GENDER is societal or personal or something like that. It’s actually REALLY difficult to get anyone to give a clear answer about these things.

And if it was just the acknowledgement that sometimes you feel like a man and some days you don’t, and some days you lay on the couch crying and watching the Notebook while eating strawberry cheesecake ice cream right from the carton trying not to even THINK of the cultural expectations for men back when your grandfather was your age because you know you would NEVER be able to meet them… Continue reading →

Posted in SocioPolitico | Tagged | 10 Comments

Atheism from the least funny person to ever take the stage

Posted on July 6, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Welcome once again to Feedback Friday! This is the series where I take REAL viewer mail and answer it with actual words! 

In response to this video, Travis had this to say:

Atheism is the disbelief in God. It’s not possible to know for a fact that there’s no God, but we can be almost certain there isn’t one due to lack of evidence. The speaker also fails to make the distinction between hard atheism and soft atheism, which would clear up his confusion but he conveniently leaves out this information. It’s really not a difficult concept.

To use the “logical fallacy of the month,” this guy actually does straw man the opposing position (misrepresents it in order to more easily argue against it). And making a joke about the straw man fallacy doesn’t excuse actually using it.

Also, I know I disagree with his points and everything, but just on a comedic level, this guy might be the least funny person to ever take the stage. Animal puppets? Really? And what’s with this weird Bill Cosby impression?

Continue reading →

Posted in Feedback Fridays | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Shooting the Messenger Doesn’t Change the Message

Posted on July 4, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

I recently wrote a post invoking the name of a very controversial man: Ian Juby. He is a congenial Canadian who happens to be a member of Mensa (The genius club*) and a robotics engineer who has done a lot of personal study of geology and paleontology. The reason why he’s controversial is simple- he’s a young earth creationist who has done lots of GREAT work making the creation/evolution debate easy to understand and showing how very badly evolution fails when held up to the observable evidence. Apparently this upsets a lot of people. I referred an uninformed Twitter citizen to Juby’s youtube channel, suggesting that he learn something about Creation science before he tries to mock it. Immediately I had skeptical minds calling Juby an “idiot” and demanding to know his credentials.

Sharing a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee with Ian Juby- my 3rd best Canadian friend!

People do this to Juby all the time, as well as anyone who dares to question the sacred mythology of Darwin. They intend to say that someone who doesn’t have a PhD should NOT be saying anything about science. What’s embarrassing to these people is when you give them a list of PhD’s like

Dr. Georgia Purdom (Biology),

and Dr. Jason Lyle (Astrophysics),

and Dr. David Menton (Washington University School of Medicine),

etc.

They either quickly change the subject, abandon the conversation and vanish into the land of wind and ghosts, or, if they are a Roach Clown, they continue to mock the PhD’s for any of a list of stupid reasons, including “No REAL scientist rejects Evolution, so these people can’t be REAL scientists!”

Sigh, roll eyes, face-palm, sigh again. Continue reading →

Posted in atheism, The Creation SoapBox | Tagged , | 2 Comments

John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever”

Posted on July 4, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Happy 4th of July my friends!

Play this as loud as you can from 9pm until midnight. AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Anthony Bourdain is the Atheist Father of the Year!

Posted on July 2, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

In early June of 2018 popular “As-Seen-On-TV” personality Anthony Bourdain committed suicide, leaving behind an 11 year old daughter. In the wake of this untimely death is a rather strange silence from the atheist community. I assumed that they would immediately declare Anthony Bourdain the “Atheist Father of the Year!”

After all, didn’t he really show the kind of commitment to self over biological offspring that Atheism permits?  Continue reading →

Posted in SocioPolitico | Tagged , | 7 Comments

You JUST DON’T GET IT. | Feedback Friday!

Posted on June 29, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Welcome to Feedback Friday! It’s the day when I respond to the viewers!

It’s not often that I get feedback which so seamlessly blends bitter disdain, elegant poetry, and juvenile, outdated 90’s sitcom put-downs. When this one came down the pike, I was fascinated. I would tell you what post he’s commenting on, but as you will see, it makes no difference. You’d be surprised how often that is the case. Here is the comment in its entirety:

Dude, you just don’t get it. Your lack of curiosity and willingness to repeatedly ignore the science in favor of Ouija board philosophy and proscribed reality. If you cared one whit about what makes us human you might consider that it’s possible your methodology for acquiring knowledge might be limiting and or flawed. You are constantly being schooled on simple subjects your average high schooler knows and you blithely wrap yourself in your proscribed cloak of knowledge while repeating the same biblical nonsense. Your world view can be summoned up in two words. “As if”. No big words needed.

I hope you took all of that in, for now I respond- though because his comment lacked any REAL substance, I choe to offer a literary critique for not only this author, but for anyone who wished to “debunk” me or any of my various positions: Continue reading →

Posted in Feedback Fridays | Tagged , | 2 Comments