Proof of God 2: Sleeping Through Math Class

Posted on August 1, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Today we’re going to dust off the cobwebs of our minds and try to remember way back to our various math classes. Remember how the cover of the book always looked like the jacket for some Atari racing game or 1980’s pop album cover? Remember that thing the teacher had which held chalk and allowed him to draw perfect circles on the board? Remember that blond girl from Alabama who sat behind you and managed to learn nothing every day even though the option of being distracted by an i-phone was still years away? Those were good times. Oh, and there was something about numbers. Try to remember some of that, because today it will help.math board copy

Roach Clowns all the time be trying to set the bar for acceptable proofs for God’s existence so high that NOTHING could ever be acceptable as evidence in favor of the Biblical world view. One of the things they demand is “100% certain mathematical proofs”. Conversations on social media tend to sound like this:

Roach Clown: If you want me to believe God exists you’ll have to show me evidence that is 100% mathematically certain!

You: You want me to prove God exists with math? You know God isn’t an equation, right?

Roach Clown: I knew it! You can’t prove God exists! WINNING!

You: No, really. Let’s talk about what you think the word “God” means. Because it seems like you have no idea. Continue reading →

Posted in atheism, Philosophy | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

10 (non)Commandments of Atheism #1 and 2- A Mind as Open as a Gulag

Posted on July 30, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Just when I had begun to think, “Maybe I’m being too hard on the Atheists** out there. Maybe they aren’t insane people who give no thought to what they profess,” CNN gathers the data it takes to remind me that, if anything, I need to be more cynical. Thanks a lot CNN.
You jerks…

It was in fact Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis who shared this, via this blog post.

The list of 10 (non) commandments for Atheists was compiled from 2,800 submissions from 18 different countries. What would be really interesting is to see how many submissions there would have been if they had to pass a breathalyzer or the 8th grade to send them in. But I digress. The point is, we get to see what the human race would come up with to replace God’s revelation of rules for better homes and gardens if given the chance, and the result is a reminder that people are made in the image of God with His word written on their hearts, and yet many of them do not stop to think about anything, at all, ever. Continue reading →

Posted in atheism | 10 Comments

The Return of Reasoning Child! Apathy powers ACTIVATE! | Feedback Friday!

Posted on July 27, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Welcome again to Feedback Friday! Today sees the return of REASONING CHILD (cue catchy theme song) as he tries to take me to task for my position on Transgenderism which I wrote in this post. He said this:

You misrepresent both the justification for acceptance and the nature of DNA as it relates to gender.

This was his entire comment. I edited nothing out for brevity. So I replied to Reasoning Child’s alter ego, Danny.

Greetings once again, Danny! Thanks for your fragment of an idea insinuating an error on my part. If you would like to develop this comment into one with enough substance to respond to, I will enthusiastically read and reply to it.
And as always, thanks for reading.

i) I didn’t insinuate anything. I stated outright that you misrepresented the issues.

2) I couldn’t care less whether or not you reply.

And yes, he really numbered these points “i” and “2.” This time, I did edit out his further comments after point 2, the reason for which shall become obvious. Here is my reply:

Welcome back Danny boy, oh Danny boy, good to see you giving it the old college try.
1. (or rather, i) Yes you stated “outright that [I] misrepresented the issues.”

And then you failed to explain what that means, or offer any defense for it, meaning your comment was, in essence, empty name calling. That’s why I didn’t waste any time replying. In order to reply, I would have had to invent your meaning and hypothetical defense, and then refute it.

If I have to invent your side of the conversation, it’s not a conversation worth having for me. I can talk to myself about anything. I have a closet full of puppets just for that purpose.

In the future, either offer an explanation for your critiques and some intellectual defense of it, or don’t waste the time of the person whose blog you are reading. I often wonder why people like you leave comments like this.

Metaphorically, this is like driving by a total stranger and shouting “You’re fat and stupid!” out the window as you drive past. There’s almost no chance of them saying, “By golly, he’s right! I’m going to spend far more time at the gym and the library from now on!” Odds are they’ll flip you the bird.

I mean, why bother typing ANYTHING at all if you are going to say something which equates to nothing? You communicate a mouthful of disdain, but no rational argument against the points made, nor any defense of your own position. There’s no way you can be stupid enough to think I would read “you misrepresented the issues” and I would suddenly have a change of heart and retract everything I had said on the subject.

As I have said, your comment was akin to name calling- like “You’re a dumb fart-face!”  No one is stupid enough to look at that and go, “Oh! He made a good point just now.”

Let me offer you the useful and time consuming phrase I have invented for people like you. Just copy and paste this useful phrase into the comments of any of my blog posts or videos. It will convey the same information, and save us both lots of time. It goes like this,

“I don’t understand what you are saying, but you are wrong and I hate you.”

Think of the time you will save! And speaking of saving time…

2. “I couldn’t care less whether or not you reply”.. And yet, here you are again. I must admit this leaves me confused. If you don’t care if I reply, then why did you not only leave the original comment, but then this follow up comment of such length and detail? Hang on, let me read what you said again, just to be sure…

“I couldn’t care less whether or not you reply.”

Wow. Here I was all prepared to interact with the ideas you presented, but then, your second point is that you don’t care if I reply or not. Shucks, that will save me a LOT of time. I guess, since you don’t care if I reply or not, I’ll just borrow from the styles you presented in your first response and say, “You’re wrong about EVERYTHING you said here. This is all a straw man, pile of lies which shows your bigotry and ignorance.”
That ought to do it.

I really appreciate you leading with your complete apathy. Imagine how much time I may have spent replying to all of this nonsense if you hadn’t! Thanks Danny.
Of course if you really DO want me to interact with your ideas, let me know. I’ll try to find the time. You let me know.

And have a good day.

Posted in atheism, Feedback Fridays | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Proof of God 1: I Think I Think, Therefore Maybe I Am?

Posted on July 25, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Today we are going to take a good close look into your brain. Of course, I don’t mean you’ll be taking your brain out of your head. I am going on the assumption that you have an extra brain or two laying around, maybe out in the garage. If not, just hit one of the local garage sales. Someone is bound to have a brain they aren’t using. Taking a look around our world today, I’d say there are a LOT of people who have brains they aren’t using. On the internet, these people are called Roach Clowns.abandined library copy

When Roach Clowns find out you’re a Christian, they like to demand proof for the existence of God which is “100% certain, like mathematical proofs are 100% certain”. This is the kind of thing which makes them feel very clever. However, these same Roach Clowns will admit that, if you were to prove to their satisfaction that God existed and the Bible was true, they would not worship God or become Christians. This always makes me wonder why they don’t just get another hobby to occupy their time while they wait to die. Is harassing Christians on line with their limited vocabulary REALLY enjoyable enough that they choose to spend what little time they have before oblivion calling me names on Twitter? If I were them, I’d try surfing, or arson. But I digress. Continue reading →

Posted in atheism, Philosophy | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

I’m a Vegetarian! (A poem to make you think about the validity of a profession)

Posted on July 23, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Whether it’s someone trying to convince me that Hitler claimed to be a Christian, or the media’s insistence that no terrorist on earth is an ACTUAL Muslim, men can be women if they FEEL like one, or “fake black NAACP chick, Rachel Dolezal,” being, in fact, a run of the mill white girl, there seems to be rather a lot of confusion about the difference between someone professing to be part of a group and their actually being part of that group.

I could write a lengthy explanation about why one can be other than they profess, or pontificate about what makes a profession true or false. Instead, I have decided to declare myself a Vegetarian! And I have written a little poem about it**.

If you put it to music and attempt to sell it on i-tunes, at least let me know about it when you do.

farmers-market-produce copy

I’m a Vegetarian- by Rent-A-Friend 2000

I’m a vegetarian who likes a little steak
Occasionally bacon and a ham that’s honey baked
I’m proud to be a vegan- And I’ll shout it on the street!
But now and then I like a juicy cheeseburger to eat.
I’ve got a bumper sticker on my trunk and on my hood
Declaring “meat is murder”
(But that murder tastes so good!)
I’d never kill a cow or pig. To do so would be vile!
(But once they’re dead the taste of them does always make me smile.)
To eat meat at a restaurant is wicked and barbarian.
You’ll never see me doing that,
For I’m a vegetarian

Thank you.

**My apologies to G.K. Chesterton.

Posted in Philosophy, SocioPolitico | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The Revenge of Reasoning Child! | Feedback Friday!

Posted on July 20, 2018 by A Bit Of Orange

Welcome again to Feedback Friday! This installment follows the last as a faithful reader named “Danny” was outraged that I had defined “Atheist” to mean “Atheist.” In this post he continued to try and explain to me why I was an idiot. 

Adopting one definition does not mean, as you assert that we cannot also use others.

As before, this was his ENTIRE comment. To which I replied: 

I did not assert that.
Straw man!
(This logical fallacy is brought to you by The Logical Fallacy of the Month)

And he retorted:

You should watch your own videos. You might be surprised at what they contain.

“My problem with this is not only that they wish to change the definition of a word so that it no longer means what it’s meant for the past 3,000 years, but that means we can no longer use that word to refer to the people we have always referred to with that word.”

This was the entire comment. He quoted me and then said nothing more about it. So I said:

Watch my own videos? Forget that. I’m not wasting my time on those after I’ve read all of your comments about them.

I’m gonna see what’s new on Netflix.

And nice quote there. Who said that? Because that guy is RIGHT on the money. For real! What are we supposed to call Atheists if atheist now means agnostic?
I’d subscribe to that guy’s channel. Right on.

While I’m not entirely sure he even read what I said, Danny replied again:

Your ability even the most obvious point is duly noted. Goodbye.

And I replied:

Thanks Danny, your ability even the most obvious proof reading your own comments is dooly noted too. BYE!

Posted in atheism, Feedback Fridays | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in atheism, Feedback Fridays | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Philosophy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment