A Bit of Orange

TRIGGER WARNING! The truth about GENDER!

Posted on December 2, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

If you’ve made the mistake of wandering into social media as of late, you’ll discover that bored and self loathing teens have started asserting the idea that there are a limitless number of genders. This idea ties tightly into the whole Tranny self identity craze where in men insist you refer to them as women even though everyone knows they are men. It’s like a Monty Python episode which people have chosen to take seriously.

But what gives? Doesn’t gender just mean male and female? Uh… yes. Yes it does. But what do we MEAN by male and female? In order to keep my PG rating, I shall say that it involves some anatomical parts (which in the future shall be referred to by their AOL screen names “Tab A” and “Slot B”) and some DNA. Let’s start with the DNA.

Every human has two chromosomes which determine gender. Everyone has one X chromosome. If the second is also an X, you are female. If the second is a Y, you are a male. It is the difference in this one chromosome which causes your genotype (gene type) to be expressed as the phenotype (Physical type) of Tab A or Slot B.

When we ask for your gender, we are asking what your genotype/phenotype are. It’s a binary system with only two options: XX/Slot B (Female), or XY/Tab A (Male). This is the point where my readers who learn science via social media will throw a hissy-fit and point out that there are OTHER options! What about genetic abnormalities like people with a third chromosome or people whose phenotype is an abnormal combination of Tab A and Slot B? What about THOSE people? HUH? Mr Smart guy?!!!

I wear glasses. The reason I do it because my eye is built so that the focal point is not the same distance as my retina is. This means I need corrective lenses to alter my vision so the image does get focused on the retina. Does this mean that it would be inaccurate or somehow bigoted and close-minded to assert the idea that the eye’s lens is designed to focus light onto the retina? No. What my eyes show is a break down in the design. Mutations have caused the original design to fail. Similarly, the variations in genes or phenotype some people have are, in a word, a disease, just as nearsightedness or diabetes are. They are not a new gender any more than my eyes are new kind of vision.

So what are these people going on about? I believe they have confused the objective physical expression of genes (and resulting phenotype) with the subjective experience of being unique. The simplest form (believe it or not) is the whole Tranny issue.

If I may digress- tranny used to be shorthand for transmission- the part of a car which shifts gears. I just know every time I write “tranny” I think of a car part. Life is weird.

A Tranny (transsexual, in this context) is a man who says “I feel like a woman on the inside even though I am built as a man on the outside (or a woman who says “I feel like a man on the inside where as I am built as a woman on the outside.”) The problem with that way of thinking is this: HOW do they know? A man has NEVER BEEN a woman. How does he know what it feels like to be one? A man who says he feels like a woman is like a man who says he feels like an African white rhino. It’s an entirely unverifiable claim which no one can say with sincerity. In certain circumstances, we can all say “I feel like a little kid,” because we’ve all BEEN children, and so we have memories of what it feels like even when we are older. A man has no experience BEING a woman, and so he can never honestly say he FEELS like a woman. Even if it happened to be true, he could never KNOW that.

So what do they mean when they say these things? No doubt these men mean that they think of themselves as being female- they have an internal self image which is the image of a female (or a white rhino in some cases). But just as in the case of the man who says he feels like an African White Rhino, the man who says he feels he is a woman is simply wrong. He is NOT a woman. A woman is not a man who feels he is not a man. A woman is a woman. In simple biological terms, a woman has the XX chromosomes and the TabB@AOL.com phenotype.

For those of you who feel I am being sarcastic in presenting a person who self identifies as an African White Rhino, I present: Otherkin. This is the next sad stage in the devolution of mankind. Otherkin are people who self identify as NON human. Be afraid.

Where did all of this identify confusion come from? I am blaming atheism. And also you, the American Church. You guys need to get your head in the game! If we had been doing our job for the past four decades, this would not have happened.

In Genesis 1:27 , we are told

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

The first thing we are told about being human is that we are made in the image of God. We are like God action figures. Whenever you see an action figure, your first reaction tends to be “Oh, man! This doesn’t look anything like (name of actor or actress who played that character in the latest movie).” The reason you can say that is because there is a real person whose image that action figure is intended to resemble. If there was no actor, then you couldn’t say that.

Atheism tells us that God does not exist. Then, in whose image are we made? No one and nothing. Nothing made us, in its image. On atheism, self identity is the surface description or the personal lie you tell yourself. The reason we have a national identity crisis is because we have a generation being told they are the children of nothing, and they are seeing that imaginary family resemblance.

God made us in his image, male and female. In a sense, the difference between male and female are the difference between two pictures of the same person, one taken head on, and one taken in profile. They are very similar in many ways, but very different in others. A man has only one X Chromosome, just as a picture in profile only has one eye. But we are all images of our heavenly father, and made in his image with equal value and worth.

So what do we do with all of these dozens of new gendered persons? Our response should not be one of anger or hostility, but compassion. Our brothers and sisters are so far from their Father that they think they are cosmic orphans with no Father at all, and as a result they have such a hollow identity that they can’t even see themselves as they are. Men can’t see themselves as men, women can’t see themselves as women, and some people can’t even see themselves as human.

What does it mean to be human? We are told by those who think they know that human is just another primate, which is the latest version of rodent, which is the latest version of amphibian, which is the latest version of fish which is the latest version of worm which is the latest version of bacteria which is the accidental result of rain falling on rocks, all of which came from an explosion which came from nothing. But all of that is a lie, and here is one of the many ways in which it matters. We are human, made in God’s image, and made male and female. Gender is not a social construct, it’s a very real part of who each of us are, even if sometimes we don’t feel the part. Thankfully, reality doesn’t depend on our feelings. I don’t feel like being nearsighted, but I still have to wear glasses. I often don’t feel like an image of God, but that’s what I am even though, like my eyes, my image is significantly out of focus. But that’s why we need Jesus. He does the work of making us back into the image of God action figure we were created to be. He sharpens the focus, if we let him.

The solution is to point people back to the bible. We are human, purposefully and wonderfully made in the image of God, our heavenly father. We are male or female, and we are male or female before we are born. Every cell in our bodies tells us what our gender is, and our soul is etched with the image of God either as masculine or feminine. If we forget what we are, or if we simply can’t see it, then we need to go to Jesus and let him heal us. Just as I need glasses to see the world, many of us need Jesus to help us see ourselves and each other as we really are. Jesus is the truth which can fix that which has been distorted by lies.

Jesus paid for our sins so we can be reunited to our Father. Once we are adopted back into the family, we will begin to see our father for who HE is, and he will help us to see his image in ourselves.

Whatever you feel, you are human, you are male or female, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, and you are loved.

#JesusLovesYou

Posted in Philosophy | Leave a comment

Candle Detectives and Dating Methods

Posted on November 30, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

Greetings friends! I have received some very good questions from readers, and I thought the answers may help others, so I am making a short series of feedback on reader questions. The first has to do with RadioDating methods and the age of the earth/dinosaurs/Twinkies/Willie Nelson (and determining which, if any, are older).

A friendly reader asks:

“To do with the dating methods, there are quite a lot of dating methods out there and multiple ways to date something. How is it that if none of these methods work that scientists continue to use them? I feel like if these methods didn’t actually work SOMEBODY would’ve pointed it out and scientists all over the world would’ve stopped using them years ago. Now chemistry is actually my weakest area of science so I don’t quite understand how Carbon dating works or anything that might be wrong with it, but it is a common tool for dating fossils and I feel like most scientists would’ve stopped using it by now if proven inaccurate.”

A great question and worth answering!

candle-light-animated

Dating methods are based on assumptions. Most scientists probably don’t think about these assumptions and almost no textbooks will ever address these. We are told what happens today (Some chemicals decay), we are told it has always happened (and at the same rate), and based on that, we can date things. When I argue that they don’t work, I do not mean that the science is so bogus that any thinking person should see through it. As presented, it’s actually fairly reasonable. What I mean is, the science is based on assumptions which are entirely untestable, almost always unspoken, rarely examined, and which must be taken on blind faith. More than that, I point out that those very assumptions have been proven false by observational evidence.

As a metaphor- imagine two detectives come upon a lit candle and trying to use science to discover how long it has been burning. There is a law in their town against having a candle burning for more than 24 hours at a time and they need to see if they ought to arrest the owner of the house.

They take some measurements and discover that the candle burns down a quarter of an inch every hour. The candle is exactly 15 inches tall now. How long has it been burning?

In order to answer that, they have to make some assumptions. First, they have to decide how tall it was when it was first lit, since they did not observe it before it was lit. Tom believes it was 18 inches tall, but Carl believes it was 18 feet tall.

Based on that one assumption, Tom concludes that the candle has been burning for 12 hours while Carl concludes that it has been burning for 33 DAYS.

This is the same way in which secular science and Creation science disagree while using the same science and data. We have the same fossils and chemistry but our starting assumptions are very different and so we come to very different conclusions. Both conclusions are based on some assumptions- i.e. faith in something we can’t test directly. So, how do I justify saying the Young Earth Creation position is correct and the Deep Time Evolutionary position is false?

Imagine that Tom finds the box the candle came in and a note from the man who lit the candle which verify his assumption that the candle was 18 inches tall to start. More over, the ceiling in the room is only ten feet high, meaning it is impossible for the candle to have been 18 feet tall- it would not have fit in the room! Additionally, Tom notes that when the heater kicks on, the candle burns twice as fast as it does when the heater is not on. Thus, the previous assumption that the candle always burns at the rate he and Carl measured it was false. It can burn faster that they observed, which changes the outcome. Tom has shown that Carl has made two false assumptions- first that the candle was 18 feet tall (it cannot have been) and second, that the candle ALWAYS burns at the rate they have measured (it has been seen to burn twice as fast). This doesn’t necessarily prove that Tom is right, but it does show that Carl cannot be right.

To explain the metaphor, there is a list of observable data which contradicts the deep time conclusions. For instance, evolutionary paleontologists tell us that dinosaur fossils are between 65 and 300 MILLION years old, but geologists tell us that the continents should have eroded down to sea level MANY TIMES in that much time. So, why do the fossils still exist? Also, we observe that, at the present rate of decay, carbon 14 should not be found in anything more than 100,000 years old, yet we find it in dinosaur fossils. How did they die out 65 million years ago when carbon 14 says they were still living less than 100,000 years ago? Again, this list is long, but suffice it to say, even if you accept the deep time, evolutionary assumptions, the model cannot work. It self destructs even when you grant the untestable assumptions.

The note Tom has found was written for the man’s daughter, and it says, “I lit the candle on the table at 6AM. You can leave it burning, as I shall return home tonight. If you do blow it out, please relight it before you leave, as I shall not return until after dark.”

According to the neighbors, the daughter has already come and gone. She was there all morning, which means it is possible that the candle was blown out and not burning for several hours. This makes Tom realize that the man’s use of the candle this morning may not have been his first use of that candle. The candle was 18 inches tall when FIRST lit, according to the man’s note and the box of candles found in the room, but it may have been FIRST lit days ago and not been burning consistently since being first lit! Realizing that the candle can be lit, blown out, and relit, Tom realizes that the note left by the man is the best clue to discovering how long the candle has been burning since it was last lit. If they can determine when the note was written, they can get an outside estimate for the most time the candle could have been burning that day. If the note is correct, and was written that day, then it could not have been burning for more than 12 hours.

Carl, on the other hand, refuses to accept the note as legitimate. He is skeptical of the author or his intent, and chooses to accept his own observations and measurements, and his own starting assumptions. Furthermore, Carl and Tom have been given instructions by their boss to arrest the man and if they do not, there is a good chance they will both be fired. If they want to keep their jobs, they will turn in Carl’s report. If they each turn in a separate report, Tom will probably be fired and Carl’s report will be published in all of the newspapers anyway. At the end of the day, what most people know about this incident will come from Carl. People who hear Tom’s story and believe it will be mocked as “unscientific.”

One of the reasons scientists still use the methods which I reject is because the establishments which pay them to work insist that they do. If you’ve not seen it, I recommend Ben Stein’s “EXPELLED- No Intelligence Allowed.” It shows what I have seen first hand, which is a blind bias against any evidence which does not support the Evolutionary paradigm. If you discover evidence that goes against the Darwinian dogma, you have two options- suppress it, or lose your job. Papers which do not preach to the Darwinian choir are not published, and scientific papers have been rejected by publications even because one of the editors of the paper was found to be a Creationist, even though the paper itself did not support Creation or argue against Evolution. The prejudice and bigotry in the scientific community and many publications is that ridiculous. I have said for years that it is safer to argue against the existence of God in church than it is to argue against Evolutionism in school. As you say, if the methods used are invalid, then SOMEBODY would have said so- and they have said so for decades. But some have lost their jobs for saying so and others have found that none are willing to listen. The only institutions or individuals who make these arguments are people who feel the argument is worth having, which means people either attacking Darwinian Dogma to defend scientific freedom or defending the Bible because they know people need Jesus. Scientists and science teachers don’t always have the motivation which would encourage them to risk their careers, even if they know the truth, which most probably do not. If you knew Global Warming was a lie and you could prove it with science, but you knew it would get you kicked out of school- would you write a paper on it and turn it in? Probably not.

Because publications are so biased, evidence against the deep time/ Evolutionism is not published, which means those people open minded to it have little chance to encounter the evidence at all. The only places where it is openly published is in Creationary sources like Answers in Genesis, which are themselves dismissed by many as “Unscientific” because they do not accept the Darwinian Dogma, which means their evidence and arguments are not encountered or addressed.

It’s a cultural circular argument: If deep time dating methods were invalid, someone would say so. Answers in Genesis DOES say so. AiG can’t be taken seriously because it is anti-science. How do we know they are anti-science? Because they reject deep time dating methods, and if those methods were really invalid SOMEBODY would say so.

Finally, consider the position this puts the atheist in. If he rejects the Bible but accepts all of the scientific data which shows these Darwinian arguments to be invalid, then what conclusion can he come to? First, he loses the ability to use this so called science to argue against the validity of the Bible. Evolutionism is often used as a tool against the Bible and so many are determined to defend it, no matter how weak or even how indefensible it really is. There are MANY examples of people admitting this in public, but here is one to get you started (See below for more). Published in the scientific journal NATURE in 1999 was this confession, “‘Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.’”

But, surely science is Naturalistic because science has proven that God doesn’t exist? Or that deep time is real, or evolution a fact? Again, our atheist friends provide a useful confession:

“It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

-Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.

If the methods by which we defend deep time are abandoned because they are not scientifically defensible, then the Bible might be true, and that is unacceptable. Also, once you admit the flaws in the methods, how do you determine the dates of anything? There is no better tool available which still provides the dates demanded by evolutionism, so they will use a flawed system until a better one can be found. Comments like this one show up regularly in publication from secular sources (cited here):

“It may come as a shock to some, but fewer than 50 percent of the radiocarbon dates from geological and archaeological samples in northeastern North America have been adopted as ‘acceptable’ by investigators.”

Many in the field admit that these methods are a ruler made of silly putty, but some don’t care or some are merely ignored. I will not say that all or even most scientists are that kind of dogmatically atheist, or even that most have heard about this discussion. Deep time, like evolution is taught, I believe, mainly by people who have NEVER heard the case against it. Most will not even know there is a case against it. They have been told that there is Evolution (science), Deep time (Science) and Big bang (Science) and on the other side there is hysterical, religious, blind-faith anti-science. This is why scientists still use the methods I reject. They simply do not know any better, and for the most part they have little reason to know there is another side to the story. This is what happens when politics gets its claws into science and makes scientific theory into legally protected dogmas. It is science which suffers.

I thank all of you for your questions and I welcome them. As for me, I have heard both sides, I have made it my job to know all of the data and arguments, and I have one very good motivation for teaching you what others want to suppress. The Bible is true, which means this is true:

“For God so loved the world,^[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” –John 3:16

#JesusLovesYou

Enjoy some further reading.

Radio dating methods: See here for details:

https://creationsoapbox.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/confessions-of-a-yec-part-16-radioactive-imagine-deep-time/

For lots of other quotes, videos, and articles which relate to these topics, just search Creationsoapbox.wordpress.com for “Carbon” or click this link:

https://creationsoapbox.wordpress.com/?s=carbon

3. For more on the acceptance of bad science to reject good theology, see this: https://creationsoapbox.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/evolution-101-part-20a-natural-natural-natural/

4. And because I love a good quote mining, here’s some more real comments from real evolutionists:

“In conventional interpretation of KAr age data, it is common to discard ages which are substantially too high or too low compared with the rest of the group or with other available data such as the geological time scale. The discrepancies between the rejected and the accepted are arbitrarily attributed to excess or loss of argon.”
A. HAYATSU, Dept. of Geophysics, U. of Western Ontario, Canadian Journal Of Earth Science, 16:974.

“In general, dates in the ‘correct ball park’ are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published nor are the discrepancies fully explained.”
R. L. MAUGER, E. Carolina U., DISSENTERS EJECTED, Contributions To Geology, Vol.15 (1): 17

“Why do geologists and archeologists still spend their scarce money on costly radiocarbon determinations? They do so because occasional dates appear to be useful. While the method cannot be counted on to give good, unequivocal results, the number do impress people, and save them the trouble of thinking excessively. Expressed in what look like precise calendar years, figures seem somehow better … ‘Absolute’ dates determined by a laboratory carry a lot of weight, and are extremely helpful in bolstering weak arguments.

“No matter how ‘useful’ it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates. This whole bless thing is nothing but 13th-century alchemy, and it all depends upon which funny paper you read.”
Robert E. Lee, “Radiocarbon: ages in error”. Anthropological Journal of Canada, vol.19(3), 1981, pp.9-29. Reprinted in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, vol. 19(2), September 1982, pp. 117-127 (quotes from pp. 123 and 125)

“There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radiodecay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago but, rather, within the age and memory of man.”
Frederic B. Jueneman, FAIC, Industrial Research & Development, p.21, Tune 1982

“It is now well known that KAr ages obtained from different minerals in a single rock may be strikingly discordant.”
Joan C. Engels, DIFFERENT AGES FROM ONE ROCK, Journal of Geology, ,Vol.79, p.609

Situations for which we have both the carbon-14 and potassium-argon ages for the same event usually indicate that the potassium-argon ˜clock did not get set back to zero. Trees buried in an eruption of Mount Rangotito in Auckland Bay area of New Zealand provide a prime example. The carbon-14 age of the buried trees is only 225 years, but some of the overlying volcanic material has a 465,000-year potassium-argon age.
Harold Coffin, Origin by Design, pp. 400.

Posted in Q&A | 2 Comments

Leaf Cutter Ants and Modern Feminism

Posted on November 25, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

Greetings my friends, and welcome to a bit of Orange, where we dare to ask the tough questions. To begin with, I shall ask a tough question which many in the liberal media know needs answering but are afraid to ask:

What is “Misogynist”? Like, a SOUP or something?

Because it sounds like some kind of soup, like you’d get as an appetizer at a Chinese restaurant. “Let’s start with some crab Rangoon and a couple bowls of the Misogynist Soup.” You have to say it Miso-Gynist. I imagine it being too salty and full of those mystery vegetables which Americans never buy for ourselves at the store. But I digress. Let’s see what Google has to say.

According to Google, a Misogynist is “a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women.” Right off the bat, I have a hard time believing these people really exist. Who doesn’t love women? Even the gayest of gay men loves women. Now, CERTAIN women might grate on your nerves and make you swear you’d take a full African porcupine in the left nostril before you’d ever vote for her, but ALL women? That’s like saying you hate ALL cupcakes. It’s… well, its unfathomable.

However, I think it can be argued that there is a collection of persons in this nation who constantly attempt to persuade the rest of us to view women as pitiful, weak, stupid creatures. But who? WHO would spend their days and nights on social media and network TV trying to persuade us of these heinous ideologies?

I’ll reveal that to you in dramatic “as seen on TV” fashion, but first, let’s talk about common North American ants.

The Carpenter ant and the Leaf Cutter ant are both common North American ants that have the distinction of having legitimate and respectable jobs. Entomologists tell us that these two groups are often in conflict with each other, and as long as they’ve been crawling on God’s green earth (and in tunnels underneath it) the situation has been as follows:

First, the Carpenter ants are stronger, physically, than the Leaf Cutters. Any time they conflict, the Leaf Cutters fair badly and are afraid to walk down the sidewalk alone, especially at night, knowing full well what may happen to them. And they know full well that if they are attacked by Carpenter ants, no one will even believe them when they report it to the ant authorities.

Next, the Carpenter ants seem to have full access to resources and Leaf Cutter ants never do. Even when both ants work at the same task for the same amount of time, the Leaf Cutters always come away with nearly 30% less, and many of them are forced to take second jobs. Many of them are forced to work as Fire ants in the backyard districts just to make ends meet.

Of course, the reason Carpenter ants are called that is because they have the ability to work with wood to make mathematically precise constructions, where as the Leaf Cutters are intimidated by math, probably because of the boldness of their neighbors, and as a result they have gone into Leaf Cutting, which is a much more arts and crafts profession as insect work goes. Not that it isn’t respectable, and it certainly requires its own level of skill, but entomologists all agree that the majority of wood working at the ant level is dominated by the Carpenter ants. According to a survey of top scientists, if Leaf Cutters were human, they would have a regular booth at the Farmer’s Market selling dream catchers.

Finally, the leaders of the Carpenter ant colonies are always inflicting their will on the Leaf Cutters. Any time the Leaf Cutters try to assert themselves to represent their own kind, the bigger and more math-confident Carpenters roll right over them and keep them oppressed and afraid. Many of the Leaf Cutters spend their weekends in sweat pants, eating chocolate ice cream and crying.

So, while the Carpenters tend to be bigger, stronger, more math savvy, in control of resources and real estate, and even though the Leaf Cutters are smaller, more often abused, intimidated, controlled, and rewarded with less for the same work, entomologists assure us that they are equal and ought to be thought of in this manner. Certainly there is no justification for any open minded, thinking person to speak of or treat these two species as different in any way. Only a bigot of the worst kind would ever assert some kind of superiority on behalf of the Carpenter ants. And I think you get that we are telling you how you better feel if you want to avoid a severe righteously indignant hash-tagging all over your backside…

At this point you may be asking, “What is he TALKING about? It’s obvious that he was thinking of Miso Soup! There’s no “Gynist” in the name of any popular soup on earth!”

If this is you, I would like you to think about the fact that I have just spent a whole page telling you about ants. Did you read that part? That, my friends, was a cleverly constructed analogy. I wasn’t REALLY talking about ants at all. Are you surprised?

No? Really. What gave it away?

Oh, never mind, let me just get to the point I was making.

The New Feminists are constantly painting us a picture of woman as the weaker, oppressed, abused, powerless and controlled members of society who get paid a third less for doing the same job. BUT, they assure us, Women are EQUAL to men. This is the point where in I have to ask two central questions-

How sad are the lives of these women that they think ALL women experience life this way?
and Equal HOW?

I could go through their worldview and dismiss it with facts and whatnot, but instead I want to ask HOW you can paint two groups in conflict, where in one is so CLEARLY winning at every level because they are stronger, more educated, richer, more powerful and in control of government, businesses and culture, and yet somehow deny that the group who is winning is superior. When one group DOMINATES the other in every way possible, saying that they are equal sounds like sarcasm.

And here comes my main point- the New Feminists are the New Misogynists. They spend their time telling us that women are these weak, stupid, timid, powerless little victims who are controlled by men at every point of their lives, and then tag on, almost as an afterthought, that women are equal and should (something something) “rights” (something something) vote for ME/give money to ME and I shall fix things.

Very honestly, I do not see how anyone can accept the New feminist narrative as true and still see women as equal to men in ANY aspect, except that they are both carbon based life forms which utilize oxygen in metabolic processes (Although, that trait is also shared by most vermin, such as roaches and millipedes, so it doesn’t do much for their case). From a very secular point of view (and the New Feminism is at least secular if not actually hostile against the Christian church) I cannot see how women SHOULD be considered equal. The entire world and all of human history seems to indicate that Evolution gave all of the good stuff to men as, if the New Feminists are to be believed, the man have all of the strength, power, influence, control, brains, courage, and moustaches of great design (although certainly some feminists do have respectable moustaches of their own).

I for one reject the New Feminist narrative (and evolution). It is a pile of lies stewed with hate, garnished with more lies and served on a bed of self loathing. The correct view of the genders has to start with the creation of them in Genesis 1: 27:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Why are we equal? For many reasons, to be sure, but our equality is founded on the fact that we are each made in the image of God. To be HUMAN is to be a child of God. There is no loftier foundation for equality, and none nearly as secure. So whatever the statistics say about who can bench press the most, or who makes the most money, or who spends the most money, or anything else which you may use as a measure to see how very much alike we are or are not, the place where we all need to begin is with the understanding that we are all brothers and sisters, made in the image of our loving father.

I advise you all reject the New Feminist Narrative which tells us that women are all weak victims and men are all strong victimizers, and let’s all see in each other the value God placed in us when he made us in his image. And then, lets all go out for some soup.

#JesusLovesYou

Thanks for reading/watching. If you think you can explain how women can be the oppressed victims as the new feminism narrative says and yet still be equal in a godless worldview, please leave a comment below. Thanks for liking and subscribing, and I will see you on the flippity sizzle.

Posted in Philosophy | Tagged feminism | Leave a comment

Mind Blown! Agnosticism ALSO Fails!

Posted on November 18, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

I recently realized one of the ramifications of my recent academic offerings. It came as quite a shock. I was forced to lay down and play Angry Birds for several hours. But let me back up and set the scene.

First, I explained that, when it comes to the existence of God, there are only three possible positions: Yes, No, or Maybe. Or as I label them, theism, atheism, and agnosticism.

Next, I showed that Atheism is not a valid position. The burden of proof is such that, for an atheist to be reasonable, they must be able to prove that God (a metaphysically necessary being) is metaphysically impossible. Just like it sounds, the atheist must prove that something which HAS to exist CANNOT exist. This is more absurd than trying to prove that light is darkness, or that infinity is equal to zero, and thus can never be done. It’s beyond impossible. It’s merely silly. I liken the atheists’ burden of proof to having to write a persuasive essay proving that words don’t exist. It’s that silly.

At this point I addressed those faithful viewers who attempted to insert a fourth position, namely the idea that “Atheism” can be defined as merely an absence of belief in the existence of God. I showed that this still leads to either my definition of atheism (“no”), or my definition of agnosticism (“maybe”) and so not only was this, in my opinion, an invalid use of the word Atheism, but it resulted in Atheism meaning either Atheism or Agnosticism. I didn’t find this particularly helpful. I find this to be, in terms of rational discourse, like having people try to argue that the RED light either means Yellow Light OR Red light, because, all RED light really means is NOT Green light. You’re not making rush hour more efficient with that philosophy, if you get what I’m saying.

But reflecting on it, I realized something so obvious that I was amazed that I hadn’t seen it before. I had shown that atheism is an invalid position because its burden of proof is SO BIG that is becomes literally absurd. But then, I realized, if atheism is not a valid position, neither is agnosticism!

Think about it- if no one can logically say NO, then on what basis can anyone logically say MAYBE? Once NO is no longer a valid option, MAYBE is not a valid option either. The only logical, defensible position is YES!

Now, for those of you who are getting caught up in the topic and can’t see the logic for the implications, let’s talk about something else for a minute. Imagine a chicken taco.

Close your eyes and picture the chicken taco before you (but then open your eyes again so you can keep reading). Here is the question: Is there CHEESE on this chicken taco?
When you reply, you have three possible options: YES (there is cheese on the taco), NO (there is NOT cheese on the taco) or MAYBE (there might be cheese on the taco, but there might not be- you do not know).
Now, I’d like to point out the fact that I am not asking what you think about the taco. I’m asking about the TACO. You may say “I lack a belief in the existence of the cheese, but that doesn’t mean I think there IS no cheese.” I don’t care. This isn’t about YOU, its about the TACO! Is there cheese on the taco? Yes or no? If you say MAYBE, you are saying you believe YES and NO to BOTH be possible options.

Now, here is where my revelation hinges: If I can show you that saying NO is not a valid option- then as a result you MUST say YES. If you don’t have the option of saying NO as a valid possibility, then you ONLY have YES as an option. It would be absurd beyond reason to say, “I know it can’t be true that there is NOT cheese on this taco, so I will say MAYBE there is cheese on the taco.” Once it can be shown that NO is not a valid option, then you already know for certain that there IS CHEESE ON THAT TACO!

This is very good news unless you are lactose intolerant.

When we apply the same simple logic to the existence of God, you will see that, since atheism is not a valid option, then agnosticism is not a valid option either. You can’t say MAYBE God exists when “God does not exist” is NOT a valid option. Once atheism is dead, agnosticism is no longer an option! Theism is literally the only option available!

You see why I needed to lie down for a while? Mind Blow!

Logically speaking, you can only say “I don’t know who God is.” Agnosticism remains valid only when it is agnosticism (ignorance) of God’s identity, and not His existence. His existence is just as valid as yours. Actually, more so, since he is a metaphysically necessary being, and you are contingent. If He didn’t exist, you wouldn’t either.

Doesn’t that just make you need to lay down and play Angry Birds for several hours? Or eat chocolate pudding? Both of those sound pretty good. I wonder if I could do both at the same time?

Sometime soon I shall get around to proving to you that Jesus Christ is God, as explained in the Bible. Until then, I highly recommend the comic book philosophy lesson which is Me, The Professor, Fuzzy, and the Meaning of Life, hosted for free enjoyment at: http://www.thebigmystery.com/

That does as good a job as anyone can do in comic book form. And remember #JesusLovesYou
Yes, sir, don’t mean maybe.

Posted in atheism, Philosophy | Tagged agnosticism, atheism, theism | Leave a comment

A Book Review for “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller

Posted on November 5, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

Greetings friends. I found this book review in my archives, written some years ago by now, and I thought it worth sharing. Enjoy!

A Book Review for “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller

How I came to read this book is sort of a weird story. The church I am going to is a Charismatic church, which means every Sunday is weird and different than the last. Every week I want to say, “It’s not usually like this.” I know a church who’s self appointed catch phrase is “Never Church as Usual,” yet on any given Sunday I can tell you exactly what they’re doing by checking my watch because it’s always exactly the same thing, and the only difference between them and the all white suburban Baptist church I grew up in is the lighting. This particular church turns all the lights off so as not to disturb the people who fall asleep during the boring songs or the depressing short sermons. If they came to our Charismatic church, I think their heads would explode. Thankfully, we have hard wood floors and it wouldn’t be too hard to clean up.

A few weeks ago we had in some people from another church to teach on Prophecy. Now, there is more to being a prophet than telling the future. I hope for your sake that I don’t need to use the phrase “It’s not like it is in the movies,” about this or anything else. If I do, let me save you a lot of trouble: NOTHING is like it is in the movies. The movies lie. Oh, and your good friend television? Liar, Liar, pants on FIRE. But I digress. The point is, these people came in to teach on prophecy, which is a spiritual gift. One thing I learned is, teaching is its own spiritual gift. That’s why we have a separate word for it. Just because you can DO something, does not mean you can teach it. So this woman, and I do not doubt for a second that she clearly hears the voice of God, had the gift of prophecy.

You’ll note I did not say “AND the gift of teaching“. Half an hour into her “talk” I leaned over to my wife and said, “Is she making a point?” and my wife said, “I have no idea.” This made me feel better. I just don’t want to be left out.

To get to the point, she closed the morning with her team, who I guess also have the gift of prophecy (Or perhaps were picked at random because they were free that day- I didn’t ask and now I realize that I should have) standing at the front of the church and having us come to them for a word from God. Now, for those of you new to the concept, it’s not literally A WORD from God. They don’t say, “God’s word for you is, Chrysanthemum.” You get something closer to a sentence, or even a paragraph. And it’s not always a prediction. Sometimes it’s an encouragement. They aren’t a magic 8 ball or fortune tellers. Just to clarify.

We waited for the line to die down, and then we went up. The guy who I wound up in front of looked at me like I was a caution sign in a public bathroom written in Vietnamese. Somehow I mentioned to him that I was a writer. So, he tells me that I should read this book, Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. “Some people say it’s heretical” he said to me, “and I don’t think.. well, maybe it is. Anyway, I just thought, you being a writer and all would like the style.” He kind of wandered around this point for a minute or two and then we were done.

You’ll note that I haven’t mentioned the part where God said something. I didn’t forget. Apparently God had nothing to say, so this guy recommended a book that MIGHT be heretical. Just because. Not that he was a big fan of it, or even could remember what it was about. Though he did recommend I not waste my time with Miller’s earlier books, because apparently they are horrible.

All that to say, I’m not sure why I read this book, but that’s how it came about at any rate.

Blue Like Jazz, (Non-religious thoughts on Christian Spirituality) by Donald Miller.

[WARNING: SPOILERS! AND SARCASM!]

I’ll ruin it for you right away. It’s not about Jazz at all. He mentions Jazz BEFORE the first chapter, to explain the title, and then almost never again. It’s a metaphor. He used to hate jazz before he saw someone playing it in person with gusto and love. Now he likes Jazz. He says he used to not like God, “but that was before any of this happened,” he says. He doesn’t say it directly, but I assume we’re meant to imply that he now likes God. I would think this would be important enough to actually state, but maybe he thought that would ruin the mystery.

And if I can digress for a moment, I could see someone shoveling handfuls of radishes into their mouth with great gusto and joy and I would still not like radishes. I have to wonder about the ease with which he went from disdain to jazz fan-boy merely because he saw someone really “getting down.” What do you get when you cross a waffle with Jell-O?

Chapter One- He begins by referencing a pagan/pantheistic belief that God is in everything. He says it’s beautiful, showing an overly emotional response to something of which he has an apparent lack of intellectual understanding. This will be a reoccurring theme of the book. For most of the chapter he explains his rotten childhood and explains his daddy issues. Blah blah blah, grab a tissue and have a good cry. Essentially he sums up his first 13 years in ten pages. Why? I don’t have any idea why he chose to share these things. This, also, will be a major theme of the book. I suspect he didn’t actually have a reason. This will be the major conclusion of the book.

Chapter two- His “Brilliant friend Mitch” claims that light exists outside of time. Not even quantum mechanics (specifically, Quantum Electro-Dynamic Theory- QED) makes this claim. This is what happens when great confidence meets an episode of NOVA about light which Mitch can’t REALLY remember. Also, I suspect Mitch is a bit of a drinker. GLUG GLUG “HEy! Let me TELL you something cool about SCIENCE!”

Donald spends the majority of the chapter figuring out that people are essentially bad. We have to train kids to be good, and when we really are honest about ourselves, we too are evil in nature. Summing up the globe he says, “Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.” Very insightful. But if I were the people of the Congo, I would not be a fan of this philosophy.

“You’re not going to help us until you get your junk sorted and get a hair cut? Really? Is that going to be anytime soon?”

Starting on page 19 he’s talking about opposing the Republicans and protesting. This, along with smoking a pipe, drinking beer, and cussing will be major repeating themes of the book. In short, he sounds like a normal, white, suburban, Church-raised evangelical American “Christian” trying REALLY REALLY HARD to look like he’s NOT. It would have saved him a lot of time to just start every chapter with this disclaimer: AUTHOR’S NOTE: Please remember that I am not necessarily like other Conservative American Christians. Especially in my lenience toward profanity, substance abuse, and the Republicans. I’m cool like you!

Chapter Three- he makes an astute observation without actually following up on it. Turning the events of the Bible into “Children’s stories” waters them down and makes it harder to accept as truth. This is a true part. He comes up with an interesting analogy comparing the Bible/history of the world with the basic components of literature. However, interesting doesn’t equal meaningful or true. It doesn’t prove anything, it’s merely clever. You know how sometimes your pastor will start his sermon with a story which never ties into the sermon?

Chapter four- Aside from the fact that he smokes, drinks beer, cusses, and protests the Republicans, he also attends a school which he describes as being over run with drugs, booze, and paganism, where even the professors are openly hostile toward Christianity. Somehow this makes him happy. (Remember: I’m cool like you!) He introduces his friend Laura, who is a typical anti-religion student that Don describes as much smarter that he is. Where as he is barely understanding 10% of his classes, she complains that they are not a challenge. Why am I reading his book instead of hers?

We also meet Penny. Penny is a Christian who claims that she gave her life to Christ when God spoke to her. Don doesn’t seem to believe her. He says she’s nuts. I’m not sure which side Don is pretending to be on, but he’s trying real hard not to be obviously Christian. (Author’s Note: I’m cool like you!)

Chapter Five– Laura is being hunted by God, but cannot justify belief in God because she cannot defend it intellectually. She says, “If God is real he needs to HAPPEN to me.” Don shows an AMAZING ignorance of apologetics and metaphysics. From CS Lewis to Lee Stroble, he should have read SOMETHING before he wrote this. EPIC FAIL.

Page 54 is an avalanche of ignorance. He has no answers, he calls his own belief irrational and then he tries making a metaphor by saying “Light cannot be proved scientifically, and yet we all believe in light…” EPIC FAIL. If I may get my geek on:

Optics is the study of light. Optics, a segment of physics, evaluates and analyzes the properties and behaviors of light. So THERE Mr. Mystical college dork. We can prove the PHOTONS out of light!

Don adds: “Laura…wanted God to make sense. He doesn’t.” Really Don? It’s like Don is part of the cult of Oprah. Is he Heretical? Almost. Mainly he’s just SADLY ignorant and had no business writing a book. Oh, and in case you forgot, he’s hip and cool unlike all other Christians as can be seen by his beer drinking and pipe smoking and disapproval of Republicans and everyone who supports them. It’s important that you notice this, so he’ll bring it up again and again.

Chapter 6- He’s like an existentialist. His spirituality seems based almost exclusively on his emotional response to things. This makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

Chapter Seven starts with this phrase, “I was a fundamentalist Christian once. It lasted a summer.” In case you forgot that he doesn’t demonize beer or vote Republican. Because that would suck for some reason. (Author’s note: Have a beer! I Do! Because I’m COOL like you guys!) Over two pages he talks about having tried to live a strict, minimalist Christian life and failing bitterly. It made him unhappy. He tells the story of how a pastor named Rick tried to kill himself during his first year as a Christian. The point? We have to be humble enough to accept God’s grace. Good point- poorly delivered. While he says this is his point, the chapter reads for the majority as though his point was how unhappy you will be if you try and be moral. You will fail and it will make you hate your life. Have a beer and cuss the Republicans for a while. Like too many people, he tries to separate loving Christ from obedience, as if Christ taught this as an option.

“Just love me as your buddy, and then do whatever you want. Seriously. Let’s go get a beer and smoke something.”

2 Opinions 4:17

Chapter 8- Don says, “Every year or so I start pondering how silly this whole God thing is.” Why is he writing this book? Shouldn’t someone who has learned the small handful of philosophy, science, history, or theology which proves God’s existence and the rationality of believing it be writing a book instead of Don here? Again he calls Christianity irrational. There is a long story about a guy he calls Trendy Christian Writer, who quotes the Koran and pretends to associate with Muslim persons to be trendy and hip and relevant to a poly-theistic culture. Somehow he fails to see that he is doing this through his whole book, only with drugs, beer, sex, cussing and hating the Republicans. The plank in his eye must be getting in the way as he goes in for Trendy’s speck (giant speck though it be). He discusses this in the last chapter. “I desired false gods because Jesus wouldn’t jump through my hoops.” No kidding.

Chapter 9- He tells the tale of how he and some friends (who were leaders in the high school youth group he had been in) spent a night getting drunk and high and throwing up. He gets all 60’s beat poet existentialist Christian for the rest of the chapter. A better person would reveal this as a manner of confessing his sins. Don just seems to want to remind us all how COOL he is as nihilistic college kids define cool.

Chapter 10- He starts by declaring that he doesn’t care about the arguments for or against God because he will never walk away from God for intellectual reasons. And to be certain I don’t think anyone ever does. However, he once again shows a sad ignorance of HUNDREDS of years of apologetics. Again, he seems content to rest everything on emotions and experience. It doesn’t matter to Don if there is any intelligent reason to believe that God is real or the Bible true, as long as God “Happens” to him. I get the feeling that Don doesn’t view God as much as his Heavenly Father as some kind of exotic weather system. “You don’t know rain until you’ve got caught in one of those GOD hurricanes!”

Similarly, he defends painting his friend Andrew as a hero, not because he thinks Andrew is right about what he believes, but because Andrew lets his faith move him to action. The obvious flaw is that MANY people do horrible things driven by their faith. There is not a lot of doubt and casual faith among suicide bombers. Their faith moves them to action, but they are villains and fools. Andrew is as well if I can guess accurately. From what little Don says, Andrew has divorced his Christian faith from his political and social actions and beliefs, and then he acts on what is left. A motivated fool is still a fool. And a fool who divorces one part of his worldview from another is a self contradicting hypocrite. If you can make an argument equating self contradicting fools with heroes, I want to hear it.

Chapter 11- The best idea comes, accidentally, from Don when his pagan campus has a weekend of drunkenness and drug abuse protected by campus security. The underground Christians build a confessional where THEY will confess the sins of the church to the pagans. Even though he came up with it, he hates the idea. His group makes him do it anyway. Yet Don’s lowest point comes in the confessional, with Pagan Jake who has taken time out from getting high to come. Jake says, “You really believe in Jesus, don’t you?” and Don replies, “Yes, I think I do. I have doubts at times, but mostly I do.” Again, why is he writing this book? This is the conviction of his faith? I THINK I do?

EPIC FAIL! Can someone PLEASE explain to me how this guy got a book deal? What Christian publisher said, “This Donald fellow seems to think that maybe he kind of sometimes believe this Jesus stuff. But not for any intellectual reasons. Just because of his warm fuzzies on occasion when he isn’t drinking, cussing, and totally NOT supporting the Republicans. That’s a message the church NEEDS to hear!” ?

Chapter 12– First he talks about how he hates organizations, which includes churches, and then he spends a paragraph hating on the Republicans and the way Christians tend to be Republicans. Again, SADLY ignorant of a lot of basic facts. It’s like he’s trying to pretend to be a liberal so the other liberals will like him, so he can convince them to sort of, kinda believe in Jesus like he thinks he does, mostly. He goes on for half a page how his friend Mark (Who is Driscoll, though he doesn’t say so) cusses a lot. He even calls him Mark the Cussing Pastor. Even if this were true, this is not something Mark is foolish enough to have pride in (Driscoll has condemned his own immaturity for the things he said on the past), yet Don here seems to think it was part of his coolness and social relevance. Being “REAL” is more important to Don than being Christ-like. He seems like he would rather be honest about not being good than actually try to be good, nor even admit that righteousness and Christianity are somehow related. He even suggests the reader find a church “filled with people who share your interests and values,” as if your values are already right and you will find other people who are right. “Make YOURSELF the measure of all things! God will agree with you.” It doesn’t occur to him that God is in the business of changing people, not merely loving them for who they are.

It’s been said that the church should be a hospital for sinners, and not a museum for saints, but Donald seems to think the church should be a museum for sinners.

Chapter 13- In summary, he’s a total failure in romance. The best anyone he knows can say of marriage is, “You lose some freedom, but it’s worth it.” Sad. He quotes some of his own writing- a play. It sucks. It’s REALLY lame. How does he not notice that?

Chapter 14- He talks about being alone, and further makes himself look like a jerk and a crybaby. One of those ways was a crush on dead/depressing poet Emily Dickenson. He claims this is the “rite of passage for any thinking American man.” This doesn’t change the fact that her poetry sucks and he’s a dweeb who’s crushing on a dead broad. He decides that being alone is hell, and it scares him. How is being in love with a dead girl different than being alone? He doesn’t say. And for the record, I NEVER had a crush on Emily Dickenson. However, I do love the fact that you can perform almost ALL of her poems to the theme tune from Gilligan’s Island. Try it.

Chapter 15- He moves in with some other guys and spends the entire chapter making the reader glad that he does not live with them. All of his stories make him seem like a world class jerk with no social skills. Once again, these are the kind of stories you usually tell as the BEFORE part of a BEFORE and AFTER story. Donald never really reaches any AFTER, nor realizes that he really NEEDS an AFTER. I imagine a motivational speaker whose entire presentation is, “I’m 400 pounds and I smoke three packs a day. I haven’t had a job in seven years. Make YOUR dreams come true.”

Chapter 16- He’s bad with money, but he encourages us to tithe. “I’m 400 pounds and I smoke three packs a day. For lunch I get a half gallon of nacho cheese on IV drip every day. YOU need to get in shape!”

Chapter 17 is where the best accusations of heresy can be made. Again he shows off his astounding ignorance. Then he says (Based on his ignorance) “There are many ideas within Christian Spirituality that contradict the facts of reality as I understand them.” So which has he said? “The Bible is untrustworthy” or “I’m amazingly ignorant of the Bible AND the facts of reality”? Either way, WHY is he writing this book? He tries to argue that God, being so far above us, should contradict reason. No Jew would describe God the way he does, and no Christian philosopher for 2,000 years. What he fails to see, I hope, is that he has just told us that God is absurd. His idea of God is more Hindu or Zen than Christian in this sense, but he doesn’t convey that he is a heretic as much as he is too simple to understand his own philosophy. If I felt he understood philosophy, metaphysics, or simple biblical theology, I would call him a heretic. He’s made the case that he is not smart enough to realize that he is a heretic. That’s fairly impressive if you think about it.

He then claims that “You cannot be a Christian without being a mystic,” which is either an abuse of the word Mystic, or proof that Don is a fool. He seems to try to argue over the next few pages, that he cannot worship that which he understands. Yet, if he doesn’t understand, what makes him think he has found something worthy of worship?

I wonder if he talks about his wife like this: “I love my wife mainly because I don’t know or understand the first thing about her.” Ain’t THAT romantic? If this book is any indication, that will be the foundation of his book on marriage.

He gets very existential for this whole chapter. “There never has been an up and down. Things like up and down were invented so as not to scare children, so as to reduce mystery to math.” He’s gotten so deep that he’s up to his eyeballs in it, but it isn’t truth. This idea is as stupid as it is patently false. If he intends this to be a metaphor for something else he fails to make it known, and therefore conveys neither knowledge nor truth. Quite the opposite.

He ends with “I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one…” as if he can question our understanding of God without also calling into question God’s own revelation. Don might be too stupid to realize that he is also criticizing God’s ability to communicate to us, but he is still guilty of it. By calling God absurd, irrational, and beyond understanding so that our theology is as reliable as a lottery ticket, he calls into question the truth, validity, and trustworthiness of scripture. He concludes this chapter with “And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers…I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.” So, worship is a feeling? And a feeling based on having no answers? This goes beyond simply being wrong. Don mistakes ignorance with truth, and emotion with honor. Don is a tool. I can’t say if he is a heretic, but he is a moron. And probably a heretic. He should spend less time calling Marc Driscoll the cussing pastor and listen to his series on Doctrine. It might help him write something worth reading.

Chapter 18- Love. He goes ON AND ON for pages about this collection of hippies he lived with one summer. They were pot smoking, poetry slam, anti-religious, liberals, who were as far from Republican Church goers as one can get, and Don is certain that they were the greatest people who have ever lived. They didn’t judge. They LOVED. Again, I don’t know if he intends to make himself look stupid, as he doesn’t come to the point of self accusation or repenting for his action and behavior, but he does make himself sound amazingly stupid. He spends more than two pages recalling a conversation where he was in full pot-smoking hippie mode where a woman at a Christian camp was trying to get him to realize that he needed to shave and shower, because he hadn’t in weeks, and he keeps responding to her in the kind of dialogue from the basement of That 70’s Show.

“I had never felt so alive as I did in the company of my liberal friends.” He fails to realize that the Hippies were non-judgmental because they didn’t care what be believed, and no doubt rejected the idea of truth all together. And nothing in this book gives me the idea that his Christianity was the kind that was real enough to ruffle any feathers. Any liberal will be ok with the idea that someone who hates the church as an institution, and the Republicans, sort of believes in Jesus most of the time. With a weak faith like that based almost exclusively on emotion, what is there to judge? The Christians he complains about as being CONDITIONAL with their love have eternal truth, and the law handed down from God. They have a right and wrong. They have an up or down. In his ignorance and weakness, Don mistakes a world without borders to be a world of freedom, instead of the meaningless void it is.

Furthermore, he accuses those who join the Christian community of being liars and fakes all at once. He says “By toeing the party line you earned social dollars; by being yourself you did not.” He outright rejects the idea that there are people who go to church, vote Republican, and refuse to speak swear words or drink beer because that is who they really are. This kind of writing makes the accusation that people are the kind of Christian Republicans he wants so badly not to be because he thinks they feel they MUST to be accepted and betray their true selves for acceptance. A few months in the woods with pot smoking hippies without hygiene can do things to a man. Especially a man like Don.

His main flaw is combining too many ideas together without having the Biblical knowledge it takes to define them. Right wing, conservative Christians CAN be unloving, but they do not HAVE to be. Liberals can be accepting, but often they can be the MOST hateful, irrational, judgmental bigots. ALL people are likely, because of Pride and other sin, to reject and dislike those who disagree with them. His hippie friends were not accepting BECAUSE they were hippies but because he obviously never challenged them with the truth. His Christian friends seemed close minded because they made the American mistake of thinking the truth they believed made them better than other people, as if they had saved themselves by being so clever instead of remembering that Jesus saved them, and the truth of Christ should make them humble and loving toward those that need him. Christianity teaches that we love our neighbors, but not that we reject truth or ignore lies and sin. The liberal attitude that everyone should be the god that writes their own moral law is not loving. To love someone is to take the gun away from their head before they pull the trigger, not to hand them free bullets. Don shows nothing so much in this chapter as his ignorance, especially his ignorance of what love is and what a Christian community should be.

Chapter 19- How to love yourself. Don again continues to show amazing blindness. Although he explained near the start of the book that his college, Reed, was full of drunk, drug abusing pagans who hate Christians, he says here he never thought of Reed as being an immoral place. His reason is, because a guy with a lisp can go there without being made fun of too much. He compares this to his church and decides that, someone at his church WOULD make fun of the lisping guy. I’m guessing if we looked at the number of 12 year old boys at each location we might find the reason, but it’s still a judgment which makes him seem, even if he is correct, AMAZINGLY stupid.

He goes through an episode that shows he has too many emotional issues to have a healthy relationship with a girl. Shocking. He gets a therapist to talk to, and she says “God wants you to receive his love and to love yourself too.” He acknowledges that this sounds arrogant, to love himself, but the only alternative he seems to come up with is hating himself. Eventually he comes up with “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is about loving other people, and he decides that it’s actually about loving himself. One doesn’t need to be a genius to see the grammatical flaw here. For some reason he comes to the conclusion that, because he loves other people, he shouldn’t hate himself, which is like saying because he waters his plants, he shouldn’t mind when it rains during his bike ride.

The idea that we should love ourselves is one I keep hearing among Christians, but I can’t help but feel that it is arrogant. The Bible teaches that love is considering others as more important than myself. If I love me, who must I treat myself as better than? When Jesus told me how to love my neighbor, he assumed I was doing fine taking care of me. CS Lewis could teach Don a lot about what God expects of us. And if Don can’t find any answer to self loathing other than self love, I think he needs to look harder. There are more than two options. It’s like he’s said the only two options are the priesthood, or polygamy. Look again, Don. There MAY be a middle ground you haven’t considered.

Chapter 20- Jesus. After two pages of emotional Oprah style stories, he comes upon the idea that Jesus looked like Osama Bin Laden. OK, I think we can be sure he didn’t look like the bearded woman in a toga Jesus of Sunday school art, but a cave dwelling terrorist? That’s wrong for all kinds of reasons. First, because it is an offensive comparison, and secondly because, like a lot of things in this book, it’s simply false. No Jewish Rabbi would look like a crazy cave dwelling Muslim terrorist. They had a dress code. And Hygiene.

On page 239 Jazz comes back for a brief reprisal. “I think Christian spirituality is like Jazz music. I think loving Jesus is something you feel….I want Jesus to happen to you…”

Again, it doesn’t take more than a reading of Jesus own teachings or Paul’s writings in the New Testament to see that Don is an ignorant fool. Jesus doesn’t point us toward a feeling about him. Paul doesn’t encourage the early church to warm fuzzies. Don is not a Christian so much as an existentialist. To him, the TRUTH of Jesus is not as important as the EXPERIENCE of him. He’s the Zen Buddhist of Christian writers, which makes him no better than a heretic.

In conclusion: This book does not seek to educate, nor encourage, nor persuade. I don’t know what his point is, except to share a set of emotional experiences in the hope that we can have a similar emotional experience. If Don Miller is a heretic, it’s probably by accident, but that doesn’t make him any less a fool. He paints himself as an ignorant and selfish person with a sadly weak faith. He hates and rejects everything American Christians are, which can only make one ask what he thinks they should be. He needs to come to the place in his faith where he can say with some certainty that he believes in Jesus. He needs to learn to love and accept Christians the way he loves and accepts pot-smoking liberal hippies. He needs to read every book by CS Lewis, Lee Stroble, G.K. Chesterton, William Lane Craig, and everyone at Answers in Genesis. And he probably needs to read the Bible to learn what it actually says. Maybe at that point he will be ready to write a book that is worth reading. In the mean time, life is too short to waste it reading books by ignorant fool who have no answers.

Skip this book, and if it is any indication, anything else written by Don. In all seriousness, check out Doctrine by Mark Driscoll. It’s a good coverage of all things Biblical worldview, but written to be enjoyed and understood in the Driscoll fashion (which, I will add, does NOT include swearing.). And if you run into Don, maybe give him a copy.

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The Trick to Transgender: Baseball!

Posted on September 20, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

According to Google, Transgender means “denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.” Nothing like a web based dictionary to clear things up, eh?

I would like to reject this definition out of hand based on the fact that I don’t care for ANY professional sports, and I greatly enjoy musical theatre, which means, on this definition, since I don’t conform unambiguously to conventions of male, I am Transgender. I choose not to self-identify as Transgender, whatever the internet might say. Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy | Tagged transgender | 7 Comments

The Definition of Atheism… Again

Posted on September 18, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

Below is a concise clarification of the argument offered in the video titled, The Definition of Atheism… Again.

Atheism
Traditionally, the statements “I do not believe God exists” and “I believe God does NOT exist” have been treated as equivalent. The new, social media definition of “Atheism” does NOT treat these as equivalent (or at least not necessarily).

Thus, where as the traditional definition of atheist has been one who says “God does not exist” the new social media definition says an atheist is merely one who lacks a belief in God. Or, as above, the self professing atheist is merely saying “I do not believe God exists” and is not necessarily saying “I do believe God does not exist.”

Burden of Proof
Naturally, this definition removes from the Atheist a burden of proof, because the statement “I do not believe God exists” is merely stating a fact about the atheist- noting an absence of a particular belief in his worldview. In their view, asking them to defend their lack of belief is like finding out that someone DOESN’T have a five dollar bill and asking “Where did you get that?” The question is nonsensical, because there is no origin for something which isn’t, and the lack of it is its own explanation.

This differs from “I believe God does not exist” because this statement immediately raises the question “WHY do you believe God does not exist?” The person saying that something IS (in this case, is absent) shoulders a burden of proof, meaning, for their position to be logical and rational, it must be based on an intellectual foundation. Both the person saying “God exists” and the person saying “God does not exist” have this same weighted burden of proof, for there must either be reasons for their position, or their position must be irrational.

Thus, the new definition allows the Atheist to declare himself an atheist without shouldering a burden of proof. Or it would, if the conversation ended there. But it does not.

Intellectual Dishonesty
Insisting that the conversation ends at the declaration that one lacks belief in God’s existence is intellectually dishonest. It is dishonest to the persons with whom they converse, and it is dishonest to themselves if they never continue the conversation with themselves to discover their own underlying intellectual foundation.

While the statement “I do not believe God exists” does not carry a burden of proof, because it is not asserting a statement about anything except the speaker, it does raise an immediate question: “Why?” And there are only two possible reasons why.

Reasons WHY one lacks belief in God

They are confident in the absence of God
They are NOT confident in the absence of God

It is worth noting that this is not referring to their emotional state, but to an intellectual confidence- meaning their position is built on a foundation of reason. How strongly they feel something is or is not, or how much they WANT it to be so does not matter in this discussion. Position #1 believes there is information which leads logically to the absence of God, where as position #2 does not have that information.

Because position #2 lacks the information to build a case against the existence of God, their position by default admits that God’s existence is a possibility. Clearly they do not have (or accept) the information to build a case FOR God’s existence as they have declared themselves to be an atheist, but neither do they have the information against God’s existence. On both grounds they are ignorant, and thus their position is Agnosticism. Again, it does not matter how they feel or what they want to be so. They are ignorant of the data it would take to build a intellectual foundation for the acceptance or rejection of God’s existence, and thus Agnosticism.

Just as above, as far as their intellectual position is concerned, it is merely, “I don’t know” which carries no burden of proof. The way many “atheists” of this kind adopt a burden of proof is by making claims based on their emotional or volitional positions instead of their intellectual position. If they say, “I don’t know” they have nothing to prove, because they have not made any assertions about the world, but only about their own ignorance. But many will make statements beyond this, such as “I don’t know, and neither do you,” or “No theist has ever proven the existence of God.” Once they start making statements like this, they have adopted a burden of proof because those statements are asserting a proposition.

Rational Atheism
For an atheist who believes they have a rational basis for asserting the absence of God, there can be any number of ideas they can point to for their own defense. However, the true burden of proof for the atheist is specific and significant. Because God’s existence is metaphysically necessary, the only way to argue against his existence is to prove that his existence is impossible.

While this is easy to state, the weight of this burden of proof is insurmountable. To be a rational atheist, one must literally prove that something which MUST exist CANNOT exist. This is akin to writing an essay to persuade the reader that words do not exist. Clearly no atheist has ever succeeded in this task, and very few have even claimed that it can be done. Because of the impossible nature of this task, no atheist has, and no atheist ever will make the argument for atheism and against the existence of God which is required to make a confidence in God’s absence intellectually justifiable.

Therefore, no one has earned the right to call themselves (on my definition) an atheist. Because they are unable to meet the intellectual foundation for a rejection of God’s existence, all must, by default, admit that His existence is possible, whatever they may feel about the matter. In summary, this means that all atheists (on either definition) are in fact Agnostics, and the use of the word atheist to describe any person is inaccurate and counterproductive.

The two points which are concluded in this argument are:

Anyone using the word “Atheist” to describe themselves is in fact admitting to being an Agnostic
Atheists do not exist

Posted in atheism | Tagged atheism, atheists | 24 Comments

Atheism according to Social Media

Posted on September 17, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

What is atheism? This used to be something everyone knew and no one argued about. For the past century (or three) western culture has had periodic debates about IF God exists or NOT, but not a lot of debates were about how to define atheism. Atheism was the side saying NOT. It was all pretty simple. Those were the days when we all knew that men should use the men’s rest room and women should use the women’s rest room, because we all knew men were not women. Remember those days? I miss those days.

Naturally, I have been defining atheism to mean “Atheism,” but thanks to social media, I have had a LOT of angry people insisting that I have blasphemed the sacred scriptures of dictionary.com and DEMANDING that I use the word to mean what THEY mean by it. Atheism, they insist, is a word describing a lack of belief in the existence of God (or gods, or goddesses, etc). If I can rabbit trail for just a second, what kind of a world do we live in where our culture demands we let each person choose their own gender but REFUSES to let me define a word the way I want to? How did the most recent edition of the dictionary become more absolute than actual human biology? But I digress.

I didn’t understand these MANY comments I got on social media until I figured out the unspoken assumption wherein we differed. When I used the word Atheism I was working under the assumption that the statements “I do not believe God exists” and “I believe God does not exist” were equivalent statements, because, in truth they are. My detractors on social media, however, are working under the assumption that these are NOT equivalent (or at least not Necessarily equivalent). When I figured this out, it all clicked into place.

I have stated in the past that the redefinition of the word “Atheism” has happened for the sole reason of allowing the atheist to avoid the burden of proof, because, as we all know, atheism is indefensible. But if they define atheism to mean merely a LACK of belief, then they don’t have to prove anything.

Or do they?

If the conversation ended there, they would not have anything to prove, because something NOT being doesn’t need a basis. If I may quote a song from the Muppets Most Wanted:

Sam the Eagle: “If they did it, how did they do it?”

French Cop: “If they didn’t, how did they didn’t?”

Sam the Eagle: “If they didn’t, then it’s easy, because they simply didn’t do it.”

That is a GREAT musical number. And the point Sam makes here is the one the atheists are trying to make- if they didn’t commit the crime, the police do not need to prove how they DIDN’T commit the crime. They just didn’t and the police need to find who did and prove THEY DID. Similarly, my friends on social media say, they DON’T believe, and a LACK of belief doesn’t carry a burden of proof. But they are only half right.

The fact is, the conversation doesn’t end there, even if they refuse to say any more. When a person says of themselves, “I do not believe (any proposition),” then logically there is one of two possible intellectual foundations for this position (or lack of position if you prefer to call it that.) They lack belief in the proposition because they KNOW (something) or because they do NOT know (something). In the case of the debate over the existence of God, the Atheist (Person who lacks belief in God’s existence) lacks belief because they know something which convinces them that they know God is absent, or they do not know something which convinces them that God is absent but also feel they don’t know something which proves He is present.

Thus, the two intellectual positions which are possible are:

They are confident (intellectually) that God is absent
They are NOT confident (intellectually) that God is absent

I say “intellectually” because I am referring to their intellectual basis for their worldview, and not their emotions. It matters little how confident they FEEL if they have no REASON to think what they do. This is true of anyone on any topic. You can FEEL REALLY CERTAIN of something, but if you have no intellectual foundation for that belief, then you do not KNOW and cannot say you KNOW, but must admit intellectual ignorance, meaning you lack an intellectual foundation for the belief, no matter how strongly you feel or how much you WANT it to be true.

If the reason one lacks a belief in the existence of God is #1, then they are what I call an Atheist. I am forced to use this word (even though in the beginning of this argument I conceded to the popular social media definition) for two reasons- first because that is what the word has always meant in western culture, and secondly because there is no other word which means that. The semantic warriors who take me to task for using the word this way show they know this is true at some level because no one has offered another word to take its place, but word combinations are tossed about to make up for the lack of a useful word, such as “Hard Atheist” or “Gnostic Atheist” etc. No one has EVER said, “Someone who believes that God does not exist is not an Atheist, he is a ______.” I’m still waiting for that blank to be filled in. But I digress.

So where I use the word “Atheist” of position #1, use whatever phrase you prefer. And don’t leave me any comments about it. I already know you’re angry at me for defining a word differently than you do. How dare I, Whom do I think I am, Etc.

Position #2 is simple. They are not intellectually confident that God is absent, which logically means they admit God MIGHT exist, however they feel about it, or whatever they WANT to be true. If they KNEW reasons to believe God exists, they would simply be theists, so they are ignorant of those reasons, and if they knew reasons to believe God is absent, they would simply be atheists (how I define it for position #1) but they are ignorant of those reasons. Since they lack information which would cause them to declare a position with intellectual confidence, they are agnostics, meaning their position is one of ignorance.

Let’s recap to this point just to make sure we’re all on the same page:

We agree to define atheism to mean “a lack of belief in God.” All of my commenters/detractors on Social Media rejoice.
We ask WHY a person would lack a belief in the existence of God.
We find two possible reasons:
1. They are confident in His absence
2. They are NOT confident in His absence
Those who feel they have a rational, intellectual foundation on which to base confidence in the absence of God are what I call Atheists
Those who are not confident in God’s absence have admitted by default that God MAY exist in their view, and thus they are what I call Agnostics

Am I saying that, on the popular Social Media definition, some atheists are agnostics? No. I am saying that ALL atheists are agnostics.

What the WHAAAAAAATTTT??!?

Here’s the problem for the Atheist (position #1.) They DO have a burden of proof and it is a doozy. The ONLY way for a person to be an intellectually rational atheist is to prove that God’s existence is IMPOSSIBLE. If they cannot do that, they cannot be a rational atheist. They are merely an agnostic who REALLY REALLY REALLY doesn’t want to admit God may exist.

Before you go throwing full wine bottles at your computer screen, let me explain:

There are only three possible options for any person, place, thing, event, or idea:

Impossible: It CANNOT exist in any possible world. For example, a square circle, or a married bachelor, or a five sided triangle.
Contingent: It MAY exist in some possible world (Meaning, its existence in the real world would not be a contradiction or an impossibility). If it does exist, it is dependant on something/someone else to bring it into existence. For example: Root beer, Beethoven, ostriches, coffee mugs, Mr. Potato Head, or the episode of Start Trek about the Tribbles.
Necessary: It MUST exist in ANY possible world. If you describe the whole of reality as being without this, your description is wrong. Examples: God, the number five, opposites, bacon.

This is really simple. I am talking about the God of the Bible, or as He is sometimes known, “The one TRUE God.” So if your description of what you call “God” is contingent, you are not talking about God. You’re just using the word wrong.

And we can argue to His being necessary in a variety of ways. First, because the Bible describes Him that way, and who are we to doubt His resume? And scientifically, because the universe needs a cause, and that cause must be God, and objective morality needs a cause, and that cause must be God, and every event needs a cause, but we can’t logically have an infinite regress of causes, so God must be the first, unmoved mover, or the first uncaused cause, etc.

The church has been writing on these things for two thousand years. So needless to say, I am summarizing here.

While there are no doubt lots of religions and atheists who describe God in ways which would make Him impossible, those descriptions are all wrong and do not agree with His self revelation in the Bible (Which is the only description I am interested in). The one true God as we learn in scripture, science, philosophy and history is necessary.

This brings us back to the atheists.

In order for a person to be an intellectually rational atheist, and have an actual confidence in the existence of God, they would have to prove (to themselves at least) that God’s existence is IMPOSSIBLE. But that means coming up with an argument which proves that a necessary being is impossible. I have likened this to writing a persuasive essay meant to convince the reader that words do not exist. You can try, but no one will ever succeed at this task.

Thus, no one can be an atheist. Everyone who claims that title must, if they are honest, admit that God MAY exist even in their own worldview. They may FEEL strongly that He does not, or that they do not want Him to, but they cannot say they know better. Not if they are honest.

This is why I have said that, even when defined in the popular social media way, atheists do not exist. Even if we start with defining atheism to be a mere lack of belief in God, all persons who would describe themselves as being atheistic are in fact agnostics who must, if they are honest, admit that God may exist. If they spent more time asking questions instead of pretending they already had answers, they could start making that journey from ignorance to theism, and then, when they get to know God personally, Christianity.

This is where you have the following talk with God;

“Say, the One True God, you are perfect and Holy, and I am a sinner. Can you help me with that?” and He says, “I already did. I lived a perfect, sinless life and died as the sacrifice which pays for your sins so that, if you choose to believe in me, you can have eternal life.” And you say, “Thanks, the one True God!” and He says, “Please, call me Dad.”

Really Jesus taught us that. Still knocks me over that God wants to be our Heavenly Daddy.

It’s the best news that ever was, and of that there can be no debate.

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Your Definition of Atheism is Counterproductive

Posted on September 15, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

Remember when you could use the word “Atheism” and everyone knew what it meant? Remember the days when a man could declare himself an atheist and everyone knew what he was trying to say? Thanks to the efforts of social media, those days are now gone.

Here’s a little insight into one of the many reasons why I reject the social media treatment of the word “Atheism.”

And as a serious question to everyone who is going to take me to task for wanting to define atheist to mean “atheist,” just fill in this blank for me: A person who’s position is, “God does not exist” is called a______________.
Because as of right now, I’ve not gotten a word that means that from all of my friends on social media. Which is why I still use the word Atheist.
Thanks!

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How to Spot an Atheist, A Bit of Orange Pictures, Ltd. 1947

Posted on September 13, 2016 by A Bit Of Orange

What is atheism? What is an atheist? How do you spot an atheist? Learn how in this educational film!

Much to our surprise, the definition of Atheism offered on social media from our loyal viewers, specifically that Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of God, has not only been around for longer than we thought, but A Bit of Orange Pictures Ltd. made an educational film about it back in 1947! We’ve dusted it off and offer it to you at this time.

Posted in atheism | Tagged atheism | Leave a comment

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