Matt Barber makes a hackneyed argument. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Those who deny the existence of their Creator are delusional.
This is not an insult. It’s not a personal attack. It’s not a pejorative.
It’s a fact.
They’re also “fools.”
It’s a fact
, huh? Then I presume he’ll show me the evidence or reasoning. You will not be surprised to learn that his argument consists entirely of quoting the Bible.
Here’s my running commentary on ChristianMingle: The Movie from last night.
The primary election season is fundamentally over. Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination. Compared to the 2008 election, it wasn’t even close.
The only way Sanders can win now, and he knows it, is to get all those undemocratic superdelegates to unilaterally switch over to vote for Sanders, ignoring the popular vote, which makes them even more undemocratic. He can’t do that without betraying the a core principle of his campaign, that he’s representing the will of the people.
My wife and I are Sanders supporters. He’s the guy we want, because we want someone to shake up the status quo (in a positive way, not a Trumpian way). We stayed up late to listen to his speech, because face it, the campaign has basically been over for weeks, and his further efforts are becoming quixotic. I wanted to see the man address the reality.
He didn’t. He lost California, New Jersey, Montana, South Dakota, and New Mexico, and won North Dakota. And he vowed to fight on to the very last primary in Washington DC, which is sort of defiantly virtuous, I suppose, but it isn’t going to help. Worse, I listened to his audience, and when he mentioned Hillary Clinton (graciously!), they booed. This worries me, because Sanders has two paths to take at this point.
One, he ignores the data and goes to the convention in Philadelphia, determined to get his way, with his supporters determinedly anti-Clinton. Clinton simply ignores him, takes the official nomination on the first ballot, and starts campaigning against Trump without looking back. This is where “fighting” gets him: he loses, and he loses influence.
Two, he recognizes reality, admits he lost to the better politician, and goes to Clinton and tells her that he can deliver the general election to her — he does have a solid base of support. Then he gets concessions on the party platform, maybe has a say in the vice presidential pick, and in return pledges to campaign for her against Trump. If he wants influence, he’s got to stay in the loop with Clinton for the next six months and beyond.
And to do that effectively, he’s got to stop fighting and start working to get his supporters who are booing Hillary Clinton on board with the election that counts.
Hillary Clinton is not the candidate I wanted, but she’s competent and will be decent middle-of-the-road president. She will be a better president if she listens to and respects the voice of Bernie Sanders, and that’s what I want to see happen in the near future.
Hollywood doesn’t use enough CGI and mindless violence. They could learn a thing or two from Bollywood.
I’ve been very naughty, and I must be punished. So I’m actually considering torturing myself by watching Christian Mingle: The Extended Commercial on NetFlix tonight, even though I think the trailer gives away the entire plot already.
You know, I actually feel a tiny sense of obligation. Christian Mingle has been pushing their ads on this site for so long, that I suspect a goodly portion of my blogging revenue has come out of their pockets. I’m also hoping that if I mention their site here their ads will pop up more frequently, so I can take even more of their money.
I think it’s a safe time, too, because we have no alcohol at all in the house. Any other time this movie would drive me to acute alcohol poisoning, no problem. I may start screaming and have to duck out for whisky in the middle, though. I may also collapse gibbering before it ends, and not make it all the way through. No guarantees.
Anyway, my plan is to fire it up at 8pm Central time, and I’ll be spewing commentary on Twitter at that time. Feel free to join in; watch along with me, chip in on Twitter or in the comments here. Or stage an intervention and stop me from blowing my brains out my ears watching this treacle.
I confess, I’m not a fan — I consider him among the worst of the big name science popularizers, and every time I listen to him I’m either more confused or irritated. I also find his forays into biology generally ignorant and wrong, and he seems to be most popular among lay people who consider him an apologist for god. For example, here’s this wanker who claims Kaku has found definitive proof that god exists.
The theoretical physicist Michio Kaku claims to have developed a theory that might point to the existence of God. The information has created a great stir in the scientific community because Kaku is considered one of the most important scientists of our times, one of the creators and developers of the revolutionary String Theory which is highly respected throughout the world.
To to come to his conclusions, the physicist made use of what he calls “primitive semi – radius tachyons “.
Tachyons are theoretical particles capable to “unstick ” the Universe matter or vacuum space between matter particles, leaving everything free from the influences of the surrounding universe.
After conducting the tests, Kaku came to the conclusion that we live in a “Matrix”.
They include this video of Kaku in which, I note, he does not provide proof of god, does not claim to have a proof, and most of that garbled stuff above doesn’t appear (although, as quoted here, he does make claims of concluding that the universe was created by an intelligence
). Instead, this video is mostly about the interplay between physics and mathematics.
It does conclude with some gibberish.
But you see, all this is pure mathematics and so the final resolution could be that God is a mathematician. And when you read the mind of God, we actually have a candidate for the mind of God. The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.
I think he’s transcended pure mathematics to reach a plane of pure bullshit.
But Kaku seems to be ubiquitous, despite shoveling a heck of a lot of noise, and the happy Christian quoting him claims he’s one of the most important scientists of our times
. I don’t get it. I see someone who is more Deepak Chopra than Stephen Hawking. But I could be wrong — anyone care to enlighten me on the source of this guy’s popular authority?
As expected, Thunderf00t has a new video crowing about the failure
of the Reason Rally. But I’ve been reading the stuff put out by people who attended.
Trav Mamone thought it was great.
Matt Facciani had a grand time.
Adam Lee got a charge out of it.
Some guy named Ed Brayton made a series of videos about it.
I’m beginning to wish I’d gone — everyone is making the point that the reason for the Reason Rally was more than just making a big mob scene, but getting together as a community for a day. That sounds like a success to me.
As for the haters, Adam Lee has a smart comment on that.
The usual sneering bigots asserted that the rally’s anti-harassment policy must have kept people away, a claim with the same plausibility as a Bible-thumper blaming gay rights for earthquakes.
That’s the only positive spin I can put on the awful story of Brock Turner. For those who’ve missed out on the outrage, Brock Turner was a Stanford athlete who found a drunk woman passed out behind a dumpster, and he proceeded to do what any privileged male asshole would do: he raped her. He was caught in the act however, and tried to run away, and was put on trial.
Awful enough so far. But then once he was convicted, the judge decided to give him a light 6 month sentence, because prison would have a severe impact on him
. Yes? Isn’t that the point? Of course, the judge, Aaron Persky, was also a former Stanford athlete, so this is clearly a case of a judge seeing someone who looks like him, so he must be a good boy…
So injustice is compounded. But then, just to make me truly sick to my stomach, Turner’s father made a statement. This is why I say fathers matter — because Dan A. Turner is an oblivious asshole who raised an asshole. This is appalling.
Since we’ve got one of those keep your social justice outta my atheism
types babbling in the comments here, I thought I’d point out that Deacon Duncan has a good response to those kinds of conservatives.
We atheists are supposed to stay focused, stay on message
, but the only message they’ll tolerate is that god doesn’t exist and religion is bad, with no thought about why or the implications. It makes for a rather boring and repetitive message, and lacking in introspection.
You may notice a wild proliferation of parentheses on social media lately — that’s because it was discovered that white supremacists have been flagging the presence of Jews by bracketing their name with triple parentheses, so everyone is mocking them by putting our own names behind triple parens.
I thought these racists were already pathetic, but I did not know how low they could sink.
It’s worth noting that the internet’s anti-Semites hate when their culture is appropriated by their opponents. For example, when internet users started repurposing Pepe the Frog, a previously racist meme, a white nationalist lamented:
Most memes are ephemeral by nature, but Pepe is not… He’s a reflection of our souls, to most of us. It’s disgusting to see people (‘normies,’ if you will) use him so trivially. He belongs to us. And we’ll make him toxic if we have to.
Which makes stealing the bigots’ signature symbolism for Jews all the more fun.
Say what? This is Pepe the Frog.
If that’s a reflection of their soul, that reflects very badly on their souls. Also, the character was part of a webcomic created by Matt Furie, so they actually don’t own it.
