Jul

29

Correlation ≠ Causation

July 29, 2008 by Brandon | 3 Comments

Idiots in St. Louis think the action of praying for gas prices to come down has worked! Here’s the story.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – Two prayer services will be held at St. Louis gas stations to thank God for lower fuel prices and to ask that they continue to drop. Darrell Alexander, Midwest co-chair of the Pray at the Pump movement, says prayer gatherings will be held Monday afternoon and evening at a Mobil station west of downtown St. Louis. Participants say they plan to buy gas, pray and then sing “We Shall Overcome” with a new verse, “We’ll have lower gas prices.”

An activist from the Washington D.C. area, Rocky Twyman, started the effort, saying if politicians couldn’t lower gas prices, it was time to ask God to intervene.

The group thinks the prayer is helping, saying prices are starting to fall below $4 a gallon.

Here’s a little lesson for you theists out there: Correlation does not equal, or even imply, causation. If I have a headache, and pray for God to take my headache away and then take two Advil, the fact that my headache goes away isn’t because I prayed to God, it’s because of the Advil. This is the same damn thing.

Seriously people. Let’s for a moment entertain the thought that God does exist and even entertain the thought that he answers prayers. I’d be disturbed if that’s the sort of shit that God answers when there are prayers for dying children to get better or for world peace.



Jul

27

I’m always glad to hear about people who are taking their churches to court, especially concerning child abuse via “exorcisms”.

By MAX B. BAKER, Star-Telegram

Laura Schubert Pearson was an impressionable 17-year-old when friends in her church youth group thought demons possessed her.

Repeatedly, over two days, the youth pastor, his wife and others held the girl down on the floor of the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God Church in Colleyville, even as Pearson screamed, fought and begged to be released.

They cast it as wrestling with the devil.

But she said it was “like being pummeled by this very large group. These were our friends, people we hung out with.”

The 1996 episode left her physically and emotionally scarred, and “this stuff is still hard to talk about,” Pearson told the Star-Telegram after the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her lawsuit against the church June 27. The majority said the courts can’t get involved in a religious debate over church doctrine.

Pearson, now 29 and living near Atlanta with her new husband and her children, said: “You can’t use your religious beliefs to get away with harming a child.”

After the exorcism, she dropped out of high school her senior year, began to cut herself as many as 100 times over several years, and refused to leave the house. Pearson slit her wrists with a box cutter.

Her father, a former missionary and minister, became an agnostic.

But Pearson and her parents, Tom and Judy Schubert, say they are willing to go to the U.S. Supreme Court in their fight against a church they once loved.

As the parents see it, Pleasant Glade members abused their daughter in the same way a husband or a boyfriend abuses a wife or a girlfriend — and all under the guise of serving the Lord.

“This is so much bigger than myself,” Pearson said.

“This is about not allowing the cover of religion to permit physical abuse in a church, and particularly to a child,” Pearson added.

Story continued…



Jul

5

“Gabriel’s Revelation”

July 5, 2008 by Brandon | 34 Comments

After several years of scholarly discourse and analysis, the conclusion appears to be that there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of a stone table inscribed in Hebrew known as Gabriel’s Revelation.

What exactly is this though? Well, the tablet dates back decades prior to the supposed life of Jesus, and details an apocalyptic revelation given by the angel Gabriel. More specifically, it discusses a suffering messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

BAM! You’d think that Christians would be jumping for joy over this little thing, but hold that thought; let’s look at this for what it really is. We now have evidence that the myth of a suffering messiah existed in Judaism prior to the life of one Jesus H. Christ. As the article linked to above discusses, that’s sort of what made Christianity unique; the idea of a suffering messiah was contrary to all contemporary notions of a Jewish messiah, who was thought to be a warrior-king. However, we now have proof of an archetype in Judaism of the suffering messiah that Jesus was, meaning that it is no longer unique.

Now that we know that this idea was floating around, how hard would it have been to develop the myth more? How hard would it have been for any random fanatical person to take it upon themselves to become this messiah? During this period, sneezing could probably have gotten you crucified, so being a rabble-rousing iconoclast would certainly turn some heads and put you on a fast track toward suffering martyrdom.

All you’d need is a bunch of sheep-like followers to continue your story.



Jul

3

(CNSNews.com) – As the price of oil continues to rise, some are turning to God and prayer for an answer to their financial troubles.

The Pray at the Pump Movement, founded by Rocky Twyman, has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country. On Monday, Twyman decided to take his movement from Exxon and Shell stations straight to the steps of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., hoping to encourage the oil-rich country to raise the amount of barrels they release each day from 200,000 to 1.2 million.

Twyman, who is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, spent the afternoon outside of the embassy praying and asking passersby to sign his petition for the release of more oil, which he hopes to deliver to the Saudi oil minister.



What is Fractal Wrongness?

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

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