Jun

28

Get it? Fractal Followup? Sort of like the Factor Followup? No? Eh, I find it amusing.

Anyway, in today’s Fractal Followup, we return to Minneapolis where there was a planned gay festival. At said festival, a family of evangelical Christians had a habit of passing out bibles to the masses of homosexual sinners every year. Having had enough of being told they’re going to burn in hell, I assume, they decided to rent out an entire park, giving them rights to allow whoever they wanted in.

Guess who wasn’t included?

Guess who decided to ignore this and went to pass out bibles anyway?

Guess who had their bible-thumping asses arrested for trespassing?

These guys.



Jun

27

I suppose he was for releasing it before he decided against it.

Ethiopian Orthodox patriarch Abuna Pauolos announced that he never was going to reveal the Ark of the Covenant:

Following on from my last post, apparently we all missed this report in Adnkronos last week , which includes a clarification from Ethiopian Orthodox patriarch Abuna Pauolos:

Non sono qui per dare delle prove che l’Arca sia in Etiopia, ma sono qui per dire quello che ho visto, quello che so e che posso testimoniare. Non ho detto che l’Arca sarà mostrata al mondo. E’ un mistero, un oggetto di culto.

A Freeper has helpfully provided a translation:

I am not here to give proofs that the Ark is in Ethiopia, but I am here to say what I saw, what I know and I can attest to. I didn’t say that the Ark would be revealed to the world. It is a mystery, an object of veneration.

via Ethiopian Ark of the Covenant Not To Be Revealed After All « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion.

My translation? “Uh, yeah, about that Ark. We have it. Oh, believe me, we have it. I’ve seen it. But you’re just going to have to take my word for it, because you’ll never get to see it. It’s uh, a mystery. To everyone. But me. I’ve seen it. I’m telling you I’ve seen it. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

Epic fail.



Jun

27

Religion Continues Its Descent

June 27, 2009 by Brandon | Leave a Comment

An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details the religious affiliation of the American public and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.

via The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey Reveals a Fluid and Diverse Pattern of Faith – Pew Research Center.

Ok, that doesn’t sound too bad for religion, right? Well it is. The survey also concludes that 16.1% of adult US citizens claim no religious affiliation at all, which is double the claim of children with no religious affiliation. 4% of that share are people who say they are either atheist or ball-less agnostics, which is more than twice as many Jews in this country.

The survey also finds that Protestantism is on the decline in the United States, and among non-immigrants, Catholicism, too is on the decline. Protestantism only makes up for 51% of the population.

This survey is similar to one that I believe I wrote about before, as it also discusses the fluid nature of faith in America. People change their religions like they change their underwear. I know Christians will skip from church to church, really without realizing the ramifications of that. Not all Protestant churches share the same beliefs, but people are more concerned with finding a place where they simply feel comfortable attending than they really care about what’s being taught from the pulpit. To me, that signifies a downturn in religiosity, as the faith itself isn’t the important factor, but instead it’s the social factor and feeling of belonging.



Jun

25

I have a good article for you to read that points out exactly why I have issues with “liberal” or “progressive” theists. Most of these individuals will argue that they aren’t like their fundamentalist brethren, and true, in many ways they aren’t. They aren’t the ones bombing abortion clinics or killing doctors; they don’t attend funerals and scream hateful slogans. Many of them are even democrats! But there’s a problem… they’re part of the problem.

But how, exactly? They aren’t out doing these things that most of us “New Atheists” take issue with. But in general, they also aren’t speaking out against them. In fact, they will often come to their aid when they feel that their beliefs are being threatened. Atheists such as myself understand the root cause of the problem is religious belief, and we attack that when radical believers do stupid things. The liberal believers will jump in and say, “Hold on a moment, those were just radicals. They don’t represent us.” But they do. They represent the dark side of religious belief, a dark side that will always exist so long as religion exists.

A commenter to the article put it in terms that I liked; liberal believers are the carriers of the virus, though they don’t often show symptoms. So long as the virus exists, it will spread, and some of the infected will become symptomatic. You don’t cure a disease simply by treating people who show symptoms, you have to rid the carriers of it as well.

Strong words, for sure. But it has to be said.



Jun

24

It’s been said that the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia has hidden away the mysterious Ark of the Covenant, the divine container which supposedly houses the tablets of the ten commandments, the rod of Aaron, and a sample of heavenly Manna. A theory, and I use that term loosely, has been constructed suggesting that the Ark was smuggled out of Jerusalem by Menelik I, the son of King Solomon, who then settled with the Queen of Shebia in modern-day Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s royal bloodline claims to be descended from them.

The current patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, while meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, announced that the Ark of the Covenant would be revealed for the entire world to see.

The question remains whether or not the patriarch will allow the alleged artifact to be tested by science to at the very least verify its origin and age. Of course, one simple test that I would be more than happy to conduct myself would be to simply touch the object.

In 2 Samuel, God struck down Uzzah, a man who dared to reach out and place a hand on the Ark to prevent it from toppling over. There are also passages which tell of countless people being killed by merely looking upon the Ark, and Numbers tells Preists that if they were to look at the Ark at an improper time, it would result in immediate death.

The Patriarch is going to have a problem if people don’t immediately drop dead after viewing this glorious box, because either it isn’t the true Ark, or the Bible’s account of it is false.



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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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