Brand New Atheist

Isaac Zamora went on a shooting rampage last week in Washington. He killed 6 people. His reasoning was “I kill for God. I listen to God.” His attorney, Keith Tyne, said “Clearly there are significant mental health issues at play.”

If you do something good in the name of “God” you are praised, but when you do bad it is “mental health issues”. Why do people who believe in God believe it when someone says God spoke to them and they did something generous but they refuse to believe God would have someone take out a few lost souls?

You can’t have it both ways. Either you believe God talks to people or you don’t and just because the action is bad doesn’t give you the right to reject it as crazy. If a person who does something bad in the name of God is considered crazy then that would also apply to anyone who does something good in the name of God.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080911/ap_on_re_us/shooting_rampage

This is my first 9/11 as an atheist.

9/11 isn’t a holiday but it has become a day that Americans remember being attacked by religious extremist. America is the head of the snake. Yes, I know where I was on 9/11.

I was really ignorant about why anyone would hate our country. Like most Americans I spend my time with my family or working.

After becoming an atheist I now realize that religious extremist are what come from showing respect to religion. Religion doesn’t deserve respect nor should we give it. I’m not talking about people, I’m talking about religion. People can be religious, they can change and be non-religious, but religion will always be religion.

This is my first Labor Day as an atheist.

First I’m going to explain what Labor Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: I have no idea what Labor Day is about. People working, is that it? Really?

After Research: It’s about people who worked over 100 years ago and got the day off. I guess they needed a holiday for that.

I worked on Labor Day and the Sunday before that and the Saturday before that. I run my own business and holidays mean nothing to guys like us.

My daughter had a friend over and I did what normally do which is scare children. I burst into my daughters bedroom and yelled, “SQUIRRELS”, after the girl jumped I pointed at her and laughed and said, “You’re afraid of squirrels”. As I was taking them to a party we passed a church and I yelled, “CHURCH”, after she jumped I said, “You’re afraid of church”. A few minutes later I asked her “Why are you afraid of squirrels and church, what’s the connection?” She laughed and said, “”I don’t know”. All of the sudden it dawned on me and I said, “I know what they have in common.” my daughter said, “What?”, I said, “Nuts!”

My girls have been homeschooled and will be starting Montessori in 2 days. Today was an open house for attendees. We got to walk around and meet the teachers and see their work areas.

I only saw one teacher wearing a cross and one of the teachers looked like jesus, not kidding.

As I was walking around the very first book I saw was “God gave us this country” which made me think “Come on, seriously”. The second book I saw started with the word “Lord” and before I could finish reading the title I thought “This can’t be right” then I finished reading “of the flies”. OK, that’s better.

Here’s a very small list of items that are wrong in the Bible, I would like you to explain how you deal with them.

Before I became an atheist my wife believed the bible was the inerrant word of god as many christians do. After only few conversations with her she changed her mind. That lead me to wonder how other believers (who think the bible is the inerrant word of god) would respond if I pointed out the same things.

If you already know these things then you’re not my demographic. I’m wanting to know how people respond to receiving this information for the first time.

Believers, before you get started please write down what your answer is before you do research. I would like to know if you change your answer after your research. I would like to know if you thought the Bible was the inerrant word of God and what you believe now.

1. The Bible refers to the Bat as a bird. (science has proven this to be wrong)
Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18

2. The Bible refers to the Earth being flat. (science has proven this to be wrong)
There’s too many, here’s an article that lists them all. http://www.goatstar.org/the-bibles-flat-earthsolid-sky-dome-universe/

3. The Bible refers to the Earth as being the center of the solar system. (science has proven this to be wrong)
1 Chronicles 16:30, Job 9:7, there are others but these are the easiest to interpret.

4. The Bible refers to the Moon as having it’s own light. (science has proven this to be wrong)
Genesis 1:16, Isaiah 13:10

5. The Bible condones slavery. (written in the text of the Bible)
Too many to list, here’s a link to them all http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/interp/slavery.html

6. Adam didn’t die the day he ate from the tree of knowledge. (written in the text of the Bible)
Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3:6, Genesis 5:5

7. The Book of Judas and Book of Jasher are missing. (written about in the text of the Bible)
Book stores already have the Gospels of Judas on the shelves http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5327692, Joshua 10:13

8. The virgin Mary was a mistranslation of the maiden Mary. (written in the text of the Bible)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8ntlyrXnY

9. The Bible speaks of the unicorn which has never been proven to have existed. (written about in the text of the Bible)
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i2/unicorn.asp

10. Atheists can’t get into heaven. Does that also mean Jesus didn’t let Peter into Heaven? (written about in the text of the Bible)
Matthew 10:33, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzzORZhnCao

I sent this list of questions to about a dozen believers, a couple pastors, a couple friends and not a single person ever replied.

As I was writing the title I thought “I bet people are going to think I meant something else”.

After nearly 3 days of manually moving the old site posts and comments to this new site, I’m done. I transfered each of them lovingly and manually adjusted the dates to their original dates. Now that I’m suing this new technology, if I ever move my site again it will be much easier.

Check out the new site, leave comments if you have them, let me know If something appears to be wrong with the site. I’m very happy with the new site.

I’m still converting another of my sites, it’s much larger than this one.

I hear atheist say that it’s ignorant to actually claim to know that there isn’t something out there. They are giving the opinion that we certainly don’t know everything and this too is truly unknown. Claiming differently to them is foolish. I completely disagree.

I don’t have to consider the possibility of a God because of some old book and people’s beliefs. That’s no different than claiming all the other Gods have just as much right to be possible. And I say no they don’t.

I’m going to make up a God right now. It’s name is “Puedam”, but when pronounced in it’s native tongue it sounds like wind. It has 4 nipples and feet like a camel. It’s all powerful and all knowing. Now that this God is out there you have to consider the fact that it could be real. Claiming otherwise makes you foolish. This is what other atheists have convinced themselves they must do to remain rational. They’ve convinced themselves that this is what separates them from people who believe in Gods without any proof of said God. I say you don’t have to consider the possibility that something is possible because of clever writing or popular belief.

I will never believe in Puedam, nor will I waste my time considering its legitimacy. Puedam is no different than the God or Gods people believe in today. He was made up by thinking men for a purpose. Puedam was invented to make a point, God was invented for crowd control. However, in thousands of years Puedam will be listed as possible Gods people believed in and I just made it up.

So to all you atheist out there that say it’s irresponsible of me to claim to know that there isn’t a God (regardless of my own belief in that God) just because there’s no evidence, you can bugger off.

P.S. Puedam will be at next years Comic-Con signing autographs, yeah, get your God to do that.

I’m taking some time to convert this site to WordPress which will allow for more flexible posting.

This will enable me to post from more locations, for instance this post is being created from my iPhone.

When I’m done importing all of the older posts, this site will be in much better position to move forward.

This is my first Independence as an atheist.

I asked my girls what holiday today was and they both said “4th of July”, I explained the “4th of July” is a date not a holiday. My youngest said “Independence Day” which surprized me. I told Karen that if it had been on another day we might not refer to it as the date itself. For instance, we woulnd’t refer to “Independence Day” by it’s date had it been October 23rd or the 23rd of October. It just so happens that “4th of July” rolls off the tongue easily, that has to be the only reason we refer to ID that way.

I’ve never appreciated or understood ID more than I do now. While I don’t really have an allegance to America I do think this is a good country even with all of it’s problems. I’m not proud to be an American, I don’t understand how you can be proud of something that you never had a choice about. That’s like saying you’re proud to be short or proud to be old. Most people believe in the God that is believed by most of the people in that area, how can you be proud of that.

I’m very ignorant about other countries because I’ve never been outside the US, not even to Canada. I was born and raised here, I didn’t have a choice to be American.

What’s great about this country is that after 36 years of being a christian I did the research and realized that Gods aren’t real and I became an open atheist and no one is trying to kill me. I believe if I had been born in the UK no one would be trying to kill me either. However, had I been born in a country that believes in Allah I don’t think I could be an open atheist.

Independence Day is a great holiday but how long before it doesn’t matter anymore and no one cares? As long as people think “4th of July” is the holiday they get to shoot fireworks it may never end.

Independence was a step forward for this country but with all of the religous policy in government too many steps backwards are being taken.