God's Priorities

The crash, and subsequent rescue of all 155 people on board of US Airways Flight 1549 has been described as a miracle. Predictably, God has gotten a lot of credit for this feat.

So, while God was "intervening" in this crash, let's take a moment and look at some things that might have warranted a little divine intervention thus far in 2009:

1. A British man was jailed for 11 years for sexually abusing and raping his daughter, stepdaughters and granddaughter over a 30-year period.

You would think God might have intervened ONCE during that 30 year period. Maybe he was just trying to teach those daughters a spiritual lesson. Maybe they didn't have enough "faith."

2. UN official reports horrific hospital scenes of casualties.

Among the casualties: A child, six years of age, little or no brain activity, people don't have much hope for her survival; multiple amputee – another little girl; and a pregnant woman who'd lost a leg.

3. Rape is on the rise.

4. In just two days, reclusive rebel leader Joseph Kony and his fighters raped over 80 Congolese women in the towns of Faradje and Tadu in the Orientale province in the north- eastern DR Congo.

5. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan rebel group, has gone on a rampage in the Haut-Uélé region in northeastern Congo. Over 400 people have been killed around the towns of Faradje, Duru, Bangade, Gurba, and Doruma since the 25th of December.

The Lord's Resistance Army... umm, Go God?!?

6. 565,650 - That's how many Americans will die from cancer this year. That's 1549 each day, 64 people each hour, just over 1 per minute.

Guess this is God's Way of thinning the herd.

7. 10 million Kenyans face starvation, govt to declare national emergency.

Matt 6:32 - Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'

See, if these Kenyans just had more faith, it would be all good...

8. Father found guilty in the freezing death of his two daughters.


I think you get the point.

If you believe in God, why is he so picky about where he intervenes?

The safety of the US Airways passengers was no miracle. There was (and is) no divine intervention. The credit lies mostly with Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his crew who trained for situations just like this... And to the people who designed and built the plane to stay afloat in situations like this.

Last Gasp for the Holiday

Seth MacFarlane is absolutely hilarious. He's the creator of Family Guy. Below is a new video from his video shorts collection on YouTube.

Enjoy!

"Godless" - Capitol Visitor's Center Opens

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is not a fan of the new Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington, DC.

Apparently, the government has opened a new visitor's center at the Capitol, and somehow, in the process, failed to mention that the United States was founded by men who believed in God or a god.

It's about time, if you ask me.

Some of the Founding Fathers were Christians. Most were not. Kudo's to the Capitol Visitor's Center designers for creating place that honors America's secular founding.

Has anyone actually been there? If so, what were your thoughts?

Tis The Season

The following is an excerpt from the American Humanist Association's Holiday 2008 Campaign.

You can read the full version here.

Isn’t Christmas really about Jesus?

* The holiday season comes from the winter solstice, the first day of winter, which is the shortest day of the year. Usually falling on December 21st, it has been celebrated in the northern hemisphere since prehistoric times. It was marked as the beginning of "the return of the sun" because, after that, the days start getting longer.

* The ancient Hebrews referred to the winter solstice as the rebirth of light, calling it Nayrot, the festival of lights. When Judah Maccabee defeated the Greeks and captured Jerusalem in 164 BCE, he rededicated the temple shrine during Nayrot, renaming the holiday Hanukkah. But because the Jewish calculation of Hanukkah is based on a lunar rather than solar calendar, Hanukkah can begin almost any time in December.

* The ancient Romans held their festival of Saturnalia, the feast of Saturn, at this time. It featured wild parties, gift giving, and halls decked with laurel. However, they miscalculated the solstice date, seeing it as falling variously on December 23rd to 25th.

* When Roman Catholicism replaced ancient polytheism, the Church found it practical to adopt the old Roman holiday, renaming it Christ’s Mass. But this popular move, made in the third century, didn’t meet with complete approval. Christians in the Middle East viewed their European brethren as idolaters and sun worshippers for repackaging this pagan festival as the birthday of Jesus.

* As Christianity spread across Europe, the various “barbarian” cultures added their own pre-Christian solstice practices to Christmas. Thus the evergreen tree was introduced by Germanic peoples; holly and mistletoe, sacred to the Druids, came from the Celts; and the Yule log and caroling were provided by the Anglo-Saxons.

* But some Christians condemned these trappings, especially the Christmas tree, citing Jeremiah 10:1-5 in the Bible: “Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen . . . for one cutteth a tree out of the forest. . . . They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”

* In the early American colonies, most Protestants wouldn't celebrate Christmas, viewing it as a Catholic holiday. This was why George Washington's largely Protestant troops didn't object to crossing the Delaware on Christmas night to attack the Catholic Hessians the next morning. It was just another day to them.

* Only in the 1800s did the holiday begin to gain wider acceptance. Northern European customs were introduced into the United States by the flow of immigrants. So numerous individuals set out deliberately to fashion a secular celebration of the season that would be acceptable to Protestants.

* American cartoonist Thomas Nast created the secular Santa Claus out of the varied European "Old Man Winter" folk images (having their roots in the Norse god Odin). Some fabled attributes of the Catholic Saint Nicholas were added. As for the colors of Santa's suit, they were quite varied until codified in the twentieth century by Coca Cola through its advertising.

* The song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” featuring the line “so be good for goodness sake,” was written in 1934 by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie as a holiday children’s song. It became instantly popular when Eddie Cantor sang it on his radio show that November.

* Because of all this, humanists know that they too can rightly enjoy the winter holidays. To learn how many humanists are celebrating in a specifically humanist way, go to http://www.humanlight.org/

Telling the Parents

I told myself I would never bring it up with my family. I always said that I would be honest, however, if asked directly.

The time came last weekend, at my grandmother's funeral, of all places. I was sitting in the hotel lobby, scarfing down my complimentary continental breakfast and listening as my mother talked about the upcoming funeral and reflected on her mother's life. Mom began discussing how certain members of her family (including my grandmother) were blessed with a gift she referred to as "second sight." Basically, having second sight means you can see dead people.

I guess my smirk gave me away. I tried to be supportive, really I did. I hoped mom would just move on and talk about something else, but she didn't.

"There's something about our family. Lots of them have this gift."

I replied, "I just don't believe in imaginary things like ghosts," The most innocuous, and truthful thing I could think to say.

uh, oh, here it comes. My baseline heart rate went up to about 200.

"Don't you believe in an afterlife?"

"Well, um... no, mom, I don't."

Tears. Sobbing. More tears.

"Why don't we talk about this more later," I offered.

Mom was having none of it. Dad, by the way, sat there in stunned silence throughout the exchange.

"Don't you believe in God?"

The initial shock of telling her had worn off me, heart rate now slowing, calm returning.

"No, I don't. I am an atheist."

More tears...

"I knew it. I knew college and med school would ruin you."

*Wow* Did she just say I was ruined? This was news to me. I resisted the urge to hit back.

"I'm the same son I was 10 minutes ago before you knew any of this. I'm not sure how I all of a sudden became ruined."

She wanted to know "when" this happened, and what happened to her son who "used to have such a strong faith." Fair questions.

When is a tough question. There was no epiphany or eureka moment. It just sort of happened, as I've described in earlier posts.

What happened to my "strong faith," is an easy one. I explained that rather than making up imaginary friends and supernatural powers to explain the things I don't understand, I just thought it was more honest to say, "I don't know."

Dad latched on to this, "So you're really more of an agnostic instead of an atheist." Without going into too much depth, I tried to explain to them that, when it comes to the god they believe in, I am 99.999999999999% sure he does not exist, and therefore, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist.

The rest of the day was awkward, to say the least.

The conversation effectively ended with this statement from mom, "Well, I guess it could be worse. You could've told us you were gay."

Another *wow* moment. I gave mom the benefit of the doubt. After all, we were about 2 hours away from burying her mother. Tough day for her.

It felt good to finally acknowledge the elephant in the room.

I'm interested to know if any of you have had this conversation with your parents or close family.

A Brief Departure from the Theme...

Sorry for the lack of recent activity. Life, work and other stuff sometimes has to take precedence over blogging! :-)

Some of you may know, I'm a huge Ayn Rand fan. The Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights are great resources for free-thinking capitalists. I know there are bound to be a few of us out there. You don't have to be a right-wing religious nut to be an unapologetic capitalist / conservative.

With all the talk of bailouts and financial crisis, the government and our citizens are in need of a little "tough love." Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has an excellent article on Capitalism and how it relates to the current economic situation in the US.

Read the full article here.

Brook makes the following startling, but true statement:

But while capitalism may be a convenient scapegoat, it did not cause any of these problems. Indeed, whatever one wishes to call the unruly mixture of freedom and government controls that made up our economic and political system during the last three decades, one cannot call it capitalism.

Family Guy Religion Compilation

This from your friends at Holy Freak:

Family Guy - quite possibly one of the best shows on television.