Month: September 2017

“‘Come now, and let us reason together,’
Says the LORD”-Isaiah 1:18

A few other interesting examples in light of our study are what, for reasons that will become obvious, may be termed: the apologist’s life verse.

“but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason of the hope in you, with meekness and fear” (1st Peter 3:15).

Some of my books, all of which you can find here or here:

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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

In keeping with New Atheist Tactics 101, atheist activist, Dan Barker, has been touring college campuses.

Dan Barker is the co-founder of The Freedom From Religion Foundation which is an anti-Christian support group which was established in the USA, a country premised upon the concept of freedom of religious expression.

The founding axiom of the FFRF is as follows:

There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world.

Thus, this org is premised upon a positive affirmation of God’s non-existence (see here)—this axiom represents dogmatheism.

Dan Barker’s claim to infamy is his one (out of) tune note: that he is an ex-preacher. This actually makes his shocking lack of knowledge of the Bible’s contents, concepts and contexts all the more remarkable—and inexcusable.

“…the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned”—1 Corinthians 2:14

The lecture’s topic is based on his book “The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-filled Life Without God.”

So much to is packed into a simple title: what is “good,” what is an “atheist,” what is “purpose” what is “life,” what is “God,” etc.?

But, let us just take it as is: “The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-filled Life Without God.”

It is astonishing that Dan Barker would take it upon himself to lecture on “good” since, he argues, as an example, that nothing, not even rape is absolutely immoral because he can think of an exception for anything.

Well, if he can do it—out of philosophical convenient—why cannot God do it—in order to bring about His sovereign purpose for good? You see, he does not even realize that with that claim, not only can he justify any immorality but he has done away with “the problem of evil” since God too has His reasons for allowing evil.

Here are three interesting statements by Dan Barker:

Darwin has bequeathed what is good…abortion is a blessing.

[Stated during debate with John Rankin – Evolution and Intelligent Design: What are the issues?]

…a fetus that’s the size of a thumb that has, what, what would you put it in a little locket and hang it around your neck?

[Stated during his debate with Dinesh D’Souza – Christianity versus Atheism]

Jesus was “a moral monster”…There is no moral interpreter in the cosmos, nothing cares and nobody cares…what happens to me or a piece of broccoli, it won’t the Sun is going to explode, we’re all gonna be gone. No one’s gonna care.

[Stated during his debate with Paul Manata]

Now, what of the issue of purpose; can one live a purpose-filled life without God? Well, of course, this is because “purpose” is merely utility, it is a function. What he means to ask, or state, is Living a meaningful Life Without God which is another matter altogether. For example, purpose is intrinsic and meaning extrinsic: purpose is inherent and built in whilst meaning is from without and bequeathed.

For example, you see a baseball bat and it has a purpose: to hit a ball—or, bust some skulls! Yet, when you are told that the bat belonged to Babe Ruth, all of a sudden the bat has meaning, meaning which you have bequeathed unto it.

For details on this issue, see: Meaning and Purpose

Atheists claim that meaning to life is something which we come up with, something which we decide for ourselves. Indeed, this is an admission that meaning is extrinsic, it is bequeathed from without and that in an in an atheistic universe life has no intrinsic, objective meaning. The problem arises when one person give meaning to their lives by being like Mother Theresa and another by being like Adolf Hitler—see Atheism on Meaning and Purpose.

But why do atheists insist on targeting the youth (note that atheism is a young white male phenomenon)? Here are some reasons that are particularly applicable to the college crowd:

1. They are naturally rebellious.

2. Gullible.

3. Easily confused about rebellion against “religion,” on the one hand, and rebellions against God, on the other.

4. Just got away from mommy’s apron strings.

5. Have raging hormones.

6. Are in unsupervised co-ed situations.

Well, you do the math. They are basically acting like modern day temple prostitutes who bring people over to their side with promises of easy, guilt-free, uncommitted sex. If this is not the case then, why do they constantly condemn Judeo-Christian morality (whilst plagiarizing Judeo-Christian morality)?

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Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Twitter
page, on my Facebook page, on my Google+ page and/or the “Share/Save” button below the tags.

Some of my books, all of which you can find here or here:

Social networks:
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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

Who says that atheists do not have holyday traditions? It has become a tradition that the closer we get to December, the more perturbed some atheists get as celebrations of Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, and miscellaneous are afoot.

As per usual, during a time of the year when people are generally more inclined towards charity—peace on earth and good will towards non-gender specific personages—some atheists are busily collecting hundreds upon hundreds of thousands worth of currency during a time of recession not in order to help anyone in real material need but in order to purchase bill boards and bus ads whereby they seek to demonstrate, to themselves, just how clever they consider themselves to be. These included, “billboards all over, including 10 in Albuquerque and eight in Las Vegas. And it has adorned 100 Seattle buses.”*

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is an organization established in the USA which is a country premised upon the concept of freedom of religious expression. The FFRF was founded by two atheists, Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, who believe, by “faith,” in the non-existence of God—this is dogmatheism.

The FFRF seems to have an aversion to the world’s great religions promulgating joy and peace and come December, it seems as if they consider their budget for the following year and calculate how many lawsuits they will have to file in order to play the martyr-underdog and beg for donations—they are the underdogs who are not under God (a little dyslexia humor). This past December they decided to pepper Albuquerque with their (not so) unique brand of anti-Christian and pro-atheism messages; Let us succinctly consider some of their billboard messages:

“Imagine No Religion” This is quoted from the John Lennon song, “Imagine” which is an atheist anthem that calls for conversion to atheism as it states, “I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one.” Activist atheism is not simply about living non-God related lives but about seeking converts. Lastly, we do not have to “imagine no religion” but merely have to consider the history of the last century; the most secular and bloodies century in human history.

Yet, no one can condemn “religion” as does God and the Bible: find the evidence here.

“Praise Darwin”
Here we see another atheist tendency; the doing away with a supernatural God and replacing Him with natural gods. “Praise God” is replaced by “Praise Darwin” as the FFRF somehow infers that God does not exist based on biology. See the essay iTheism.
Dan Barker, has stated, “Darwin has bequeathed what is good” and apparently, what is good is that “abortion is a blessing” and concluding that Jesus was “a moral monster.”

“State/Church: Keep Them Separate” / “Keep Religion Out of Government” This demonstrates an activist atheist tendency towards confusing the US Constitution’s “Establishment Clause” against a state religion which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishing of religion” with Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists in which he references “a wall of separation between Church and State.” Jefferson, deist or not, attended Christian church services in the Capitol Building. Ironically, the FFRF would have called for his impeachment for doing so. Apparently, the FFRF understand Jefferson better than Jefferson understood Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence states that we have inalienable rights that have been given to us by “our Creator…nature’s God.”

Dan Barker stated, “There are no gods…There is only our natural world,” thus his ultimate goal is to remove “religious” influence in government and replace it with atheistic influence.

“Reasons Greetings” Another anti-Christian quip replacing “Season’s Greetings.” The FFRF came very close to quoting the Bible which states, “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD” (Isaiah 1:18). Dan Barker has stated, “we also champion reason as its [faith’s] replacement, as the only viable tool of knowledge.” Yet, ask him to justify his reliance upon reason from reason and he will reason to reason which is circular logic (actually, we cannot reason to reason as no epistemic system is ultimately self-validating).

He also misunderstands faith which is not, as the atheist talking point defines it, belief without evidence but trust; that upon which we rely once we have followed reason, evidence, etc. as far as it will go; the very same upon which he relies in order to positively affirm that “There are no gods.”

“Yes Virginia…there is no God”
This represents another of many examples of the FFRF making positively affirming God’s non-existence without providing proof. This is the very sort of “faith” based belief that the FFRF condemns in others. Annie Laurie Gaylor stated, “there is no god…it’s true.”** Frankly, such honesty, in coming out and expression atheism as denying God’s existence is refreshing, but how long will they expect us to agree with them on “faith”? As stated above: this is dogmatheism.

We can only hope that the FFRF and others will continue their propagandizing as it gives occasion to pull the mask of erudition away from the zealous atheist preacher.

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* Ann Grauvogl, “Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor are happily God-free,” Isthmus, December 18, 2009 AD
** Monica Guzman, “Seattle’s atheist bus ads: So, Virginia, is there a God?,” Seattle pi Blogs, December 14, 2009 AD

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Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Twitter page, on my Facebook page, on my Google+ page and/or the “Share/Save” button below the tags.

Some of my books, all of which you can find here or here:

Social networks:
My Amazon author’s page
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Archive video site
Ken Ammi’s Product Reviews
My CafePress shop
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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

I have placed the following “Angry Atheist Birds” related images into my CafePress site where you can purchase them upon t-shirts, stickers, etc. Featuring Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Dan Barker.

Find my CafePress shop here.

Also, please spread the word about these as CafePress is a great outlet for reaching many but the sales commissions are not so great.

Here are a few examples of the images available:

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A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.

Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.

Twitter: #Atheism, #Shirts, #CafePress
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Sorry, but I just happen to love the word “lucre” and it does seem applicable.

I have, sadly, been adding a few more essays into the Atheist Bus Ads and Bill Boards category with the advent of the apparently annual rearing of the ugly head of atheist bus ads and billboards.

Ariane Sherine, Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, et al, are hard a work promulgating their own cleverness via the ads like so many questioners before a mirror asking “Mirror, mirror on the wall; who’s the cleverest of them all?”

Last year, upon being asked, Ariane Sherine assured the atheists who had nothing better to do with their money than donate it to not helping anyone in any sort of real material need that they could be assured that not one single penny would go towards anything but ads:

Many people have asked how the extra funds are going to be used…every penny of the total is going directly towards the atheist adverts. If you have an innovative idea about how we could advertise more effectively…please let us know…Atheists have truly pulled together to make ourselves heard, and it’s exciting to imagine what we could achieve in the future.

She asked what to do next and for innovative idea about how we could advertise more effectively. Well, ok, let us see, how about an ad that states:

We repent! In a time of recession we did not bother thinking of the needy and did not lift a finger to help them. We are truly sorry that our atheism has made us anthropo-self-centric and we threw some much money away simply to demonstrate how clever we think ourselves to be whist spitting in the face of religious people during the holidays.

I’d buy that ad for a shekel.

Her article was entitled, ‘Probably’ the best atheist bus campaign ever – Thank you! Now you’ve made the campaign such an extraordinary success, we all need to think about what to do next

Well, by now we know what they did next: in the guise of concern for the free thought and free choice of children they launched a campaign which seeks to convert children to atheism. We know this because some of the very, very influential atheists involved have admitted that this is their goal (see here). Thus, when we see them taking such actions we know that which motivates them as they have admitted it—now it is merely a matter of connecting the obvious, evidential dots.

These particular atheists have most certainly made themselves heard and I, for one, am somewhat torn. On the one hand, I would love to see them go beyond their parochial and self-centered concerns and I would love to see the needy receive much needed help. On the other hand, considering that their various atheist bus ads and billboards are openly, proudly and loudly exhibiting illogically and responses to non-existing arguments they are ready made lessons in well-within-the-box-atheist-groupthink. The ads/boards are a self-service refutation of atheist talking points.

If you read atheist’s comments on various related issues, you will be hard pressed to fine find one single one lamenting the worldwide atheist’s stunning lack of true humanitarian charity but they simply pull the old and dry as dust atheist card which they pull whenever they do not have a counterargument: “You do it too!” This, the tu quoque response, may demonstrate hypocrisy but it in no way defeats the original argument. In fact, it is tantamount to an admission of the original argument’s success in that it ignores it and merely attempts to redirect.

Certainly, studies show that atheists are the least charitable, moral and sociable amongst us but some atheist organization do actually engage upon humanitarian work. I tend not to emphasize this since it has almost become a sort of inside joke to see how many atheists respond emotionally when the self-centered greed of their celebrities and their adherents is pointed out to them. Think too, how much more would those humanitarian efforts help the needy if so much money was not being wasted on bus ads and billboards that are mean to express prejudice based cleverness.

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A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out. Here is my donate/paypal page.

Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Twitter page, on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.

Twitter: #Atheism, #RichardDawkins, #FFRF
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Barack Obama administration’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated, or admitted,

The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me and say, ‘We want you to pass immigration reform,’ and I said, ‘I want you to speak about it from the pulpit. I want you to instruct your’ — whatever the communication is…The people, some (who) oppose immigration reform, are sitting in those pews, and you have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the gospels.1

Now, just what are cardinals, archbishops and bishops doing in asking of Nancy Pelosi that the government pass immigration reform? Regardless of your view on the issue itself; they are acting in accord with the Constitution of the United States of America’s First Amendment which references that one “right of the people” is “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Now, just what is Nancy Pelosi doing prescribing to cardinals, archbishops and bishops what they are to preach from their pulpits?

Has she just become a neo-pseudo-evangelist?

She stated, “I want you to speak about it from the pulpit. I want you to instruct…you have to tell them…”

Is she anti-antidisestablishmentarianism?

I am bringing is up for one reason which is to ask; where are all of those organizations who are constantly on the lookout for the slightest infringement of the separation of church and state?

Here is the House Speaker, the third in line from the presidency dictating to the church what they are to preach from the pulpit and it is that which the state wants.

I have checked for outrage from various such organizations via articles, press releases, law suits, etc. What are the results?

Dan Barker’s “Freedom From Religion Foundation”
Utterly nothing to say.

“American Civil Liberties Union” (ACLU)
Utterly nothing to say.

“Americans United for Separation of Church and State”
Utterly nothing to say.

“Theocracy Watch”
Utterly nothing to say.

“Talk to Action”
Utterly nothing to say.

I wrote to all of these groups asking them to direct me to any relevant articles, press releases or lawsuits, etc.
The response was that the only one that wrote back—Theocracy Watch—had not even heard of Nancy Pelosi’s comments.

I also checked:

Sam Harris
Utterly nothing to say.

Richard Dawkins
Utterly nothing to say.

I know that this will come as no surprise but; these groups are quite obviously not interested in the un-biased upholding of the laws of the USA, its Constitution, etc. They are anti-conservative, anti-traditional morals, anti-Judeo-Christian support groups—period.

Buy the way and as an aside but an side that is not besides the point:
The separation of church and state does not exist in the USA’s Constitution or Declaration of Independence. The Constitutions contains the Establishment Clause that prohibits the government from establishing an official religion. The concept of Church-State separation derives from letter written by Thomas Jefferson.
This is the same President of the USA Thomas Jefferson who, deist or not, attended Christian church services at the Capitol Building—something for which he would now be sued or impeached. Apparently, modern atheist activists think that they understand Jefferson better than Jefferson understood Jefferson.

Asked for clarification, a Pelosi spokesman issued the statement: “From health care to energy security to immigration reform, the speaker believes the faith community has played and will continue to play a critical role in our national debate.” Pelosi said the church “has an important role to play” in teaching about dignity and respect, and “as a practical matter” it’s not possible to tell 12 million illegal immigrants to “go back to wherever you came from or go to jail.”… Pelosi said she prays for her colleagues all the time, Democrats and Republicans alike.

“It’s a beautiful thing to listen to different points of view. From a religious perspective we come from a similar Catholic background but sometimes we have to come to a different conclusion about how we translate that into public policy,” she said.

This is all well and good as she can believe “the faith community has played and will continue to play a critical role in our national debate.” She can pray “for her colleagues all the time.” That she misrepresents the position of her opponents as merely and solely stating that 12 million illegal immigrants “go back to wherever you came from or go to jail” is another issue.

We now continue, from part 1 wherein we described what Yoga is, considering the issue of Yoga in public schools. This issue has come and gone at since circa the 1960s and has arisen again via the Encinitas United School District in California (the EUSD).

On the official EUSD website Tolerance Magazine’s article Yoga in Public Schools. Instantly one gets the message as the article is accompanied by illustrations which very clearly encourage religion with tax payer funded public schools. In the attached slide show you will see that one illustration is of a teacher levitating above her desk, in the tax payer funded public school classroom, in a lotus meditative position, with hand in the gyan mudra position (which looks like an “okay” hand symbol), and eyes closed behind whom is a mandala style illustration, on the chalk board, of a flowering lotus plant.

The other illustration is of a child who is, literally, bent over backwards on the floor of the classroom (same floor as that in the teacher’s illustration) reading a book out of which is flowering the lotus plant.

But let us not judge the article and thus the EUSD upon illustrations—telling as they are—but consider the text which the tax payer funded public school district saw fit to link from their official website.

The article notes that teacher Chelsea A. Jackson:

…had been turning to yoga to help manage stress, and had found that the practice improved her fitness, attitude and self-confidence. Why couldn’t her students benefit in similar ways?
She covered her classroom window with construction paper to reduce distractions. She showed her students how to focus on their breathing. She demonstrated a few simple poses.

Good question, “Why couldn’t her students benefit in similar ways?” They could and they could do so in the very same manner as she: in their personal time off of public school grounds.
One wants to ask “Where is covering windows, focusing on breath and performing Yoga poses in the curriculum? That is most certainly a good question and yet, the problem is that we then raise the curriculum above the law, above the constitution and above ethics. This is because if it is not in the curriculum a school district could simply place it therein and the argument ends—at least on that level.

You will find that much of the push for getting Yoga into public schools is based on the ends justify the means. Simply stated it is simply asserted that if it helps students then it must be okay:

Student attention spans increased. They were resolving their own conflicts. Lessons went more smoothly…her students would request a “few minutes for breath”… And a limited—but growing—body of research indicates yoga for kids may be an effective strategy for proactively managing classroom behavior and efficiently boosting student learning and performance…

broad-based evidence of yoga’s potential benefits for students awaits research on a larger scale, limited studies and anecdotal evidence continue to convince educators to give it a chance.

Students are requesting “few minutes for breath” but what if they request “few minutes for prayer”? Then they would be told that what they are requesting is illegal and that, perhaps, they can do it as long as no one knows about it, as long as they don’t get caught. Locally a school teacher told a student that she could not say “Merry Christmas” because that was a bad thing.

Well, there are a myriad of practices that students would find beneficial (such as prayer, for which there is a tremendous amount of evidence) so why pick one that has admittedly religious roots? No separation of ashram and state apply here?
But does Yoga have religious roots? We covered this in part 1 and also the article in view elucidates this question:

Yoga’s history stretches back thousands of years, and its practice has roots in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious practices in India and East Asia. It has been described as a discipline for focusing and connecting mind, body and spirit, and has found adoptees among other religions as well as the non-religious. That its “adoptees” are both religions and non-religious is where they hedge their bets as they go on to note:

A secularized form that emphasizes fitness and stress-reduction is now well established in Western countries, and one can find a proliferation of yoga studios in most American cities.

Indeed, one can attend a Roman Catholic church and partake of the eucharist during the mass in the act of communion and claim that it is not religious because, “Well, I don’t believe that the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Jesus.” One can keep kosher and claim that it is not religious because “Well, I’m not Jewish, I just find that it is a healthy diet.” Indeed, one can water down and redefine that which they will and yet, the reason for watering it down and redefining it is because of its religious premise.
In fact, Caryl Matrisciana, who was born in India and lived there for two decades, interviewed Yogis, Yoga’s gurus, who are offended that Westerners are watering down Yoga by claiming that it is not religious (see link below).

The article also notes that Susan Solvang, executive director of K–12 Yoga in Milwaukee, began a pilot program in Cass Street School wherein, “The instructors taught mindful breathing.” But why does anyone need to be taught to breath? No one does; this is about teaching how to breath or rather how to focus on breath so as to cause a meditative state whereby the mind is opened up to well, whatever is poured into it (the specific purpose was elucidated in part 1).

Perhaps the worst part of the article to which the EUSD linked is that it recommends fooling people who do not know any better by hiding the yogic nomenclature, “In some instances, instructors can address concerns by a yoga demonstration sans yogic nomenclature.” This is what Yoga instructor Tara Guber did at the Accelerated School in Los Angeles.
In the next segment we will see that the official EUSD curriculum is not so shy but actually teaches Yoga, “Using the actual names of the poses.”

Elliot Miller notes the following in his article Yoga for Kids: Yoga in Schools (an article which provides a lot of the legal battles fought over this issue):

Tara Guber, the creator of the “Yoga Ed.” program that was implemented in Aspen, simply took the overtly Hindu language out of the program while keeping everything else intact, and the strategy worked. As the Associated Press reported: Guber crafted a new curriculum that eliminated chanting and translated Sanskrit into kid-friendly English. Yogic panting became “bunny breathing,” and “meditation” became “time in.”

“I stripped every piece of anything that anyone could vaguely construe as spiritual or religious out of the program,” Guber said.

Note that she most certainly did not strip Yoga of anything that anyone could vaguely construe as spiritual or religious. What she did was to keep everything that anyone could vaguely construe as spiritual or religious but hid it behind alternative terminology.

The article notes:

…some parents who believe its roots in Eastern religions mean it should have no place in public schools.

And, of course, Tolerance Magazine could not go without singling out one, and only one specific religion as opposing that which is so very beneficial for children:

Some devout Christians fear it could lead young minds toward other religious beliefs or mysticism. A few districts have banned yoga, as well as visualization practices or meditation instruction.

Of course, the issue is that if you could prove that Yoga is utterly religious and involves all sorts of occult practices—which it does and which is very, very easy to prove—many parents would think that it was just wonderful and that of course it should be allowed in tax payer funded public schools

And another of the myriad of reasons for not having your children in public schools rears its religious head.

Here are some relevant books:
Knowing the Facts about Yoga by John Ankerberg and John Weldon

Should Christians Practice Yoga? by John Weldon

A DVD: Yoga Uncoiled From East to West by Caryl Matrisciana

For more info see the following videos:
Yoga as Christian Occult Practice by Caryl Matrisciana

The Yoga Boom: What are Christians to do? by Elliot Miller

For more background and consideration of some Hindu philosophy see the video:
Bill Honsberger – Hinduism and Advaita Vedanta: the Roots and Fruit of a Movement