Recent Comments

1. about 22 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   Trump wraps himself in the flag of a nation whose call to service he dodged ( fake“bone spurs”), holds a Bible he has never read and calls for law and order while he heads the most lawless administration in history and presides over unprecedented chaos.

   Trump thumps the Bible after every hush money payoff to a porn star.

   In the words of the late Molly Ivins: “I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves in the flag.”

2. 3 days ago on Michael Ramirez
   “I listed the quote as sent by another without researching it.”

   This is how conservatives start and spread baseless conspiracy theories. You see something on the Internet and pass it along without verifying it.

   Why should anyone take any comment from someone who spreads unchecked rumors seriously?

3. 4 days ago on Doonesbury

   You have it backwards.

   If you can’t follow the simple rules of civil society, YOU stay home.

4. 5 days ago on Doonesbury

   Yes, it is a demonstration of Darwin at work.

   And yes those who self-select against being those “fittest” who survive are going to take down a lot of other innocents with them who will have no say in their demise, such as low-wage, underpaid workers in prisons, meat-packing plants and nursing homes who are now being told that they must report for work or lose all benefits including unemployment and that they cannot sue their employers, who Trump and McConnell seek to grant immunity.

   It is a crime against humanity.

5. 11 days ago on For Heaven's Sake

   The Bible runs the full gamut from the good to the bad to the ugly. What it is NOT is a reliable source for instruction on ethics, morality, fact or anything remotely resembling a consistent guidance system.

   While there may be occasional flashes of inspiration and primitive wisdom in the Bible (as in any ancient book of myths and legends), the Bible as a whole is a compendium of mythology, filled with numerous atrocities (supposedly commanded by god), direct internal contradictions and factual errors the cherry-pickers never seem to include in their Sunday School lessons. This becomes clear if we examine the origins and structure of the Bible, compiled over hundreds of years by scores of writers, each with their own biases and often conflicting opinions and values.

   The Bible — largely plagiarized from earlier Sumerian and Babylonian mythologies — is no better and certainly no more literally factual than the mythologies of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Incas or Mayans, who were far more advanced in science, math and culture than the primitive tribal Hebrews, and whose religious mythologies evolved into modern sciences, unlike the anti-science postures of Bible literalists.

   Here are HUNDREDS of specific examples of atrocities supposedly commanded by god, direct internal contradictions, factual errors, and failed prophecies that they never teach in Sunday School, with each example fully documented with chapter-and-verse references that true believers can look up in their very own Bibles:

   http://danizier.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/the-blasphemy-of-bibleolatry/

6. 14 days ago on For Heaven's Sake

   This is the bottom line: some people are so determined to believe an ancient writing by primitive, barbaric sheep herders and fishermen who didn’t know where the sun went at night (and were repeatedly conquered despite an angry, jealous, invisible sky god who did NOT protect them from being repeatedly conquered (Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans), that they will ignore any facts or go to any lengths to ignore evidence that proves their legends to be mythological.

   They believe this without the slightest shred of external corroborating evidence and despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, because early indoctrinators and the book itself says it is so (though they don’t seem as open to that idea when Muslims point to THEIR equally-flawed book and make the same claim).

   They will even say that a bustling metropolis, including ancient remains of its earliest days, including the island portion, the mainland portion, the causeway linking them, all still there, isn’t really there.

   It is all still there. The fact that you can just close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears and go “la-la-la-la-la — I can’t see you“ doesn’t mean every inconvenient reality ceased to exist.

   I know you will reject even the most obvious evidence.

   But anyone seeing this exchange can bear witness to how you are so determined to prove a falsity that you even deny the existence of an entire city that is NOT BARE ROCK and WAS REBUILT, bigger and better than ever before.

7. 14 days ago on For Heaven's Sake

   I am not disputing that the city of Tyre suffered major damage during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. Aside from the fact that Diodorus Siculus is writing about 400 years after Nebuchadnezzar and could hardly write a contemporaneous account, no one is disputing the event.

   What is absurdly failed is the prophecy.

   Tyre is still there. The island is still there, connected to the mainland by a causeway built by Alexander. IT IS ALL STILL THERE. The old city. The island. The mainland portion. Tourists can take tours.

   And really? There are some bare rocks where fishermen spread their nets? So because there are some bare rocks it means the whole city is still bare rock? Where the hell do you think those fishermen spreading the nets live?

   You will not convince me because your facts are wrong. But I can be convinced with facts and evidence. It happened before. I was like you. Other than, say, some likely denominational variation on details, my very fundamentalist view was similar to yours.

   But unlike you, I followed EVIDENCE and FACTS.

   If the evidence and facts proved your views (my former views) I would still hold them.

   But the reason I do not hold those views any longer, and am not likely to return to them, is because the evidence and facts prove those views to be false.

   So in Josh McDowell’s metaphor, there is, indeed, “evidence that demands a verdict” only that verdict is not the one he asserts. But I suppose you can find a “lawyer” to argue any frivolous assertion.

8. 14 days ago on For Heaven's Sake
   Oh puh-leeze, Ken. You note that I cite many secular historians. People who have actually studied history.

   YOU, on the other hand, cite a Christian apologetics site, a professional whose career is dedicated to using tortured semantic gyrations trying to explain why the Bible doesn’t really mean what it clearly says. The apologetic is not objective. He assumes a conclusion in advance and then looks for the evidence to prove his a priori predetermined conclusion.

   In contrast, MY starting assumption was a belief similar to yours. I believed the Bible to be the inerrant, infallible Word of God. But unlike you, when I examined the evidence and followed the facts, after a period of traumatic self-examination and reflection, I went with the evidence.

   You, on the other hand, stick with ancient myths and legends, riddled with provable flaws, written by primitive barbarians from tribal sheep herders and fishermen who didn’t know where the sun went at night, copying from older writings, trying to explain a universe beyond their capacity to comprehend.

   I clearly noted, in citing Josh McDowell’s spectacular crash-and-burn failure, that there is a modern city there. THERE IS ALSO A HISTORIC OLD CITY ON THE ORIGINAL SITE. It was even REBUILT by the time of the New Testament, with NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES!

   The prophecy says “scraped bare” and “never built.”

   It was not scraped bare. Ruins FROM THE ORIGINAL SITE still remain.

   It was not “never rebuilt.” It was rebuilt, restored and expanded.

   But thank you for a perfect example of the lengths to which religious extremists will go trying to say that black is white and fiction is truth and a bustling metropolis, with a core historic ancient center, is not really there, even though thousands of tourists prove you wrong every day (when there isn’t a pandemic going on).

9. 14 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Love your comment! One of my web pages is devoted entirely to the subject of how Paul directly contradicts, opposes and undermines Jesus on every major point of doctrine, law, morality, ethics and theology.

   Every aspect of modern conservative evangelical “Christianity” is the polar opposite of what Jesus reportedly taught.

   Help the poor? Feed the hungry?

   Heal the sick? Welcome the foreigner?

   Drive out the money changers? (Today’s conservative “Christians” ARE the money changers)

   The conservative wing of “Christianity” does not follow Jesus, they follow the renegade “apostle” Paul, who completely contradicted Jesus on every key point of doctrine, theology, law, morality and ethics.

   Conservative “Christians” follow Paul, who opposed almost everything Jesus ever taught.

   Liberal Christians try to follow Jesus.

   For specific examples, including chapter-and-verse references to how Paul contradicts Jesus:

   http://danizier.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/paul-vs-jesus-and-james/

10. 14 days ago on For Heaven's Sake

    Sorry, Ken, but you have not actually addressed my points. My site cites hundreds of direct contradictions, factual errors and failed prophecies, regardless of how the apologists (who do, in fact, have much to apologize for) try to go through convoluted verbal gymnastics trying to explain why, what the Bible clearly says in its full context, it doesn’t really mean.

    Your sources are a joke. They are proven liars.

    In the interest of space, I will give you one specific example. Josh McDowell, in Evidence That Demands a Verdict, cites as an example of how the Bible prophecies come true, the destruction of Tyre. He cites that chapters 26-28 of Ezekiel predict that during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar [Ezekiel 26:7] the city of Tyre will be utterly destroyed, become a bare rock [Ezekiel 26:4; 26:14 — KJV says “like the top of a rock”; NIV says “scrape away the rubble and make a bare rock”], and never be rebuilt [Ez 26:14; 26:21].

    Reality is utterly humiliating for poor Josh.

    The fact is that Tyre DID GET REBUILT and today has more than 20,000 inhabitants at the core of the “old city” (on the original site), surrounded by a metropolitan area of more than 100,000 people! (Even within Bible times, long after the battle described by Ezekiel, Tyre had already been rebuilt and, in New Testament times it is still portrayed as a city (Mark 3:8) and as a harbor where ships could unload (Acts 21:3,7), so this could also qualify as a contradiction.

    So if this is the quality of your sources, please provide specific examples because listing names, especially discredited ones, embarrasses only yourself and discredits your assertions.