The Catholic Church and Adam and Eve

The Catholic Church faces a real conundrum; on the one hand they do accept much of evolution and the things that it implies. They do accept that much of the Old Testament is nothing but allegory, the Noachian Flood was not real, the earth (and universe) is billions of years old…not 6000, etc.. These tales are now allegorical, metaphorical, only meant to teach, not to be taken as true by Church members.

However there is one story that they dare not lose to allegory…that of Adam and Eve, the sole ancestors of the human race. Science has been telling us for a few years now that this story is impossible, that there was never a time when the human race was down to just two individuals, or eight with Noah and his extended family. The bones have been telling us this for many years now, DNA science has just recently confirmed this.

We also now know that we are related to the many ‘pre-human’ genus Homo’s that walked the earth well over 25,000 years ago. Our Homo-sapiens ancestry goes back at least 200,000 years to the African continent, and we know that most of us have a percentage of Neanderthal genes/blood in our makeup.

This is another instance of the Church fighting science, and losing, as they have for a few thousand years now. The information given above are not undocumented assertions, they are now proven and testable science.

If they admit that Adam and Eve are metaphorical beings (and they ARE), then Jesus (if he was real), died for a metaphor.

It’s either this or the Church must come up with a new explanation for the existence of ‘Original Sin’, and a totally new Dogma. Kinda’ plays havoc with the Catholic assertion that all human have a ‘soul.’

This could also segue into the controversy about abortion and when the fetus has a ‘soul’ or is ‘human’

Interesting times ahead I think.

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Destroying America

The things that the Reverend Barber is railing against here are the favorite projects of the Republican Party nowadays. They do not help America anymore, they are destroying it piece by piece.

“It is extreme and immoral to suppress the right to vote,” It is extreme and immoral to deny Medicaid for millions of poor people especially people who have been elected to office and then insurance simply because they’ve been elected. It is extreme and immoral to raise taxes on the working poor and cutting earned income taxes, and to raise taxes on the poor and the middle class in order to cut taxes for the wealthy. It is extreme and immoral to use power to cut off people’s water in Detroit. … It is extreme and immoral to end unemployment for those who have lost jobs for no fault of their own. It is extreme and immoral to re-segregate our schools and underfund our public schools. It is extreme and immoral for people who came from immigrants to now to have a mean amnesia and cry out against immigrants and the rights of children. It is mean, it is immoral, it is extreme to kick hardworking people when they are down. That’s not just bad policy. It’s against the common good and a disregard for human rights. … In fact, this kind of philosophy rooted in the policies of immoral deconstruction, if you look at them carefully, they are historically inaccurate, they are constitutionally inconsistent, they are morally indefensible, and they are economically insane.”–Reverend William Barber

http://www.dailykos.com/#

Close the NSA ?

The latest moral crisis to ruffle the feathers of both the common man and celebrities is the recent leaks regarding the NSA’s surveillance programs. Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the agency is given the power to collect Americans’ phone metadata in bulk, and not even the rich and powerful are immune.
Read more at: http://www.webpronews.com/now-celebrities-are-even-coming-out-against-the-nsa-2013-10

We already know that the NSA has seriously mishandled stuff they are collecting.

We should NEVER trust the federal government to do what they say.

Electronic Surveillance is Everywhere

We live in the golden era of surveillance; every phone is designed to be tapped, the Internet passes through snooping equipment of agencies that are so vast and unaccountable that we hardly know their bounds. Corporations are forced (though some are willing enough!) to hand over our data and data of those whom we love. Our lives are ruled by networks and yet those networks are not ruled by our consent. These networks keep us hooked up but it is not without costs that they keep us hooked together. The businesses, the governments, and the individuals that power those networks are incentivized to spy, to betray and to do it silently. The architecture of the very systems produces these outcomes.—This is tyranny.

http://craphound.com/homeland/Cory_Doctorow_-_Homeland.pdf

Think of the Dark Ages

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.  –Robert A. Heinlein

There Is NO Conspiracy Going On

Excerpt from Rachel Maddow on her show Wednesday after the election:

“”Ohio really did go to President Obama last night, he really did win. He really was born in Hawaii, and he really is, legitimately, president of the United States again. And The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy. And the polls were not skewed to oversample Democrats. And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math.

And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes. And evolution is a thing! And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us. And nobody is taking away anyone’s guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually. And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. And the moon landing was real. And FEMA is not building concentration camps. And UN election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.””
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/rachel-maddow-republicans-shellacked-election-night_n_2092290.html

In other words…Republicans wake the f_ck up.  There is no Democratic conspiracy going on to turn the US into a communist or socialist state.  President Obama is NOT a closet Muslim trying to get rid of the US constitution.

The anti-Obama anti-Democratic Party rhetoric that Fox news, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others have been making up and spewing the last four years is just insulting.  Insulting to blacks, Hispanics, other minorities, people with intelligence, women in general and those of us who live in a world of reality, good sense, and good will towards ALL men/women.

If And When Those Preachers Get Control

Mark my word; if and when those preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem.  Frankly those people frighten me.  Politics and governing demand compromise.  But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise.  I know. I’ve tried to deal with them.
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Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

Religion is Crazy Dangerous

The page that the following link will take you too graphically illustrates why religion is crazy dangerous and must be held in check

http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/files/2012/06/More-than-one-reason.jpg

I knew bad things were going on, but like most people I think, I kind off disassociated from it.

Be sure to click the magnifier over the tiny column on the left.

Dawkins on Evolution

Religion vs Death

Anyone who still thinks religion has been a benign force in this world need to read the compilation that James Haught made in a 1990 edition of the Skeptical Review.  Below is a segment to whet your appetite:

“– The Thirty Years’ War produced the largest religious death toll of all time. It began in 1618 when Protestant leaders threw two Catholic emissaries out of a Prague window into a dung heap. War flared between Catholic and Protestant princedoms, drawing in supportive religious armies from Germany, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France and Italy. Sweden’s Protestant soldiers sang Martin Luther’s “Ein ‘Feste Burg” in battle. Three decades of combat turned central Europe into a wasteland of misery. One estimate states that Germany’s population dropped from 18 million to 4 million. In the end nothing was settled, and too few people remained to rebuild cities, plant fields, or conduct education.”

I’ve had people tell me that it is men doing these dastardly deeds and not God or the religion.  I have to disagree with this interpretation.  There are passages in the Bible and Koran that are constantly interpreted / misinterpreted and used as an excuse to maim and kill those who believe differently.  The Catholics and Protestants still barely talk to each other, and the Muslims still kill anybody that disagrees with them.  The Muslims kill the Hindus and the Hindus kill the Muslims

“It’s fashionable among thinking people to say that religion isn’t the real cause of today’s strife in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, India and Iran — that sects merely provide labels for combatants. Not so. Religion keeps the groups in hostile camps. Without it, divisions would blur with passing generations; children would adapt to new times, mingle, intermarry, forget ancient wounds. But religion keeps them alien to one another.

Anything that divides people breeds inhumanity. Religion serves that ugly purpose.”

Remember this was written before  9-11

A passing thought as I go to close this post.  The Republican Religious Right wing wants to return a measure of religious control to America