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/#

All Religions Blaspheme Each Other

 

“. . .because all the major religions in fact blaspheme one another, and ought by their principles to engage in crusade or jihad each against the others – a profoundly disturbing thought. They blaspheme each other in numerous ways. All non-Christians blaspheme Christianity by their refusal to accept the divinity of Christ, because in so doing they reject the Holy Ghost, doing which is described as the most serious of all blasphemies. The New Testament has Christ say “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me”.

This places members of other faiths beyond redemption; they are damned if they know this claim but do not heed it. By an unlucky twist of theology, Protestants have to regard Catholics as blasphemers too, because the latter regard Mary as co-redemptorix with Christ, in violation of the utterance just quoted. All non-Muslims blaspheme Islam because they insult Mohammed by not accepting him as the true Prophet, and by ignoring the teachings of the Koran.

Jews seem the least philosophically troubled by what people of other faiths think about their own – but Orthodox Jews regard themselves as religiously superior to others because others fail in the proper observances, for example by not respecting kosher constraints. All the religions blaspheme each other by regarding the others’ teachings, metaphysics and much of their ethics as false, and their own religion as the only true one.”—A C Grayling

http://www.acgrayling.com/the-secular-and-the-sacred

 

Charles Darwin Day

Today is Darwin’s 205th. birthday.  He turned our world upside down, and was one of the greatest scientists of all time.

I raise my glass and drink to his memory.

Ramen

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

Our Cousins The Neanderthals

Are They Prophets ?

Why Christianity is still dangerous to humanity

The long term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise.  Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to his Church’s public marks of the covenant-baptism and holy communion-must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.  Gary North

I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools.  The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.  What a happy day that will be.   Jerry Falwell

There will never be world peace until Gods house and Gods people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.  Pat Robertson

Who Wrote The Bible

It is now not only admitted by intelligent and honest theologians that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, but they all admit that no one knows who the authors were, or who wrote any one of these books, or a chapter or a line. We know that the books were not written in the same generation; that they were not all written by one person; that they are filled with mistakes and contradictions. It is also admitted that Joshua did not write the book that bears his name, because it refers to events that did not happen until long after his death.

No one knows, or pretends to know, the author of Judges; all we know is that it was written centuries after all the judges had ceased to exist. No one knows the author of Ruth, nor of First and Second Samuel; all we know is that Samuel did not write the books that bear his name. In the 25th chapter of First Samuel is an account of the raising of Samuel by the Witch of Endor.

No one knows the author of First and Second Kings or First and Second Chronicles; all we know is that these books are of no value.

We know that the Psalms were not written by David. In the Psalms the Captivity is spoken of, and that did not happen until about five hundred years after David slept with his fathers.

We know that Solomon did not write the Proverbs or the Song; that Isaiah was not the author of the book that bears his name; that no one knows the author of Job, Ecclesiastes, or Esther, or of any book in the Old Testament, with the exception of Ezra.

We know that God is not mentioned or in any way referred to in the book of Esther. We know, too, that the book is cruel, absurd and impossible.

God is not mentioned in the Song of Solomon, the best book in the Old Testament.

And we know that Ecclesiastes was written by an unbeliever.

We know, too, that the Jews themselves had not decided as to what books were inspired — were authentic — until the second century after Christ.

We know that the idea of inspiration was of slow growth, and that the inspiration was determined by those who had certain ends to accomplish.

Robert G. Ingersoll, 1894

IS THE OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRED ?

IS THE OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRED?

If it is, it should be a book that no man — no number of men — could produce.

It should contain the perfection of philosophy.

It should perfectly accord with every fact in nature.

There should be no mistakes in astronomy, geology, or as to any subject or science.

Its morality should be the highest, the purest.

Its laws and regulations for the control of conduct should be just, wise, perfect, and perfectly adapted to the accomplishment of the ends desired.

It should contain nothing calculated to make man cruel, revengeful, vindictive or infamous.

It should be filled with intelligence, justice, purity, honesty, mercy and the spirit of liberty.

It should be opposed to strife and war, to slavery and lust, to ignorance, credulity and superstition.

It should develop the brain and civilize the heart.

It should satisfy the heart and brain of the best and wisest.

It should be true.

Does the Old Testament satisfy this standard?

Robert G. Ingersoll, 1894