Dave Silverman, Communications Director for American Atheists, will be the guest tomorrow (Tuesday, November 8, 2005) on the MSNBC public affairs program “Connected Coast to Coast” with Ron Reagan and Monica Crowley. Dave will be discussing the role of religious belief in the selection of justices to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, and the prospect of a “Catholic dominated” court. Would such a court take up and overturn cases dealing with abortion right (ROE v. WADE), civil liberties, and First Amendment issues like vouchers, school prayer and “special rights” for religious groups? (see Washington Post article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/06/AR2005110601134.html Does religious belief and affiliation matter? Dave will be discussing this controversial topic with Ray Flynn, former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. Tune in to MSNBC tomorrow, Tuesday November 8, 2005 between 12:00 noon and 1:00 PM ET. WHO & WHAT: Dave Silverman, Communications Director for American Atheists discussing religious belief and the battle for the Supreme Court.
Firmament is from the Hebrew word “Raqiya” (raw-kee’-ah) and is defined as…
extended surface (solid), expanse, firmament
expanse (flat as base, support)
firmament (of vault of heaven supporting waters above)
considered by Hebrews as solid and supporting ‘waters’ above
? In context, it seems to refer to the space above the earth, or simply “sky”. God placed the lights in the firmament; birds flew in the firmament, etc.
Goose
So if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the apple,as they were destined to do, we could use our brains more?
I’m sorry, Goose. You’re a nice person, but this is so lame.
Didn’t someone say something a l-o-n-g way back in the threads about it being a myth that we only used 10% of our brains? Might have been escher
escher! escher! escher! If I say your name 3 times, will you appear, like Beeelejuice?
So if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the apple,as they were destined to do, we could use our brains more?
The point is that they rebelled against God. Which you probably know. If they ate an actual apple or not is of less importance.
So the human race fell. Less brain capacity, more diseases, the lions that once played before our feet suddenly want to eat us instead.
Karen,
The thesis went something like “We use 10% of our brain at any one time BUT use all of our brain at different times”
Doesn’t that really sum it up? “I do not care to understand or investigate evolution, therefore I know it is wrong”
Ignorance is bliss.
Goose: You are welome to live in your world of denial – but please do not preach about it being a wonderful place. It is anathema to an inquiring mind.
I AM A TRUECHRISTIAN
Are you actually a christian?
Goose,
It’s a not-very-impressive troll. If we ignore it it might go away.
HeatheNZ
Yes, thank you. That was it, or the gist of it anyway. Was it your thesis? After I said escher, I thought maybe you or JC said it.
Or maybe, just maybe, the amount our brain idles at is determined by evolution, just like everything else.
Can you imagine how much heat would be prodouced inside our skulls if every neuron fired 100% of the time? How about how much we’d have to consume? Imagine the lung capacity we’d require just to keep the oxygen supply up for such a hyperactive brain.
If food is scarce, evolution favors precisely the amount of brain function required to continue to survive. Any more is a waste of energy and resources – bad for any individual, worse for a population. Any less might impede our ability to capture prey or avoid being prey.
And yes, we do use 100% of our brain, we just use different parts of it rather regularly – just not all at the same time. There is nothing at all different between that and accessing information in any other form. If you go to the library, you usually have a purpose for retrieving some specific information – why read every book in the library to find the one you wanted?
It’s patently absurd to imply that human brain function is attributed to a “mythological” fall. Good science beats your bunk superstition any day.
Just watched you on my TIVO, Dave. Well done. It’d be nice to think SCOTUS justices really WILL put the Constitution before the Bible. Time will tell.
atomic -
wish my brain would fire all its neurons all the time, so I could consume as much as I wanted to. That’s my new excuse! I was thinking too much and I need more food!
pixel,
Yep, you’d be pretty thin. As long as you’ve got a good set of lungs too…
Touche!
atomic
There you go, being all rational about the workings of the brain. Isn’t it easier to think that god just made us stupid fer earin’ fruit? Sheesh!
Actually, I think my brain works with microwaves. I think this because it sparks a lot when I wear my tin foil hat to ward off aliens reading my thoughts.
I illegally ripped my brain to my iPod.
r4d
So can you recharge your brain on your computer now?
My computer is my brain. That’s what happens when you eat too much computer.
well, if we could all get our brains wired and jack into our computers like in William Gibson’s novels, we could get rid of our iPods, PDA’s, digital watches, etc. I could Google myself whenever I wanted . . . .
pix
Go ahead and google yourself…no one’s looking. :-0
Yeah, I would be able to buy my very own genetically engineered space ninja too.
I’d go with my BIBLICALLY PROPHECIZED Flying Spaghetti Monster anyday.
FSM 10:1-13 – And the Flying Spaghetti Monster spake unto the masses “THOU SHALT HAVE NO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SPACE NINJA BEFORE ME!”
I have defied YHWH, and I will defy FSM.
SPACE NINJA, ATTACK!!!!
atomic
I have never been sure about the interpretation of this verse. Does it mean we can’t have the GE space ninja before we accept the FSM as our Lord and Savior, or does it mean that we just can’t have the GE space ninja before the FSM has one of His own?
Of course, some orthodox believers say we can’t have the GEspace ninja at ALL…
No evolution? Hmm… Then I wonder why we have these:
male nipples, wisdom teeth, appendix, tonsils, plantris muscle, tail bone, women sperm ducts, male uterus, hairy toes, most of DNA, vomeronasal organ, ear muscles, subclavius muscle, parmalis muscle, sinuses
*rolls eyes* It obviously means that R4D can’t have one but everyone else can. FSM just said it in front of the masses just to make sure that everyone heard it and knows R4D will go to hell which is a pretty nasty place – he sends you back to earth reincarnated to suffer another life with the fundy xtians.
*hands on hips, glaring*
Well, you DON’T have to be condescending. I was just trying to learn sumpin’, is all.
Maybe r4d will be forgiven for lusting after a space ninja, because by “illegally ripping” his brain to his iPod, he committed an act of PIRACY, which would make the almighty FSM happy enough to rain marinara sauce for 40 days and 40 nights.
Except r4d does have that defiant attitude…
Gotta love this. Apparently our company finally got around to putting up websense. This site is banned.
“Your organization’s Internet use policy restricts access to this web page at this time.
Reason:
The Websense category “Traditional Religions” is filtered.”
Traditional religions? How about this one from the FSM site:
Reason:
The Websense category “Entertainment” is filtered.
How dare they categorize the ONE TRUE GOD as “entertainment!”
Hey atomic
Is the Ihatepatrobertson site filtered?
lol, no, surprisingly
GooseHenry:
Welcome back.
“”The longer we live with God and mature the more logical the christian faith seems though.”
To which, H. L. Mencken said, “As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.”
“I do not think there is any reference to a collective memory in the Bible”
Unsure as to whether you said this or not.
There are correlations in nature that demonstrate this. It is hypothetical in re: to humans.
Witness the old experiment w/planary worms. Scientist (I forget the name) teaches a worm to run a maze. Chops it up, feeds it to an isolated worm. Voila! Worm runs maze w/o training.
Birds flying south for the winter. The need to reproduce. The reptilian hindbrain (seeks pleasure, avoids pain).
The three ‘brains’ are ample evidence of evolution. Reptilian, mammalian, neo-mammalian.
Until I observe a ’spontaneous generation’, evolution is what fits the facts around us. Increments.
karen:
“They did what God wanted them to do, because since he knows everything, he knew they would “eat the apple” when he put it before them.”
From Devil in the Gateway : “One would think the best part of omniscience would be knowing when to stop,” – Lucifer.
But, they don’t block http://www.family.org/. Strange how a blog about Atheism would be blocked but rabid fundys are not.
Oh well, Maddox got blocked by Websense too so I guess it’s a badge of honor
reluctant
Ah, yes indeed. Now, what to do, laugh or cry?
Note to all
I was just paying homage at the FSM site, and I saw that the Gospel of the FSM will be coming out in February of 2006! How exciting!
“FSM 10:1-13 – And the Flying Spaghetti Monster spake unto the masses “THOU SHALT HAVE NO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SPACE NINJA BEFORE ME!”
Hmmmm….lessee, from the gist of the sentence, apparently ESN’s existed in tandem (or before! GASP!) w/FSM.
Ninjas? Isn’t that…so 80’s?
& now for an educational moment:
Exodus 20:3 isn’t referring to Gods in the sense we understand it. The word is Eloyihim, but is also applied by way of deferring to magistrates.
Pharaoh (Rameses & others, exception being Ankehaton), Caesars, & the like were also deified.
Also:
“One thing worth noting here is the absence of any insistence on monotheism here. God does not declare that he is the only god in existence; on the contrary, the words presume the existence of other gods and insist that they should not be worshipped. There are a number of passages in the Jewish scriptures like this and it is because of them that many scholars believe that the earliest Jews were monothelites rather than monotheists: worshippers of a single god without believing that theirs was the only god who existed.”
from http://atheism.about.com/od
/tencommandments/a/commandment01.
htm?nl=1
r4d: yeah, I know, I know, most don’t care. Whoopee do.
Root causes pave the way to understanding, IMHO, is all.
Carry on w/your regularly scheduled programming.
Dave,
I watched your spot on MSNBC (god bless tivo). I thought you did well without denegrating the other side.
Well done sir.
It’s William Gibson who’s so 80’s.
r4d:
“It’s William Gibson who’s so 80’s.”
True, true.
Rather enjoyed those novels. That last movie wasn’t very good (Count Zero). Ironically, Gibson knew nothing (by his own admission) about computers whatsoever.
Hey, got nothin’ agin them thar Gen-etic-ally En-gin-neered Ninjas.
Thought they were extinct, is all.
Aye-an’-aye, steppin’ razor.
goose wrote:
Sorry. No apple mentioned in the Genesis creation story.
EF:
Paine made the same mistake in the AR. It does say fruit.
When Adam and Eve ate the “apple,” weren’t they eating from the “Tree of Knowledge?” Doesn’t that mean that we get smarter when we disobey God?
I am sorry that I had to aboandon the blog yesterday, but goose had no good answers as to what that mythical “firmament” was, and Ebony had to provide a definition. My objective is to get goose to read the bible, and to see how idiotic it is.
There never was an apple.
There never was an eden.
There never was Adam and Eve.
There never was an original sin.
There never was a 6 day creation. IF so, Sputnik would have blown up on contact with the firmament.
If so, The Egipcians would have been around before the start of the world, and that goes for the chinese as well.
on, and on, and on. It is so bad that the vatican recently said that the theory of evolution was compatible with the bible. They see where science is headed, and they have lost to it in the past.
Now, for all of those flat-earthers, firmament believers, god created in 6 days earthman, I think that you should also believe in fairy tales, and invisible pink unicorns!
End of rant.
I just read about the bit with the lions plaing at our feet…
Ok, so why “design” lions as a killing machine just to frolic around at our feet if the bipolar god didn’t already know we would eat the fruit?
Either it’s all bull, or god is a bipolar maniac.
Sword: It is all bull. People forget where heaven originally was. People forget that the bible describes the world as being the equivalent of a snow dome, and the center of the universe.
It is all bunk. Every single page in that book is a work of fiction designed do deceive, and to manipulate those poor souls that happen to believe in it.
Zac Hunter (and others contemplating place like Canada as an “escape”): Running away to leave the most powerful country in the world in the hands of right-wing extremists is highly irresponsible. We need to get more reasonable people to move here, not away. Sponsor some Canadian friends, or something. If anyone is going to move out, it should be the religious right types. They could move to… Um. Actually I can’t think of anywhere that would actually welcome these guys. Can you?
Yeah, I sho’can. Greenland seems to be the perfect place. It is sparsely polulated by Eskimos and is under Danish rule. Just think! They could build igloo churches all over the place!
I think it?s ironic that the only people who claim that humans are too advanced to have evolved naturally are the ones who demonstrate the least advanced mode of thinking.
crib-bedding