Pro Life, Pro Choice, Pro Discussion

Let me start this out by saying that I am pro-choice, but I believe there are merits to the pro-life movement that I support. This entry is an attempt to discuss the merits of it, and the inherent parts of the pro-life movement that make communication near impossible.

Let me start out by defining my own stance on the issue:

What is the purpose of life?

This question is obviously ones that everyone looks for the answer to. This is a question that many people feel are unanswerable within our lifetime. This is a question that people spend their lives looking for the answer to. This is a question that many people waste their lives trying to find the answer to.

It is not the questions themselves that I am going to focus on in this piece of writing though, but rather I am going to look at the answer. For many people the answer to this question does not rest in our lives, but rather in our death. They believe that upon our deaths the quality of our life will be judged. The judge will ultimately decide if our lives warrant the reward of eternal bliss and happiness. The result if we do not earn this reward sways between either just an absence of existence and eternal torture.

Do you truly believe? Prove it.

I challenge you to accept the Question Virus.

I don’t believe that you believe in God, I think that you just haven’t tried to believe anything else.

I challenge you to try becoming a skeptic for 1 year. If you can be truly skeptical for 1 year and still walk back into your faith after that, your faith will not only be justified it will be greatly boosted. If you can’t walk back into your faith, you will have been granted a look on life where this is the one and only life that matters so you best make the most of it.

I offer my services as a person who is skeptical to provide you with leading questions through my writings here (http://www.mratheist.com/). I offer my email address ([email protected]) and an offer to answer all legitimate questions to the best of my ability and provide you the next set of questions.

So what are you waiting for? Embrace the Question Virus, read my writings and test your faith.

Humans and animals seem to be getting a free ride of respect in our society. I simply don’t understand why people constantly overlook our earth loving friends the potato. Why don’t we give the potato the credit, and respect it deserves? In the following paragraphs I intend to single-handedly eliminate vegetarianism as well as hopefully dramatically increase the amount of respect the average person has for our spuddly friends from a not so distant planet.

This great respect comes at a good time for the potato as well since 2008 has officially been named “International Year of the Potato”. As the world starts to eat these fabulous spuds in greater quantity we should take a humble position and respect the great sacrifice that these noble spuds are making for the well being of the human race.

If I suggested to you that you should take a knife and stab an animal in the reproductive organs, rip it out of its home, slice the skin off of it, dice up the remains, and then toss it into a pot of boiling water all to lead up to finale where you grind the remains of it into a mush…you would likely throw up on my nice new shirt and then refuse to pay the dry cleaning cost.

I often get asked, and was recently asked by someone close to me “why?” Their question, of course, was referring to why I put together these articles and why I associate myself with an atheist activist group. A number of questions get brought up, and it is often difficult to provide proper information and a context to my response when the question comes up and I only have a couple seconds to provide a sufficient answer. Considering the importance that this question has on how I go about my life, I think it’s one worth responding to.

Common Questions and Comments:

I know this series of speculation draws a bit of anger from people of faith, but I believe it to be a legit series of conclusions.  What I am attempting to demonstrate here is that a small detail can be taken to extremes to promote what generally all people would conclude is the wrong kind of behavior.  And even though the overall act seems wrong, religiously it can be justified as a very positive thing.

Let me first start out by setting this up that this is specifically targeted a those that believe that babies are sent to either Heaven or Purgatory when they die as a result of their ignorance of religion, and lack of sin up until that point in their lives.  Some of this discussion will focus specifically on Christianity due to my stronger understanding of their teachings.

In all of my work, and everything I do I believe that it is important to not only be willing to admit my ignorance but I take pride in my ability to openly accept my ignorance when I face it and educate myself as necessary. I see this as one of the weakest assets in a lot of people. An inability to admit ignorance prevents people from learning. It leads to work not getting done, getting done badly or inefficiently. People are afraid to admit their own ignorance because they feel that by admitting ignorance that they will be looked down upon or admitting failure. In the end, some people would prefer failure over admitting ignorance.

To expand ones knowledge and become better at everything they do the most powerful words one can learn is “I don’t know”. It’s simple to say, and will generally result in the gaining of useful information.

But what if you don’t want to gain the information, what if you just want to not worry about not knowing? That is essentially the roll that faith can fill for a person. It gives them the comfort of not having to be worried about death. It gives them a reason to latch on to as to why they shouldn’t do bad things. It gives them an explanation of human history as well as the future. Faith can explain essentially everything, but at what cost?

Should the Bible be interpreted as literal, poetic, metaphorical? This not only depends on which part of the bible you are talking about, but also who you ask. The Bible, both old and new testament, has stories in it of incredible cruelty. It describes a creator of our universe that is a fairly demon like fellow who I think that most people would have a hard time separating from the likes of Lucifer.

I believe if you went through on literal interpretations you would find that the Bible is highly inaccurate, not historically accurate, and a simply putrid example of morals and ethics that we as the human race should be using in today’s world. Richard Dawkins had a very good interpretation of Yahweh of the Old Testament when the Bible is interpreted literally:

“Arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” – Richard Dawkins

I may not be 100% accurate with my understanding.  What I have written in these next couple paragraphs is my understanding.  The majority of my questions / points will still stand if I am wrong on specific details. 

Lucifer was the Anointed Cherub.  He was set apart by God for a divine purpose.  God gave Lucifer power and authority.  Lucifer then perverted that power and used it to attempt to place himself above God.  Lucifer was created “perfect”, but iniquity was found in him.  It was not put there by God, but rather Lucifer himself created.  Though Angels were created perfect, they also have free will.  God then casts Lucifer out of the mountain of God and destroys Lucifer covering him in stones of fire (Ezekiel 12-18).  Lucifer, along with a third of all angels, was cast out of Heaven.

 Lucifer is described as a being of perfect beauty with precious stones, pendants, and gold jewelry.   He is described this way while he was in the Garden of Eden.  Lucifer is described as “the god of this world” and the father of all lies.  He “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the Glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).