Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all. Today is the celebration of the dead; it's the night when ghosts and spirits have the power to roam the world. So everyone should be merry, but not these spoil sports who as Seattle's King 5 News reports, had Halloween cancelled:

"The school district says it got calls from witches - yes, actual witches - complaining about the continuation of ugly stereotypes. "That witches are portrayed with pointy noses and flying on broomsticks," said Karen Hansen, Puyallup School District. The district says it is just trying to be sensitive to individual religious beliefs... Puyallup school officials say the decision to cancel Halloween celebrations is a permanent one and students who wear costumes to school will be asked to take them off or leave. School officials add Wiccans weren't the only ones who complained about Halloween. Some Christian groups complained about the glamorization of the occult."

Well, I guess that even witches have feelings. The Atheologist has also heard that many parents and some local dentists were criticizing the decision.

The Atheologist

In His Own Image

As the faithful all know, God created mankind in his image. Well, the Atheologist has come across a bible verse that shows that God is a lot more humanlike than most people realize. In Isaiah 16:11, we see that God is talking about releasing his internal digestive pressure externally, (in other words farting), as most of his human creatures have been known to occasionally do:

"Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kirharesh."

I can just hear the atheists trying to explain this away by saying things like there is no proof that God produces real farts, or since they have not heard or smelled them themselves then they have no reason to believe that he does. The atheists may also use another ploy and say that since the Bible was translated and retranslated so many times, it is possible that what really happens is unknown and God may not actually fart, but simply burps.

Well the Atheologist is way ahead of those atheists and has begun searching the Bible for more examples of God and/or Jesus’ more humanlike qualities. The Atheologist will be on the lookout for other homo-sapien like traits in our Lord and his son such as; forgetting birthdays, having a bad hair or clothing day, waking up late for work, having road rage, losing their house keys, not being totally honest on their tax forms, losing patience with their children or taking family members for granted, eating too much during the holidays, littering…etc.

Here’s a bonus Bible verse on flatulence and the good Lord's forgiveness;
Economiclassians 37:12:

"And though a foul wind bloweth, a stench so unholy it singes the hair and leaves no clean air, the Lord, ever so merciful, grants His Grace unto that's wind's bearer. And Lo, even as such wind sickens the heart and mind and lost lunch pools in corners, the bearer can be held blameless for such is the Will of the Lord."

The Atheologist

A Reader Named Jeremy

A reader, named Jeremy Pierce, recently commented on the Atheologist’s Kathleen Harris post. Mr. Pierce had this to say about the Atheologist’s linking to the Landover Baptist Church", website:

“You do realize that the Landover Baptist Church website is a parody, do you not?It's a little strange to accuse Christians of doing something evil to Jews that some fiction-writer invented and wrote into a satire of some… Google "Landover Baptist Church". It's a fiction. Wikipedia says this, and so does answers.com… Taking that site seriously is like reporting something from The Onion as if it's real news.”

What you talkin'bout Jeremy? 'The Onion', bills itself as, 'America's Finest News Source', and I wonder if you have noticed how many of Wikipedia’s articles are in dispute? Is there also something wrong with the Atheologist using the “Weekly World News” as a source for news and information, as he frequently does, (here and here, for example). Tell me of another news outlet, (besides “Fox News”, of course), that pays such close attention to and reports so accurately and without bias on the truly important things that are going on in the world? How do you think the Atheologist keeps up with “Batboy”?

Jeremy also insists that the Atheologist misquoted Kathleen Harris in the post, he commented:

“…be elected, and it's actually pretty dishonest to put those words in quotes when it's not just not her direct words but a very different view entirely…I tried to find the quote ‘Only Christians should be elected to public office in the U.S.’ I couldn't, because it's not there, probably because she didn't say it. What she did say is that she thinks Christians ought to support Christian candidates, not that only Christians should be allowed to hold public office.”

The key words in Jeremy’s comment above is that he, “…tried to find the quote…” to which the Atheologist must give Jeremy some credit for trying, but had he looked a little more carefully at the original Kathleen Harris Florida Baptist Witness interview he would have seen something that only trained journalists, international spies, Rhodes scholars and investigators such as the Atheologist have the ability to detect. If Jeremy had paid a little closer attention, he would have noticed something at the supposed ending of the interview. He would have noticed this: ‘…’, at the very end, which shows that something had been cut out of the interview and it just so happens that The Atheologist is in possession of the original complete transcript of the interview.
What Ms. Harris said after the, ‘…’, is this:

“average citizens who are not Christians and therefore not too bright, should not be allowed to vote, since they may not vote for candidates who are Christians and as all true Christians know, only Christians should be elected to public office in the U.S. In addition, all voting machines should be hacked, I mean manned and programmed by Republicans, just like the way they are in my home state and all freed slaves with gross incomes over $450,000.00 dollars should have no voting limitations.”

The Atheologist really hopes that people like Jeremy will someday be able to tell the difference between facts and the truth and between a fairy tale and fiction. Only when they learn to look at the whole picture, instead of just the entire story, will the whole ball of wax begin to take shape and only then will their needle in the haystack be able to kill two birds with one stone.

The Atheologist

The Amish Tragedy

With the USA’s non-Amish, (or ‘the English’ as they are called by the Amish), community still in shock over Monday’s killings of six Amish schoolgirls, the Amish community has forgiven the shooter, Charles Carl Roberts IV. The Atheologist cannot think of anything worse for a parent to go through than having their most prized and treasured possession instantly wiped off the face of the earth. How can someone, or in this case an entire community, so quickly forgive a crime as heinous and horrific as this one? The answer it turns out is a simple one as several Amish explained.

Sam Stoltzfus, 63, an Amish woodworker who lives a few miles away from the shooting scene, told The Associated Press that the victims' families will be sustained by their faith:

"We think it was God's plan, and we're going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going. A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors."

An Amish woman, who did not want to be named, told CBS News Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith:

"We have to forgive. We have to forgive him in order for God to forgive us,"

An Amish elder had this to add:

“We have heard that Mr. Roberts, (the murder of our children, whom we have forgiven), was planning to and would have raped them before killing them, had the English police not arrived when they did. We want God to know that we in the Amish community would have welcomed the raping so that we would now have much more to forgive Mr. Roberts for. It’s too bad that he didn’t burn down a few of our barns too while he was at it! We also forgive the English police for arriving too early.
Oh and though it is a very difficult thing for us to do we forgive all of you English who pronounce Amish as ‘aim-ish’ and not, ‘ah-mish’, which is the proper pronunciation.”

So there it is. The Atheologist now understands the Amish concept of forgiveness. When someone does you wrong, which can include messing with your family, (are you listening Steven Segal?), you should immediately forgive the wrongdoer. If you don’t and God gets the impression that you are upset and not willing to forgive, then he may not forgive you for your sins. These sins may have included littering, rape, murder, pedophilia or coveting anything that the English have and you do not. That seems very easy to understand for everyone, (except of course for the atheists.)


The Atheologist

Ten Thousand and Counting

Woo-Hoo! The Atheologist’s blog has reached a milestone with its counter recording its 10,000th hit.
Thanks goes out to everyone who made this possible, but especially to those who accidentally clicked on the Atheologist’s link from another site.

The Atheologist

Conversations With God

A most incredible and amazing thing has recently happened. God has personally spoken to the Atheologist! Here are the miraculous details:
A blogger named Sheldon who is the author of a blog called, “The Humanist Observer”, recently posted a post entitled, ‘Conversations With God?’ In his post he makes reference to the, “Belief Net”, website and a survey that they have about their conversations with God. Sheldon then goes on to tell us what his questions were to God. Here are some of them:

"Why did you kill the innocent first born sons of Egypt for the wrong doing of their fathers? Why did you order and permit the Israelites to slaughter innocents in war, leaving only the virgins to live and be taken as captive wives? Wasn't that totally immoral? Why does your son say that because I simply don't believe in you, I am morally equivalent to people who do some of the most immoral things, and that I will go to hell for my disbelief? Why do you tell me to honor my parents in the 10 commandments, but then your son Jesus says that I should hate my mother and father, and other family members?"

He then goes on to say some nasty things to and about God, which the Atheologist will not print here. (Go to his post if you think you can take it.)
Lo and behold, shortly after Sheldon’s post was posted the Atheologist, who happened to be dozing in his big comfy chair after eating quite a heavy lunch, was visited in a dream by none other than God. Here is what God had to say:

“Hey Atheologist, tell Sheldon that I am very mad at him. I am not going to answer any of his silly questions because I am busy constructing a place that is much much worse than hell where he and people just like him will be sent to suffer and be tortured and burned and sliced up and sprayed with lemon juice for ever and ever,(all because I love them). Tell him that I don’t have to answer his or anyone else’s questions because I am God and it’s all part of my master plan and it will all make sense in the end for those who believe and trust in me. But I do apologize for the run on sentences. Now wake up and go tell him, you can do it in a comment on his blog if you want to.”

And that’s just what the Atheologist did, now the rest is up to Sheldon.

So what has the Atheologist learned a lot from this incident? He has learned that you do not question God. That Sheldon is not really an atheist because atheists don’t talk to God. And that God sometimes speaks to ordinary people like the Atheologist, not just the more important ones like him, him, him, him or her.

The Atheologist