Scientology in the Clear?

An honest look into the Church of Scientology

at Swept Media

http://sweptmedia.ca/2013/11/17/scientology-clear/

Every Day is an Atheist Holiday

This past week, I got a chance to interview the founder of CFI 

and cover a CFI-hosted event with Penn Jillette. 

Check out the article at Swept Media.

http://sweptmedia.ca/2013/11/06/everyday-is-an-atheist-holiday-swept-looks-at-cfi/

Paddle For Inquiry

Hey all,

The Idiot's Guide to Indoctrination is coming back and under the new guise of General Heresy.

The first order of business now that the blog is back up and running is to announce the Paddle For Inquiry.

This epic canoe trip to raise funds for CFI (Centre for Inquiry) Canada will push off August 1st, 2013, from Deep River, ON and will land at the end of August in Halls Harbour, NS.

Canoe enthusiasts Anthony Leclair and John Lock having already planned to take on the daunting trip, decided to include CFI Canada in order to help promote science, reason, education, and skeptical inquiry in Canada and around the world.

General Heresy will keep you posted on the details as they come.

Paddle For Inquiry also has a Facebook page where you can show your support, post your questions, or volunteer to help or partake in the trip itself. To check out the Paddle For Inquiry page, click HERE.

An Achievement of Civilization

Heterosexual marriage: a privileged role, and achievement of civilization according to the Vatican is apparently in the process of being erased, and the Vicar of Christ and his papal army are fighting back with usual oppressive force. 

"It is clear that in Western countries there is a widespread tendency to modify the classic vision of marriage between a man and woman, or rather to try to give it up, erasing its specific and privileged legal recognition compared to other forms of union," 

Vatican’s chief spokesman and director of Vatican Radio/T.V., Father Federico Lombardi, said in an editorial on Vatican Radio recently.

"the logic of [same sex marriage] cannot have a far-sighted outlook for the common good".Comparing same sex marriage to polygamy and polyandry, Lombardi suggests, facetiously, that if we accept the marriage of homosexual couples, then why not, to prevent discrimination, accept the union between one man and a number of women or vice versa. Though it is obvious, I’m sure, to most of you, that the inclusion of polygamy/polyandry in this equation is simply not a logical comparison, Lombardi fails to check his own ignorance. 

In just this way, we see that Lombardi cannot possibly be taken seriously when considering the logic of same sex marriage. A clearer indication of this ignorance is grounded in the foundation of the very church of which Lombardi is most decidedly a part. The Catholic church posits that while homosexuality is not a sin, all homosexual acts are. Therefore, says the church, homosexual marriages should not be considered equal to those of heterosexuals and, in addition, homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children. 

An editorial in the Vatican newspaper of Friday, November 9th, L'Osservatore Romano, said local Catholic Churches in many countries around the world were "the sentinels of religious freedom" for opposing gay marriage. This is where civilization, so-called, has come to? We deny one form of love because of some archaic formality founded on the teachings of the Bible in which rape, murder, incest, slavery, and whoring are commonplace among those most close to God? For a brief introduction to the many atrocities found in the Bible, look out for the upcoming Good News Abridged segment appearing at The Reason Tribune. 

Having mentioned archaic formality, I feel it necessary also to mention that homosexuality is not something new; nor was it new when the parties of God began condemning it. Homosexuality is not a disease or a moral evil either. It has survived as a form of love, exactly equal to the love between a man and a woman since time immemorial. The Greek armies of old were encouraged to form bonds of love physically, emotionally, and spiritually to better defend and support one another in times of war. Native tribes, even to this day, in countries all over the world experience and encourage love between both opposite and same sexes. The bond between a man and a woman is equivalent, in every respect, to the bond between a man and a man or a woman to a woman. 

Heterosexual couples may be found to be infertile. If so, should it be considered dastardly of them to think of adopting? Or is it their moral superiority and parental instincts that make it possible and indeed correct for them to do so? Homosexual couples may not conceive, but they are not lacking in parental guidance or responsibility anymore than any other one person on this god-forsaken planet.  We are all people, and we all love. We may not be able to choose with whom we fall in love, but we all love and we are all entitled to share our love and experience love in return.

The afore mentioned Vatican editorial went on to state:

"The Church is the only institution to say that, while persecuting homosexuals is undoubtedly unjust, opposing marriage between people of the same sex is a point of view that must be respected," 

If this point of view is to be respected, then I think the persecution needs to end. If “God hates fags” and homosexuals are inherently morally bankrupt, how is it that homosexuals can even dream to expect the same respect from the church for their support of same-sex marriage? Respect needs be earned and Lombardi, the ignorant and vapid mouthpiece of the Vatican has a journey of epic proportions ahead to achieve respect in turn for respect. That respect earned…that would be an achievement of civilization.

Why You Can Trust the Bible: Part 3

Back from Thanksgiving and now ready to give thanks to all of my readers who take joy in the end of the 'Why You Can Trust the Bible' trilogy.

Foretelling the Future

But can we really trust the Bible’s forecasts for the future, including its promises of a ‘righteous new heavens and new earth’? I think the answer to that question is pretty clear.(2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21: 3, 4) Well, what has been the Bible’s record of reliability in the past? Universe created in six days…does that ring a bell of unreliability? Time and time again prophecies given even hundreds of years in advance have been fulfilled in exact detail!

                For example, the Bible foretold the overthrow of mighty Babylon nearly 200 years before it happened. In fact, the Medes, who became aligned with the Persians, were named as the conquerors. And although Cyrus, the Persian king, had not even been born as yet, the Bible foretold that he would be prominent in the conquest. It said that Babylon’s protecting waters, the river Euphrates, “must be dried up,” and that “the gates [of Babylon] will not be shut.” – Jeremiah 50:38; Isaiah 13:17-19; 44:27 – 45:1.

                These specific details were fulfilled, as the historian Herodotus reported. Ummm, as Herodotus reported:

“He placed a portion of his army at the point where the river enters the city, and another body at the back of the place where it issues forth, with orders to march into the town by the bed of the stream, as soon as the water became shallow enough: he then himself drew off with the unwarlike portion of his host, and made for the place where Nitocris dug the basin for the river, where he did exactly what she had done formerly: he turned the Euphrates by a canal into the basin, which was then a marsh, on which the river sank to such an extent that the natural bed of the stream became fordable.”

This does not a dried up river make. This was a man-made siphoning of a river into a canal. Today people are talking about the Euphrates actually drying up and are referencing Revelations…maybe you should get your biblical prophecies straight?

 Further, the Bible foretold that Babylon would eventually become uninhabited ruins. And that is just what happened. Today Babylon is a desolate heap of mounds. And should I predict that a great superpower of modern times will fall victim to a financial crisis…oh wait. Any empire, any superpower has its rise and fall. That doesn’t make it too hard to predict, especially decades, even centuries before it happens. (Isaiah 13:20-22; Jeremiah 51:37, 41-43) And the Bible is full of other prophecies that have had dramatic fulfillment. …maybe you should have used one of those, rather than using these easily assailable “prophecies”. 

                What then does the Bible foretell concerning the present world’s system of things? It says: “The final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. Men will love nothing but money and self; they will be arrogant, boastful, and abusive; with no respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affection… They will be men who put pleasure in the place of God, men who preserve the outward form of religion, but are standing denial of its reality.” – 2 Timothy 3:1-5, The New English Bible. This sounds very much like Babylon, and like Rome, and the British Empire, and France, and Germany, Japan, China…need I go on? Need I really?

                Surely, we are seeing the fulfillment of this now! (as well as back then) But the Bible also foretells for “the final age of this world” these things: “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages.” In addition, “there will be great earthquakes, and in one place after another pestilences.” – Matthew 24:7; Luke 21:11. Again, do these occurrences not also ring bells of history lessons long passed? Every age has had battling nations and kingdoms, food shortages, earthquakes, disease and the like.

                Indeed, Bible prophecies are undergoing fulfillment today! Well, then, what about yet-to-be-fulfilled promises, such as: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it,” and, “They will have to beat their swords into plowshares…, neither will they learn was anymore”? – Psalm 37:29; Isaiah 2:4.

                ‘That’s just too good to be true,’ some may say. But really, there is no reason for us to doubt anything that our Creator promises. I’m sure I’ve just given enough reason. His Word can be trusted! Can it?(Timothy 1:2) By examining the evidence further, you will become ever more convinced of this. Allow me to direct you to a wonderful source of biblical prophecies which may help you to become convinced, once and for all, of their "validity".

Why You Can Trust the Bible: Part 2

History and Science

The historical accuracy of the Bible was once widely doubted. Is still widely doubted. Critics, for example, questioned the existence of such Bible characters as King Sargon of Assyria, Belshazzar of Babylon, and the Roman governor PontiusPilate. But recent discoveries have verified one Bible account after another. Thus historian Moshe Pearlman wrote: “Suddenly, skeptics who had doubted the authenticity even of the historical parts of the Old Testament began to revise their views.” Presumably they didn’t begin to revise their views on biblical claims like:

·         Creationism

·         The Resurrection

·         Joshua Stops the Sun

·         Jesus Raises Lazarusfrom the Dead

·         Jesus Feeds FiveThousand

·         Parting/Crossing the RedSea

·         Balaam and His TalkingDonkey

·         Jesus Walks on Water

·         Ten Plagues of Egypt

·         Jesus Exorcises Legion

If we are to trust the Bible, it must also be accurate in matters of science. Is it? Judging by the examples above, absolutely not. Not long ago scientists, in contradiction of the Bible, asserted that the universe had no beginning. However, astronomer Robert Jastrow recently pointed to newer information that refutes this, explaining: “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details (where the Devil is said to reside) differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same.” – Genesis 1:1.

Origin of the Universe: Stephen Hawking

(Before any Christians try, Hawking’s use of God at the end of the speech is clearly figurative and rhetorical.)

Men have also changed their views relative to the shape of the earth. “Voyages of Discovery,” explains The World Book Encyclopedia, “showed that the world was round, not flat as most people had believed.” But the Bible was correct all along! More than 2,000 years before those voyages, the Bible said at Isaiah 40:22: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth,” or as the other translations say, “the globe of the earth” (Douay), “the round earth.” (Moffatt) Circle, doesn’t mean not flat, and to quote more recent translations to assert globe and round is just silly and an obvious attempt to sway the argument. I encourage anyone who is interested in actually reading the bible to discard any sort of NIV (New International Version) and go straight to the King James Version or earlier. Newer translations of the bible are clear propaganda for the indoctrination of impressionable youth.

Thus the more humans learn, the greater the evidence is that the Bible can be trusted. A former director of the British Museum, Sir Frederic Kenyon, wrote: “The results already achieved confirm what faith would suggest, that the Bible can do nothing but gain from an increase of knowledge.” The bible simply cannot gain from an increase of knowledge. The people who adhere to its tenets could gain from an increase of knowledge for sure, and that increase is precisely why Christians now tend to ignore such bible verses as:

(Deuteronomy 23:1) “If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.”

(Deuteronomy 22:20,21) “But if … evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones…” 

(Deuteronomy 23:2)  “One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the congregation of the Lord.”

(Matthew 5:32)  NASB   Whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

(Luke 14:26)  NASB    If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters… he cannot be My disciple.

(Luke 14:33)  NASB     So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

(Deuteronomy 21:18-21)  ”If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”