The Dollar Got More Annoying

This is not about the falling value of our currency with respect to the rest of the world, but rather a reprise on my 2007 post, In God We Trust wherein I complained about the propagation of the cold war addition of God to our money in the latest series of presidential dollar coins. The had stamped "In God We Trust" around the edge, along with the date. But the latest dollars have God on the face, and hide the date and the uniquely and importantly American "E Pluribus Unum" on the edge. Do they think that Sacajawea trusted in in the Old World God? I really think that we should get rid of the old cold war legacies, and take God back off of our money and back out of the pledge to the flag (as I discussed in The Changing Recipe of Pleasure Lesion Stew). One could argue that this would show the world that we are confident of our faith, instead of protesting it too much.

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Did Anne Frank go to hell?

Now here is a question I'd never thought to ask. Not of myself, mind you. I discarded belief in any afterlife long ago. But it is a good question to pose to fundamentalist Christians. And so Rachel Evans did. Credit where due, I found it via the Friendly Atheist. If you read her post and comments, you see a lot of hemming and hawing from Chrisitans who believe a) in a kind, loving, and just God who b) sends everyone to hell except the most extreme sycophants. They try to have it both ways. In brief, yes, all Jews go to Hell. But when considering this actual young, innocent person, who was a victim of Martin Luther's plan enacted by a Catholic leader, they sputter.

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Do Christians need to obey Old Testament laws?

I found this question via FriendlyAtheist, who shared this big pdf file (poster size, but only 1.6Mb), with a list of questions, each answered in various ways in different parts of the Bible, and a graphic showing links between the different areas where the different answers occur.. To my title question, the poster shows:

gen 17:19, exo 12:14, 17, 24, lev 23:14, 21, 31, deut 4:8-9, 7:9, 11:1, 11:26-28, 1chron 16:15, ps 119:151-2, 119:160, mal 4:4, mat 5:18-19, lk 16:17 ≠ lk 16:16, rom 6:14, 7:4, 6, 10:4, 2cor 3:14, gal 3:13, 3:24-25, 5:18, eph 2:15, col 2:14
Those of us who don't know all the verses need a convenient way to look them up, like http://bible.cc I've linked two of the sample verses, above. I like the parallel view, showing each verse in 15 popular English Bible translations.

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NOMA is a Myth?

A FaceBook friend just shared a post called The Myth of Separate Magisteria that argues that Steven Jay Gould's premise of Non-Overlapping Magisteria is flawed. He argues,

"One might as well say that conflict arises between men and women only when they stray onto each other’s territories and stir up trouble. Science produces discoveries that challenge long-held beliefs (not only religious ones) based on revelation rather than evidence, and the religious must decide whether to battle or accommodate secular knowledge if it contradicts their teachings.

I usually claim NOMA when pressed on whether Science can disprove God. The realms of revelation vs. evidence can be kept separate as long as religion keeps stepping back as verifiable research claims ever more territory. Scientific understanding will keep stepping on religions skirts until the faithful stick to claims that can only be held on faith, and stop claiming "truth" about things for which there is contradictory evidence. God is a fuzzy and non-falsifiable idea. Science will never disprove God. But it has disproved most of what the Bible claims about God's involvement in nature, the Earth, and the Universe. So these ways of looking at the universe do overlap, until such time as the weaker one bows out of the territory. As with the flat Earth, the Sin theory of gravity, the God's Pillars principle of Earthquakes, God's Wrath principle of extreme weather, the Geocentric universe, the Young Earth, and so on.

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I am a turd

A friend handed me one of those little religious pamphlets a few days ago. It was from the "Greater Rhode Island Baptist Temple" in Johnston, RI. We marveled at the following page--note the text near the illustration of the forlorn woman (click on the images to see enlarged versions):

"I know that I am a sinner and I deserve to die and go to hell . . . "

Egads! How can statements so self-deprecating be encouraged, much less allowed, anywhere on earth? If I were a god, why would I want to allow people with such low self-esteem into heaven. I wouldn't want to be around such people. This is not to say people should be arrogant. And they should certainly be humble. But the above phrase is not humility. It is sick. How can someone walk around on this planet actually believe that they should go to hell? Does anyone ever (even Hitler or Stalin) deserve eternal torture? What is the point of eternal torture? Do these people know what they are saying? Do they know what "eternity" means? Does anyone who says this really believe this?

So many questions.

Lest you think that "hell" is one of those namby-pamby moderns versions of hell where the punishment is that you only get to watch TV for 4 hours per day, the same brochure shows you a photo of the flames that will be licking your sorry ass.

And here's one more final warning: Don't think that you can escape the sizzling flames by being nice to other people here on earth, by doing "good works." That kind of altruism means nothing to almighty God, based on the authority of this mighty brochure:

So all I can say to you skeptics out there is you'd better shape up. And quit wasting your time trying to help other people. If you ignore this advice, you should at least invest in some asbestos clothing and hope that you can take it with you.

God help us all.

Epilogue: It is thoughts like the ones in this brochure that inspired this prayer scene in Monty Python's "Meaning of Life":

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