I Saw The Bible's Buried Secrets

To my amazement, I was able to watch a new Nova episode on the very same day it was available to most US households. For some reason the Buffalo PBS station is behind when it comes to shows like Nova. I was able to watch it on a Seattle station that comes with my West time zone subscription from my local cable carrier.

I was actually looking forward to The Bible's Buried Secrets. Something told me it wouldn't be too far off The Bible Unearthed, which was quite an eye opener.

Both were similar. Both compared the Old Testament to actual archaeological findings.

Yesterday's documentary seemed to give more detail and more explanation to what most likely actually happened in the region of Israel whereas The Bible Unearthed was more of a bible debunking video.

The idea of the Exodus and Moses remains an impossibility. And it is very likely that the early Israelites were poor Canaanites, who were the product of a have havenot economy that went into the dumper.

More havenots came from outside of Canaan to form what I like to call the Pre-Jews. Included were some former slaves from Egypt, not hundreds of thousands, and maybe not even a thousand.

Another interesting tidbit is that not only were most of the Pre-Jews idol worshipers, they also believed God had a wife:

The land was full of sun God worshiping animal sacrificing poor people. Finally, when the Pre-Jews got their butts whooped in Jerusalem in 586 BC by the Babylonians, the excuse of having more than one God causing the loss stuck, and finally monotheistic Judaism was created.

Ezra and his buddies put all the stories and myths into a book with strict laws and lots of lessons in morality around 450 BC's, and the Pre-Jews became Jews.

Not touched on was my personal belief that the Babylonian culture's Hammurabi and his laws were used as the basis for the Moses myth.

I've often wondered how necessary it is to most Christians that the Exodus story be literal. I also wonder how some religious Jews can make a case for the Exodus story being mostly allegorical.

I'm glad that TBBS didn't even attempt to tackle the ridiculous Global Flood crapola.
I can't believe there are still some intelligent human beings who still believe Noah's story is literal.

See also Supposes There's No Moses and Controversial Bible's Buried Secrets Ends On Positive Note

Confidence: Just Child Memory Crap

To my regular readers, I'm sorry for the following, I have just been suffering temporary writer's block:

I know this post will date me, but I readily admit I'm 47. I've always been an NFL fan and I proudly can say that I've never watched a full CFL game in my life (I hate watching inferior professional product).

The NFL and the NBA were rituals for me when I was in my single digit years. Living in Toronto, me, my father, and my brother (a year younger than me) would religiously watch the Cleveland Browns on CBS every Sunday. The Buffalo station adopted Cleveland in the 60's, just as they adopted the Boston Celtics during the same time. Basketball was featured when the NFL season ended.

Of course, being a secular Jew, Saturdays were reserved for going to the race track:)
I remember trying to keep track of yards gained by each offense, which means I watched every single play. I also did the same for the Celtic games. I don't remember why I did it though.

I remember one time my mother got really mad at me, I was 9 years old, and she ripped took my stat page out of my hands during a Celtic game and wound up ripping it to shreds. I bawled my eyes out, and ran away from home.

Ok, it wasn't really running away, because I wound up at my grand parents home which was around 20 minutes away by foot. It still was something daring for me to do. Maybe it was that traumatic childhood moment which triggered my atheism:) Why would God let my mother rip up my stats?

Anyway, I never understood why the NFL and CBS took away the greatest theme song ever for football. It was played at the beginning of every broadcast from around 1965 to at least 1970. Here it is. I hope it brings back memories to every football fan from my age and up:



The song is called "Confidence" and apparently it came from the play "The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty." I think I remember seeing the movie version which came out long before the play and the song which is aka The Walter Mitty March.

The movie came out in 1947, and I just did a search. Looks like Michael Myers is about to star in a remake. Not sure if it will based on the original story, or the 1947 film which seems to be loosely based on the story.

Did The Republicans Learn A Lesson?

The Republicans just got their butts handed to them in the Presidential election. They were probably going to lose regardless because of the economy and the war in Iraq which has gone slightly over the original timetable.
No matter who the leader of the party was, he was going to lose a lot of votes just for being Republican like Bush.

However, the choice of Sarah Palin had to be one of the worst political decisions ever.

The Republicans Party actually listened to their Cretard base who were whining and threatening not to vote. So they picked an anti-choice, anti-science Cretard in Palin to appease their knuckle dragging, reality denying base.
Big problem was that John McCain is a 72 year old cancer survivor who looks his age. Actuaries went to work and figured that there is a 7-12% chance that McCain doesn't make it to 76, which of course means that a an idiot Rapturist would become the most powerful person in the world.

The result is that the Republican Party alienated most secular undecided voters. It most likely turned secular Republicans into Obama voters as well. Also, many women especially were turned off with her anti-choice rhetoric. We'll know more when some polls start coming out regarding the factors of why people voted for Obama (there are probably a few out now, but I haven't had seen any that were significant as yet).

It is hard to put a number on it, but atheists and agnostics most likely make up around 30-45 million voters in the USA today, and the numbers and percentages are increasing each and every day thanks the logical arguments that exist against religion and its history and the sound point that if you really really think about it, no actual evidence for any God exists.

Separation of church and state might not be spelled out in the Constitution, but rational human beings realize that for freedom of religion and beliefs to take place, freedom from religion must be practiced by the government.

Sarah Palin, besides be a borderline idiot, can only be seen as someone who not only would blur the line between church and state, she would try to erase it if she had enough power to do so.

The Religious Right with their anti-evolution, anti-choice, anti-equal rights for gays, etc. are an embarrassment to America. They should not be taken seriously at all by any politician. If they decide not to vote, it would be the best thing for America.

I'm hoping the Republican Party will not take heed from Conservative Right Wing nut jobs like Ann Coulter (who "thinks" that it was the choice of McCain that brought down the Republicans and not Palin), because that would lead to the death of the two party system in the most powerful nation on the planet (There would only be one feasible party to vote for regardless of just about anything that happens in the meantime). They must now forget the Religious Right and go after the purple voters. The atheists, agnostics, secularists. Those are the votes that count. Stick to fiscal policies and protecting the country. Let the party with the best policies win. Religion should not matter one iota in an election. Gay marriages and abortion should not even be on the federal agenda...they shouldn't be issues at all. Women have a right to choose and gays have a right to get married. The USA isn't a Muslim nation is it?

Canada does it right Federally. Our Prime Minister, who I voted for, is a Conservative Christian. He does not blur the line between church and state. He knows it is political suicide, as John Tory recently found out in Ontario. And Canada now has a population that included 23% atheists. Unfortunately most are in the closet, but that is changing quickly as well.

Funny that our conservative party is far to the left of Obama, and Obama is called a Marxist by many Republican idiots. It cracks me up. Anyone living in Canada understands this.

Another thing that bothered me is the idea of Obama being a socialist. Reality Check: Anytime tax money is being redistributed, it is a form of socialism. Tax dollars going to pay for schools or armies is a form of socialism. OK, Obama's policies were a little more socialistic than McCain's, but nowhere near as socialistic as Canada's Right Wing. This was just desperation from the Republicans, and intelligent people saw right through it.


Regarding gay marriage, Friendly Atheist has some real good questions for anyone opposed to gays having the exact same rights as us heterosexuals.

I'm disturbed that Obama might have caused Proposition 8 to win in California. I've read a theory that Hispanics and blacks who normally wouldn't have voted, came out to do so for Obama. But Hispanics and blacks seem to be OK with equality as long as it doesn't mean gays are equal. Not to mention that these two groups are highly religious.


A good read that came out before the election regarding Palin and religious intolerance: Sally Quinn: Obama, McCain, and Religious (In)Tolerance

Yes, religion matters in an election because belief matters. What does McCain really believe about "agents of intolerance" such as Robertson. Does Sarah Palin really believe -- as she seems to have said -- that God wants her to build an oil pipeline? Or that the Iraq war is a mission from God? She believes in Creationism and the End Times. These are not trivial matters. We are talking about religious beliefs that could have a huge impact on major domestic and foreign policy issues.

Ignorance leads to fear and intolerance and bigotry and in some cases violence -- as we have seen in this campaign. We can choose leaders who are exclusive, who reject the views of others and want to impose their beliefs on all of us, or we can choose those who are inclusive, who feel that their beliefs are right but who tolerate and appreciate the beliefs and non-beliefs of others.

I vote for tolerance and pluralism.

I HOPE THIS ELECTION MARGINALIZED THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT FOR GOOD AND THE GOOD OF HUMANITY

CAPTION TIME: THE POPE MEETS HAWKING

The Pope hooked up with Stephen Hawking on Friday at the Vatican Conference on Darwin, Evolution, and Intelligent Design (described science as the pursuit of knowledge about God's creation).

I admire the Vatican's stance on science, which is the polar opposite of the embarrassing anti-scientific stance taken by many Christian Evangelists, amongst others, especially in the USA.

"There is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences," the pontiff said.

"Galileo saw nature as a book whose author is God."

The Catholic Church found the 17th-century astronomer Galileo guilty of heresy for insisting the earth revolved around the sun. It did not rehabilitate him until 1992.

Hawking appeases many theistic evolutionists because his statements do not rule out God completely:

"I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he said. "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."

NOW FOR SOME FUN

I saw the following picture and captions for it overflowed in my brain:


I came up with a couple of captions. Feel free to try to outdo me:




For more reaction on the Pope meets Hawking, check out Little Green Footballs.
LGF is known as a far right wing blog, but Charles (the blog's owner) is 100% teaching anything but real science in the classroom much to the chagrin of many of his readers (the Young Earth Creationist reality denying ones).

Bill Bennett Is A Very Large Turd

This has to enrage just about any militant atheist like myself, even non militant atheists most likely:




How dare any politician break bread with someone who sees no evidence that God has ever existed.

And Donna Brazile wasn't much better. "That is how we convert them (by associating with them)." And "I I I I don't know why people don't believe in God, when there is so so so so so so fricken so so so much evidence that God God God exists."

How many atheists has she or anyone she knows converted? Probably next to zero. If anything it the logic of atheists that deconverts many of the sheep.

In America, a politician pretty much could run an ad these days of a cartoon atheist eating babies. Kind of like the ads the Nazis did about Jews in Germany. At least there isn't a politician who has openly said he or she wants to rid the world of atheist vermin...............YET.