October 8, 2007
Christianity 2.0
Good to see religion doesn’t necessarily mean being stuck in the dark ages. Now if someone can just update the bible, we’d be set.
Oh wait, that’s being done too…
Popularity: 98% [?]
September 9, 2007
Jesus Saves
I’ve been away this weekend, and haven’t got around to writing a proper post, so I’ll leave you with a joke instead.
Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.
Finally fed up, God said, “THAT’S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.”
So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.
They moused.
They faxed.
They e-mailed.
They e-mailed with attachments.
They downloaded.
They did spreadsheets!
They wrote reports.
They created labels and cards.
They created charts and graphs.
They did some genealogy reports.
They did every job known to man.
Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell
Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off.
Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.
Jesus just sighed.
Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming:
“It’s gone! It’s all GONE! “I lost everything when the power went out!”
Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work.
Satan observed this and became irate.
“Wait!” he screamed. “That’s not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don’t have any?”
God just shrugged and said,
JESUS SAVES
Popularity: 33% [?]
July 29, 2007
Science vs Religion
What is with the resurrected war between science and religion?
I must admit, I used to think that science and religion were natural enemies. How can something that relies on faith not be in direct opposition to a practice which specifically relies on reason and evidence? The thing is, it wasn’t always like that, and to some it still isn’t. Of course, there are those who choose to create conflict, but conflict isn’t necessary. Historically, science grew from the church. The first scientists were clergy, and scientific research was sponsored by the church. The church wanted to understand God’s world, and science was one of the ways they tried to do that.
Before I really began looking into things myself, I thought that the only rational scientific view could be that God (as always, I use the term very loosely) does not exist. But there is so much magic in the universe that we can’t help but feel insignificant in it. Even if the universe does exist due to a cosmic fluke, that’s still pretty darn amazing and if we could ever truly understand that, I think that would be on par with a religious experience.
Arthur C. Clark’s famous quote “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” seems to be true not only of technology as we know it, but also the natural world around us, which possibly explains why many seem to believe the only option is that this world was created by a “sufficiently advanced being”. As our science advances, we discover more and more things that seem like magic – we continually discover new exciting things that seem completely unreal and magical. The quantum world, for example – even the greatest scientific minds still can’t fully grasp what happens in our world on a quantum level. As time goes on, our science progresses, and we understand these things differently, but that doesn’t make them any less amazing. While I accept that both science and spirituality/religion have limits to what they can explain, they both seem to be striving to understand this same magic.
Can’t science be a path to God? If God exists in all things (as is often claimed), then by understanding the world around us through science, we could begin to understand God. Sure, the God we might find wouldn’t be Yahweh, Allah or Jesus – but some parts of the bible have to be interpreted as metaphor, right? 
Further Reading:
- The Myth of Conflict
- Ferngren, Gary (2002) Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction
Popularity: 18% [?]
May 23, 2007
20 gram Links for May 23rd ’07
Here are some of the sites I’ve been looking at recently, that I wanted to share:
- Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? – Here’s a type of “god” I can believe in – one which has a rational scientific explaination. Not that I believe we live in a computer simulation, but it’s definitely possible, and more likely (in my mind) than what any traditional religion claims.
- A List Of Biblical Contradictions – A list of many contradictions within the bible, with specific quotes and references.
- 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Scientific American – What to say to a creationist, if you ever meet one capable of vaguely rational debate.
- Athiest’s Wager: First Post – an atheist’s response to pascal’s wager
- Reasons To Believe: Hugh Ross, Fazale Rana, Kenneth Samples – “Providing Powerful New Reasons from Science to Believe in Christ”, aka Creationist propaganda
Popularity: 11% [?]
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