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I had an inspiration for a one of my own the other day. Maybe I’ve seen too many ‘Jesus Saves’ ones lately. I reckon it’s a cracker. What do you think?

Ooooooh. If you’re reading that one it’s too late. I mean, if god has to eavesdrop on millions of thoughts every second - who would blame him if he didn’t check that you’ve been tricked by an evil atheist ?

Have a great weekend anyway!

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of which a reviewer says ‘This book is a wonderful introduction to “Creation Science.” Children will learn that people once lived to be 900 years old, that donkeys and snakes can talk, that the earth has four corners, that bats are really birds, that man is made of mud, that the first woman was made from a rib bone, that the world was made in 6 days, that God drowned everyone on earth one time because fallen angels were having sex with humans and creating dinosaurs, and much, much more!’ You can spend a wonderful hour or two there being thoroughly entertained!

Picking a favourite is hard - there’s just so many! But highlights include the Bible Quiz ( I got 100% but I just know my bible), the Kristian Kids Korner (I loved ‘Will I see Grandpa naked after the Rapture?’) and of course, the sermons including ‘I can’t wait to see people burn in Hell’.

I fully recommend you waste a morning there. Have a great weekend.

Here’s a taster of Pastor Deacon Fred (aka Chris Harper):

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They actually thanked her for her honesty which was pleasant enough I guess, but didn’t mean we weren’t annoyed that they should presume to come to our door and tell us their brand of fairy story…

Spiritualists, astrologers and those who pretend to be able to chat to your dead relatives piss me off just as much as mormons. Not to mention the ‘clairvoyants’ who appear on reality TV shows and pretend to solve ‘unsolvable’ crimes - they’re all fruit-loops and charlatans. There was a show on telly over here (Sensing Murder) recently that had an assortment of these nutters that appeared to get remarkably accurate results - but as is mentioned in fine print at the end ‘parts of the show are ‘edited’ to improve the program’. The ‘improvements’ are to deliberately mislead in my opinion.

This page at the Victorian Skeptics website has some interesting info about the show including this little gem. Quote: “A contact from the crew of “Sensing Murder” has revealed another part of the reason why the psychics did so well at sensing details from the murders. Apparently the psychics were filmed while they were picking up ‘vibes’ about the case and then their comments were matched up against the known facts. The show was subsequently ‘improved’ by editing out the mistakes. The correct statements were left in, as well as those mentioned by both psychics. The crew member was very unimpressed by the psychics’ abilities and claimed to feel “morally bankrupt” for having worked on the show.”
There always has been shows on telly with this theme like Touched by an Angel and other such drivel but now we have the Ghost Whisperer, Ghost Hunters, The Mentalist, Sensing Murder, The One etc which all seem to be portraying this nonsense as having some kind of a factual basis - but it doesn’t - none whatsoever.

Look, if you are so desperate to get some reassuring words from your dead relatives that you need to go to a clairvoyant or call 1900talktothedead or whatever (usually at outrageous per minute charges) - well fine, I don’t care, it’s your money. But honestly, we are actually in the 21st Century now and charlatans, voodoo and witch doctors belong in another era - so why not just face reality as it is?

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Insisting on their rights to tell them (or force schools to teach them) about ‘intelligent design’ as well as evolution however is another matter. You will find my thoughts about that subject in other posts.

I found this article at about.com that raises valid reasons that children should be taught about religions.

“When children are raised in a religious environment, what they are taught about religion is relatively obvious and organized — but what about kids raised in a non-religious environment? If you aren’t specifically teaching your kids to believe in any gods or to follow any religious systems, then it may be tempting to just ignore the topic entirely.

That, however, would probably be a mistake. You may not follow any religion and you may be happier if your children never follow any religion, but that doesn’t change the fact that religion is an important aspect of culture, art, politics, and of the lives of many people your children will meet over the years. If your children are simply ignorant about religion, they will be missing out on a lot.

Another, and perhaps more serious, problem with ignoring religion lies in how they will react to religion once they are old enough to make their own decisions. If they are unfamiliar with religious belief systems, then they will be an easy target for evangelists for just about any faith. Your children will simply lack the intellectual tools necessary to fully understand and evaluate what they are hearing, thus making it more likely that they adopt a very bizarre and/or extreme religion.”

I hadn’t thought about that and I agree. I remember well the experiences of a school mate who was one of those down to earth, petrol head kind of guys. He made his first O.E (overseas experience) trip when he was in his early twenties to the US and he told me how he had been targeted by the Moonies - wonder what happened to them, they were big in the 70s? He apparently had been ‘befriended’ and was taken to their compound and realised after few hours that his new ‘mates’ had another agenda besides friendship. He had to do some fast talking to extricate himself and only just managed to  get out to a road and thumb a lift out the place. As he said, he had just been sitting in the airport (and probably looking very much like the young kiwi on his first overseas trip he was) and feeling a little  alone and out of his depth when the cult members targeted him.

If he had known more about all the churches, religions and cults that humans had invented over the years he might have been more wary of ‘friendly’ strangers…

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(“They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.” Sarah Palin speaking at a fund raiser in San Fransisco on Oct 5th) and that being able to SEE a country doesn’t actually give her credentials in foreign policy (“They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.” –Sarah Palin, on her foreign policy insights into Russia, ABC News interview, Sept. 11).

As has been pointed out, if McCain gets into the Oval Office and then has a coronary the most powerful woman in the world would then be this bible-thumping ‘hockey mom’. Well, they had a B Grade actor in the While House… so why not? If those yanks in the know reckon the US is becoming more ‘dumbed down’ with each new generation - they ain’t seen nuthin yet! Within a decade or three there could be no scientists or universities (except those dedicated to the study of creation ’science’) left in the whole goddamn country…

Anyway, as I said, someone beat me to it already - bugger.

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After tidying up the site a little I also decided to improve the header image by adding a slideshow using the excellent NextGen Gallery plugin. After a little assistance from this blogger on how to incorporate it into the header file, it didn’t take more than half an hour to sort it out. Thanks Ruth!

I found some NASA images and ones from my own collection of bush and beach photos and turned them into panoramic images in PhotoShop. I had the whole job done in an hour. What do you think? Worth the effort? I reckon so anyway. If you are interested, the beach photo is of Piha Beach in West Auckland and the bush and water scene was taken at the Darwin Botanical Gardens!

To return to Carl Sagan’s writings, I’ll just let him have the last say -
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

Puts the whole ‘intelligent design debate’ and ‘my god is better than your god’ nonsense into perspective doesn’t it?

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