Factonista » Shalini Sehkar

Another family destroyed by religion

Shalini Sehkar — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:38:33 +0000

If you are familiar at all with the usual arguments of the faithful for their religion, you would be well versed with the way they whine about how religion brings families together, helps people be moral, yada yada yada.

This article shows another side of religion that the theists don’t like to mention.

To make a long story short: A Hindu priest rapes a woman, is arrested, and confessed to the crime. The woman’s son refuses to believe that the priest did it (because men of god don’t do bad things ever, right?), and now refuses to visit his mother in hospital.

This is utterly despicable, not only on the part of the so-called holy man who used his position to commit monstrous crimes; but also on the part of people who are so deluded religious leaders that they would rather be split from their families than believe that a man of god could have done something wrong.

When religion is concerned, it seems that everything suddenly becomes AWWRIGHT. Children dying because their parents refuse medical care – it’s AWWRIGHT! Families split because of religion – it’s AWWRIGHT! Science education messed up because of religion – it’s AWWRIGHT!

[appeaser-speak]What makes it AWWRIGHT, you ask? Why, because it is religion, of course! Religion should not be criticized because it is RELIGION, and we need to show some respect here. Respect religion because it is religion! Don’t you see the logic here? You might offend someone, and that is bad![/appeaser speak]

See the problem with that approach? When situations such as the above happen, most appeasers are quick to denounce the practice as ‘extremism’ and the like, without realizing that their actions then make them exactly like the so-called ‘militant atheists’ they abhor…because, we all know that speaking out against religion makes us militants.

Militants. Serious business.

“Behold, it was very good.”

Shalini Sehkar — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:49:42 +0000

“God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” —Genesis 1:31

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” —Romans 1:20

Creationists often claim that the ‘beauty of creation’ tells us something about the nature of their god; and that we atheists are ‘without excuse’ for not believing in god after looking at the world around us. The closet creationists, the IDists, also claim that such wonderful design in the universe is proof of a designer, which to them is the Christian god.

Now, let us take a look at a beautiful organism that must have been created by god. The evidence for special creation of this organism is so convincing that I am seriously doubting my acceptance of evolution.

This wonderful organism, Cymothoa exigua, simply must have been created by a loving creator! This cute little tongue-eating isopod causes degeneration of the tongue of its host fish, the rose snapper, Lutjanus guttatus, and it then attaches to the remaining tongue stub and floor of the fish’s mouth by hook-like pereopods. In this position the isopod acts as a replacement to the fish’s missing tongue, and in a marvel of god’s sheer ingenuity, gets the first opportunity to devour incoming meals.

Praise god for creating such a wonderful organism! Through this, we see that god loves parasites, is sadistic, might have been on pot, should not be messed around with, and…oh…according to Christians, must be worshiped. If you don’t worship this sadistic god, he will damn you to hell, and considering his amazing creations such as the above, this is a threat that we should seriously consider! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord for being a loving and sadistic god at the same time! Praise the Lord for giving us such awesome creatures that helps us marvel at the beauty of his creation!

Praise our Father in heaven, the loving Creator of gruesome organisms! Amen.

I am not a Darwinist

Shalini Sehkar — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:24:24 +0000

Creationists often love throwing around the label ‘Darwinist’ and ‘Darwinism’ in their attempts to discredit evolution. This tactic is a favorite among the ID creationists who use the term Darwinism to imply that evolutionary biology is on the same level as their religious creation myth.They also try to suggest that scientists are still desperately clinging on to Darwin’s outdated ideas; while being either too ignorant or too dishonest to understand that modern evolutionary biology has advanced far beyond anything Darwin could have ever imagined. As their “theories” are religious myths and not science, they try to portray Darwin as the messiah of evolutionary biology the same way Jesus is the messiah of their particular brand of religion.

(The funny thing is that no creationist ever refers to people who accept the theory of gravitation as Newtonists.)

As most people who accept evolutionary biology would know by now, lot of Darwin’s ideas are outdated and plain wrong. When the IDists trumpet their silly list of ’scientists who are skeptical of Darwinism’, it is clear that they are either liars or people who have no clue about what they are attempting to argue against.

I am not a Darwinist. Darwin is not my messiah – the same way that Newton is not my messiah although I accept that gravity keeps my feet on the ground. I do not believe that natural selection is all there is to evolution. Creationists who starts blabbering about ‘Darwinists think that…..’ or ‘Darwinism is evil…..’ or any variation of the term after being told otherwise over 9000 times (I’m looking at you, UD folks) are simply dishonest liars for their imaginary god.

Mental abuse for Jesus

Shalini Sehkar — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:09:45 +0000

Appeasers often say that religion is AWWRIGHT because it supposedly gives theists hope and helps them live a happier life (or something). However, I wonder if they would still think that religion is AWWRIGHT after reading this blog post by a fundie theist who thinks that heaping mental abuse on her four-year-old daughter is AWWRIGHT because it is done in the name of religion.

Sometimes during the day or before bed, she always asks me if she has been good, and I always try to be as honest as I can with her, and I will tell her what she has done wrong if I can remember. If she has been better than usual I will praise her and tell her. I have never said to her she has been a perfect little girl who has done nothing wrong all day, If I say that to her then I am a liar and I will be doing her more harm than good. I do not believe in teaching children self esteem or that they should feel good about themselves, because they should not.

Teaching children self-esteem is a bad thing now? Feeling good about yourself is a bad thing? Talk about Theist Bizzario World indeed.

Remember, this is a four-year-old kid that we’re talking about here. If her mother thinks that she shouldn’t be feeling good about herself at such an age, I shudder to imagine how messed-up that kid would be in the future.

My daughter is a normal 4 year old who loves to play with her dolls and dress up, but everyday she finds that she is doing things that are wrong like doing something to upset her baby brother or not doing what she is told by her mum. So we have a problem, and this is an everyday battle. The problem is sin. I never taught my daughter to sin. This is because she, and as well as the rest of the human race have inherited a sinful nature from Adam. From the moment we are conceived we are sinners, Pslam 57:5. We are born with a desire to sin. We are all born God hating and evil.

Teaching your kids that they are evil and that they should hate themselves because an old book of lies says so: It’s AWWRIGHT because it is religion, right?

“But mummy, everyday I try and I want to be a good girl, but I can’t do it. I can’t be a good girl”. I didn’t know what to say to her at this point so I asked her why she could not do it. ” Because there is only one person who can ever help me to be good”, she said.So not knowing where this was going and a little confused by what my daughter was saying, I asked her who it is who would help her to be a good girl, thinking maybe she was going to say me, she said- Jesus. Yes my four year old daughter told me that the only person who would ever help her to be a good girl was Jesus Christ, because she could not do it on her own. I have never told her this.

[sarcasm] Yeah, her fundie mother never told her that. Living in such an environment would ensure that she couldn’t have possibly have heard of Jesus. Of course. [/sarcasm]

The worst is yet to come:

She is a wretched little girl, who knows she is a wretched sinner who needs only a good saviour to help her. Glory belongs to God!

Know why someone can say something like that and not be hauled off for child (mental) abuse?

It is because it is religion, and society has been conditioned to believe that it is AWWRIGHT and that we should not interfere. We are told to respect religion unconditionally although innocent people are hurt simply because religion is involved. There is no reason for giving religion a free pass – but somehow we have swallowed the idea that respect entails shutting up and avoiding confrontations with religious people; because we apparently know that when it comes to religion, it’s AWWRIGHT, ethics be damned.

Sigh.

Stalin, Stalin, Stalin!

Shalini Sehkar — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:28:42 +0000

Theist: “And so, if you’re gonna criticize — you know, religious people for the Inquisition, then you need to praise them for the civil rights movement,” he said. You can’t sort of have it both ways. And similarly, if you’re going to praise atheists for these things, you need to criticize the Stalinists. I mean, some of the most murderous regimes that we’ve had in the 20th century were atheistic regimes.”

What this theist refuses to acknowledge is that he is conveniently comparing apples and oranges. I do not deny that some atheists do bad things, as some Christians do. The difference is, for example, in the case of the Inquisition, murders and torture were condoned in the name of their religion and their god. Even if Stalin was a devout atheist, he did not commit his tyranny in the name of religion or because he claimed to defend reason. Stalin was simply a megalomaniac and a political opportunist. When was the last time you heard a terrorist act being done in the name of atheism or science and reason? When was the last tine a terrorist act was done in the name of a religion’s imaginary god?

Stalin was not motivated by atheism; if he was motivated by an “ism”, it was Communism. While communism is an ostensibly atheistic political philosophy, atheism is not inherently communistic. To restate that more clearly: communists are supposed to be atheists, but atheists do not have to be communists – no matter what your local evangelical tells you. The intent of the communist revolution was to eliminate capitalism, not religion.

An atheist doesn’t need to be a communist, but he/she doesn’t need neither to be a capitalist, an anarchist, a feudalist, or anything else. In fact, an atheist doesn’t also need to be a humanist. There are atheists that see humanism as a kind of ’speciesism’ against other biological organisms, and thus reject it. There are also anti-humanist atheists that do not think that every human being deserves respect simply for being human.

There are all kinds of atheists, politically, socially, economically, etc.

Moving on…

Although Stalin was an atheist, he was praised as a god in the Soviet Union and in all the official Communist Parties in the world.

An example:

“O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth.
Thou who fructifiest the earth.
Thou who restorest the centuries,
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical cords.
Thou, splendour of my spring,
O Thou, Sun reflected by millions of hearts …”
(Pravda, August 28, 1936.)

And another one:

“I would have compared him to a white mountain – but the mountain has a summit.
I would have compared him to the depths of the sea – but the sea has a bottom.
I would have compared him to the shining moon – but the moon shines at midnight, not at noon.
I would have compared him to the brilliant sun – but the sun radiates at noon, not at midnight.”
(Znamya, Soviet Authors’ Union Monthly, October 1946.)

Perhaps Stalin is a self-theist?

Also, the USSR didn’t reject religious doctrines out of some ‘rational analysis’, but because Marxist-Leninist doctrines called for it. It’s good to remember that unquestioned adherence to those doctrines drove them to reject real science (especially genetics) because, according to them, it contradicted orthodoxy and was therefore false. Ring a bell, theists?

The problem here isn’t Stalin and his supposed atheism. It is about unquestioning obedience to dogma, whatever that particular dogma may be. That is why religion is so dangerous, and this why theists need to wake the up.

Also: This particular theist has just lost the game.

The Burial of Jesus

Shalini Sehkar — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:43:18 +0000

One of the questions that we should be asking when considering the story of the burial of Jesus is: Does the account of the burial and resurrection of Jesus in the gospels match up with what is known about Jewish laws and traditions at the time?

This post will be my attempt to address this question succinctly. Onwards, skeptics!

Let us first take a look at the law concerning the burial of condemned men in the Mishnah:

They did not bury the condemned in the burial grounds of his ancestors, but there were two graveyards made ready for the use of the court, one for those who were beheaded or strangled, and one for those who were stoned or burned.(6.5e, f)

According to the Mishnah, since Jesus was accused as a blasphemer, he would be buried in the graveyard for the stoned or burned. The Mishnah explains further that only “when the flesh was completely decomposed were the bones gathered and buried in their proper place” (in this case, this would mean the ancestral tomb of Jesus).

It has been clearly shown according to Jewish law that Jesus could not be buried in a private tomb as he had to be placed with the criminals. The problem here is that the gospels clearly say that he was buried in a private tomb (Matthew 27:60, Luke 23:53, John 19:41). So, does this mean that Jesus was not formally buried on Friday night?

Another interesting fact is that Jews were not allowed to bury their dead on the Sabbath or on the first day of any festival (according to the Talmud). Now, as the Mishnah requires prompt burial, Jews get around this by placing the corpse in a temporary grave before the real burial. Jesus supposedly died on the first day of Passover, and Joseph asked for the body right before the Sabbath. Therefore, there was no way that Joseph could have done all the burial rites. The only way to reconcile to gospel story of Jesus being buried in a private tomb would be if it actually refers to a temporary grave.

Now, let’s take a look at the Semahot:

Whosoever finds a corpse in a tomb should not move it from its place, unless he knows that this is a temporary grave.

By law, Joseph would have been required to place Jesus in a temporary grave. The body could not have been in Joseph’s tomb Sunday morning (where the Gospels claim the women visited it). Yes, they found it empty, but by law, by then his body would have to be in the Graveyard of the Stoned and Burned.

The story gets even more interesting when considering the myth of Jesus being raised from the dead on the third day. There is an interesting third-day pattern in the Midrash Rabbah, which is related to the Mishnah. It shows an overall third-day pattern in the current Jewish understanding of the dead.

Bar Kappara: “Until three days [after death] the soul keeps on returning to the grave, thinking that it will go back [into the body]; but when it sees that the facial features have become disfigured, it departs and abandons it [the body].”

The full force of mourning lasts for three days. Why? Because [for that length of time] the shape of the face is recognizable, even as we have learnt in the Mishnah: Evidence [to prove a man's death] is admissible only in respect of the full face, with the nose, and only [by one who has seen the corpse] within three days [after death].

From the Semahot:

One may go out to the cemetery for three days to inspect the dead for a sign of life, without fear that this smacks of heathen practice. For it happened that a man was inspected after three days, and he went on to live twenty-five years; still another went on to have five children and died later. (8.1)

Thus, in Jewish tradition, it was considered possible for a soul to reunite with its body within three days but not after that as sometime on the third day the soul realized the body was rotting, and then departed.

No, the burial story does not match up with what we know about Jewish law and ritual at the time. All I smell so far is a huge stink.

Responses to common Christian apologetic claims

Shalini Sehkar — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:58:40 +0000

The Bible says the Earth is unsupported. (Job 26:7)
This is perhaps one of the best pick-and-choose Christian arguments, in which they single out a few Biblical verses that seemingly support modern science. Christians who make this claim seem to have forgotten to include certain verses (Job 38:4-6) which clearly state that the earth has foundations. This is in exact contradiction to the fact that the earth is unsupported. It even directly contradicts the earlier verse that Christians use to claim that the Earth is unsupported. Anyone seeking to reconcile the Biblical view to the modern scientific view certainly has more than enough passages to select from and interpret; while ignoring others that make the Bible sound like nothing more than a primitive attempt at understanding the world.

The Bible describes the water cycle in astounding detail. (Ecclesiastes 1:7)
Astounding detail? This is what the verse says:
“All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.”

What is so astounding about that? The verse merely says that water returns to the source of the streams. It doesn’t mention anything about condensation or evaporation. This is merely wishful thinking on the part of anyone who deceives themselves into thinking that some sort of divine revelation happened here.

The Bible says the earth is round. (Isaiah 40:22)
The verse reads “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth”. A circle is flat and without any volume (in contrast to a sphere). Newsflash: A circle and a sphere are not the same things. Isaiah 11:12 refers to the ‘four corners of the earth’. Why don’t mainstream Christians take that as the indicator of the earth’s shape? Telling, isn’t it?

The Bible has always proven to be factually correct.
Are these verses factually correct in light of modern science?

Leviticus 11:6- Rabbits chew their cud and have hooves.
Leviticus 11:20-23- Insects are four-legged, e.g. grasshoppers.

Do I need to go on?

The Bible is historically correct and consistent.

Really? Well, that must be news because as far as I know, Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23 cannot even agree regarding Jesus’ lineage. There are also historical records found in China, Egypt, etc. that show life going on normally during the exact time the global flood was alleged to have taken place. For a flood of such epic proportions, something stinks to high heaven (pardon the pun) here.

The Bible is reasonable.
Reasonable? Let’s take a look at Genesis 30:37-39. Did anyone tell you that shoving striped rods in front of animals causes them to have striped offspring? God really needs to learn a thing or two about basic genetics, don’t you think?

In Numbers 22:2-29, Balaam doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to discover that his donkey could suddenly speak. I suppose this must be because stuff like that used to happen every day in Biblical times although the Christian god has become strangely silent now.

Wait, all this is supposed to be reasonable? My bad.

Sorry, Christian apologists. You need to try harder next time.

Can it get any more pathetic?

Shalini Sehkar — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:09:13 +0000

Every once in a while you come across something so outrageous and sad that you almost think that it is all a big parody, except for the fact that it is 100% real. Next, you think that humanity is more messed up than you ever imagined, and you are even more horrified when you realize that a large segment of the population actually buys into that particular brand of lunacy.

Case in point: The Expelled DVD.

Okay, the fact that Expelled is a pile of dishonest claptrap is old news. The drama by the IDists after getting epically humiliated countless times over the movie is also old news. Nothing could make Expelled even more of a failure, right?

Wrong, of course. When it comes to the IDists, nothing is too absurd or too unbelievable. Are you ready for the latest cringe-worthy truckload of FAIL regarding the Expelled movie? Get ready for it now….

The person who wrote the promotional blurb for the cover of the Expelled DVD is Ben Stein himself.

“I love this film!” –Ben Stein

Let that sink in for a bit, folks.

Ben Stein wrote the cover blurb for his own movie. Ben Stein wrote the cover blurb for his own movie. Ben Stein wrote the cover blurb for his own movie. Ben Stein wrote the cover blurb for his own movie. Ben Stein wrote the cover blurb for his own movie.

Can it get any more pathetic than that?

It seems like good old Stein couldn’t even get some church leader to promote his terrible movie, and he had to resort to the usual self-praising games just like his compatriot William Dembski, who wrote positive reviews of his own book at Amazon under different names.

Those IDists are like a train wreck that has greatly surpassed the point of being funny, but somehow we can’t seem to stop watching and cringing.

Oh, the failure! Oh, the comedy! Will it ever stop?

Religion does not work

Shalini Sehkar — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:04:16 +0000

In yet another example of ‘unholy’ behavior by the supposed guardians of holiness, churches are buying insurance policies to pay off people who have been sexually abused by the clergy.

Although nobody is claiming that religion is the one and only cause of sexual abuse in the church, this shows that religion does not work. Religion does not help us lead a moral life, religion does not help priests keep their hands to themselves, religion does not make people less likely to commit crimes, religion does not ensure that people would behave, and the list goes on. Abstinence and celibacy simply do not work, even when proclaimed to be holy in the name of religion. They do not work even when people are threatened with hellfire because going against basic biology does not work.

People who still think that sexual abuse is not a problem among supposedly ‘celibate’ clergy need to start confronting reality before more innocent people are scarred for life because religious institutions are not willing to face the obvious fact that religion does not work.

Does faith healing really work?

Shalini Sehkar — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:55:43 +0000

This is a follow-up to a previous post.

Ever wondered why people supposedly get out of their wheelchairs and run about on stage during a healing crusade; but no one has ever regrown an amputated limb?

There are a few possibilities:

1. God is not omnipotent. Regrowing an amputated limb is beyond what he can do. (Remember, this is the same ‘god’ who flooded the whole earth, parted the Red Sea, created humans from dust, etc). This obviously does not make sense even if you look at it from the theological side.

2. God refuses to regrow limbs due to reasons that we, being humans, are not supposed to comprehend. As the popular apologetic argument goes: We cannot understand god’s ways. Most Christians that I have spoken to love using this cop-out.

However, this runs contrary to the Bible:

(Matthew 7:7) Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

(Matthew 21:21) I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Uh-oh. That argument doesn’t seem to work either.

3. God does not want to be too obvious. He prefers to remain silent and unseen so that people would have no reason to believe in him. In the end, he deliberately sends all the nonbelievers to hell.

4. God is imaginary, and the faith healers are simply deluded or are deliberate charlatans.

You may still wonder why so many people are supposedly ‘cured’? There must still be miracles to account for, right?

Wrong.

1. Some faith healers are plain frauds. Peter Popoff pretended to get messages from god while his wife was whispering through an earpiece backstage. She got her information from cards that the audience filled out when they attended In the incredibly credulous atmosphere of his crusades, the audience fell for it hook, line, and sinker. This fraud was exposed in the 1980’s by James Randi.

2. Some alleged cures have involved mistaken diagnoses that required no cure at all in the first place.

3. Psychosomatic illnesses respond positively to psychological manipulation. This never works in the case of amputated limbs. This is the most logical explanation when we consider psychosomatic illnesses as opposed to amputated limbs.

4. In the excitement of an evangelical revival, the reduction of pain due to the release of endorphins often causes people to believe and act as if they have been miraculously healed (Nickell 1993).

5. The desire to be cured can relieve stress and bring about the effects of the power of suggestion; and testimonies are often exaggerated to please god, the healer, or simply to demonstrate that they are full of faith. Nevertheless, the desire to be cured can sometimes bring adverse effects. One cancer patient at a Kathryn Kuhlman faith-healing performance was asked by Kuhlman to remove her back brace and run across the stage. She claimed her cancer was cured, but then died two months later after X-rays showed that a “cancer-weakened vertebra had collapsed due to the strain placed on it during the demonstration” (Nickell 1998).

6. Some serious ailments (etc. cancer), are unpredictable and may undergo spontaneous remission.

7. Failures are sometimes blamed on the patient for not having enough faith, or too much doubt.

8. Many patients refuse to admit that they have not been cured as they are ashamed that they “lacked faith”.

9. Many cures have been attributed to the placebo effect, not divine intervention.

To fully comprehend the lunacy of faith healers, the following is an excerpt from the transcript of what Benny Hinn said on Paul and Jan Crouch’s TBN television program (Praise The Lord, Trinity Broadcasting Network, October 19, 1999).

[start of excerpt]

Benny Hinn: But here’s first what I see for TBN. You’re going to have people raised from the dead watching this network. You’re going to have people raised from the dead watching TBN. It’s not going to be a Benny Hinn saying “Stretch your hands.” It’s going to be your average teaching program, your normal Christian program that’s blessing the church. There’s going to be such power on these programs people will be raised from the dead worldwide. I’m telling you, I see this in the Spirit. It’s going to be so awesome. Jesus I give you praise for this — that people around the world — maybe not so much in America — people around the world who will lose loved ones, will say to undertakers, “Not yet. I want to take my dead loved one and place him in front of that TV set for 24 hours.”

[end of excerpt]

So far, nobody has been raised from the dead by Benny Hinn or any of the other faith healers. Wouldn’t raising someone from the dead show non-believers that there must be something to this god business after all?

The sad thing about this is that people who are desperate for a cure often put all their trust in the faith healers, and blame themselves for ‘not having enough faith’ when they are not cured. This is the main reason that faith healers are not being called out on their outrageous claims, and in the case of Popoff, for example, people are still falling for his scam even after he was exposed by James Randi. As skeptics, we need to speak out and make our voices heard, at least for the sake of the desperate people conveniently exploited by the faith healers. Humanism calls for it.