Happy Halloween

So, I've decided to revert to using my first name on blogs (for now) instead of a pseudonym. It's no big deal to me, since not much anonymity is lost. Either way, I'd like to apologize for the lack of posts in the past two months- I've been busy. But, I'm slowly, but surely, getting back into the swing of things. Also, I would like to wish you all a Happy (and safe) Halloween.

Don't eat too much candy, and don't scare yourself to death.

Oh, what the hell, you've already sold your soul to Lucifer so who the hell cares...

Horchata

I am an atheist. I am also a blogger. By themselves, none of these describe me as a whole; they identify me as what I am in one area of my life. Another term I use to describe myself is music listener (hey, you probably do as well.)

Vampire Weekend- Horchata (It’s the name of the song, and a tasty drink as well.)

What do you think? Any musical suggestions (openly atheist, loud, classical, whatever) from my readers in the comments section is greatly appreciated.

I finally joined.

Yes, I have finally joined the Atheist Blogroll after months of writing.

B is for Barnstorming has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.

God separated, not created, the Heavens and Earth

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.
She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".

Interesting, since it seems that God did not create the Earth from even a literal biblical point of view (granted Prof Van Wolde is correct.) The article where I quoted from goes on to explain Wolde's belief that this particular verse in the Bible was not written to describe "the beginning of time, but the beginning of narration." Oh, and that there were sea monsters living in complete darkness before God decided to work his 6-day magic.

Mind you, I don't know how contemporary religious circles will react to this; It should be mildly amusing if this continues to unfold.

Kirk Cameron accepts dishonesty

Not that the point needs to be reiterated. If you haven't heard of Way of the Master already, then you're really missing out on an opportunity to watch a scientifically ignorant duo consisting of Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron take on the world of evangelizing through dishonesty; however, since you are reading this blog I am going to assume that you do indeed know who they are.

A while back, they debated an atheist group (known as the Rational Response Squad) on television. Although I am not much of a fan of the Rationalist Response Squad, few are reluctant to say that Kirk and Ray put up much of a fight (this sentence almost seems like a non sequitur, but I don't care). As many people may know already, Ray Comfort is not exactly the most honest creationist in town. He has been corrected many times on his blog about the misconceptions he's had related to science and evolution (one glance at any of his comments sections is evidence for that). He also eggs people on, in my opinion, through insults (both subtle and not). For example, here is his blog post for today.

As we can see, Comfort is one classy fellow.

What's worse is the video he links to, which shows a clip of Kirk Cameron talking about "missing links" in the fossil records (this was at the event mentioned above).

Science has never found a genuine transitional form that is one kind of animal crossing over into another kind, either living or in the fossil record. And there are suppose to be billions of them.

This is also where we get the first taste of the "crocoduck" argument against evolution; as you can see, Ray and Kirk are not exactly the most intelligent people when it comes to science. Or evolution. Or transitional fossils.

In watching the video, you witness something even more distressing... somebody actually buys it.