The Quran: Just The Good Stuff Translation

Since my "Just the Good Stuff Translation" of the Bible was apparently something of a hit, I decided to go back and do the same thing with the Quran. As with The Bible (JGST), in my new translation of the Quran, I've removed every immoral teaching, implausibility, falsehood, etc, and kept only the good stuff. By using my new translation of the Quran, no Muslim will ever again have to tiptoe around verses like Surah 2:216 while explaining how Islam is a religion of peace and love.

Without further ado, I present for your reading enjoyment:
"The Quran: Just the Good Stuff Translation (JGST)"

Liver and Fava Beans: A Collection of Church Collapses

“Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and then there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God'… I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvelous! The facade fell on sixty-five grandmothers at a special mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If he's up there, he just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans - it all comes from the same place.”
~ Hannibal Lecter, "The Silence of the Lambs", Chapter 3

Sunday Sermon: Where Does Morality Come From?

It is a common Christian argument that, if their deity does not exist, then there can be no morality. They argue that without an objective deity to give objective morality, then all of morality is just a collection of human opinions, and no one opinion is better than any other. I will go so far as to grant that this is a common argument for good reason, as it is a difficult argument to refute, as it is very difficult (if not impossible) to explain exactly when, where, and why a concept of morality and ethics first emerged. However, while we may not know the specifics of the origins of moral and ethical thinking, it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that morality cannot be explained if Yhwh exists.

Sunday Sermon: "Christian Circumcision" or "Jesus Hates Genital Mutilation"

There is an alarming trend in the U.S. that I think should not go unnoticed in my writings. As of my writing this, the best data available states that 79% of all males in the U.S. are circumcised. Further - although the rate of circumcision is decreasing - 55.9% of male newborns in the U.S. are circumcised each year as of 2008. Based on the assumption that 79% of males are circumcised, and the 2010 census, we can estimate that there are approximately 119,907,247 circumcised males in the U.S. at this very moment.

Multiple Independent Plagiarists: John, A Jesus for the Long-Haul

Welcome to Part 4 of my series "Multiple Independent Plagiarists" (if you want to start from Part 1, you can find it here).

As we established in Parts 1-3, Mark's gospel was far from being an eyewitness account of remembered history. It was in fact, a fictional drama set in a pseudo-historical landscape, by a Greek author who had probably never set foot in the region. From there we determined that Matthew's gospel too was not an eyewitness account, but had simply taken Mark's drama, blatantly plagiarized from it, and attempted to historicize Mark's work, in an effort to create a new religion. Finally, Luke openly admitted to having copied from other sources (namely Mark and either from Matthew or an unknown source) supposedly in an effort to create a definitive account of the life of Jesus. Unfortunately for Luke, his Gospel is only as definitive as the fictional sources used to compile it.

Now that we have had a brief refresher, we can examine the the third canonical gospel to have been written - and see if he holds up as an eyewitness of Jesus.

Addendum to "Political Reform and Compulsory Voting"

If you haven't read "Political Reform and Compulsory Voting", please go back and read that post before continuing. I'll be using that post, to present a hypothetical situation, that just sort of came to me. I'm not sure if it's a good plan or not, I just came up with it about three minutes ago, so we can work through this situation together. It will be a bonding experience.

Multiple Independent Plagiarists: Luke, the Compiler

Welcome to Part 3 of my series "Multiple Independent Plagiarists" (if you want to start from Part 1, you can find it here).

As we established in Parts 1 and 2, Mark's gospel was far from being an eyewitness account of remembered history. It was in fact, a fictional drama set in a pseudo-historical landscape, by a Greek author who had probably never set foot in the region. From there we determined that Matthew's gospel too was not an eyewitness account, but had simply taken Mark's drama, blatantly plagiarized from it, and attempted to historicize Mark's work, in an effort to create a new religion (If Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard could do it in a world that was primarily literate, then just about anybody could do it in a time where access to information and fact-checking was sparse and - depending on your region - literacy rates were anywhere from 3-20%).

Now that we have that brief refresher, let's take a look at Luke - the third canonical gospel to have been written - and see if he holds up as an eyewitness of Jesus.

Political Reform and Compulsory Voting

Once upon a time in an Introduction to U.S. Politics class, my Professor was making an argument that may or may not be familiar to many people: he was arguing that voting should be compulsory. He argued that democracy only works when everyone is involved, and therefore everyone should have to vote on penalty of a fine. At the time, I was very much opposed to this idea for a variety of reasons, and truth be told I'm still very leery of the idea of making voting compulsory.

Let's face it, the current Democrat incumbent's drone policy has set new lows for dehumanizing brown people, Republicans are the gun-toting "patriotic" types who love the military beyond all reason (as Bill Maher once said "They're the religious party, worship is in their DNA"), and voting third party is about as useful as voting for Mickey Mouse. If you're seriously anti-war - or even just think that maybe wholesale slaughtering people should be a last resort and not the immediate "go to" plan every time the U.S. has a problem - you really don't have a good option when it comes time for an election. I personally refuse to cast a vote for president because I know that I have no option that does not result in the election of a war-monger, and I refuse to take any action that could be seen as an endorsement of a war-monger rising to a position of power. That said, I think that - with a couple of modifications - this whole "compulsory voting" idea could be a pretty good idea. First let's look at what's wrong, and then we'll look at how to fix it.

Multiple Independent Plagiarists: Matthew's Mighty Makeover

Welcome to the Part 2 of my series "Multiple Independent Plagiarists" (if you missed Part 1, you can find it here).

As we established in Part 1, Mark's gospel was far from being an eyewitness account of remembered history. It was in fact, a fictional drama set in a pseudo-historical landscape, by a Greek author who had probably never set foot in the region. Now that we have that brief refresher, let's move on to Matthew - the second canonical gospel to have been written - and see if he holds up as an eyewitness of Jesus.

Multiple Independent Plagiarists: Mark, the Playwright.

Perhaps my favorite claims from Biblical apologists, is that the gospels are four, independent, eyewitness accounts that all agree with each other perfectly. Of course if you point out all the obvious contradictions in the gospels (for example, when the one, two, three, or five or more women went to Jesus' tomb, were they greeted by one young man who was seated inside the tomb, one angel who was standing outside the tomb, two men who were standing inside the tomb, or two angels who were seated inside the tomb?) they typically backpedal pretty quickly and assert that there are "differences" (being very careful never to say the word "contradictions") but the stories are reliable in that they all tell a more or less similar story, just from different points of view. They further tend to argue that these differences actually increase the reliability of the gospel story because the slight discrepancies prove that the gospel authors were independent eyewitnesses who didn't collaborate or conspire with each other in writing their testimony.

This is a lovely story, but does it hold up to scrutiny?

House M.D. on Near-Death Experiences

House (talking about himself and visions he had): "The patient was technically dead for over a minute."
Wilson: "Do you think he was dead? Do you think those experiences were real?"
House: "Define real. They were real experiences. What they meant... Personally, I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see, visions, this patient saw: they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down."
Foreman: "You choose to believe that?"
House: "There's no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting."
Cameron: "You find it more comforting to believe that this is it?"
House: "I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test."
~ House MD, Season 1, Episode 21

Sunday Sermon: But What About HITLER?!?

Perhaps my favorite rebuttal offered by Christians or other theists is the Reductio ad Hitlerum in which the Christian attempts to discredit atheism and evolution by claiming "But Hitler was an atheist! And so were Stalin and Mao! Therefore atheism and evolution leads to wanton murder and genocide!"

If these claims are accurate, they clearly paint a very bleak picture of atheism. After all, Hitler is responsible for the deaths of 20,946,000 people, Stalin for 51,755,000 deaths, and Mao for 56,218,000 deaths. That said, these allegations, are problematic on a couple of levels.

Sunday Sermon: What About Islam?

It is not at all uncommon - especially on websites that criticize Christianity - to see some commenter or other make a snide little remark to the effect of "You atheists never have any problem attacking Christianity because you know that we won't kill you for it, but are any of you brave enough to attack the homophobic and womon-abusing Islamic religion?"

Sunday Sermon: What Might Have Been

There are a fairly standard set of objections that are used against Christianity. Just to name a few: Christianity is notoriously homophobic, has outdated views on sexuality and reproduction, has a long history of wanton murder, horrendously intolerant of other points of view, and insistent that people were born as broken, wicked, evil people, who deserve to burn forever unless they bow to Jesus.

All of these are blatant problems that typically drive people away from Christianity. Even many Christians have adopted the "New Covenant" doctrine to allow them to casually discard the Old Testament whenever it becomes inconvenient, simply by claiming that Jesus changed the verse in question. This argument typically doesn't hold up when arguing against non-christians, as non-christians realize that the Old Testament seems to not apply, only for those verses where the Christian in question doesn't want that particular verse to apply (i.e. homosexuality is still a sin, but dietary restrictions on eating shellfish don't apply, even though they're in the same book).

Bearing this in mind, I would like this post to be a mixture of a brief history lesson, and some wishful thinking. You see, Christianity didn't have to be this way. In the early to mid second century, Marcion of Sinope was heading up the Marcionite church, which, for a few years, was a real contender to become the dominant Christian faith.

Sunday Sermon: An Atheist in the Courtroom

I've been encountering the same logically flawed objection to atheism a lot lately, and I feel the need to at least attempt to put this objection to bed. The objection usually runs as follows:

"How can you be sure that there is no god? Do you have any proof that there is no god?"

This is an attempt at reversing the long-time atheist argument that "claims require supporting evidence", by saying that an atheists denial of the existence of deities is a also claim that must be supported by evidence. While this may initially seem like a decent argument, it's logic is actually terribly flawed.

Sunday Sermon: The Invention of the Gods

For just a little while today, let's go on a trip. Close your eyes… actually on second thought, ignore that, You're reading a blog post. It won't work if you close your eyes. Regardless, imagine for a moment that you are alone, walking through the savannah. It is a beautiful spring day in the middle of Africa. The year is 150,000 BCE.

Schrödinger's Freedom of Speech

There is a fairly well-known thought experiment known as Schrödinger's Cat. The basic idea of the thought experiment is that, if one were to accept a certain interpretation of quantum mechanics, it would follow that a cat placed into a box, would at some point be simultaneously alive and dead. I'm not a physicist (although I try to stay somewhat informed as a layperson), so if you want to know more about Schrödinger's and his cat, pray to Google, for she is a wise and benevolent deity.

Anyways, I didn't start this post to talk about physicists and their hypothetical cats, but to talk about freedom of speech. It occurred to me last night during a conversation with a friend, that I simultaneously do, and do not, agree with the concept of free speech (hence the title of this post). Allow me to explain.

The Bible: Just the Good Stuff Translation

It is not at all uncommon for Christians to have to "cherry pick" their Bibles in order to avoid the horrendous immorality, logical inconsistency or impossibility, historical inaccuracy, and/or outright contradictions that makes up so much of the book. On a few occasions, I've even said "If you will go into your own Bible, take a permanent marker, black out that verse, and tell me that that verse is false and not the word of Yhwh, I will no longer hold that verse against you in debate." To date, I've found not one Christian who was so sure of what Yhwh meant, that they were willing to black out a verse to improve their Bible.

So, in the spirit of fair play, I've decided to redact the Bible in advance. In my new translation, I've removed every immoral teaching, implausibility, falsehood, etc, and kept only the good stuff. By using my new translation of the Bible, no Christian will ever again have to be embarrassed by the content of the Bible, undertake embarrassing mental gymnastics to explain how it "isn't really that bad", or have to explain how they're a Christian who "doesn't really believe in that verse".

Let's call this new translation:
"The Bible: Just the Good Stuff Translation (JGST)"

Sunday Sermon: "In Money We Trust" or "Peter, The First TV Evangelist"

I recently found a new candidate for "Most petty reason why someone gets killed in the Bible". My favorite part about this new passage - as opposed to my previous "most petty reason" in Numbers 15:32-36 - is that my this passage is from the New Testament, after "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" comes along. The passage I'm referring to is Acts 5:1-11.

In this passage a man named Ananias has sold a piece of his land, and with his wife's approval, kept some of the money for himself and brought the rest to the apostles. A select few translations claim that Ananias told the apostles that he had brought the full amount that he had gotten from the land, though most translations make no mention of this (presumably because Yhwh forgot where he left the "power of tongues" and hash't been able to figure out how to produce a faithful translation into English without it). Regardless, I think the story makes more sense with that claim included.

Sunday Sermon: WWYD

This will be a sermon not only for Christians, but for Muslims, Jews, Hindus… If you are a member of a theist religion, this one is for you (although deists, agnostics, atheists, and ignostics are more than welcome to come along for the ride).

If you would be so kind, take a moment to think about the following scenario: Imagine that you are the one true god for a day. All power in the universe is yours, to do as you will. What do you do?