Money is powerful. Money is generally good (to the one who has it). Money is everywhere (or more accurately, it is recognized almost everywhere). And those with the Money know everything, or at least they know a whole lot more than those without. More importantly, what they know are often things that would point them in the direction of even more Money.

Ah, Money. Almost omnipotent, generally omni-benevolent, virtually omni-present, practically omniscient. Money’s ‘omnis’ may have qualifiers, but its powers are unmistakably tangible and immediately detectable. And Money begets more Money. No wonder people worship it.

Now it is written in the Bible: The love of money is the root of all evil. But is it? How about Lust? Isn’t that a root of the evil of rape? How about Anger, Envy, Pride? Surely more horrid things had been done out of these than for the love of money.

Now I could almost hear the atheists say, “And even more terrible things like murder and genocide had been done in the name of god”. Well, I think ‘in the name of religion‘ would be more accurate. Because how can different people supposedly created by the same God receive separate ‘instructions’ from their ‘God’ to kill each other just because the other is an idolater or infidel?

And now I could almost hear the theists say, “But greater evils were done by Stalin and Mao who were all supposed to be atheists!” Well I think these atrocities had nothing to do with whether or not these leaders believed in God but rather on how they controlled their subjects in a cult-like fashion not unlike some religions – by striking the fear of death into their hearts. The only difference is that while the death the dictators deal is corporal, the death that religions use to threaten the unbelievers is eternal. I wonder which one is more effective in controlling legions and enforcing the leader’s will.

But I guess the more important question is, why do monarchs as well as religious cult leaders have to use the fear of death to control entire populations? Ah, for the love of money. And so while the monarch says, “Give me your money or else you will die”, the religious cult leader says, “Your money will only weigh down your soul and lead to your eternal damnation. Give it to me and worship me instead”. And while they talk about a Kingdom of God in Heaven, they are simultaneously building their own material kingdoms here on Earth – using their members’ money of course.

We tried to answer the question: When is it OK to criticize beliefs, and when is it rude?

Download FF Podcast Episode 4: Respect and Rudeness on Beliefs

When you take a bus trip from Negros to Boracay, chances are your going to pass the town of Cadiz. I remember when we passed this town from a trip to Boracay, the bus made a scheduled stop from a gas station in Cadiz City so passengers can have taken a leak since it still too far before we can reach the town of Caticlan. As we stop at the gas station, some vendors approached the bus and started to sell us some food. The bus conductor told us not to buy any food being sold by street vendors. He even closed the windows.

I asked the conductor for his reasons. He said that most vendors are not human but “aswang” in disguised and the food were human viscera. If we eat those food we will become aswang like them.

No one really knows when it all started but the province of Cadiz becomes well known, not because of its food or handicrafts like other Philippine provinces. Cadiz turns out to be famous because of the aswang…The Philippine Boogey man!

Just like Siquijor, the Philippine town which is famous for witchcraft, Cadiz was the center of the folklore of the “aswang”. The aswang is a night creature who is known to eat human guts. It sometimes took the appearance of a large black pig or large black dogs. The power they possessed is called lycanthropy – The magical ability of a creature to assume the characteristics of an animal, like a wolf. Unlike werewolves, you will not become an aswang after being bitten by one. They say those aswangs were passed from generations to generations. If your parents are aswangs, by the age of sixteen they will pass this powers to you, in a form of a black chick. You have to swallow this chick and you will become an aswang. Another way of becoming an aswang is when you accidentally ate their food. Old folks say that an aswang food is camouflage as ordinary food and they will gladly offer it to you. Sometimes they say that restaurants and food stalls in Cadiz serve these food to guests and you will never even know that you are already eating human innards.

In order for a person to distinguish an aswang food, he must squeeze some lime or kalamansi juice on the dish. It is said that if you place lime juice in an aswang food, the disguise will melt away to reveal its true form.

The whole tales about the aswangs were really folklore, yet it’s giving the province of Cadiz economic troubles. It’s very hard to open an eatery store in Cadiz or to sell food on passing visitors from other towns. People always assume that those foods were tinted. Abandoned old folks seem to have more difficulties because most are stereotyped as aswangs. I sometimes blame the media for blowing more air to the fire.Cheap horror shows here in the Philippines hire old performers to play the part of the aswang. So instead of helping them and providing them with their, people seem to avoid old folks living in the remote parts of the province.

The superstition has created unjustified trepidation from the local people. Maybe Filipinos are too gullible. The United States even used this to their benefit. When the Philippines were still under US rule in the early part of 20th century, the Americans used the beliefs of the aswang to flush out insurgents hiding in the mountains. They place two cadavers in the mountains side with peculiar holes in their neck. Then they spread a rumor to the town folks about an aswang roaming around the mountainous region. The plan worked well. Within a month or so insurgents came rushing down in fright and eagerly surrendered to the American forces.

It’s so easy to accept gossips and urban legends, and people seem to bite such stories even without doing a little investigation about it. That’s why the bus conductor considers it even without reflecting of the results it will create to those honest street merchants. Because of that absurd belief about the aswang, those street peddlers will not bring in anything to provide for their families.

Superstition is described as an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear. Some justify superstition as part of customs and traditions. I do not even know of any culture in this world that does not have any form of superstition.

Here in the Philippines, we have different superstitions from the time of our birth till we get married until we die. I think it’s quite natural for religious people. Superstitions prosper because of fear factor. They believe that when you ignored superstition. Say you ignore a black cat crossing the street; you will be having many dreadful misfortunes. So people will be compelled to believe it, because of the foreboding of bad lucks, while other says that there is nothing to lose if you believe it. Well you might say that these beliefs are harmless…Maybe?

Have you received a chain letter? The chain letter works like a superstitious belief. You are told to copy the letter 100 times and to send those entire letters to different people in the span of a month. If you failed to comply you will die or your family will suffer series of bad lucks. However, if you accomplished what the letter says, you will gain a lot of blessings. So a typical sucker will believe this letter and will produce 100 letters, consuming all his productive time, not to mention pen ink (or electricity if he is using a computer), paper and stamps (Internet time which of course is not without charge here in the Philippines). He will send these bogus letters to 100 people gaining what? I bet he even lost his self-respect because he was lead to believe by a spurious message because of fear.

So is superstitious belief harmless? Let’s take a look at the Filipino Fiesta tradition. Filipino travel brochure promotes the tradition of Fiesta as a symbol of Filipino hospitality. Yet the superstition behind the festive atmosphere of the Philippine Fiesta is really disappointing. Our ancient ancestors believe in the powers of different gods and goddesses. In every human activity, a deity always watches. There are fertility goddesses, rain gods, war gods, rice goddesses, sea goddesses and so on. When the Spaniards came and introduced their Christian god to the Philippines, well those “pagan gods and goddesses” only transformed into what we now known as “saints.” The rice god becomes the patron saint of agriculture. When a childless couple pray for a miracle, they go to Obando, Bulacan to dance for Santa Clara…Something like our ancestors does for Libugan – the Goddess of fertility.

The rule with fiesta is that you have to serve up many food to guests to receive bountiful blessings. That means you have to beg, steal or borrow just to push this tradition through. So after the occasion, what then? You are up to your neck with debts you cannot pay, much for bountiful blessings.

In what extent do these superstitions will rule or ruin our lives?

Religion is the mother of all superstitions, and nothing can be a best example of the irrationality of fear promoted by superstition than religious doctrines and dogmas. For example, members of Christian Science will reject all form of medical treatment in the grounds that God alone will provide salvation from sickness. Jehovah’s Witnesses will not accept blood transfusion even in emergency, life-threatening cases.

Take a look at the issues concerning the Witch Hunt. These hideous acts were justified by superstition. In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII produced his Bull against Witches. Two years later two infamous German monks, Heinrich Institoris Kramer and Jakob Sprenger, produced their incredible concoction of anti-Witchery, the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer).

Gradually the hysteria kindled by Kramer and Sprenger began to spread. It spread like a fire—flashing up suddenly in unexpected places; spreading quickly across the whole of Europe. For nearly three hundred years the fires of the persecutions raged. Humankind had gone mad.

In 1586 the Archbishop of Treves decided that the local Witches had caused the recent severe winter. By dint of frequent torture a “confession” was obtained and one hundred twenty men and women were burned to death on his charge that they had interfered with the elements.

The following is a typical scenario:
In 1595, an old woman residing in a village near Constance, angry at not being invited to share the sports of the country people on a day of public rejoicing, was heard to mutter something to herself, and was afterwards seen to proceed through the fields towards a hill, where she was lost sight of. A violent thunderstorm arose about two hours afterwards, which wet the dancers to the skin, and did considerable damage to the plantation. This woman suspected before of witchcraft, was seized and imprisoned, and accused of having raised the storm, by filling a hole with wine, and stirring it about with a stick. She was tortured till she confessed, and burned alive the next morning. – C.Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. The End of Faith, Sam Harris.

Here is an excerpt from an invaluable compilation, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, by Rossell Hope Robbins:
One might glance at some of the special tortures at Bamberg, for example, such as the forcible feeding of the accused on herrings cooked in salt, followed by denial of water— a sophisticated method which went side by side with immersion of the accused in baths of scalding water to which lime had been added. Other ways with witches included the wooden horse, various kinds of racks, the heated iron chair, leg vises [Spanish boots], and large boots of leather or metal into which (with the feet in them, of course) was poured boiling water or molten lead. In the water torture, the question de I’eau, water was poured down the throat of the accused, along with a soft cloth to cause choking. The cloth was pulled out quickly so that the entrails would be torn. The thumbscrews [gresillons] were a vise designed to compress the thumbs or the big toes to the root of the nails, so that the crushing of the digit would cause excruciating pain.

A rough estimate of the total number of people burned, hung or tortured to death on the charge of Witchcraft, is nine million. The last execution for witchcraft in Holland, cradle of the Enlightenment, was in 1610; in England, 1684; America, 1692; France, 1745; Germany, 1775; and Poland, 1793. In Italy, the Inquisition was condemning people to death until the end of the eighteenth century, and inquisitorial torture was not abolished in the Catholic Church until 1816. The last bastion of support for the reality of witchcraft and the necessity of punishment has been the Christian churches.

The whole anti-Semitic belief in Europe prior to World War 2 was kindled from superstition.

Like witches, the Jews from Eastern Europe were often accused of incredible crime. Christian believes that the Jews are responsible to Jesus’ death. Because of this crime, they are just being penalized. An added reason here is that Christians just cannot stand hearing Jews as “God’s favorite people.” Because of these beliefs brought by the Bible stories, different superstitions were created by ignorant Christians. The most known is the superstition surrounding the concept of “blood libel.”

Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews were accused of murdering Christian infants. Christian believes that Jews need the blood of an innocent Christian blood of a newly baptized child to replenish their lost stores during menstruation. They also believe that Jews use the blood to cure themselves from terrible hemorrhoids and oozing sores as a punishment for murdering Jesus Christ on the cross.

Jewish babies were also believed to have their fingers attached to their foreheads and only the blood of a Christian baby can cure it.

Christians often blames atheism as the cause of the Holocaust. That is not true. It is out of this history of theologically mandated persecution fire upped by the irrational superstitions against the Jew, with the justification of the Christian Bible that secular anti-Semitism emerged. The result: 6 million people lost their lives.

So when you believe that superstitions are harmless…think again.

While my “kuya” and me were watching the movie “Armageddon” (you know the Bruce Willis flick.), he asked me, “What if an atheist faces this situation, will that make him a believer?”

That question has made me think and write this article. If an atheist faces a situation that may endanger his life, will he become a believer? Okay, let’s make the scenario more credible. Suppose that the atheist have a terminal illness like cancer, will such situations bring him back to God?

A study shows that beliefs are designed by the brain to protect the body from physical and mental harm. (See: Why Bad Beliefs Don’t Die by Gregory W, Lester – SKEPTICAL INQUIRY Nov/Dec 2000) Belief is designed to augment and enhance the danger-identification function of the senses. Belief detects danger and improves the survival as humans entered “unfamiliar territory.” They act as internal maps.
If this is right, it will make believing in times of death reasonable by biological standards. So it might not be a surprise if “any” atheists recant on their deathbed. But that makes belief only a “placebo medicine,” to elevate the feeling of lost and despair.

People are scared of death because they want to live more. The body reacts as if it wants to have what believers always hoped for, “an eternal life:” That’s why allot of religion have always been cashing in, telling adherents the means to escape the inescapable. Immortality is not really a promise, but a bribe.

It’s easy for a person to fall to such assurance; the brain is responsible for that. It is your brain that’s talking. We are talking here about death, the eradication of your existence. Unquestionably your body does not like that to happen. So here you are clinging to that very dear life of yours. Believing on anything that may prolong it, maybe even to live forever.

How will you face death if there is nothing more into it? Many believers wonder how an atheist faces death. It may be quite strange for a fact that an atheist is not afraid of it. An atheist friend of mine once said, if he dies, then thanks that he can now rest in peace. Resting in peace is a better end that to sing hallelujah for all eternity to a grumpy god in heaven.

For the atheistic Buddhist, life is just a wheel. Hmmmmmm…you are just re-live everything again. Well, how about if life is just a non-ending repetition of events, just like one episode on the Twilight Zone. It’s sometimes fun to assume the unknown.

The best way I prefer is to face it as a fact. Death is a part of life; everything that lives will eventually face it. Even atheists.
Photo from takomabibelot / CC BY 2.0

While walking to the market I saw this dog drowning in a deep ditch. Do not get me wrong, I am a dog lover, but on that moment I did not even try to save this poor mutt. I was afraid that by saving the dog, it might bite me and I am also afraid that I may lose track of time and be late in the market.

To cut the story short, I never save the dog. So now it bothers me. Because of these fears, I never even made an effort to save it.

I now am wondering, is it the same feeling about religious lies? There are things that were embedded in our minds about religious truth. In my case since I was once a Christian, there is the fear of Judgment Day and the Wrath of God. Church elders have tried to discourage free thought, telling me that that thoughts came from Satan. Surely, you do not want to spend in hell being broiled forever, do you? So naturally, you will dismiss reasoning against faith. Like what happened to the dog, truth is left out sinking in some dark mud of lies and superstition, and if you do not do anything about it…well expects that this truth will someday stay stuck in the mud of ignorance and deceit.

Sad to say today there are Filipinos out there that feels apathy towards organized religion. “Well you can always give that Church a blind eye or a deaf ear,” that’s their reason.

If I ignore the typical sham a believer tells the Internet, did I accomplish anything? What is the reason being an atheist anyway if I will just sit around the house, play video games and have some chat with some chick in the Yahoo or MIRC chat room? Just imagine if people always turn their blind side, what will happen to history? If Paul Reeves never rode a horse and shouted “The British are coming! The British are coming!” what happened to the United State of America? What will happen if Lapu-Lapu never faced the invaders of Mactan? And what happened if Dr. Jose Rizal never wrote the Noli and the Fili? To some, those are just trivial things, but they have change the course of history.

Telling people the deceit organized religion may not mean a thing to any, but it matters to me. They have been screwing me since birth. It’s pay back time!

So I write this article dedicated to that dog that I never saved. Alas on its doom, it has opened another chapter in my life. Its death has served a lesson for me, which not to stop informing the public about the deception of organized religion, so others may not sink in the same fortune as what fate has done to this dog.
Photo from ma1974 / CC BY 2.0

“Nobody likes a skeptic.”
– Dean Winchester, Supernatural

I’m a fantasy junkie. Every year, when new TV shows premier, I always check out the science fiction and fantasy ones first. The comic books I read aren’t of the superhero genre, such as Superman or Batman, but more fantasy stuff like Sandman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Trese (plug: Book 3 is coming out in November!). I’m actually writing an urban fantasy graphic novel right now. (OK, I’m procrastinating more than actually writing it, but it will get done.)

And no, I don’t believe in ghosts.

I’ve stopped believing in ghosts since I was 10 years old and decided that everytime I’d hear a strange noise at night, I’d get up and see what was making it. It always turned out to be something innocuous like paper being blown around by the electric fan, or an rusty door. Or a cat walking on the piano keys. As I got older, I’d volunteer to take the most “haunted” room of the house (it was my grandparents’ house, which was big and old, and supposedly housed a couple of ghosts according to my Mom, aunts and sisters who all swore they saw apparitions). In all the years I’d lived there, I never saw a single supernatural event or entity, despite my habit of walking around by myself in the dark in the middle of the night to check what was making that banging noise that woke me up.

Why do people believe in ghosts? You’d think that if they’d existed all these thousands of years, someone somewhere would’ve been able to get positive proof. Yet all we’ve come up with so far are a million anecdotes and those “reality” ghost shows, which are basically just footage of a bunch of idiots running around in a dark house and asking one another, “Did you hear that? Did you see that?” Yet a lot of people still believe they exist. And not just ghosts, but manananggal, tiyanak, mangkukulam, and a host of other supernatural beings.

It’s quite simple, really. For one, our eyes (and light) occasionally do play tricks on us. Even I’m not immune to that. For another, nobody really knows what happens to us after we die. Oh, sure, religion tells us that we go to either heaven, hell or purgatory, but as no one has actually gone to any of these places and come back to confirm their existence (at least, no one credible), the idea of ghosts comforts us. Their “existence” tells us that there is some part of us that lives on even after our bodies have been turned to worm food. They may be scary and all, but the thought of there being nothing for us after we die is a million times more terrifying. So we cling to the idea of ghosts being real. And everything else follows from there — the manananggal, the tiyanak, the mangkukulam. Oh, and let’s not forget the kapre and tikbalang.

I think the kapres, tikbalangs, tiyanaks and the like are actually quite awesome. But only as myths. Only in storybooks, movies, TV shows, and our daydreams and nightmares, where they belong. That’s why it’s called the fantasy genre, children. In Supernatural, the Winchester brothers may be demon hunters, but they go about their investigations in a scientific manner. They don’t jump to conclusions, and they make sound hypotheses which they then proceed to test. The reason why they can get proof of ghosts is because in their world, ghosts exist. When Joss Whedon — who is an atheist, by the way — created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he knew he wasn’t making a documentary on the undead, he wanted to empower the tiny blonde girl who kept getting killed off in horror movies, and turn her into a heroine we could all look up to. He wanted to explore the pleasures and pains of growing up, using demons and vampires as metaphors. Because that’s what mythical creatures are — literary devices that represent our dreams, our fears, our hopes. I say we keep them alive in our books and movies, but I also say we keep our heads and not think they’re lurking out there in the dark.

So when you think you see or hear a ghost, get up and investigate. Turn on the lights — and I mean this literally and figuratively. Use reason, logic and science. Be a skeptic. Because the real world is terrifying enough as it is without us having to be scared of our own shadows.

Photo from savaman / CC BY 2.0

I was skimming over facts and fun trivia that I was about to post; then again I bump into this. Out of all the verses contained in the Bible, about 500 are focused on prayer; less than 500 verses concentrate on faith; and a whopping 2,000 + are devoted to money and possessions. Hmm a compelling reason why “donation and support” are always part of their sermons. They can’t do away with it!

Now, it kills me finding out that amidst all the inconsistencies and contradictions that the bible depicts. How could a reasonable thinking being still clung into it? Aside from it, numerous dissertations and critiques have already been released to the public that directly exposed these inconsistencies.

One of my personal favorites is of course The Woman’s Bible. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a prominent leader of the Women’s Suffrage movement of the 19th century in America, wrote it. Unlike her contemporaries, Elizabeth did not content herself in the move for the women’s participation in election. On the contrary she exposed other women’s organization that were participating for other purpose; which is to ensure their religious influence on the government. It was during those times that the Protestants in America we’re thinking of including women in the election to ensure their interest in the government.

At the time were the people’s traditional mindset still in placed. It is very controversial to declare such as bold statement. Not being undermined with the controversies brought about her stand, she focused herself in lecture tours. Her theme is no longer concerned primarily with women’s self development but turned her attention to women’s sexuality, education, pecuniary independence, health (which includes reproductive health, birth control and family planning), rights to divorce and violence against women. Most of the time audiences will not object on her birth control message but her women’s right doctrines and their own Religious belief. She declared, “The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation.”

This reminds me of the long over due RH Bill, which is almost on it’s way to death. Numerous religious groups were opposing it, while dismissing it’s objective agenda. It pains me, that our president is a woman. It is even more painful finding out that, yes women nowadays were even able to seat in the highest post in the country and still enslave with their religious doctrines. It will be 194th commemoration day of Elizabeth Cady Stanton on November 13th, 2009. Almost centuries long and still were facing the same situation though on different lands. It was a century after the publication of the book of the woman’s Bible, did the American community acknowledge Stanton’s contributions. It was these days as well did the Women’s International Movement incorporated the studies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Now it is gaining its international recognition. Will it be the time where we can at least contemplate on her viewpoint? I wonder if we’re at least ready! I wonder until when can we hold up with our “default” belief system and at least open our minds to other options and possibilities.

I’m sure many of you have heard about “Piltdown Man” and how “science can’t answer everything” from creationists (Chick Tracts, anyone?)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/oct/21/fossil-ida-missing-link

Who’s willing to bet that the creationists will parade this as another example of the failure of science and how evolution is “proven wrong”?

When I first heard about fossil Ida, it was from the science bloggers who complained about the amount of PR being generated for this particular fossil. The scientists who presented this were throwing words like “the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail”, “missing link in human evolution”, “like finding the Lost Ark for archaeologists”, and “the Mona Lisa of paleontology” to describe this fossil. There was even a simultaneous book launch and TV premiere on BBC One and The History Channel.

I suppose this is why many scientists are not very open to the idea of popularizing science (many scientists did not like what Carl Sagan was doing during his time). because too often, facts and procedure are left by the wayside for flash and fanfare. For example, calling it a “missing link” is an obvious strategy to make it more digestible for laypeople to understand, because there term “missing link” has no scientific basis at all and has no use in evolutionary biology.

Take the case of Cold Fusion back in 1989, when Pons and Fleischmann went directly to the public to announce their “breakthrough”, instead of going through rigorous scientific peer-review first.

Of course, this is nowhere near the catastrophe that Cold Fusion was. Fossil Ida remains a very important discovery despite this screw up. If anything, this incident only illustrates the presence of the built-in self-correcting mechanism of the scientific process. If “Evolutionists” were as dogmatic as the anti-evolution crowd say they are, there would be ZERO opposition to fossil Ida being called a “missing link” for human evolution. The crazy PR campaign would have absolute support from the scientific community.

Unfortunately, to the majority of the public (thanks to the overhyped media blitz), this can only be seen as another screw up by science, and how the scientists can’t seem to make up their minds, therefore, they must not know what they’re talking about.

I’m sure Dr. Jorn Hurum had good intentions and only wanted to to bring science closer to the masses, but this has the potential to backfire enormously. There’s a reason why scientists don’t usually jump the gun, and this incident illustrates it very well.

Disclaimer: All characters and events in this post –even those based on real people– are entirely fictional. All prophetic dialogue is impersonated … poorly. The following post contains blasphemy and due to its content it should not be read by anyone.

Bishop 1: The RH Bill will fail, because it promotes contraception. Contraceptives are evil. Everybody knows this.

Bishop 2: Sir, nonbelievers disagree.

1. Atheists
2. Agnostics
3. Deists

B1: But they are godless, baby-eating Satanists. Surely the religious think contraceptives are inherently sinful– Continue Reading

There is a saying which sounds a little like this, “Let me teach a young child and he’ll be mine forever.” Ngiiii…sounds creepy, but it’s true. If you train a child, chances are, what your taught him will stay with him till he grows up.

When I was a young kid here in the Philippines, I remember that there is a religion class in our Elementary school…

Well, it was not actually a religion class. If it’s a religion class, there must be a study of comparative religion. It is really a Roman Catholic indoctrination given to elementary school children. Here, the local parish church will send a layperson to teach “religion” to grade school kids. Disguised as a religion class, the layperson will program the minds of the young class of Roman Catholic doctrines and practices.

Today, there are many Elementary and High schools run by Christian fundamentalists in the Philippines. Just imagine what they teach the students. With public education going down the drain, private schools run by different Christian congregations must be having the Mad Hatter’s tea party. What is sad on this state of affairs is that there isn’t any government agency that is assigned to look on what these schools are teaching our kids.

I once had the opportunity to look at such institution. The church called Bread of Life here at Quezon City have a program called Mad Science in which children are taught by individual laypersons while their parents attend church service. I was shocked on what I saw. These “teachers” twisted the science of Biology, to influence those innocent minds. Here they teach them that everything was created by a certain god and using science, they will tell to the children that the biblical account of Genesis is real compare to the Theory of Evolution without even giving a space for the children to compare and evaluate the lectures. (Now I know why it is called “Mad” Science)

These jerks, claimed that the existence of God, garden of Eden, Noah’s flood and super human strength that is cause by long hair are all factual on those innocent minds using their so-called “science”.

How sad. These children growing up brain washed and brain dead. Having been depriving to learn scientific investigation and free inquiry.

You may say that it’s not brain washing since they are not being done with coercion. But scaring the wits of a 6-year-old child by telling him of going to eternal damnation if he asked too many questions sounds coercive to me.

This country need teachers and better, legitimate educational institutions to teach children the methods of free inquiry, not a group of guffaws whose intentions is to boost the number of robots to fill their church donation box. Our Asian neighbors are now more advanced in the field of science and technology and we are being left behind while these vultures are eating the carcass. With this kind of a situation, “baka sa kangkungan tayo pulutin nyan.”

Photo from aaronescobar / CC BY 2.0

It was just fortunate for me to be invited by a friend to attend a razzmatazz sponsored by Pro-Life Philippines in St. Peter’s Parish in Fairview, Quezon City three years ago. I went there hoping to be enlightened about the issues on abortion, instead what I saw was an exciting and complex play intended to confuse (dazzle) the public.

I was surprised that the whole shebang was not even a dialogue but a propaganda-like rants run by the Roman Catholic church to stop the artificial birth control method and family planning. AY NAKU PO! Not again! There are even some foreign guess (I think from Canada) that talk about Philippine poverty must not be blamed on population growth. Now here we have aliens from another land who now in a mere instance know what is best for the Filipino society. MY PAPAYA!

Fortunately, I found some distributed literature which I seem to think of what this show is all about. The article seems to be a letter intended to be given to Philippine Congress and it is urging our respective Congressmen not to support any bills regarding:
• The Reproductive Health Bill
• Anti-Discrimination Act
• Integrated Population Management and Development Bill
• Divorce Bill
• Patients Rights Bill
• Anti-Terrorism Bill (?)
• Philippine Mining Act

Even the issues on Charter Change (?) Wait a minute there…I thought this is about the life of a child, why are we dancing the cha-cha in here?

Now since this is a “Pro-Life” issue, I will just tackle the issue concerning Pro-Life. I will leave the issue about the Anti-Terrorism and Philippine Mining Act in a more “political” atmosphere.

According to this article, they claim that the cause of poverty is not over population and the solution is not the use of contraceptives. Guess again? Well, for your information, overpopulation is one of the causes of poverty and these entertainers are just keeping a close eye on the issue. Some may set China as an example to justify overpopulation but let us examine the claim: We know that China is a very large country by territory compares to the itsy-bitsy group of islands called the Philippines so what is the problem? Even with a billion populations, China can still manage their resources and their per capital income, compare to the Philippines. So why go to China if we can talk about reality in our own backyard.

Now the clamor in the issue about the Reproductive Health Bill are not even realistic. Maybe if we are still living in the time of President Marcos, there is an issue, but today President Arroyo seems too hesitant to enforce the bill. Takot kasi si Ma’am sa simbahan eh.

The church “still” insists that the use of artificial contraceptive is immoral. Think about this, there are a million of sperm cells that leave a male body during coition. In those million sperm cells, only one is needed to fertilize the egg cell. Now do you consider it murder on what happened on the other unused sperm? It just does not make sense! Here, the Roman Catholics are into the sacredness of the sperm cell yet they do not care about the child. A little common sense can shed a light in this matter. Just observe families around you and you will notice that most families that well…a little well off have only 2 to 3 children, yet most families that live in depress areas have a factory of kids. Most family whose parents have some college education insist on having few children with an interval of birth between 3 to 5 years, whereas family who only have an educational attainment of grade school have children as much as a dozed whose birth intervals can be compared to a stairway – every year maroong birthday – WOAH!

What happened to these children? Well, maybe the staffs from Pro-Life Philippines should have a tour of Recto to Luneta at 1 to 4 AM and count the number of children sleeping in the streets, or sniffing rubber cement for dinner or breakfast. Now, I am just thinking, these Catholic priests and their cahoots (like Pro-Life Philippines) preach to their adherents that it is a blessing to have many children, but where are they when these children without the proper guidance of their parents, are now living in the streets, doing petty jobs just to survive or even the worst ending in crime? What is more moral to save your so-called sacred sperm or to spare a life on misery because of tradition, superstition and ignorance?

Now on another issue, according to Pro-Life Philippines you must not teach sex education to a 10 year old child. Hahaha! Now there is this speaker that says sex is God given and will just go on naturally. Maybe if you are still living in 18th century Europe, this is applicable. Before you talk, you have to consider the kind of environment you are living in. In our place, I hear 5 to 6 years old children cuss each other “P****g Ina Mo! P***i ng Nanay Mong Madaldal tinahi ko!”, “F**k You!” and wait….baka mapuno ko lang ng mga pangit na mura ang Filipino Freethinkers site. Just walk along the streets of Santa Cruz to Divisoria and you will be surprised how pornographic DVD,VCD are being sold in the streets like fishballs. AHA! Their packages are just lying there for the children to see. Pictures of a 12 year old child without any underpants being molested by a full-grown, pot bellied jerk old enough to be her daddy. Now what is more disgusting is to see this colored VCD label being held by a 7 year old grade school pupil from a near by elementary school. How about this, porno magazine that can rival Larry Flynn’s Hustler Magazine disguised as tabloids littered the streets of Manila. They only worth 15.00 pesos cheap and can be bought by the average Filipino school children.Let us not forget how pornography is now very easily downloaded from the Internet and those novelties, double-meaning songs and some raps music being played by the radio. – Like this song about a woman’s rump. Last and not the least, TV shows and movies that suggestively display men “beating their meat.”

So by not teaching your child about sex education, a craftier teacher is just waiting outside the gates of your house.

In a recent study conducted by the Asian Development Bank: Poverty in the Philippines: Income, Assets and Access, the main causes of poverty in the Philippines are:
• Weak macro-economics management
• High unemployment
• High population growth
• Weak agricultural production
• High corruption and weak governance
• Insurgency and violence
• Physical disability

Notice that high population growth is included in the list. A friend of mine once said, “Do you notice that most countries with a high Roman Catholic influence never seem progressed?” I sometimes wonder if population issue is one of the causes.

According to government statistics, three Filipinos are born every minute. That’s 160 Filipinos born every hour; 4,320 every day; 129,600 every month or 1,522,800 new Filipino to feed. Without proper care and guidance, more than a half of these new Filipino will like animals in the streets of our major cities. Another new batch of “blessed is the poor and the meek and the sinners, etc. etc. etc.”

Until today, the Roman Catholic stand is that the world is not overpopulated and that over population is not the cause of poverty. What do they know? Naturally, these “men of God” have always relied on fantasy. Reality is very hard to swallow. Just go to Quapo in Manila and see the number of street children that littered the pavement near the church gates. Children without clothes, whose bellies are bloated with parasites, beg passersby for money. These street children soon become teenagers, without the proper guidance of poor parents, becoming holdapers and pickpockets on Quiapo’s busy intersections. Is this what the Roman Church means by fixing the poverty problem? As the famed Filipino author, F. Sionil Jose said in an article in Business World in 1997:
The country’s massive problems, basically created by Marcos and irresponsible
elite would daunt any miracle worker. First, there is the tremendous population
growth – three percent annually, the highest in Asia; almost all the economic
gains are eaten up by it. Fueling it is the Catholic Church insisting on
doctrinal purity, opposing birth control programs.

Pro-Life Philippines are now telling the audience that the solution is more job and to produce more food for the masses. Wait a minute? More food or is it more mouth to feed, which is which? Just make a simple stroll in the streets of Manila and you can see children digging for left over in the garbage dumps, a site never heard off 20 years ago. Today the street of South Harbor in Manila is littered with families living in streets. Ano ba kayo? Nagbubulagbulagan ba kayo?
The equation is quite simple. Our planet is in a balance. Too many mouths to feed means an over use of natural resources. There is no magic here! For our resources to replenish, it will need time. Our population is too fast for our resources to catch up. Soon population will over run the resources. It’s that simple. Just take a good look on experiments concerning rabbit population problem in the United State and Australia. If the resources dwindle, nature will take its course. The situation is uglier to compare to the artificial birth control method when disease due to malnutrition would take its course to control the population.

If this will be the on going situation, instead of eternal salvation, the Roman Church will be responsible for the eternal starvation of the Filipino.

By now you’ve probably already read the blog post making rounds online about the tons of relief goods gathering molds over at the DSWD warehouse. Hundred of Filipinos in evacuation centers still wait for the millions in international aid to trickle down to them, but this is the Philippines we live in, hardly anything ever trickles down to those who need them. In times like these it’s quite easy to accuse government departments like the DSWD of being greedy and corrupt, of hoarding all the good “imported” relief goods in warehouses, but we have to give them the benefit of the doubt once in a while. Not everyone who doesn’t do their job is corrupt, after all. Sometimes, people are just incompetent. Continue Reading

In a recent debate that I have in Luneta, a “Born-Again” pastor has the guts to engage me on this tautology about the existence of his god. Well…if you asked me personally, I’m getting sick and tired of the issue since even if it took us all night till morning on the squabble, there will still be no fruitful proof this pastor can show me. Anyway, in the length of our debate, the pastor told me that “faith” is required to confirm the existence of God.

Asked any Christian on the definition of “faith” and he will gladly state the verses found on Hebrew 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
They interpret this verse (just like always) that to have faith is confirmation on an invisible God.

Unfortunately, the word “faith” in this verse is more of a disproof on the existence of God and these unwilling clowns haven’t cared to notice it. Remember that the New Testament was written in Koine Greek. The word faith is translated as “pistis” which means “reliance” or “trust”. A guarantee of something hoped for ( Grk: elpizo – Expect and wish. Something you are wishing in the near future.) WHAT!!!!???? Wait a minute there? If God already exists, then why are you still hoping about it? You said that this god already exist and you firmly believe that this god is already here, watching me typing and defying its existence, if so, why are you sounding like you are still hoping that someday in the near future, this god might exist?

That’s what the problem with faith. The word justify that today this god concept doesn’t really exist and believers are still in the dark…hoping that someday this god might come into being. Now, if we use faith as a proof about god, then we are just telling the non-believers that “Hey there brother, my God doesn’t exist today but maybe tomorrow (and I’m hoping that this day will come true…*crossing his fingers and wishing on shooting stars.) That I will personally bring Him here and then both of you will debate about His existence.” Now isn’t that proof a baloney?

Now back on the debate. The pastor tried to retaliate by saying that God is so far away (Uhum…) and that they are “hoping” that he will come. HAHAHAHAHA! Now is that an excuse or what? Are we talking about a man in a red cape flying somewhere out there in the wide blue yonder? What happened with God is everywhere?

So I recommend to my Christian friends…never use “faith” in justifying your stand on the existence of your god concept. Remember, any person that tried to use faith as evidence on the existence of God has tacitly admitted that his god concept doesn’t exist.

If the Bible is inspired by an omniscient God, then even in the field of science and mathematics the Bible must be correct. Even the “Sorianista” (the followers of Eliseo Soriano’s sect) believe that God is the inventor of science…whatever that means.

It’s not the atheist’s job to prove whether the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. Hey! It’s the Christians who make the positive claim of infallibility.

But like other ancient literature, the Bible is prone to criticism and like other so-called sacred books; it’s only the adherents’ claim that the Bible is a word of a certain god or is it a product of a supernatural being.

Evangelical Christians claim that the scientific errors of the Bible are not errors because nothing is impossible to God. It may look like an error to a skeptic but since God is beyond natural laws and empirical science, God can bend the rules. Remember, God is the one who created natural law in the first place.

I think this is an absurd explanation, yet I have seen books, websites and Christian pamphlets that suggest this explanation in dealing with scientific inaccuracies of the Bible. You see, these people will be adamant to justify the doctrine of biblical inerrancy to the point of looking foolish. For them God can create a square triangle or a married bachelor – without further explanation, just to save their faith for further scrutiny. Faith is the motivation not knowledge and fanaticism is the outcome.

But not all Christians agree with such reasoning.

Don Stewart responded to those who question the Bible’s scientific qualifications in his book “Answers to Tough Questions”, “The Bible is not a textbook on science. Its purpose is not to explain in technical terms the technical data of the natural world, but to explain God’s purpose and relation to man, to deal with spiritual things. It is definitely not a technical textbook for scientists. The descriptions which the Bible gives concerning nature are neither scientific nor unscientific, but phrased in words that are non-technical and often general, so that even the common reader can follow the thought. This does not at all mean the statements are incorrect.” (P. 104)

In the TIME Magazine interview (January 15, 2007), Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the United State National Genome Research Institute and the author of the book The Language of God – A scientist presents evidence of belief said, “There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe’s age or of how living organisms are related to each other. St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It is not intended as a science text book. It is intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous.”
But still, most Christians persist of making their faith look ridiculous.

So how scientific is the Bible?

What Christians advocate as “scientific” has two components. The first is to begin with unchallengeable statements which are Bible stories. Then they will try to find, in carefully selected natural phenomena, alleged corroborations of those stories.

The second is to look for any inconsistencies or controversy, no matter how trivial or evanescent, in real science and present it as proof of the validity of the Bible stories.

Real science proceeds in the opposite direction. Scientists use the result of observations to construct theories that support further observation.

Now let see how scientific the Bible really is.

The number one problem in the Genesis narrative is that Christians can’t even agree to themselves if the word “day” means a 24-hour period or a thousand years. Evangelicals agree to a 24-hour “day”. Young Earth Creationists (as they are known) always use misquoted reports, edited information, out dated research and books and will even scoff on carbon dating technique, accusing it of inaccuracies just to squeeze their belief.

I even saw a booklet from The Radio Pulpit, saying that dinosaurs and humans once live together. Talk about the Flintstones!

There also those who believe that the “day” in the creation story mean a thousand years. This is also known as the “The day-age theory” and they are known as Progressive Creationists. They don’t base it on geological finding…Nope; they base their interpretation from Psalms 90:4 and 2Peter 3:8.

That’s the difference between religion and science. Science base it’s knowledge from the evidence that were collected while religion interprets the belief first and will fashion its doctrine to fit the evidence.

Let us see more “Genesis science” and I will just skip the issues about “talking snakes” and trees that bear fruits of “life” and “knowledge”. Such objects are obviously mythological in nature.

Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Is the Bible suggesting that the entire universe is made up of water? This kind of thinking was very common in ancient times. Even the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus thinks that water was the first principle of life and the material world

Genesis 1:3-5 vs. Genesis 1:14-19
It seems the Genesis narrative is implying that planet Earth is older than all the heavenly bodies in the universe. Earth was created in an empty heaven in the first day and the rest of all the planets and stars are created in the 4th day.

Now if we’re going to believe that Earth is older than all the stuffs in the universe, we’re going to have a problem proving this. The distances between stars are measured in light years. Now in one second, a beam of light travels 186,000 miles. So in 8 minutes, light have traveled on a distance from the Sun to the Earth. We can say that the Sun is 8 light minutes away from Earth. In a year, light crosses nearly 10 trillion kilometers of intervening space. That is one light years.

The nearest star from planet Earth next to the Sun (our Sun is a medium size star) is Proxima Centauri which is 4.26 light years away. This means that the light from Proxima Centauri will reach Earth at 4.26 years.

The Andromeda Galaxy is 2 million light years away. The Galactic Center of the Milky Way (our galaxy) is about 28,000 light years away.

Given all that figures, how can be the universe be a mere 8,000 years old? According to Bishop James Ussher and John Lightfoot, God created the universe on October 23, 2004 BC. If light has been traveling at such distance in time and space…for about billions of years, then how is it possible that Earth (which is 6,000 old according to Evangelical Christianity be older than the universe?

Now what if we believe that Earth is about hmmm…a million years old according to Progressive creationists, can we justify that Planet Earth is still older than the universe? Let’s talk about the age of rocks and not the Rock of Ages. The oldest rock sample that was found here on Earth is about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years old. Oldest rock samples returned from the moon are 4.4 to 4.5 billion years old and the oldest meteorites are about 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old.

Knowledge of the Hubble constant and of the matter and vacuum density parameters allows us to estimate the age of the universe. Using a technique where we calculate the age of the stars, we can at least have a good approximation of the age of the universe.

There are two main ways of estimating ages of old stars: Heavy element abundances due to radioactive decay and lower luminosities.

A recent estimate places the age of the Universe at approximately 12.5 to 16 billion years old.

Genesis 1:3“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

There are a lot of speculations regarding Genesis 1:3. Some Christian sects reason out that “light” refers to radiation emitted by the Big Bang, while other says that it is some kind of cosmic radiation. Other suggests that the “light” is a metaphor that means order or law. Evangelical Christians suggest it’s magic.

Notice that the passage in Gen. 1:3 refers to a visible light. (Gen. 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good…) so we can discard the radiation presumption and the metaphor. Christian magical explanation is not scientific so we can discard it as well.

Genesis 1:4-5
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Does this only refer to the terrestrial world or the whole universe? There isn’t any evidence we could find to say that the whole universe has an interval of being dark in a certain period of time and being bright in a certain period of time. In the vastness of space, distribution of lightwave scatters. Visible wavelength becomes shorted. That’s why it’s dark in outer space.

So we come to the problem of “day and night”. A “day” refers to the period of the interval represented by one rotation of the planet around a light source, in our case, the Sun. So if God created the Sun in the forth day, then what causes day and night in planet Earth? How could there be “the evening and the morning” on the first day if there was no Sun to mark them?

When God created light and divided it, in what planetary rotation did he base his “day”? Remember that Earth still have no Sun to rotate in 24 hours. Also, other planets in the Solar System have its own “day”: Mercury = 59 days, Venus = 243 days, Mars = 24 Hour and 37 minutes, Jupiter = 9.8 hours, Saturn = 10.2 hours, Uranus = 17.24 hours and Neptune = 16.05 days.

The Solid Vault (Genesis 1:6-8)
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The ancient Hebrews believed in a three-story universe filled with water. That is quite common with ancient Canaanite mythology. The word “tehom” (See: Job 26: 5-7, Jer. 4:33 and Is. 40:17.23) means the deep and cognate with the Sumerian/Babylonian “Tiamat” – the salt-water ocean.

This is the reason why in the Genesis myth, the Elohim divided the waters above and the waters below with a solid vault (raqia), which the English translators of the Bible referred as “firmament”. Evidence of this solid vault can also be found in Amos 9:6 as the word “aquddah” was used by its author (see also: Isaiah 40:22 and Psalms 104:2). The common poetic image of this “Hebrew astronomy” is a dome or tent covering a circle coin.

Evidence of such ancient astronomy belief system can also be found in an extra biblical source. In Nachmanides commentary of the torah he quotes from the ancient rabbis, “The heavens were in fluid form on the first day, and on the second day they solidified. Another ancient rabbi said, “Let the firmament become like a plate, just as you say in Exodus 39:3. Jewish Bible scholars agree that raqia suggest a firm vault or dome which held the stars and provided a boundary beyond which the divine dwelt.” (Nachmanides (Raban) Commentary of the Torah Vol. 1 pp 33-36)

The Hebrews taught that the heavenly bodies (stars, the Sun and the moon) are all inside this solid dome (Gen. 1:7). There wasn’t any idea of outer space at that time. This solid dome or “firmament” even has windows, flood gates or trap doors to let rain water or hail inside (Gen. 7:11, 8:2, Job 38:22, Psalm 104:3, 13). Beyond this dome is where the primeval waters are located. Remember…And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Even the writers of the New Testament believe this ancient astronomy. See Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6:13-14.

Hey, check out these chapters and verses in the Bible to know what I mean: Job 38:22, Psalm 104:3, 13 and Genesis 11:4.

Well…humans have invented the rockets, have flown as far as the moon, Mars and Jupiter. Have already send space stations and a space mission out of our galaxy…never had it hit any solid vault between Earth atmosphere and the exosphere.

Genesis 1:11-12
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

So God created the plants first before he created the Sun (Gen. 1:16).

The booklet “Is the Bible Really the Word of God?’ by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania seems to imply that plants can live without the Sun by lightless photosynthesis (According to the booklet, a report from Science News letter of August 25, 1962, under the headline “Lightless Photosynthesis” Kurio Tagawa and Daniel Arnon succeeded in eliminating the need for light in a key energy-transforming reaction of the photosynthetic process in spinach leaves.)

Remember that the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in “Progressive Creation” so they have to justify that plants have live in planet for more than a thousand years without the Sun. But such justification produces dishonest answers. First, the Bible was quite clear on this, God brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, and these plants all required photosynthesis to live. They got green leaves remember? And second, we don’t have any evidence that somewhere between a million years ago, these plants (grasses, herbs and trees) does not use the Sun’s light to the process of photosynthesis.

I also wonder who created the bacteria, fungi, molds, ferns and certain aquatic plants. They seem to be left out of God’s list.

Genesis 1: 14-17
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

The moon does not have a light of its own; it only reflects light from the Sun. Also it seem to absurd to think that God spends a day making the Sun and the moon (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, after a hard day’s work, and almost as a late addition, he creates trillions of stars. Speaking of stars, why are only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than five thousand stars are visible from earth with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Yet this verse says that God put the stars in the firmament “to give light” to the earth.

Genesis 1:29-30
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

I will not talk about evolution. There is really no need for that since there are a lot of website in the Internet that deal with the subject. But I can recommend The Panda’s Thumb and Talk Origin . The have good articles regarding Evolution that you can read.

According to one of the articles in this Christian propaganda pamphlet called The Radio Pulpit (Volume 45 September 2000 Number 9), “ Notice that God declared creation “very good” only after he first announced that all moving, breathing, feeling creatures would eat plants not each other.” (p. 42) In the same page it continues, “You may ask, “What about the big, sharp teeth of so many animals? Doesn’t that prove they are always meat eaters?” No, it only proves that they have big, sharp teeth.”

That what happened when a person doesn’t read elementary biology text books.

Evangelical Christians think that there was once a time when there were no carnivores. Well…that was correct on a micro level…on one-celled animals but not with lions, cheetahs, sharks, wasps, crocodiles and piranhas!

Herbivores and carnivores differ not only on “big teeth” as the Christian pamphlet suggests. They also differ in activities. Carnivores run faster in comparison with their body weight and the energy comes from protein which is in meat. Also, meat generates more body heat. That’s why reptiles are meat eaters.

In all mammalian carnivores the jaw articulation is arranged in such a manner that movement is limited to vertical hinge motions and transverse sliding. The temporal muscle dominates the jaw musculature, forming at least one-half of the total mass of the jaw muscles. In all modern carnivores the brain is large and the cerebral hemispheres are highly developed.

Bears (the sample used by The Radio Pulpit) are omnivores – they eat both meat (mostly salmons) berries and herbs. Panda’s teeth are built in cracking bamboos but its form is quite different from a Tasmanian devil or a crocodile. Frankly speaking, there aren’t any scientific evidences that support a theory that modern carnivorous animals were once herbivores. The earliest fossil records are early Paleocene, but the earliest well-represented material comes from the middle Paleocene of North America. During the Paleocene and Eocene the stem carnivorans or miacoids underwent considerable diversification in both the Old and New World. At the end of Eocene and beginning of Oligocene time throughout the Northern Hemisphere, a dramatic change took place within the Carnivora; this was the appearance of primitive representatives of modern carnivore families.

Genesis 6:4 There were giants on the earth at one time.
No evidence exists to supports this assertion.

“Flood Geology”

By a literal interpretation of the Bible, the worldwide deluge occurred in the year 2348 BCE. According to the story, the only humans to survive the flood were members of Noah’s own family, who rode in the Ark with Noah and the animals.

Christians believe that the Ark story is not a myth. Fundamentalist Christians believe there is evidence of a universal flood according to the Bible since Genesis 10:32 declares that the whole world was populated after the flood from the eight who were saved. This would not have been true if those outside the local area had not drowned. Peter refers to the salvation of only eight (1 Peter 3:20).

The story of the flood is a common mythology to many cultures around the world. Norman Giesler in his book, “When Skeptics Asks” assume that this is a proof of the flood really did happened. Other Christian uses the same reason. But two geophysicists, William Ryan and Walter Pitman have discovered evidence of a giant flood of epic proportion that happened 7,600 years ago in the region known as the Black Sea. Base on the findings, when this Mediterranean river overflowed, a catastrophic flood destroyed those living on its ancient shore lines. Naturally, ancient people assume that the flood had indeed covered the whole earth. Those who survived the deluge carried to them the story with their culture as far as Western Europe, Central Asia, China, Egypt and the Persian Gulf region via migration. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Deluge of Ziusudra and Noah’s Ark are all mythical tales passed down from generation to generation commemorating this epic event.

But is the story scientifically accurate? Let see:

Genesis 6:16
A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above;….

How could so many creatures breathe with only one small opening which was closed for at least 190 days–150 days plus an additional 40 days (Gen. 8:3-6)?

Genesis 6:17
“I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die.”

Gen. 7:4 supports this point, “…and every substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” Yet, how would a flood destroy animals living in the waters, especially those living in great depths, such as whales, porpoises, giant squids, tube worms , deep-sea crabs dolphins and all animals entirely underwater?

How did animals that are restricted to certain parts of the earth get to the Ark? If you have knowledge of different animals living on different geographic conditions you will know that it’s really not a feasible idea. Tamaraws, kangaroos, polar bears, koalas, kiwis and many others would have to have crossed vast oceans just to reach the location of Noah and the Ark. Slow animals from other continents–snails, sloths, turtles, and so forth–must have started their journey to the Ark before the earth was created!

How did many of the animals withstand climatic changes? Many of those from Polar Regions could not have withstood the heat of the Middle East.

How were animals prevented from killing their natural prey?

How the Ark was kept sanitary, since there was only one window and one door is beyond any scientific guess.

After being released, how did they return to their respective regions of the world? How did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find there way back after the flood subsided?

The vegetation which many animals eat only grows in certain parts of the world. How was it brought to the Ark for storage? For example, how did Noah gathered the eucalyptus leaves which are the only food of the Koala bear?

If Christians denounce the theory of evolution , then explain it scientifically how tremendous variety of animals in the world today if only two of every species–two dogs, two cats, two elephants, two snakes, and so forth–entered and leave the Ark?

Genesis 8:11
“And the dove came in to him in the evening; and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off.”

It’s difficult to believe a dove could have found an olive leaf to freshly pluck in a world that had been submerged for nearly a year.

If the waters covered the Earth for a year, was the water salty or fresh? How fresh water fishes (or sea water fishes) survived?

Gen. 8:5 and 8:13 state the Flood covered the earth and its mountains. If so, where did all the water go?

How were the animals preserved after leaving the Ark? There was no grass except such as had been submerged for a year. How were the herbivores taken care of until the earth was again clothed with vegetation? There were no animals to be devoured by the carnivores, except those which were on the Ark. From whence came their food?

If all your answers to the following questions is that “God can do the impossible”, then you are automatically telling me that the Bible is not a scientific book.

Other “scientific” Bible verses

Genesis 9:2
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

According to this verse, all animals fear humans. Although it is true that many do, it is also true that some do not. Sharks and the Komodo dragon, for example, are generally much less afraid of us than we are of them.

Genesis 9:13
I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

Does that mean that there were no rainbows prior to the flood? Rainbows are caused by the nature of light, the refractive index of water, and the shape of raindrops. There were rainbows billions of years before humans existed or it appears that the laws having to do with refraction of light were null and void prior to this time. You call that “scientific”?

Genesis 30:37-39
And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.
And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.
And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

Jacob displays his (and God’s) knowledge of genetics by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats. This reminds me of the silly superstitions and old wife’s tale here in the Philippines. They believe that when a pregnant woman always sees a face of an ugly man, her child will be as ugly as the ugly man’s face. Or if a pregnant woman eats a certain food, it will have an effect the look or characteristic of her child…for example, if the mother always eats chocolate, chances are her child will be darker and if she always drinks milk, her child will have a fair complexion. This belief has nothing to do with the science of genetics.

Leviticus 11:5-6
And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

Deuteronomy 14:7
Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you.

The Bible says that hares and coneys are unclean because they “chew the cud” but do not part the hoof. But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not “chew the cud.” Physiologically, a ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal’s first stomach, known as the rumen, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. Leporidae (Rabbits, coneys and hares) are not ruminants.

Leviticus 11:20
All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you

Name me a bird (fowl) that has four legs.

Leviticus 11:23
But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

Name me a “flying creeping thing” with four legs.

The Geocentric Solar System

Joshua 10:12-13
The spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Here’s the perfect verse that picture the idea of the Bible when it come to the Solar System – a geocentric universe. Ancient Hebrew believed that the Earth is in the center of the solar system and all the heavenly bodies (Sun, moon and stars) rotate around it. According to Bible astronomy, planet Earth is stable and it doesn’t move (See: Job 38:4-6, Job 9:6, 1 Chron.16:30, 2 Kings 20:11) and the Sun moves around it (Psalms 19:5-6).

The geocentric model originated in Babylon and it’s connected with astrology. Astrology is a pseudoscience – a claim in the absence of good evidence. It is a faith.

A Polish Catholic cleric named Nicholas Copernicus introduce the heliocentric model but the Roman Catholic Church place his writings on their list of forbidden books from 1616 to 1835.

The Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei concluded through observations that the Sun did not rotate around the Earth but rather the Earth rotate around the Sun. The Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to recant under threat of torture. Not until December 28, 1991 when Pope John Paul II cautiously admitted officially that Galileo has been right and that the Church, as well as the Bible, had been wrong about the heliocentric model of the Solar System.

Thanks to the Laws of Planetary Motion of Johannes Kepler, we now have a better idea of a heliocentric model in which planet Earth, just like other planets in the Solar System, revolves around the Sun.

The Flat Earth
Another ancient and unscientific belief is that the Earth is flat. The Bible also promotes such archaic idea.

Ezekiel 7:2 Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.

Daniel 4:7-8 “I saw a tree of great height at the center of the world. It was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen from the ends of the earth.”

The Greek mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras was the first person in the history to deduce that the Earth is a sphere (Not a flat circle that the Bible pictured).

Anaximander (of Miletus) (611–547 BCE) Ionian (Greek) natural philosopher: suggested Earth was a curved body in space. Realizing that the Earth’s surface was curved, he believed it to be cylindrical (with its axis east to west); and he was probably the first Greek to map the whole known world. He visualized the Earth as poised in space.

In the Greek city of Alexandria, around the 3rd century BCE., the Greek astronomer/philosopher Eratosthenes discovered that the surface of planet Earth is curve not flat, just by using sticks, his eyes, feet and brain, plus a taste for experiment. He also become the first person on this planet to measure the size of a planet – a feat not even the biblical “wise” character Solomon and his god has done.

Christopher Columbus, using Eratosthenes’ estimates of the circumference of the Earth proved that the Earth is a sphere. There were no “ends” of the Earth, no pillars and no corners. What Columbus discovered was the New World and an easy route to Asia.

Judges 16:17-22 Samson loses his strength as a result of having his head shaved. So where in the science of physiology says that human hair is the source of a person’s strength. Physical strength is in the muscular system. Human hair consist largely of dead, keratinized cells!

1Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2
This verse implies that the value of π is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.)
Since the molten sea was round with a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of thirty cubits, we know that the biblical value of π is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.)

The Swiss-German physicist Johann Lambert (1728–1777) made the discoveries concerning the mathematical constant π. If you don’t know, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle is what we called Pi, also known as Archimedes’ constant. Its approximate value is 3.1419 but, being an irrational number, it can’t be written as a terminating or recurring decimal. For the record, the first 100 digits of π are: 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679.

Job 26:11
The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.

There aren’t any pillars that support heaven.

Job 39:13-16
Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?
Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust,
And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.
She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear;

Ostriches are not cruel and stupid birds who abandon their eggs to die after laying them, as these verses imply. The verse reflect more of a traditional belief on desert dwellers that a scientific insight about ostriches.

Modern biologists know better than what the “scientifically insightful” author of Job mistakenly thought about the ostrich. Both Encyclopedia Americana and Britannica, describe ostriches as very caring parents. The female lays her eggs on the ground, but so do many other species of birds. The eggs are not abandoned to the heat of the sand, but in the female’s absence, the male incubates the nest. The male scoops out a hollow for the eggs, which are incubated by the female during the day and the male at night. When the young hatch, they are given watchful care by their mother. As a biological creature, the ostrich has survived for thousands of years, so obviously it is a successful procreator. Its labor is not in vain, as the passage above incorrectly declares.

Isaiah 13:10
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

The Moon doesn’t shine its own light. Just like planets, the Moon only reflects its light from the Sun. By the way, around 450 BCE in Athens, Greece Anaxagoras was the first person to state clearly that the Moon shines by reflective light.

Daniel 8:10
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

To Daniel, stars are small objects that can fall from the sky and then be “stamped upon.” (See: Revelation 6:13)

Proverbs 6:6-8
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

Proverbs 6:7-8 described the ant as an industrious creature, “which having no chief, overseer, or ruler provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in harvest.”

Etymologists disagrees with this biblical verse. Unknown to the writer of the Book of Proverbs, ants (Formicidae) leave the nest, forage, and feed the queen (they have a queen); they rapidly expand the nest and care for the next brood. The founding queen continues to lay eggs and remains in the nest. When the colony reaches a certain size the queen lays fertilized (diploid) eggs, which receive a special diet and treatment, and will develop into reproductive females.

The Existence of Dragons
“…it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.”—Isaiah 34:13.
“…the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.”—Psalm 91:13.

One of the most universal monster myths is that of the dragon. The awesome, reptilelike beasts appear in the folklore of nearly every country. The mythical dragon is described as a reality in over a dozen additional Bible verses, including Psalm 74:13; Deuteronomy 32:33 and Micah 1:8.

Mythical Creatures.
“And owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.”—Isaiah 13:21-22.
“Out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.”—Isaiah 14:29

The Bible contains innumerable other references to fanciful creatures, such as the Cockatrice—a serpent hatched from the egg of a cock whose mere glance could kill its enemies (Isaiah 11:8); Satyrs—creatures that were half man and half goat or horse (Isaiah 13:21); Fiery serpents (Deuteronomy 8:15) and Flying serpents (Isaiah 30:6).

Scientific Absurdities of the New Testament

Matthew 13:31-32
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

Mark 4:31
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:

The writers of the Gospels were incorrect when they say that the mustard seed is the smallest seed. Orchids have the smallest seed according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Epiphytic orchids seed weighs in at approximately 0.0000008 grams! Also, there are no trees in the mustard family (Brassicaceae), mustard seeds do not grow into “the greatest of all trees.” This plant is an annual or perennial herb.

Luke 1:44
For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

A fetus cannot understand speech.

Matthew. 24:29
“The moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven.”
Mark 13:24-25
“In those days … the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall.”
Apparently, the writers of the Gospels believed that the moon produces its own light, and that the stars are lights held in place by a firmament only a few miles above our heads. Of course this is gibberish. Trillions of stars will never fall to Earth and the moon does not produce its own light.

I Corinthians 15:36
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

Paul (and God) shows their lack of knowledge of botany by saying that only dead seeds will germinate. Actually, a seed must be alive to germinate. Dead seeds will remain “dead”.

Hebrews 1:10
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

God set the earth on a foundation; therefore, it must not move. (See: The Geocentric Solar System )

Revelation of John 6:13
“And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth….”

To John, the stars are just little lights a few miles away that can easily fall to the earth.

So how far and big are the stars? Unlike what the prophets, the Apostles and the Messiah believed, stars just doesn’t hang around inside Earth’s “firmament” like dainty little Christmas lights. The nearest star, our Sun (yep! In case you still doesn’t know, our Sun is a star) is already 150,000,000 km away. The nearest star system, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri are 15 light years away. Beta Adromedae is about seventy-five light years away and the nearest galaxy in the Milky Way (our home galaxy), M31 is 2 million light years away. Oh and before I forget, a light year is equal to 9.46 x 10 to the 12th power kilometers. Very far huh?

Unlike what the Bible seems to imply, stars are massive. Our Sun, a medium size star can fit a thousand Earth in its interior. There are stars that are 10 times more massive that our Sun.

Revelation of John 7:1
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

It seems the New Testament has a different shape of the world. The Old Testament has a circular world …something lake a plate. Well, I guess that settles it: the earth is flat and at least quadrilateral in shape. (See: The Flat Earth)

Revelation of John 8:10
“And there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters.”

In the bible, stars are just little lights that can fall to the ground from the sky. (See: Revelation of John 6:13)

This is really not a very complete lists and maybe, just maybe this list is enough to support my point that the Bible is not a scientific book. So kids…if you use the Bible as a reference to your science test, chances are you’ll going to get a grade of “F”.

Until next time,
John the Atheist