The Authoritarian Followers - Web Book by Bob Alemeyer

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

A web book about those people who follow Authoritan Figures - specifically pointed at Modern U.S. Politics.

Exerpt: The Right Wing Authoritarian test:

Score each question from -4 through +4 where -4 = Strongly Disagree, and +4 = Strongly Agree.

For compound statements (with more than one idea, combine your scores – so a strongly disagree (-4) combined with an agree (+2) should score out as a -2.

1) The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just "loud mouths" showing off their ignorance.

2) Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.

3) Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.

4) Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.

5) It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people's minds.

6) Atheists and others who have rebelled against the established religions are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who attend church regularly.

7) The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas.

8) There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.

9) Our country NEEDS free thinkers who have the courage to defy traditional ways even if this upsets many people.

10) Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.

11) Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.

12) The "Old-fashioned Ways" and the "Old-fashioned values" still show the best way to live.

13) You have to admire those who challenged the law and the majority's view by protesting for women's abortion rights, for animal rights, or to abolish school prayer.

14) What our country really needs is a strong determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.

15) Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the 'normal way things are supposed to be done".

16) God's laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.

17) There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.

18) A "woman's place" should be where she wants to be. The days when women are submissive to their husbands and social conventions belong strictly in the past.

19) Our country will be great if we honour the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the 'rotten apples' who are ruining everything.

20) There is no "ONE right way" to live life; everybody has to create their OWN way.

21) Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy "traditional" family values.

22) This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group's traditional place in society.

Scoring:

Ignore questions 1 and 2 for scoring purposes.

For questions 3, 5, 7,10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19 and 22 score each answer as follows:
-4 = 1 point, -3 = 2 points, -2 = 3 points, -1 = 4 points, 0 = 5 points, +1 = 6 points, +2 = 7 points, +3 = 8 points, and +4 = 9 points.

For questions 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18. 20 and 21 score each answer as follows:
-4 = 9 point, -3 = 8 points, -2 = 7 points, -1 = 6 points, 0 = 5 points, +1 = 4 points, +2 = 3 points, +3 = 2 points, and +4 = 1 points

Now simply add up your twenty scores. The lowest possible total is 20. The highest is 180.

Designer Babies Bad, Modified for "Morality" Babies Good?

Reverent Albert Mohler - Baptist Minister with a Congregation of 16 million believers.

In response to negative feedback to his comment that there is a "Biblical Justification for modifying babies "in eutero" to eliminate homosexual tendencies, due to the biblical definition of homosexuality as sinful". http://www.albertmohler.com/radio_show.php?cdate=2007-03-02


To my fellow evangelical Christians:

1. Let's get this straight -- God's condemnation of sin is not determined by science, but by God's Word. The Bible could not be more clear -- all forms of homosexual behavior are expressly condemned as sin. In so doing the Bible uses its strongest vocabulary and places this condemnation in the larger context of the Creator's rightful expectation of our stewardship of the sexual gift. All manifestations of homosexuality are thus representations of human sinfulness and rebellion against God's express will. Nothing can alter this fact, and no discovery in science or any other human endeavor can change God's verdict.

? Which version of the bible? The original Greek version that uses an oft mistranslated word for homosexuality? (the one referring to catamites, IIRC)

2. There is no conclusive research that indicates any biological basis for sexual orientation. But -- and this is a big "if" here -- if science were ever to discover a correlation or causation with biological factors, Christians should not be surprised. We believe in the catastrophic and comprehensive effects of the Fall and God's judgment upon sin.

? Way to remove self-determination from humanity as a species by attributing a mythical crime carried over to all individuals to the nth generation.

3. Such a discovery, if it were to be accepted, would not change God's condemnation of all forms of homosexual behavior, nor would it mean that this represents the inviolable "identity" of any individual. As I argued previously, moral responsibility does not require absolute moral choice. A soldier in battle may not have chosen to be in a situation of moral anguish, but he is still absolutely responsible for his decisions and actions. Those who commit homosexual acts, whoever they are and whatever their biological profile, are absolutely responsible for their sin. Regardless of any actual or hypothetical orientation, those who commit same-sex acts are responsible for the choice to commit the sinful act. Those who claim that they did not choose their sexual attraction are nevertheless fully responsible for choosing to perform sexual acts the Bible condemns as sin -- period.

? Yup. Typical church talk. Repress thy impulse to be sexual, for sex and sexuality is evil.

4. Some Christians seem absolutely convinced that there is no such thing as sexual orientation. There is a point to be made here. No "orientation" can alter the sinful status of sinful acts. Some have written me to say that there is no such reality as a homosexual, only those who perform homosexual acts. This flies in the face of the Bible, however, which speaks of those who commit such sins by their sin -- murderers, liars, adulterers, gossips, etc. It does not help to deny this. But, even though no "orientation" can alter the moral status of actions, the fact remains that some persons are sexually attracted to persons of the same sex while the majority are sexually attracted to persons of the opposite sex. There are other terms to use here, ranging from "sexual attraction pattern" to "sexual arousal profile," but sexual orientation seems a bit less explicit and is generally understood within the culture.

? Repress! Repress!

5. Research into the human genome and the possibility of germ-line therapies raises all kinds of moral concerns, ranging from the creation of designer babies to the redefinition of humanity. In one article, I was said to advocate genetic therapies. I never said that, and I resolutely oppose such proposals. I would not advocate the use of genetic therapies to create heterosexual babies -- or any other therapy of this type. The hypothetical question I addressed had nothing to do with genetic factors at all. Furthermore, genetic factors are likely to be so complex and inter-related that no single genetic factor or set of factors is likely to be found to cause anything as complex as sexual attraction.

? So what are you saying. Its ok to modify babies in eutero or its not ok to modify babies in eutero?

6. Caring Christians will be aware of the fact that many persons who struggle with homosexuality -- males and females -- testify as Christian believers or as those troubled in conscience that they simply have no idea where same-sex desire originated in their lives. They do know that they did not choose this pattern of attraction. Again, that does not reduce their moral responsibility in any way or to any degree. But caring Christians, fully committed to the sole authority of the Bible, must want to help persons to understand and deal with this specific temptation to sin.

? Like send them to the same rehab center that made Ted Haggard into a fully reformed, 100% Heterosexual Man despite years of homosexual dalliance?

7. The causes of same-sex attraction are likely to be very complex. The research of Joseph Nicolosi and others points to specific social and environmental factors as a prime cause. Boys who do not identify themselves with Dad by age two are clearly at risk. Dr. James Dobson addresses many of these factors in his book, Bringing Up Boys. Given the devastating impact of the Fall, we should not be shaken to our foundations if other causative factors are found. In any event, Christian compassion must lead us to want to know how this would happen in order that we can help those struggling with this sin. We should be thankful for those who, through biblical counsel and guidance, are helping homosexuals to find victory in Christ.

? Once more with the fall. An innocent 2 year old child who does not associate himself with Daddy should not be burdened by a mythical crime commited by mythical figureheads in a bronze age manual for faith that is grossly out of context for the 21 century.

8. Let's remember that all of us are born with a huge moral defect -- we are sinners from the start. Christians who have responded with claims that God would not allow a person to be born with a bent toward sin miss the clear biblical teaching that all of us are born with a bent toward sin and with a sin nature. We are born marked by Adam's sin and already under God's just condemnation for that sin.

? Humanity IS EVIL. Sinners all. Sorry I just can't buy that identity-crushing responsibility-destroying identity foisted onto an 'imperfect humanity'.

9. The only cure for sin itself is the cross of Christ. No therapy will cleanse us of sin, no treatment will atone. Only the shed blood of Jesus Christ will save, and salvation is found in Him alone.

? this just makes no sense at all.

10. Thanks are due to all who wrote or contacted me about these issues. That is not an easy thing to write, given the caustic tone of many communications and the fact that so many did not even bother to read my article. Nevertheless, I learned from your responses, and I am sure that God intended them for my good. I also want to be humble in asking fellow believers to join me in thinking about these crucial questions. If I have missed something, point it out. If I have violated Scripture in any way, bring this to my attention. If I am confused in any way, point to clarification.

? Clarification: you are basing your moral stand on a mis-translated moral story that requires the assumption of an invisible sky being that wants us to be happy, but has spitefully invested us as a species with (from your mythology) a lingering taint of evil sinfulness that was produced by a mythical figurehead deep in the distant past failing to follow instructions, thus condemning us all to roast in an eternal BBQ in celebration of the omni-benevolent sky-beings spite.
Are you confused? Indubitably.

Intelligent Design - The Fence at the Edge of Ability

As described brilliantly by Neil Degrasse Tyson at the Beyond Belief 2006 Conference, many scholars of the past have attributed complexities of the universe that they could not explain to an Intelligent Designer. Even Isaac Newton - yes THE Isaac Newton, fell back on a divine architect when he was unable to invent the differential calculus required to calculate gravititc influences on the perturbations of the planets he could observe in our own solar system.

We read some very pithy comments about Intelligent Design - or rather on how the minds of proponents of Intelligent Design function. It is possible that these visionaries reach a limit to their understanding, a demarkation, if you will, between what they can imagine and what they observe. ID Proponents who use the structure of the human eye as an argument against evolution, and an argument for a hidden architect simply cannot imagine a natural selection process that could result, over time, in a structure as complex as the human eye. Thus stumped by their inability to concieve of that process, the fall back to the "architectural default position" that there was a designer who made it that way.

What often gets overlooked is that these statements of belief about a hidden architect function solely as a personal decision to believe, rather than a universal norm for the conclusion. They may find many people of faith who are prone to be sympathetic to the idea of a hidden architect (read: god) simply because their faith based structure allows them to absorb the idea of "Hidden Architect" into their notion of "Divine Creator".

What this shift of opinion does, however, is simply close a perceptual door on further research or thought.

Now it is possible that the person who comes to believe in a hidden architect may have reached the edge of their ability. They have come so far, but simply cannot go farther due to lack of training, ability or even techniques or knowledge not providing the skills or knowledge they need to step further (as in Newton's inability to plot the gravitational forces affecting the planets because he lacked the differential calculus required to make the mathematics possible).

I think the question I have about this whole process is where does the ability to come to create such a "thought terminating" conclusion, and then simply partition off any further questions about the process/object/research at hand?

Tyson's Speech at Beyond Belief: http://beyondbelief2006.org/Watch/watch.php?Video=Session%202

Instruction Manual for Living

I wrote this on a discussion forum in response to a stranger that had had a change of perspective (faith) and was feeling lost and confused without their habitual paradigm of thought pattern. It was offered as an anonymous piece of advice by a complete stranger with no personal info about the other's life or experiences. I like it and I think I want to share it with you.


"Revel in your LIFE. You have family. Cherish them and treasure the time you spend with them - embrace their company and companionship. You have Friends. Cherish them and treasure times together with them - embrace the company and companionship that they offer you, and return that in kind. If you have a Spouse and/or Children - Revel in the fact that you get to share their lives and experiences and be a positive impact for them, a mentor, friend, parent (and for your spouse, lover and confidant). If you have pets, cherish them for the associated pleasure and joy the bring to your life. Few things compare to the unadulterated affection displayed by a cat or a dog, or the trusting interaction between you and your pet. If you have a job, strive to excel at it, and be a good influence and positive mentor for those around you. Be good at what you do. Strive for harmony, balance, happiness, joy and companionship in your life.

Do this for a day. Then try it for a week. Then give it a month. Then another. Pretty soon you'll find that those things that made you happiest in your previous paradigm - which were closely related to your life interaction with your friends, family and peers, have not changed all that greatly within your new belief structure.

Then finally, on a quiet introspective evening, consider how wonderful it is to be married to your spouse, parent to your children, guardian of your pet(s), a positive influence to your peers and co-workers, and alive at this very moment at this very time. Then go give your spouse/child/pet/best-friend a squeeze and start again tomorrow.

May you and yours have a life filled with health, happiness and harmony. - Jefe"

The Denial Machine

A prime example of the tension between credulity and skepticism. The question: Is human produced CO2 Causing/Contribuiting To/Accellerating/Affecting Global Warming?

The response? I don't know. But I do know that I'm in favour of a cleaner earth, and I do know that Humanity Produced Pollutants are having a detrimental effect on our environment in many cumulative ways.

Should I embrace the "responsible stewards of the earth" platform of the Enviro-Debate, or the Laissez Faire, big oil centric platform?

I'll let you know when I decide.

Shift Happens

Americans get an 'F' in religion

Shamelessly quoted from: http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-03-07-teaching-religion-cover_N.htm

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn't laughing. Americans' deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors' or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says.

His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn't, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics, as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.

Belief is not his business, says Prothero, who grew up Episcopalian and now says he's a spiritually "confused Christian." He says his argument is for empowered citizenship.

"More and more of our national and international questions are religiously inflected," he says, citing President Bush's speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand on Thomas Jefferson's Quran.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Christian | Bible | Churches | Literacy | Gomorrah | Sodom | Rev. John Hagee

"If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they're both Muslim, and you've been told Islam is about peace, you won't understand what's happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible or the Quran, do you know it's so?

"If you want to be involved, you need to know what they're saying. We're doomed if we don't understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can't outsource this to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda."

Scholars and theologians who agree with him say Americans' woeful level of religious illiteracy damages more than democracy.

"You're going to make assumptions about people out of ignorance, and they're going to make assumptions about you," says Philip Goff of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

Goff cites a widely circulated claim on the Internet that the Quran foretold American intervention in the Middle East, based on a supposed passage "that simply isn't there. It's an entire argument for war based on religious ignorance."

"We're impoverished by ignorance," says the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches. "You can't draw on the resources of faith if you only have an emotional understanding, not a sense of the texts and teachings."

But if people don't know Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities destroyed for their sinful ways, Campbell blames Sunday schools that "trivialized religious education. If we want people to have serious knowledge, we have to get serious about teaching our own faith."

Prothero's solution is to require middle-schoolers to take a course in world religions and high schoolers to take one on the Bible. Biblical knowledge also should be melded into history and literature courses where relevant. He wants all college undergrads to take at least one course in religious studies.

He calls for time-pressed adults to sample holy books and history texts. His book includes a 90-page dictionary of key words and concepts from Abraham to Zen. There's also a 15-question quiz — which his students fail every year.

But it's the controversial, though constitutional, push into schools that draws the most attention.

In theory, everyone favors children knowing more. The National Education Association handbook says religious instruction "in doctrines and practices belongs at home or religious institutions," while schools should teach world religions' history, heritage, diversity and influence.

Only 8% of public high schools offer an elective Bible course, according to a study in 2005 by the Bible Literacy Project, which promotes academic Bible study in public schools. The project is supported by Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit that promotes free speech.

The study surveyed 1,000 high schoolers and found that just 36% know Ramadan is the Islamic holy month; 17% said it was the Jewish day of atonement.

Goff says schools are not wholly to blame for religious illiteracy. "There are simply more groups, more players. Students didn't know Ramadan any better in 1965, but now there are as many Muslims as Jews in America. It's more important to know who's who."

Also today, "there is more emphasis on religious experience as a mark of true religion and less emphasis on doctrine and knowledge of the faith."

Still, it's the widely misunderstood 1963 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that may have been the tipping point: It removed devotional Bible reading from the schools but spelled out that it should not have been removed from literature and history.

"The decision clearly states you can't be educated without it, but it scared schools so much they dropped it all," Goff says.

"Schools are terrified of this," says Joy Hakim, author of several U.S. history textbooks. She's in her 70s but remembers well as a Jewish child how she felt like an outsider in schools that pushed Christianity in the curriculum.

But she says the backlash went too far. "Now, you can't use biblical characters or narrative in anything. We've stopped teaching stories. We teach facts, and the characters are lost."

Religion, like the arts, has become an afterthought in an education climate driven by "the fixation on literacy and numeracy — math and reading," says Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a group critical of the standards-based education movement. "If the ways schools, teachers, principals and superintendents are judged all depend on math and reading scores, that's what you're going to teach," he says.

Still, it's a tough tightrope to walk between those who say the Bible can be just another book, albeit a valuable one, and those who say it is inherently devotional.

The First Amendment Center also published a guide to "The Bible and the Public Schools," which praised a ninth-grade world religions course in Modesto, Calif., and cited a study finding students were able to learn about other faiths without altering their own beliefs. But it also said the class may not be easily replicated and required knowledgeable, unbiased teachers.

Leland Ryken, an English professor at evangelical Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., tested a 2006 textbook, The Bible and Its Influence, underwritten by the Bible Literacy Project. Ryken favors adding classes in the Bible and literature and social studies. But he cautions, "Religious literacy and world religions are not the same as the Bible as literature. It's a much more loaded subject, and I really question if high school students can get much knowledge beyond a sense of the importance of religion."

The Bible and Its Influence has been blasted by conservative Christians such as the Rev. John Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Hagee calls it "a masterful work of deception, distortion and outright falsehoods" planting "concepts in the minds of children which are contrary to biblical teaching."

Hagee wrote to the Alabama legislature opposing adoption of the text, citing points such as discussion questions that could lead children away from a belief in God. Example: Asking students to ponder if Adam and Eve got "a fair deal as described in Genesis" would plant the seed that "since God is the author of the deal, God is unfair."

Hagee prefers the Bible itself as a textbook for Bible classes, used with a curriculum created by a group of conservative evangelicals, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, based in Greensboro, N.C. The council says its curriculum is being offered in more than 300 schools.

Sheila Weber, a spokeswoman for The Bible Literacy project, says their textbook has been revised in the second printing issued last month with the examples cited by Hagee removed. The teachers' edition was reissued in August. The first printing was approved by numerous Christian scholars and seminaries and is already in use in 82 school districts.

Mark Chancey, professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, looked last year at how Texas public school districts taught Bible classes. His two studies, sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network, a civil liberties group, found only 25 of more than 1,000 districts offered such a class.

"And 22 of them, including several using the Greensboro group's curriculum, were clearly over the line," teaching Christianity as the norm, and the Bible as inspired by God, says Chancey. One teacher even showed students a proselytizing Power Point titled, "God's road map for your life" that was clearly unconstitutional, he says.

The controversies, costs and competing demands in the schools have prompted many to turn instead to character education.

But classes promoting pluralism and tolerance fail on the religious literacy front because they "reduce religion to morality," Prothero says, or they promote a call for universal compassion as if it were the only value that matters.

"We are not all on the same one path to the same one God," he says. "Religions aren't all saying the same thing. That's presumptuous and wrong. They start with different problems, solve the problems in different ways, and they have different goals."

Contributing: Greg Toppo


Note:
The sidebar quiz is quite a test of general knowledge.

Religion 101 - Final Exam

Shamelessly re-quoted from: http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4891

This is the final examination for the course. Anything below 60% will be treated as an F. The essay at the end is optional. Writing it will add an automatic 10% to you total grade based on the mutiple choice questions. Good Luck!

1.Which of the following is the most compelling evidence for the existence of an intelligent and loving Designer?


a.A Caribbean sunset
b.The screams of a baby seal as it is torn apart by a shark
c.The first time your perfect new baby smiles at you
d.The speed of the Ebola virus converting an African child's organs into liquid


2. A deeply devout Catholic couple has just returned from their fiftieth anniversary celebration, when suddenly the husband falls to the ground, clutching his chest. What is the most productive action for the wife to take?


a.Call 911
b.Put him in the car and race to the hospital herself
c.Administer CPR
d.Fall on her knees and pray to the Lord to spare his life


3.You are a product tester and frequently bring your work home. Yesterday, while dressed in a flame resistant suit (up to 3,000 degrees) and carrying the latest model fire extinguisher, you discover your neighbor's house is on fire. As the flames quickly spread, you stand and watch your neighbor's new baby burn to death. Which of the following best describes your behavior?


a.All-powerful
b.All-knowing
c.All-loving
d.Mysterious


4.One day while jogging in the park, you see a maniac with a butcher knife about to attack a six-year old girl. Which would be the most morally proper action to take?


a.Grab the nearest rock and beat off the attacker
b.Call the police on your cell phone
c.Yell "POLICE!" and run toward the attacker in a threatening manner
d.Calmly walk away, because God works in mysterious ways, and what appears "evil" to our finite human mind, may in fact be part of a vaster plan in God's infinite mind, so it's best not to interfere


5.You are the incarnated Son of the all-powerful and all-loving Creator of the universe. What would be a good way to demonstrate your compassion and power?


a.Cure cancer forever
b.Cause all the earth's deserts to bloom with food crops
c.Unite the world with a common language and an end to poverty
d.Conjure up a jug of wine and follow it up by walking on water


6.Since we can never "know" whether or not a God exists - it is fundamentally a matter of "faith" - it's best to be a believer since you have nothing to lose, but everything to lose if your disbelief is incorrect. Keeping in mind that the fate of your soul depends on the right choice, in which God should you place your belief? For extra credit, include a brief essay justifying your choice, along with the reasons why you reject the other three.


a.Zeus
b.Quetzalcoatl
c.Vishnu
d.The Holy Trinity

(*Note: Choice D assumes you were born around 400 A.D. or later, after the invention of the Trinity)


7.You are the Creator of the universe. Your chosen people are a tribe of nomadic herdsmen, presently in bondage on one of the millions of your planets. Their ruler is being quite obstinate. Keeping in mind that you possess not only infinite power but also infinite love, your best course of action would be to:


a.Cause the ruler to drop dead of a heart attack
b.Cause the ruler to fall off a cliff
c.Visit the ruler in a dream and persuade him to let your people go
d.Slaughter a great number of innocent babies who had nothing to do with the ruler's policies


8.You are a Starfleet Federation explorer in the process of cataloging two newly discovered planets. The majority of the inhabitants of each planet believe in a deity, but they are two different deities. Deity "X" is said to be not only all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing, but the designer of a marvelously complex and ordered world. Deity "Y" is said to be indifferent, absent, unconcerned with the affairs of his planet, and some even say evil. Which god rules over which planet?

Planet A: Has apparently achieved a state of advanced benign equilibrium in which there are no viruses or diseases, and only a very small number of natural disasters, which, when they do strike, always eliminate only the sinful and evil. The inhabitants, both plant and animal, have learned to maintain their existence through photosynthesis, and thus do not have to kill and eat each other in order to survive. There are no "birth defects;" every inhabitant comes into existence perfectly formed and equipped for a long and productive life.
Deity X_____
Deity Y_____

Planet B: Adorned with many examples of beauty and order, it is also constantly beset by hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, volcanoes, lightning bolts, viruses, disfiguring diseases, parasites, leeches, flies, crop-destroying pests and many other phenomena which afflict both the innocent and the evil. Every life form on the planet can only sustain its existence through the destruction and consumption of other life forms. Some of the inhabitants are born with a crippling condition called a "birth defect", which condemns them to living extremely limited, short, or painful lives.
Deity X_____
Deity Y_____


9.What is the number of children born without arms or legs that have been miraculously restored by a visit to the shrine at Lourdes, France?


a.Too many to count
b.Over 1,000
c.Several dozen
d.Zero, but only because their faith was not strong enough


10.As we all know, there is only one true religion. What is the one true religion in each of the following circumstances?


a.You are born in Karnak in 3000 B.C.
b.You are born in Bombay in 300 B.C.
c.You are born in Baghdad in 900 A.D.
d.You are born in Mexico City in 1956 A.D.


11.Although you are new at golf, you have just hit a beautiful 200-yard drive and your ball has landed on a blade of grass near the cup at Hole 3. The green contains ten million blades of grass. The odds of your ball landing on that blade of grass are 10,000,000 to one against, too improbable to have happened by mere chance. What's the explanation?


a.The wind guided it
b.Your muscles guided it
c.There is no need for an explanation
d.You consciously designed your shot to land on that particular blade


12.Which of the following is most likely to be true, and why?


a.Romulus was the son of God, born to a mortal human virgin
b.Dionysus turned water into wine
c.Apollonius of Tyana raised a girl from the dead
d.Jesus Christ was the son of God, born to a mortal virgin, turned water into wine, and raised a man from the dead


13.Conceding that torture is permissible under certain conditions, which of the following would be the best justification?


a.Your prisoner is the only one who knows the date and time of an assassination attempt on the Pope
b.Your prisoner is the only one who knows where a nuclear device has been planted in Washington, D.C.
c.Your prisoner is the only one who knows where a vial of nerve gas has been placed in the London water supply system
d.Your prisoner has announced that the earth revolves around the sun


14.We know that Christianity is true because the Gospel writers, inspired by God who can make no error, recorded the founding events. For example, on the first Easter morning, the visitors to the tomb were greeted by which of the following:


a.A young man (Mark 16:5)
b.No, no, it was no man, it was an angel (Matthew 28:2-5)
c.You're both wrong, it was two men (Luke 24:4)
d.Damn it, there was nobody there (John 20:1-2)


15.According to inerrant Scripture, the Savior prayed alone in the garden while the three disciples who accompanied him had fallen asleep. How did the gospel writer know the words of that prayer?


a.Jesus left them written down under a rock
b.They were recorded on a primitive taping device
c.The gospel writer was psychic
d.The three disciples were later hypnotized and asked to recall the prayer


16.According to at least one sainted church father, one of the pleasures of the saved will be to behold the agony of the damned. What would be the best time of day in heaven for a mother to behold the agony of her only son?


a.Early in the morning before it gets too crowded
b.Mid-day when she can compare notes and share the celebration with other mothers
c.Late at night when she can enjoy the flames in starker contrast


17.In the Judeo-Christian tradition, we always look to the Bible as a guide. In this example, your teenage son has returned home from the prom intoxicated. The Bible's instruction is:


a.Sit him down for a heart to heart talk
b.Enroll him in AA
c.Take away his driving privilege for one month
d.Smash his head in with rocks


18.In this example, your son-in-law, returned from his honeymoon, has just told you he suspects your daughter was not a virgin on their wedding night. Wishing to abide by God's holy rules as laid out in the Bible, you should:


a.Ask him if he was a virgin before you do anything
b.Advise him to forgive her
c.Talk to your daughter
d.Go find those rocks


19.You are eating lunch at a crowded fast food restaurant, occupied mostly by children, when suddenly a gunman bursts in, screams "Do not question or test me," and sprays the room with bullets. Ten people are killed instantly, many more grievously wounded, but somehow you escape unharmed. His ammunition expended, the gunman collapses to the floor. What should you do?


a.Call the police and wait for them to arrive
b.Call the police and leave
c.Risk death by asking the gunman why he did it, even though he told you not to
d.Fall on your knees and give thanks and praise to the gunman for sparing your life


20.Why did God show his backside to Moses, as described in Holy Scripture, Ex.33:23?


a.He invented everything, and this was simply the first mooning
b.He was really ticked off when Moses dropped the tablets
c.He was piqued, having just discovered His almighty powers were useless against chariots of iron (Judges I:19)
d.Moses was too serious and needed to lighten up a little


21.Jesus was God, and God knows all things, including all the medical knowledge that will ever be known. Why did Jesus blame demons for the case of epilepsy he cured?


a.He was suffering from a temporary case of "brain freeze"
b.The Aramaic word for "demon" is the same as the word for "cranial malfunction"
c.Neurology was not his specialty
d.In first-century Palestine, demons really did cause epilepsy. This affliction only began to be caused by electrochemical brain activity after about 1850 A.D.


22.This morning's paper carries a story about a suburban father who became so enraged with his disobedient children that he carried them both to the backyard pool where he drowned them, along with their puppy, their kitten, and their hamster. How should this father be treated?


a.He should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law
b.He should be banished from the town
c.He should be lynched to save the taxpayers' money
d.The townspeople should gather together to sing hymns of praise to him


23.This morning I started my day by insulting my mother in public, then punched out my father, my brother, and my sister. Then I gathered up all my clothes, sold them to a second-hand store, and with the proceeds bought a used Uzi and 50 rounds of ammunition. Next, I went down to the animal shelter and injected all the dogs with a drug that caused them to go insane and dive into the nearby canal where they all drowned. By this time I was hungry, so I went over to my neighbor's apple orchard and burned it down, because I wanted an orange and there weren't any. On the way home, I stopped at the local steel mill to discuss my philosophy of life with some of the guys. They laughed at me and said to stow it, so I tossed them all into the blast furnace. That night I discovered my son looking at a copy of Playboy. Concerned for his future welfare, I cut off his right hand. What historical character did my activities today most resemble?


a.Genghis Khan
b.Charles Manson
c.Adolph Hitler
d.Jesus Christ


24.Down through the ages, who has been most responsible for the medical discoveries that have relieved untold amounts of suffering and pain, and extended the length of that most sacred of creations, human life?


a.Medical doctors
b.Research biologists
c.Chemists
d.The Catholic Church


25.A great sadness has come into your life which you feel you cannot bear. A friend informs you of a free counseling service which has never failed to aid and comfort many others. You call the counselor; the phone rings and rings with no answer; you finally hang up. What is the most likely explanation?


a.The counselor is sitting by the phone but not answering in order to test your faith in him
b.The counselor always stands ready to hear your pleas for help, but sometimes the answer is "no"
c.The counselor will not answer because he wants you to profit by the spiritual strength that only comes through suffering
d.The counselor is not home


ESSAY QUESTION

While it is true that there have been and still are many different gods and many different religions, they are really just the various names by which various cultures approach the same God. Explain how and why each of the following is the same God:

Quetzalcoatl, who wants you to skin a young virgin alive, then put on the skin and dance;
Shiva, who wants you to pray over his penis;
Allah, who wants you to fly airliners into buildings;
Catholic God; who speaks directly through the Pope;
Baptist God, who most definitely does not;
Jesus, who wants you to castrate yourself to ensure arrival in heaven
Jehovah, who any day now, is going to kill everyone on the earth except for his Witnesses


Shamelessly re-quoted from:

http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4891

Thanks to poster Stardust!

Public Pontification

I did it. I pontificated in public about my little pet theory for a 21 century ethical morality in a public place. Admittedly Canada.com forums are read by a very few true scholars, but I was curious to see how my proposed ethical guide would be received. I targeted a very specific debate on the page that seemed appropo and posted with 'all guns-a-blazin'. Read it at http://communities.canada.com/shareit/forums/thread/53466.aspx

I was pleasantly surprised by the reception it got. Now....how far should I carry this pet theory?