Religulous

Whoever has seen this "documentary," I'd like to hear from you.

For those that haven't seen it yet, basically, this film is based on Bill Maher's stance on religion in general. His stance against it also brings about the idea of Doubt. Anyway, here's my opinion...

The film SUCKS as a documentary. Okay, his film is about doubt and skepticism. It's an attempt to debunk religious ideology. None the less, the quality as a documentary is supremely skewed and subjective to the issue of the proposition. I'll admit though, that I'm presenting a bias since I am a believer, however, his viewpoints have no ground and are backed by weak arguments.

Issue #1: Interviewees
The people he interviewed were people who have not had formal training or education in the area of apologetics or theology. Bill apparently goes to random people and asks them questions about their faith and evidence to believe in such matter. My issue with this is that congregations of certain faiths generally don't put the time and energy into researching their beliefs, they simply just have faith.

Mr. Maher could have easily gone to someone from a school of study to find "answers" to his questions. Instead, he goes to small church's, amusement parks, and random train stations to get his "answers". Come on Bill, if you're going to produce a film for the public in hopes of debunking religion, why are you going to regular people rather than going to experts?

Issue #2: The "Gay" Gene
This topic is very sensitive because there are thousands of people in the world who proclaim themselves as "gay". Bill interviews a pastor who used to be gay and tries to discredit his belief and sexual orientation.

The issue arises when the pastor explains that he participated in homosexuality rather than being outright homosexual. He believes that "gays" in general participate in homosexuality but are not homosexual by nature. Afterall, there IS a reason for a differentiation in genetalia right?

Well, not to Bill Maher, because he introduces the idea of a "gay gene" which some scientist has "found". My issue with this is that, the idea isn't thoroughly explained. I would have LOVED to hear about this said gene and the means to it's discovery. There are 23 chromosomes in the body, and a piece of one of the 23 has a code that says a person is gay.

My qualm with this idea is that, genetic DNA is exhaustively complex and complicated. If Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, said that the cell is more complex than any supercomputer known to man, how much more complicated do you think DNA and the genetic code might be?

Issue #3: False Experts
This is in relation to my first issue, but a little different. Not only does Bill Maher interview people who have not had formal education in theology, but he interviews people who CLAIM to be experts! He even makes fun of them in their faces for not knowing scripture.

I can understand that these people are doing wrong in obtaining profit from their actions as said "evangelists", however this has no bearing to his cause in debunking religion. Again, the social impact of religion has nothing to do with the cause of the proposition of whether or not God exists.

My Verdict
I stick to my guns in saying this documentary sucks. Although there are other issues I have with the film, my main objections are that he interviews people with no formal training, makes claims to ideas without showing evidence, and interviews false experts. Way to go Bill, you've shown the world that atheists are too scared to face the truth.

Event: Does God Exist?

There was a debate yesterday at Biola University here in So Cal. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend. However, there IS an objective article that covered the event which can be found on my alumni newspaper at The Daily Titan.

Relation
The debaters (William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens) duked out their whits of knowledge on the Biola University campus. Dr. Craig being the scholared theist and Hitchens as the devoted atheist.

In my school's article, Hitchens brought out a point that Bill Maher tried to point out in his recent film "Religulous,"basically about the social impact on religion. I posted a response to the matter previously in The Violent Ones. And as much as I stand by my answer by diverting it to an issue of morality, Dr. Craigs answer holds to be more true.

"The social impact of religion is irrelevent to the truth of the proposition," was the response given by Craig, and I couldn't agree more.

What To Look For
As stated previously, unfortunately, I was not at the event. However, you can count on me to keep you posted on new events regarding what this blog is all about. Keep an eye out for my take on the movie, "Religulous". As much as I wish I could use Dr. Craigs answer for this film, there are more issues of the film itself that I'd like to address for Mr. Bill Maher.

The Violent Ones

What is potential? Potential to me is using less energy a person is actually capable of, or something near that notion. Whatever the case, potential exists in everyone. Like faith, you either have a little or a lot of it. I will again note a scene from the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

The Scene
There was an instance in the documentary where Bill Maher was featured. He was talking about weapons and violence and stated something to the effect of "If we're to rid the world of violence and weapons, then I say we do away with religion!"...Afterwards there was a small uproar of applaud from the audience he was speaking to, and the documentary went on. I have a bit of an itch to what Mr. Bill Maher said.

The Itch
There have been countless wars because of differing world views on religion, there's no doubt about it. We can all point to European history and give examples, like The Great Crusades, the slaughtering through the country side by a queen, otherwise known as Bloody Mary; all of which have religious basis. But what about WWII and Hitler's regime? Did that genocide occur because of religion, or was it about survival of the fittest (based on Darwinism).

Viewpoint
Lets put things into perspective. The Holocaust and theory of evolution are so similar if you consider the terms of evolution being "survival of the fittest". Hitler slaughtered so many Jews, Gypsies, and other races and backgrounds in the hopes of creating a superior race. Now, having that fall in line with evolution, I would think that's more dangerous than anything, and here's why.

Let's say that Bill Maher got his wish and religion was tossed out the window. Along with religion are morals, you know, that thing in the back of your head that tells you what's right and wrong. Let's say that was tossed out the window as well. All there is, is evolution and the process of natural selection. You're born and you die. Okay, so we're intelligent beings and we want to advance a society, we study the sciences inbetween birth and death. WHAT'S TO SAY I'M DOING SOMETHING WRONG BY SHOVING A KNIFE IN SOMEONE'S HEAD SINCE I'M GOING TO DIE ANYWAY AND RETURN TO THE GROUND FROM WENCE I CAME? Having asked that question, wouldn't that bring more violence, more bloodshed, and more weapons into the world?

I think Bill Maher has it wrong because there is much more potential for violence if religion was tossed out the window. Evolution is just a theory and makes no room for any type of philosophy. If religion itself was out of the picture, then how do WE as a species decipher what's right and wrong? What would be the point in advancing ourselves? Would it be to survive, because I see that as a contradiction seeing as I'm going to return to dust anyway.

Engine of Atheism

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a very interesting movie. Many people may question the content but it's basically about how neo-darwinism scientists are "expelling" scientists who are advocates of I.D. or Intelligent Design.

About 48 minutes into the film, I figure it out. I figure out the reason why people would even throw Christianity or even religion out the door. Basically it's that people stop caring.

You see, you have religious conservatives and religious liberals. When the two are in disagreement with each other, a rift develops between the populous. Then skeptics say "hey, why do you believe in that stuff anyway, if you were an atheist you wouldn't be caught in the middle of this religious politics". Well...that's one hypothesis anyway; people just stop caring and join in with skeptics without fully knowing what they're throwing away and conforming to secular ideas.

Why Should People Care
People should care because losing your religion is actually a big deal. The big deal in my opinion, is that people will lose their identity, and make the world harsher than it already is. It's really not that hard to grasp, look, people are throwing away their faith, things that they used to believe in for what? Nothing?

Lets take it from a financial perspective. If I put my money into stocks knowing I'll get the greatest return to support my family and put my kid through college, why on earth would I throw that away? It's the same thing with Christianity, if you know that you're putting your faith into a belief knowing the that you are guaranteed supreme happiness, why would anyone in their right mind pass that up for nothing?

How do you know that God does not exist? You don't know or you don't care?

The Commoners

All my life I have been a Christian. My denomination as a Catholic introduced the Christian faith to me since I was born and I furthered my studies through bible study Fridays with a youth group. It wasn't until my junior year in high school when I started to learn about the secular ideas that didn't flow right with my faith. So I asked questions, and got answers. I asked more questions afterward, and got more answers. I repeated this cycle, and what I found were things that actually affirmed my faith. Not only did I learn new things, but my faith grew as a result. What you may be surprised about is that some of the questions I have, you too have. So lets begin.

Open Mindedness:

Open-mindedness is usually considered a virtue in our society, but when it comes to religion, often it seems to be close-mindedness that is considered virtuous, and this is often the basis for religious belief.
- Dave Bruemmer of the Daily Titan 2007

What's funny about the quote above is that I could say the same thing about atheists. But Dave has a point. I've encountered many questions where I did not know the answer to and I would just recite what was taught to me about God. For instance, to "How can you tell me that God is real when he let's others like me suffer in pain watching my loved one die?" I would say "God makes you suffer so you can grow closer to him," then I would go into an example. Now I would say that Dave's viewpoint may be correct in this sense that a reasonably cliche answer was given.

Though God wants us to grow closer to him, he definitely doesn't want us to suffer doing it. But that's what this blog is about, logical answers to logical questions on faith. "So tell me Mr. Know-it-all, why does God allow suffering?" It's quite simple really, we live in an imperfect world. More on that later, for now, just take that into consideration. The point is that there are open minded faith based answers to those hard questions people have in the back of their heads. Though science may try to point out fallacies, to each their own. Christians may give cliche answers, but that doesn't mean it's false and most certainly doesn't mean Christian's are close minded.

My Faith's Armory

What does being armed mean? Someone generally can say being armed means to have weapons. For instance, sometimes you'll hear on the radio or TV that police have suspects at gunpoint who are armed and dangerous.

Let's take that concept, being armed and dangerous, and apply that to Christian Faith. It's important for all Christians to have faith, but equally important, is for them to arm themselves. The scripture refers to this as the "Armor of God". Better explanations of the armor can be found here at www.realarmorofgod.com.

Christians will typically take up the armor, but tend to falter against a new enemy. Nowadays, Christians are faced with new challenges in life, but I'm not talking about regular life problems that everyone faces. I'm talking about ideas that stick to your head, threatening what I and other Christians believe in. Some call these ideas evolution, atheism, and even agnosticism. If you fall in any of these categories, I hope to excite you and invite you to spar with me as we take up this journey of challenging faiths. We will then be able to see who is better armed in their truths.

I implore everyone to follow along and keep an open mind. You may not agree with what I have to say and I may not agree with you. However, if we all keep an open mind, everyone can benefit as we might be able to learn from each other.