Faithful Thinkers: Video: Misuse of Free Will

Luke Nix has posted a great video clip of Norman Geisler answering a question about Free Will.






I don't fully agree with him because I don't think we can fully explain where evil comes from or even really understand what having free will is like because we are born enslaved to sin and unable to make proper choices fully aligned with God's will - and we all start off that way.

⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶ The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.- Romans 8:5-8

Faithful Thinkers: Video: Misuse of Free Will

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Top Programming Languages in 2011 Infographic | Infographic Generator - Daily Infographics, Online Infographic Maker and Creator

Top Programming Languages in 2011 Infographic | Infographic Generator - Daily Infographics, Online Infographic Maker and Creator

Top 10 Countries on the Internet and Their Top Searches | Infographic Generator - Daily Infographics, Online Infographic Maker and Creator

Top 10 Countries on the Internet and Their Top Searches | Infographic Generator - Daily Infographics, Online Infographic Maker and Creator

Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense | Video on TED.com

I love the idea of the Heads-Up Display (HUD) as seen in the Iron Man comics, cartoons, and movies! Turns out that such technology is not that far away. Such tech was also imagined in the Minority Report. It's a brave new world, people.







There does exist an iPhone App that mimics the effect but I can't find any version of it for Android devices but I wish I could!

Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense | Video on TED.com

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Get the New Facebook Profile Right Now!

Image via CrunchBaseJust when I thought that Facebook was becoming irrelevant they add a feature, I really wanted: a way to look at all of your activites on Facebook by month, in a timeline. If you want to try it now, look at the following video.






Get the New Facebook Profile Right Now!

Fistbump of the Day - Faithful Thinkers: Evolution, Morality, and Transformers

Luke has written a great post inspired by Transformer: Dark of the Moon. I liked everything about the post just like I liked the movie. I think anyone interested in morality and it's underpinnings should read it. I would like to point out that although the movie is fictional it includes many important things about "about worldviews, philosophy, or apologetics." Luke Nix wrote the following:

Near the end of the movie a specific line caught my ear. Sentinal Prime and Optimus Prime were in a battle over Sential's betrayal of the Autobots to the Decepticons, that put the survival of the human species in jeopardy. Sential informed Optimus that "All I wanted was the survival of our species- that's why I had to betray you." If the survival of a specific species is the determining factor of objective morality, then we have the survival of two species in direct odds with one another, which means that we have two "objective" moralities in direct conflict with on another. On a naturalistic worldview, there is no factor to break such a tie. Which means ultimately, morality is relative to the species. Any morality that is based on a species' survival, is ultimately relative; it is not objective.

On what grounds is Optimus Prime mad at Sential Prime? There are two possibilities: Survival of a species makes right or betrayal is always wrong.

I agree that the questions brought up are important and as Luke points out a Naturalistic worldview cannot answer them. However I think that there is third possibility. Optimus Prime has an objective moral standard. I can't remember if it was in this movie or one of the previous movies, but Optimus Prime quotes his famous saying to explain why he protect humans even it means his life: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings". I've been a Transformers fan since I was eight years-old - 28 years and one consistent thing about Optimus Prime's character - no matter the media or series - is that Optimus Prime values all life. He doesn't fight and kill Decepticons because he likes it. He fights because he has taken it upon himself to protect everyone - humans, Autobots, and other lifeforms. At times I have to admit that he almost portrayed in messianic terms.

Luke further writes:

Many wish to say that objective morality can exist in a naturalistic universe. But, on which of the three grounds presented here is objective morality established? Is it even possible to establish objective morality in a world without God?

Optimus Prime is a fictional character that embodies all the heroic attributes that we know we instinctively admire but fall short: power, self-sacrifice, wisdom, and kindness. Optimus Prime and Transformers are just as popular in Japan, China, and Europe as it is in the Americas. I see no way we can explain these objective values without God.

Faithful Thinkers: Evolution, Morality, and Transformers

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Answering Muslims: Muslim Convert Janice Brown Cries "Religious Discrimination" after Hospital Refuses to Engage in Gender Discrimination

I think that David Wood is in general correct that Muslims sometimes ask for "uber-rights" and claim rights that would not be afforded to others. In Janice Brown's example, I don't think that fits. I see no problem why a person could not request a doctor of a certain gender for any reason. I don't think that its about discrimination. Some women prefer female doctors for all kinds of reason. I don't think it matters why Janice Brown asked for female doctor. It doesn't matter that she was Muslim or not. What does matter that she asked for a female doctor. My sister is a registered nurse and one day she had a patient that refused to him help her because he didn't want to be touched by a black woman and he was in urgent need. What did she do? She just got a white Doctor and didn't touch him? Was that hard? Did it hurt her sensibilities? Yup. But she did her job anyway. The medical care professionals, Janice Brown went to should have done the same.

Muslim Woman: Hospital Mocked Her Faith: MyFoxPHILLY.com

Answering Muslims: Muslim Convert Janice Brown Cries "Religious Discrimination" after Hospital Refuses to Engage in Gender Discrimination

Here is the Fox News article:
Muslim Woman: Hospital Mocked Her Faith

How Long It Took Facebook, Twitter & Google+ To Reach 10 Million Users

Geesh! And I thought that Facebook grew rapidly!

How Long It Took Facebook, Twitter & Google+ To Reach 10 Million Users

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Is (as per Richard Dawkins) belief in God a betrayal of science? | True Freethinker

Cover of Richard DawkinsMariano has written a great article about Richard Dawkins contention that scientists who are religious betray science by turning the argument on its head and taking a good look at it. Follow the link below!

Is (as per Richard Dawkins) belief in God a betrayal of science? | True Freethinker

The Euthyphro Dilemma (William Lane Craig) - YouTube

Here is Dr William Lane Craig giving his answer to the Euthypro Dilemma. I think He;s right about this.



The Euthyphro Dilemma (William Lane Craig) - YouTube

Richard Dawkins stumped by Creationist question - YouTube

Here is a video uploaded to YouTube by ShockofGod. I've seen the video before but I like the annotations so much that I think it bears watching again.




Alright, let's try to be fair to Dr Dawkins. To this date, I have seen no evolutionist give an answer this question. If anyone has seen an answer, please feel free to leave a comment. Richard Dawkins stumped by Creationist question - YouTube

Facepalm of the Day #127 - Debunking Christianity: My Brief Response to "God's Word Never Changes"

John Loftus has posted an article on his blog where he responds to a Ken Blinco on what he wrote on the infallibility and sufficiency of the Bible. My comments are in Red.

A letter to the editor appeared in my local newspaper written by Ken Blinco, whoever he is. Since he expressed what a lot of Christians think I responded:

Ken Blinco recently opined, using sexist language, that “Man has always made gods to suit himself.”

"Sexist Language"? Is Loftus seriously suggesting that women are excluded in Blinco's statement? Let that sink in for a minute. 

Of course, he doesn’t think this applies to his own view of God or morality, since along with Ocie Spriggs he knows the truth and claims others don’t. But a recent study by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago says otherwise, and I quote from Discover Magazine’s “Creating God in One’s Own Image” (Nov. 30, 2009):

So is Loftus claiming that he doesn't know the Bible is wrong? Christians are often accused of arrogance, but someone like John Loftus shows the same arrogance they say theists have. They believe they are right and all Christians, whom have ever lived are wrong. I don't see what makes the Atheists any more humble or kinder than the one who stands on the street corner condemning all to hell.

Epley asked different groups of volunteers to rate their own beliefs about important issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, affirmative action, the death penalty, the Iraq War, and the legalization of marijuana. The volunteers also had to speculate about God’s take on these issues, as well as the stances of an “average American”, Bill Gates (a celebrity with relatively unknown beliefs) and George Bush (a celebrity whose positions are well-known).

I've posted on the when Loftus pointed this on his blog earlier this month. I still think the study is flawed because it's asking the wrong questions. A better test is to ask about those issues and problems in the participants lives that they have to struggle with or gave up because of what they believe God commands.  I don't think aligning your political and social beliefs that don't necessarily have anything to do with being a Christian as being all that difficult.

For many religious people, the popular question “What would Jesus do?” is essentially the same as “What would I do?” Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.

Here is the FacePalm. "Loving your enemies" is what Jesus does, the rest of us have to work at it. It doesn't stop there. The Bible tells us that God expects us to "Esteem others higher than ourselves." (Philippians 2:3-5) In our culture today, default is to respect others as long as they respect you. It doesn't seem that the study looked at issues like this.

Epley surveyed commuters at a Boston train station, university undergraduates, and 1,000 adults from a nationally representative database. In every case, he found that people’s own attitudes and beliefs matched those they suggested for God more precisely than those they suggested for the other humans.

Peoples thoughts and ideas are never going to completely align with God. We are constantly  trying to align ourselves with God. It's not a given. It's not always easy. It's something we have to work towards constantly.

Now this study doesn’t show that Blinco and Spriggs’s views are wrong, but it should make them less certain of what they pontificate about. People who are certain they are right and who claim divine knowledge do cause the rest of us harm. Just think 9/11, or Manifest Destiny, the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, or even the modern witch hunts and the killing of homosexuals taking place by evangelicals in Africa right now. For some reason it escapes them that the Bible did not fall from the sky into their laps. It has a history. It was written by human beings in the language of its day. It has a context. And the art of interpretation is complex given the number of different views of the Bible by different Christianities, who all claim the other Christianities are not true ones.

pon·tif·i·cate

to speak in a pompous or dogmatic manner: Did he pontificate about the responsibilities of a good citizen?

 

So what is it when Loftus writes Of course, he doesn’t think this applies to his own view of God or morality, since along with Ocie Spriggs he knows the truth and claims others don’t.

although he says the study does not invalidate the views of Christians. Of course the whole paragraph above actually is a great example of pontification. Manifest Destiny, 9/11, the Crusades, and every other example Loftus gave us are example of people disobeying the Bible and commands that have been given to Christians.  The perpetrators ignore its history and  the context just as Loftus does to condemn Christianity.

There was a day when the sin of heresy was considered the worst crime of them all, because heretics could lead others astray into hell. So the church didn’t think twice about having heretics killed over things most Christians think are mere trifles. Then too, there was a day when American Slavery was easily justifiable by texts like Leviticus 24:44-45.

See? You can't justify American Slavery using the Bible. More pontification.. The church is responsible for a lot of sins, but that's not God's fault and the Bible is not the problem. People are the problem. Here is a list of resources on the blog regarding slavery.

This is why in a political democracy we must insist that public policy is to be based not on historically conditioned Biblical interpretations of authoritarian texts, but on sound secular reasoning using such tools as the harm principle, first articulated by John Stuart Mill, where he argued that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

The "harm principle"? Funny. The fact that we have people who need to have there behaviors restrained by society because they don't care about harming others tells me that we need something more than just a "harm" principle because we can't trust ourselves or each others to "to think higher of  others than ourselves.". If we could follow the Bible, then we wouldn't need an external law.

 ¹² All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³ For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. ¹⁴ (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵ They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) ¹⁶ This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.- Romans 2:12-16

Debunking Christianity: My Brief Response to "God's Word Never Changes"

From glyph recognition to augmented reality - CodeProject

Introduction to Article

Recognition of glyphs (or optical glyphs as they are called most frequently) is quite an intersection topic, which has applications in a range of different areas. The most popular application of optical glyphs is augmented reality, where computer vision algorithm finds them in a video stream and substitutes with artificially generated objects creating a view which is half real and half virtual - virtual objects in a real world. Another area of optical glyphs' application is robotics, where glyphs can be used to give commands to a robot or help robot to navigate within some environment, where glyphs can be used to give robot directions.
In this article we are going to discuss algorithms for optical glyph recognition, which is the first step towards all the applications based on optical glyphs. Then we are going to switch from glyph recognition to 2D and finally 3D augmented reality.
For those who prefer seeing first what’s this all about before reading all the details, here is a small video which summarizes the work being done:
YouTube: From glyph recognition to augmented reality

From glyph recognition to augmented reality - CodeProject

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Debunking Christianity: Atheists and Sex Offenders

Well wonders never cease! Finally, John Loftus has again posted a blog post containing a video I can get behind! Namely it's purely stupid to say that Atheists should be shunned and discriminated against and punished in society like registered sex offenders. Only someone horribly short-sighted could ignore the fact that there have been atheists that have been a blessing to humanity.





I give the credit to God. It doesn't matter if a man or woman recognizes God or not when it comes to God choosing to them to bless humanity. This has been true and will continue to be true. To these people mentioned in the video I admire the skills and talents God gave them to bless all of us.

16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. - James 1:16-18

\ Thank God!!!! Debunking Christianity: Atheists and Sex Offenders

A view of the "New Atheist stoicism" | True Freethinker

Mariano has posted an interesting article exploring the stoic philosophies of the New Atheism. I think it's a must read because it brings up some of the weakest points of Atheism that many atheists refuse to acknowledge. I especially like the graphic. I wonder why people don't think that's a possible scenario if atheism is true?

A view of the "New Atheist stoicism" | True Freethinker

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The Hubble Telescope [infographic] | Daily Infographic

The Hubble Telescope [infographic] | Daily Infographic

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Answering Muslims: Debunking the Palestine Lie

Video Description:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has launched an international campaign to achieve recognition by the United Nations for an independent Palestinian state. Abbas and his international supporters claim that only Israel (with the United States) stands in the way of this act of historical justice, which would finally bring about peace in the Middle East.

This video debunks the Palestinians' claim and shows that Abbas has been lying about the origins and history of the conflict. Palestinian leaders have rejected partition plans that would have given them much more land for their independent state than the Jews were offered for theirs. Rather than being the innocent victims of a "dispossession" at the hands of the Israelis, the Palestinians rejected reasonable compromises and instead pursued their aim of getting rid of the only Jewish state in the world.

Learn more here: http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/a-century-of-palestinian-rejectionism-and-jew-hatred/

Answering Muslims: Debunking the Palestine Lie

What we learned from 5 million books [Video]

Wow, this is awesome.




Video Description:

http://www.ted.com Have you played with Google Labs' NGram Viewer? It's an addicting tool that lets you search for words and ideas in a database of 5 million books from across centuries. Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel show us how it works, and a few of the surprising things we can learn from 500 billion words.

What we learned from 5 million books [Video]

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Answering Muslims: Congressman Mike Quigley: Apologizing for America

David Wood gives a great response to Congressman Mike Quigley on his recent apology for American Islamophobia. I think David Wood makes many good points. You have got to see it. 




Answering Muslims: Congressman Mike Quigley: Apologizing for America

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FacePalm of the Day #126 - Debunking Christianity: The Real God

John Loftus posted the following YouTube video on his blog








The video has the following description

Because I was constantly being told that I'm rejecting God, and I knew that wasn't true, I decided to research rejection, which made me aware of its effects. My studies took me in a completely unexpected direction. The epiphany (pun intended) was rather shocking. The evidence indicates that the personal god is a manifestation of the ego, which explains a plethora of theistic tendencies, including their typical dislike of atheists, who theists subconsciously perceive to be rejecting a part of themselves. God is Tyler Durden; and the first rule of Jesus Club is you have to talk about Jesus Club. The second rule of Jesus Club is you have to talk about Jesus Club.

Loftus offers the following blog post as corroboration

For corroboration see this.

There is a lot wrong with the video. Let's just take a step back and look at some of the fail.  It would take a while to enumerate all the places where this video fails so let's just look at what I think are the two major problems. While it's true that many Christians who are rejected or rebuffed by skeptics and Atheists do take it personally, we should not. They are not rejecting us but they are rejecting God. The example of trying to introduce someone to another and the person rejects what they are told about the person even if the person is real is really a dumb defense. The scenario is missing an important point: God is not far from anyone of us. If a person wants to know who God is,. they don't have to solely go on mine or anyone else's testimony. You can know God for yourself. And not God as you think God is but God as God truly exist. We can trust God, not ourselves.

The other problem is that as I have already argued, a Christian who follows the Bible is acutely aware that God is not like us. There are things that is in our own hearts and minds that we know are contrary to how the Bible tells us God is. We know that we cannot meet the standard God has called us to on our own. The point of being a Christian is that God will and does make us into what we were intended to be in God.

 ²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[a] have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.- Romans 8:28-29

⁵For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now;
 ⁶Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
 ⁷Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. - Phillips 1:5-7


¹² Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
 ¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling or arguing, - Philippians 2:12-14

If you have not experienced this then it's no surprise you are not born-again.  However, it's not  too late. God is calling you to Himself.

¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. - 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

All you have to do is answer, "YES!"


Debunking Christianity: The Real God