"You weren't born that way, you just had demon sex"

Apparently some Christians still haven't got the message that being gay is a natural, inherited biological trait. According to the Christian mag Charisma, the quickest way to being gay is get raped by a sexual demon.

I'm not kidding, it actually says "sexual demon."

Painting of a Succubus

As any fan of Lost Girl can tell you, the most common sex demons are succubi (a female demon who assaults mostly men) and incubi (a male demon who assaults mostly women). According to Contessa Adams, a former stripper and demon rape survivor turned evangelist, they come at you when you're sleeping.

"These spiritual rapists, as Adams describes them in her book, Consequences, often prey on people by performing sexual acts through nightmares and erotic dreams."

Either that or people just have nightmares and erotic dreams...

"Some people become so dependent upon these demonic experiences that they actually look forward to them. 'Anybody that has been attacked by them will tell you ... they're worried [that] they could not find that pleasure with mortal people,' says Adams, who claims she was once possessed by sexual demons."

So the dreams are so good that you'd rather sleep alone? Wow, sign me up for a sex demon! But apparently there's a terrible side effect of demon possession.

"Sometimes they also lure people into homosexual behavior. Adams says the succubus spirit that used to attack her confused her so much that she contemplated becoming a lesbian."

Apparently, if you have erotic dreams about someone of the same sex and are turned on by it you aren't a lesbian; you're just contemplating becoming one. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that if you are turned on by someone of the same sex, then you're already gay.

And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT, but I digress.

So say I have been beset by a sex demon, how to I get rid of all this amazing sexual pleasure?

"The Holy Spirit has to reprogram you. If you're not programmed for obedience, it's hard to do so," she teaches. "Once you come out of that world, you're learning what you can do and what you cannot do. With the Holy Spirit, if [you] go to touch that fire, He will quicken you and tell you, 'No.'"
Adams also notes that disobedience also produces fear, which is another tool Satan uses.

So you can choose to be "reprogrammed" to be unquestioningly obedient to someone who is watching your every sexual thought and be terrified of disobeying him, or keep the amazing lucid sex dreams.  Hmm decisions decisions. 

Overall though, the theme throughout the article is that having any interest in sex whatsoever is evil, literally demonic, and akin to torture. Sex is an awful dirty dangerous thing and you should save it for the person (of the opposite sex obviously) that you love. 

Why do I care what these people believe? Because I wasn't far off myself. 

Now I wasn't brought up with demons, but Satan certainly was a mainstay of my religion.  The devil was out to tempt you in all sorts of ways and having sex, thinking about sex, or even masturbating was Satan's way to get a hold of you. Since all of those things are statistically nearly impossible to avoid, you are guaranteed to feel guilty about some of it. That sort of repression is not something you get past overnight, and in many ways  I'm still fighting it daily.

Maybe someday I'll tell that story, but not feeling it right now.

(Via AlterNet)

Review of Michael Specter's "Denialism"

Just finished reading (actually listening, I love Audible.com) Michael Specter's new book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives.

I highly recommend you give it a read, even if you are well acquainted with the history of the skeptics movement and most of the issues he covers. Specter weaves a convincing narrative sketching a brief history of science denial in western culture.  How did popular culture shift from the pro-science zeitgeist of the 60's, with great achievements like the moon landings, to it being vogue to decry science based medicine?

As Specter writes on his website:

"...pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by avarice and greed."-Link

Denialism is broken up into six chapters:
1. Vioxx and the Fear of Science
2. Vaccines and the Great Denial
3. The Organic Fetish
4. The Era of Echinacea
5. Race and the Language of Life
6. Surfing the Exponential

Interestingly, in a book about science denial he entirely jumped over the low hanging fruit of evolution. Why I cannot say, but I suspect he was more focused on recent incarnations of denial. While evolution is a modern hot topic, its origins are ancient and likely outside the scope of the book.

The first chapter interested me greatly, as I was unfamiliar with the history of Vioxx. Specter argues that the scare created when we learned that a drug thought safe and FDA approved increased the chance of heart attack kickstarted denialism in popular culture.  Science had just transformed from being the wonderful institution that went to space and captured our imaginations to the evil corporation's tool to risk our lives to increase their profits. While I suspect this is an oversimplification, Specter makes a convincing case that Vioxx was a linchpin in changing how society viewed science.

As many skeptics will no doubt be aware, one of the first causalities of this newfound distrust of science was vaccination. Denialism covers the anti-vaccine movement pretty well in chapter 2, though I did not learn much from this chapter. Likewise with chapter 4 on alternative medicine and natural remedies.

But sandwiched between these stale slices, I was thrilled to discover a scathing critique of what can only be called the organic fetish. In my experience, organic food and the related distrust of "big agriculture" is a popular sacred cow even among skeptics. Undaunted, Specter strides through Whole Foods and overturns the moneychangers' tables with righteous indignation. The panic over GMO crops, farming chemicals, and fertilizers is largely based on a misunderstanding or lack of information about the reality of farming.

Having grown up on a farm, I'm always impressed by the fact that I have yet to meet someone railing against the dangers of GMOs who could tell the difference between a planter and a cultivator. Organic fields in Minnesota are incredibly easy to spot, their the sparse, sickly looking ones with low yield and filled with more weeds than crop. The farmers still make a tidy profit though because people are willing to pay premium for an identical product with Organic stamped across the front.

One critique I have, however, is that this book is clearly not written to reach deniers but rather their flocks. If  Denialism was intended to change the minds of Organic believers directly, for example, I think it misses the mark. To the denier, it would surely read as a love letter to corporations because it dares to suggest that corporations are not fundamentally evil.

In this respect it seems slightly schizophrenic. It is difficult to tell at times when Specter is parroting the narrative of denialists or spinning his own. Especially in the last two chapters on genetics in medicine and synthetic life, he trespasses on denialist territory himself, exhibiting many of the signs believer in reverse. Perhaps he is trying to stir up controversy by intentionally taking an unpopular position, but I doubt.

So I encourage you to read the book and take what you read with a grain of salt. If you come away from the book believing everything he says, you have missed the message. Likewise if you come away disagreeing with everything he says, you may be the person he is writing about.

Biped Robot made from Paper

Someone has actually created a robot made entirely of paper and an elastic band. The frame, the gears, the shafts, and the linkages are all made entirely from various forms of paper.  The only non-paper component is the elastic band that was twisted to power the robot.

(Via Robot Dreams)

The Thinking Atheist: Top 10 Creationist Arguments

I absolutely love the Thinking Atheist, so much so that I even took inspiration for my logo design from him. This video is a little old, but since creationist arguments evolve very very slowly it will be useful for decades to come.  Seth shoots down 10 of the most commonly used arguments firing rebuttals like a machine gun.

He even takes a bonus shot at "Christian Nation" wishful thinkers, which counts as a creationist argument because almost everybody who says this is a Christian nation is also a creationist.

Flashback to 2006: Colbert Roasts Bush

Just rewatched one of my favorite clips on Youtube and wanted to share it.  Colbert was invited to speak at the 2006 white house correspondents dinner.  I have to believe that they didn't realize he was a poe, for what followed was an unforgettable roast of president Bush to his face. Surely they should have known what was coming, but the progressively more apprehensive expression of George W. Bush throughout the speech suggests otherwise.

Ravi Zacharias Blames Darwin, Nietzsche for Moral Decline of Society

Ravi Zacharias is featured in a new video from Focus on the Family  explaining how we got to this state of moral decline in our society.

Full Transcript: emphasis added

How we got to where we are today...It has not happened without warnings, that is for sure.
If I were to take one hinge on which this slide was hanging, I would say it was Fredric Nietzsche the German Philosopher.

When he popularized the phrase "God is dead", and uh [unintelligible] in the 19th century he said then we are going to live either with megalomania or erotomania: the drive for pleasure or the drive for power, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner. It's exactly what happened. 

Going back even slightly before Nietzsche, Charles Darwin in his Descent of Man...Darwin had said that if his Naturalistic Framework were taken as a scaffolding for metaphysical extrapolations and judgments and so on, he said the violence that would break out would be unparalleled.   

Because if Naturalism is all we have, man is nothing more than nature, then we have got no moral framework to look to.  He talked about the violence that would come. Nietzsche said that the 20th century would become the bloodiest century in history, because of the philosophical ramifications of the death of god. So how did we get here?  We got here starting off by killing god, then killing ethics, now we are killing men.

Now Nietzsche did write "God is Dead," though the words were uttered by a character he created called the Madman.  Nietzsche also wrote that "there will be wars the like of which have never been seen on earth before." Also it is generally accepted that the 20th century was the bloodiest in history.  But here ends Ravi's overlap with reality.

Nietzsche's "prediction" that the 20th century would be the bloodiest century never existed.  He never said the 20th century, the next century, or anything like that.  He also did not attribute the wars to a moral failing in God's death, as Ravi asserts.  Here is what he actually said. Sorry that it's so long, but context is important here. I've highlighted the important bits.

I know my fate. There will come a day when my name will recall the memory of something frightful—a crisis the like of which has never been known on earth, the memory of the most profound clash of consciences and the passing of a sentence upon all that has before been believed in, demanded and sanctified. I am not a man, I am dynamite. And with it all there is nothing of the founder of a religion in me. Religions belong to the rabble; after coming into contact with religious people I always feel that I must wash my hands. I do not want "believers”, I think that I am too full of malice to believe even in myself; I never speak to masses. I have a terrible fear that one day I shall be considered "holy”. You will understand why I publish this book beforehand—it is to prevent people from wronging me. I refuse to be a saint; I would rather be a clown. Maybe I am a clown. I am nevertheless, or rather not nevertheless, the mouthpiece of truth; for nothing more false has ever existed than a saint. But my truth is terrible: for hitherto lies have been called truth. The Revaluation of all Values, this is my formula for mankind’s greatest step towards coming to its senses—a step which in me has become flesh and genius. My destiny ordained that I should be the first decent human being and that I should feel myself opposed to the falsehood of millennia. I was the first to discover the truth and for the simple reason that I was the first who became conscious, to sense the lie as a lie. My genius lies in my nostrils. I contradict as no one has contradicted before and yet I am the very opposite to a negative spirit. I am the herald of joy the like of which has never existed before; I have discovered tasks of such a height that has never been seen before my time. Mankind can only now begin to hope again, now that I have lived. Thus I am necessarily a man of Destiny. For when Truth battles against the lies of millennia there will be shock waves, earthquakes, the transposition of hills and valleys such as the world has never yet imagined even in its dreams. The concept "politics” then becomes entirely absorbed into the realm of spiritual warfare. All the mighty worlds of the ancient order of society are blown into space—for they are all based on lies: there will be wars the like of which have never been seen on earth before. Only after me will there be grand politics on earth.

Nietzsche predicts that there will be wars not because "God is Dead" and we have no grounding for morals. He said when the religions, so entrenched in society, began to be exposed as lies they would not go quietly.

Nietzsche laid the blame for these predicted wars directly at the feet of those who would seek to defend lies against Truth.  The shockwaves and conflict would come from the overturning of the paradigm, not a destruction of morality.

But Ravi would clearly never give this quote context because he simultaneously holds up Nietzsche as devil and prophet, destroyer of God and clairvoyant. If Nietzsche held such great predictive power, would Ravi accept his judgement of religions as lies?  I doubt so.

Still, Ravi at least twisted Nietzsche's actual words to his purposes.  In contrast, he appears to have invented from whole cloth Darwin's fears of a naturalistic world. Despite my best efforts I could find nothing remotely close to Ravi's words in Descent of Man or in Origin of Species to be generous. I challenge the reader to find the source Ravi draws from, but until a textual origin is found for the sentiment I must assume that Ravi has extracted it from a rather unsanitary orifice.

Pope Takes to Twitter

Yes, pronouncements from Rome will now be 140 characters or less.  Pope Benedict XVI has been confirmed as @Pontifex and is slated to release his first tweet on Dec 12.

Who is he following? Turns out its himself seven times in different languages.

I love how this screenshot sums up the office of pope entirely.  He has hundreds of thousands of followers, listens only to himself, all while saying nothing of consequence.

And by the way, shouldn't the pope be following @TheTweetOfGod?  Just saying.