All Chronological references are in Zulu Time

The Problem of Original Sin

aboutreligiongod:

Original Sin perhaps is the one and only foundation of Christianity.  Without it, the whole point of Jesus sacrificing itself to save the whole world from this will be meaningless.  

To the simple-minded, this story sounds so great and humbling, but with a little thought and critical thinking, all things in the story do not really add up as a convincing argument why one should follow Christianity.

Let’s start from the beginning where “Original Sin” …originated. I’m not going into that much detail on the “days” like how your “God” created plants first before the sun, but I will focus only on details regarding “original sin”:

Here, you have a GOD who supposedly created the world, and “It” created a man (then a woman from the man’s ribs), with no knowledge of right or wrong.  It likes them that way: more compliant and incapable of questioning.

Next, It placed a sacred tree, the tree of knowledge, right smack in the middle of the garden–not on another island, not atop of a high mountain, or even on another planet. It then instructs the man and the woman to not eat it despite them having NO KNOWLEDGE of right and wrong.  What could go wrong?

Then, the woman, according to the story, was tempted by the devil (your God’s betting buddy - see: the story of Job) disguised as a “serpent” to eat the fruit (of course it’s the woman who must be at fault in this story, men were writing it).

They got banished, and “cursed” with original sin - which by the standard is an unforgivable sin - by their so-called, “Merciful God” who in fact, placed the tree at arms-reach by people who have NO KNOWLEDGE of right and wrong.  Poor people got blind-sided in the oldest game of set-up.

2,000 years later:

Their God decided that It wants to forgive Humanity (for a “sin” that It perpetrated in the first place).  So it impregnated a 14-year old Palestinian Jew named “Mary” so she can give birth to Its Son - who is also itself, who then, after reaching the age of 30, will sacrifice itself as an offering to itself - because, for some reason, a “creator” of the universe also practices the Jewish tradition of “sacrifice” to ask for forgiveness.  

This “sacrifice” now “saves” all of humankind who each and everyone is supposed to be “born” sinful because of the deeds of two people, one made of dust, one made of rib, sentenced with eternal punishment for a fault their “Merciful” God perpetuated in the first place - 2,000 years ago.

Additionally, that wasn’t the icing-on-the-cake. Three days after its death, it resurrected - which renders this “sacrifice” thing entirely pointless and should be considered one of Ancient writing’s most popular plot holes.

Remove the veil of false, pretentious salvation, the concept of Original Sin is but a conniving marketing tactic. Abusing a person into thinking that they are born wrongful, undeserving, and - with lack of a better vocabulary - a “piece-of-shit”.  This way, it seems it would be easy to convince a person to “cure” themselves of their imperfection if you submit and acknowledge the sacrifice of their God.

The story summarises “why Christians believe Christianity” in a nutshell. Four Billion people believe this, and they scoff at atheists for being incapable of embracing this belief.

Illus. Credit: dedMazay

The Day we caught an Articuno

This is a story of a battle of Epic proportions.  It was the eleventh hour of the morning, Sunday (a few hours probably before HBO starts airing the second episode of Game of Thrones Season 7), in the Northern Kingdom of Seattle Washington. There, at the urban jungles of the North (Pacific Place mall, or something), we encountered the Legendary ARTICUNO.  It was tough.  I have had 2 battles with it already, once with two other chaps who were useless, and then the second battle with eight people but we were not enough.  

I struggled to stay since several tries I suffered network errors. 

Then the third battle came.

It was us, all eleven trainers, 66 Pokemon, against one, powerful 37,000+ CP Articuno.  
The battle raged for 200 seconds, and then came the final moment. I was alone and all that was left to me was my 2100CP Charizard and he was as well, very weak. All ten of the brave trainers who fought side by side with me, all 60 of their battle creatures - were down for the count, and 5 of mine were gone as well… 

all on the ground gasping and brought down by the sheer might of the Icy Articuno. But I looked at my Charizard and thought about the other ten trainers (who hasn’t mastered the art of dodging, obviously, as good as I did) — the other ten trainers who helped me get this far who risked all the way to get here and bring Articuno down to 1% HP - and I said to myself, “I’m not going to let these people down”.  
“Charizard…. FLAMETHROWER!”

With that mighty blow, we brought the Legendary bird down.  Articuno struggled to stay afloat, grasped to its last drop of consciousness, but it went down faster than the polar ice caps experiencing Climate Change.

And Yes! I caught it! I have finally obtained the mascot of Team Mystic! I am - the TRUE KING OF THE NORTH! Remember us Eleven… those who fought against the great creature at the battle of the… ummm. “Pike Place Penguin” Gym! in Seattle, WA!

Politicalprof’s error(s):

politicalprof:

So why was I, like so many others, wrong about Tuesday’s election? Three bits of public self-diagnosis:

1. I truly, honestly, utterly could not believe that a substantial number of Americans could bring themselves to vote for someone as profoundly vile and hateful and profoundly and willfully unprepared as Donald Trump. I could not make myself believe that even the angriest American could look at Donald Trump – Donald Trump! – and go, “yeah, at least he’s not Hillary Clinton!” I couldn’t do it.

I was wrong.

2. I truly, honestly, utterly could not believe that an American people who I believed would act like point 1 was true, would then look at Hillary Clinton (for all her flaws) and go, “why bother?” If you believe 1, then voting seemed … required. 

I was wrong.

3. I forgot to do what is actually my analytic “thing.” I am not a pollster or an aggregator, so I was stuck with the same imperfect data everyone else was. Usually, however, I try to understand the worldview of people I disagree with. I try to analyze from the inside out. But given #s 1 and 2 above, I didn’t spend much time doing this through this cycle.

I was wrong.

I hope Democrats don’t decide this election was about Trump. Trump got the fewest votes of ANY presidential candidate, winner or loser, since George W Bush in 2000. Nope: this one was about the failure of Democrats to mobilize in the face of a candidate who spewed bile and alienated millions. If the Democrats can’t beat Trump, they need to seriously rethink where they’re coming from and what they’re trying to achieve.

We all do.