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Heroic Students Thwart Plot By Mexican Rebels Intent on Infiltrating America and Making it Mexico, Jr. Yeah, that’s what the headline should read.  Instead it just says: “Mexican flag burned at Apache Junction HS.”

Apparently, some people forget that this is the United States of America and not the United States of Mexico.

And now that I’ve said this, the Left will begin to call me a racist.  It’s the only thing they can do since, barring substance, they can only resort to race-baiting as a tactic.  But I am not racist.  I love Hispanics.

But if Mexicans want to fly their flag, then they better do it in Mexico or on their own property.  They better realize that they are living in America, not Mexico.  And if they are here illegally, then they better be deported.  Why should we import Mexican poverty?  The same liberals who whine about our jobs being shipped to India want our jobs to go to illegal Mexican criminals instead.  And yes, they are criminals–they are here illegally so they have broken the law.

If find it highly ironic that the group of people who say that we need to raise minimum wages argues that we need to allow illegals in the country because we can pay them less than Americans for the same job.  Where’s the standard of decency there?  Why exploit foreigners for personal gain?  Doesn’t that sound exactly like what these facisict socialistic morons claim Capitalism is?

Again, I have to emphasize that my comments have nothing to do with race.  I have to emphasize this point because Liberals are going to say that I’m a racist despite the fact that if Canadians were doing this I would be just as angered.  I am not a racist.  I just respect the rule of law.  It’s not like it’s difficult to become a United States citizen legally.

Bottom line: If Mexico is so wonderful, STAY THERE!  If you want to be in America, BECOME AMERICAN.

It’s not that difficult.

One of the things I enjoy about having to use public transportation (since I don’t own a vehicle of my own) is the fact that while I’m waiting I get to think a lot.  Thinking is something I enjoy doing, and probably is the one activity that I do more than anything else.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, one of the things I like to think about is patterns.  Today, I thought a bit about random patterns and how, in reality, they aren’t “random” at all.

Consider, for example, dice.  One cube has six possible results when cast.  Throwing a die, you have a one in six chance of coming up with a specific number.  Which number will it be?  The answer is random.

It’s random because we cannot predict before hand which one it will be.  We know that the die will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6; but we don’t know which one it will be.  So a single toss of a die is a purely random event.

Or is it?

If you cast a die 1,000 times, you will quickly find that the numbers all come up about as equally often as any other number.  For example, I wrote a simple program in Visual Basic .Net that calculated how many times a number on a die would show up after 1,000 rolls, and the first time running it I got the following results:

1 = 148
2 = 194
3 = 159
4 = 173
5 = 151
6 = 176

The range was from 148 to 194 (a difference of 46).  Running it a second time produced the following results:

1 = 159
2 = 186
3 = 154
4 = 154
5 = 168
6 = 180

The range here was from 154 to 186 (a difference of 32).

What happens if we extrapolate further and test 10,000 instead of 1,000?  The first time I got these results:

1 = 1605
2 = 1632
3 = 1745
4 = 1701
5 = 1619
6 = 1699

Now the range was from 1605 to 1745. After 10,000 rolls there was only a 140 difference between the highest number of instances and the lowest.  Running it a second time resulted in:

1 = 1658
2 = 1637
3 = 1695
4 = 1611
5 = 1699
6 = 1701

Here the range was from 1611 to1701—a scant difference of 90 between the lowest and highest frequency.

Despite increasing the total count by a factor of 10, the range between the number with the most instances and the number with the least only increased by 33%.

And just for fun, I did it for 100,000 and got these results:

1 = 16583
2 = 16620
3 = 16358
4 = 16836
5 = 16929
6 = 16675

The range here was from 16358 to 16929 (a difference of 571).

Running it a second time resulted in:

1 = 16788
2 = 16644
3 = 16709
4 = 16635
5 = 16610
6 = 16615

The range here was 16610 to 16788 (a difference of only 178!).

So when you toss a die, despite the fact that you don’t know what the die will come up with, it will tend to pop up on each number an equal amount of time.  The question is: why?

Each toss of the die is completely random.  The die doesn’t “know” what was tossed before it.  It cannot keep track of what number should be coming up.  Yet invariably, each number gets represented to almost the exact same degree.  This means that even though each individual toss is random, the structure as a whole is following an orderly process.  There is a hidden order beneath the randomness that is at work.

Once you realize this is the case in casting dice, it becomes a rather simple matter to realize that it is in all of nature.  Consider the fact that every person has his or her own unique fingerprints—yet everyone can tell what a fingerprint looks like.  There’s a structure to a fingerprint such that it is possible for anyone to identify a fingerprint as a fingerprint instead of a footprint.  Or consider a tree.  Each tree has its own unique branch structure, yet aspen trees always look like aspen trees and pine trees always look like pine trees.

This is even demonstrated in humanity.  All humans have the same bipedal shape—yet no two people are the same.  We each have similar internal organs, yet no two organs are identical.  Each of us is randomly different from one another, and yet each of us follows an underlying structure such that we have a “human-ness” quality to us.

How random are we then?  There is a pattern that we must adhere to.  This is how we can recognize that we are all human while at the same time differentiating between Steve and John.

But can we take it even further than this?  One of the most “random” processes is nuclear decay—and yet it is predictable enough to calculate a half-life for the material.  Each of us is made up of subatomic particles that exist in probabilities (just as it is a probability when you cast a die as to which one will show up).  Thus, it seems that the very fabric of matter and energy itself is made up of these random structures that nevertheless follow an underlying order.  It’s why we don’t suddenly cease to exist because matter “decides” to behave differently.  Matter cannot.  Even though there are “random” processes involved, these processes act as if guided.

Why should that be the case?  What is it that can create the order beneath the random?

I’ll leave it to you, Reader, to think on that.

Here’s a shocker.  That’s right, a study failed to find a link between prayer and healing.

Could it be because A) healing isn’t the primary purpose of prayer in the first place (worshipping God is), B) most people who pray today are “spiritual, not religious” and don’t actually believe in the God who is, C) God never promised to provide miracles for everyone who prays, or D) all of the above?

Of course, expect the atheists to try to use this as proof that genuine prayer (Godly-oriented, worshipful prayer) is bunk too.  But why should we be surprised that God doesn’t honor the prayers of non-believers and those who just wish for a magic trick.  Jesus Himself pointed out that there were people who only came out to Him to see a miracle, not because they believed in Him.  These people were told there would be no sign given them.

Why would we expect God to change now, just because someone does a study?

The following is a slightly edited version of a story I first wrote in 1999.

---

They say there’s one for everyone. And not just anyone, but the one. The only. And there’s one for everyone….

 

---

The soft sounds of the piano fill the house. The melody is in a minor key, sad and heartfelt. The sound waves mix, complimenting each other in crystalline harmony, and travel through the ears to the soul where they will massage the deepened wounds. The sounds vary in volume, swelling to a releasing point, then cascading away through a moment–a hesitation between notes. Then, back again, swirling through the brain, releasing the mind.

Floating. That’s what I am doing. I am floating in my mind, trying to forget the holocaust, the tragedy. Living it through the music at the tips of my fingers as they tap away on the ivory. I cannot stop the tears from the corner of my eye any more than I could have stopped—

No! Don’t think about it! Don’t let it back in. Concentrate on the music. Concentrate to make your mind free.

I concentrate. The music becomes mechanical. I can’t feel it anymore, so my hands pause. I exhale, shivering as I do so. Then, breathing in again, I hear the moan, not quite my own voice…but there is no one else in the room.

Fists on the ivory, I collapse. “Oh, Becca!” The name echoes off the walls, pounding into my ears. “Oh, Becca.”

The tears….

 

---

I had first met Rebecca Jackson three and a half years earlier. It was a kegger at Phi-Gamma-Nu, and she sat there alone on the couch. I noticed right off that she was beautiful–so beautiful that she must already have a boyfriend. Or even possibly be married!

I sipped on my mug and felt the music pound into my body from the small but powerful stereo in the corner of the living room. It played some European underground techno music. The songs were all sung in German, but they were still cool despite being incomprehensible. The music had a nice beat that made you want to get up and dance right where you were standing. It was better loud, and this stereo could go no louder than it was–it was perfect for dancing.

I took another sip and looked back at the girl on the couch. She had shoulder-length light brown hair. She had a perfect body–the figure of a Hollywood heroine. Maybe Helen Hunt with a more dignified nose. But as my mind searched for the right Hollywood match, she looked up at me–and my heart froze.

Her eyes were a deep, dark blue. They shone in the dim light of the Phi-Gamma-Nu frat house. They were haunting, and brilliant, and soothing all at the same time. As if by magic, the rest of the room faded, and her eyes became the only reality. There was nothing but the void and her eyes.

I swallowed the rest of my beer and tried to wet my throat that had so suddenly gone so dry. The liquid moved in my stomach, and I suddenly felt slightly ill. But even so it was a good feeling. Because it wasn’t the sickness of drinking too much, and it wasn’t the flu. It was something deeper than that.

But it couldn’t be. Not yet. It was impossible.

I cleared my throat and moved over to the couch. “Hey,” I said, used the conversation to look down at her, take in even more of her beauty. She looked at me–my words froze. Excuses vanished.

“What?” she asked, her voice silk sliding across on bare skin.

“I was…I was….” My mouth opened and closed. Suddenly, I realized how ugly I was. Oh, I’m not terribly ugly, but I’m nothing that anyone would look twice at either. And in the light of her beauty, I felt so strangely hideous that I couldn’t speak.Why even talk to her? She’s not going to like you. She can get better men than you.

I swallowed. “You like this music?”

“It’s okay,” she said. And looked down. Now that I could no longer see them, I ached for my eyes to feast on hers again. But even without her haunting eyes, her profile was enough. It was the pure Greek rational definition of pristine beauty.

I sat next to her. “Well, I was just wondering…. You were here all alone, and all, and I was just wondering if you’d like to dance or something.” I looked back where other couples jumped around like maniacs, having a blast bumping into each other and “accidentally” feeling up their partner’s body.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her eyes moved back to me and I felt that uncomfortable, but heavenly, sensation in my intestines again. “I don’t dance.”

I laughed. “It’s not like you have to have skills,” I said as I pointed at the others. She laughed.

She had a wonderful laugh. Was there anything wrong with her at all? I wondered, even as I knew the answer. There was nothing wrong at all. She was perfect.

I sat still for a moment and wondered what to say. I wanted to keep her talking just to hear her voice. But I couldn’t think of a subject. Then she turned back to me.

“I’ll dance if you want to,” she said.

“Really? I don’t want to force you to–”

She shrugged. “I might as well do something to make coming here worthwhile,” she said as she stood. She held out her hand and I took it in mine. We walked to the stereo and began to move to the beat. It wasn’t hard–you shake your head, wiggle your body, and jump. As long as it was anywhere near the beat of the song, you did fine. No one else cared what you looked like.

But Rebecca Jackson didn’t do that. Instead, she was something else completely. She moved to the techno beat in such a way that made her seem like liquid ice, flowing and wrapping around the musical notes. I was astonished, and again realized how ugly I was.

I swallowed my heart and moved, uncoordinated and awkwardly, as I tried to find the rhythm.

She smiled at me. “My name’s Rebecca. What’s yours?”

“My name?” I kicked myself. What was wrong with me? “I’m Todd.”

“Nice to meet you, Todd,” she said, moved in close and then jumped back again. She smiled, her hair whipping around her face in a picture frame. Sweat poured from her forehead, but it only made her seem more beautiful to me. She was like the mythical goddess that glistened in the sun.

The goddess with the deep blue eyes….

 

---

I sit up, looking at the puddle in front of my nose. I just put those tears there. They had been a floodgate, waiting to burst. And did they ever.

I stand, looking at the big black piano with its black and white keys. I shiver as the empty ache inside rips me apart.

A sudden noise comes from the living room and slowly I walk into that room. Kate-Lyn is up. She yawns, her eyes bleary and red. She has been crying too, but she’s too young to understand all that was happening.

“Where’s mommy?” she asks, and it hits me again….

 

---

Was it love at first sight for both of us? I could never say, but after we finished, Rebecca Jackson, who insisted on being called Becca, took my hand in hers and we walked out of the frat house. “You know what I love most about winter?” she said as we crunched the snow beneath our feet.

“What?”

“The fog when you breathe out. It lets you know you’re alive, you know. You exhale and the vapors just hang there, saying, ‘Hey, you breathed me. You’re still living!’”

She laughed. I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was, in every way imaginable. It felt so good just to keep her hand in mine.

“So, what’s a pretty girl like you doing alone tonight?” I asked, as my eyes looked over to her.

Her face darkened. Then, she smiled as if nothing had happened. “I’m not alone. I’m with you.”

But I couldn’t lose the image of her darkened face. Something wasn’t right. Something was amiss and it wasn’t something normal.

I shook it off. “Well, if I was your boyfriend, I’d never leave you side!”

“Is that an offer?” she said, and smiled back at me.

“What?” My heart froze. “No! I didn’t mean that! I mean, I meant it, but it meant something else. I mean. I don’t…I’m not trying to be presumpt–I…no.” I spit it out in about two seconds. Becca stared at me for a second, and burst out laughing so hard that she doubled over, slipping on the frozen cement.

“You’re so funny,” she gasped, her hands on her ribs. Then, she coughed.

It was a horrible cough. One of those smoker’s-lungs coughs. She winced, turned away from me. She hacked for a couple of seconds and spat into the snow.

I looked away. I didn’t want to embarrass her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Dumb cold.” I nodded and we walked on through the winter.

“There’s nothing like cold air to bring out the lung butter,” I said, trying to make a joke of the situation. It fell flat.

Becca didn’t say another word until she suddenly stopped. “Here’s my car.”

I said good-bye to her, and started off. Then, I turned back. My heart leapt, but I couldn’t stop it now. “Hey, Becca? Can I…you know, may I have your phone number?”

She laughed, shook her head at me. “It’s better if you don’t,” she said.

“Why? Are you going out with someone already?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“It’s something…. Todd, I just don’t want–”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can be cool with that.”

Becca bit her lip. My world turned in joy at the sight. She didn’t know how pretty she was. She looked back at me.

And told me her number.

 

---

Kate-Lyn sits on the carpeted floor playing with her Legos. They are huge blocks of plastic, just for small kids. Kate-Lyn really isn’t that small anymore. She is going to be starting school next year. But I don’t want to take anything from her childhood. Especially right now. Not ever now.

How I wish I could return to my childhood.

 

---

I met Kate-Lyn two days after I met Becca Jackson. I had nervously called Becca and we scheduled a date. She had laughed when I called–and I unconsciously braced myself, but she didn’t cough again. It must have been the cold weather, I told myself.

When I went to pick her up the next day, I stopped outside her apartment and gathered myself. I needed courage to get to her door. When I had prepared myself enough, I stepped out of my car and almost ran to the wooden door.

Rebecca opened the door and smiled. She threw her arms wide and hugged me. I smiled and looked down at her.

And heard the baby cry.

Becca cringed and looked back at me. “I thought the baby sitter would be here by now,” she said, looking guiltily away.

“Baby sitter?”

Becca nodded, bit her lip. My stomach did its loops again. “I want you to meet my daughter, Kate-Lyn,” she said, pointing toward the stroller with the one-year-old little girl.

I bent and looked down at Kate-Lyn. She had her mother’s looks. Especially her eyes–they were the same shade of blue. I smiled at her, and Kate-Lyn’s eyes grew big in wonder. I waved my fingers, and she stared at them, mesmerized. Becca chuckled and stood back a ways from me. I rose and turned away from the infant, my head spinning now. No one’s ever perfect, I thought. Before, I could think of nothing wrong with her–now I found that she had a child. That meant that she had been with a guy before.

I tried to shake it off, and found that I couldn’t. It wasn’t much of a shock–a girl as beautiful as her would have had many opportunities. And it wasn’t like I was the handsomest guy in the world. There was a reason that I had not yet had a real girlfriend in my life.

The sitter never came. We spent the day in the living room, played with Kate-Lyn, talked when she was asleep. It was an unusual day for me, to say the least. But for some reason, I felt more attracted to Rebecca Jackson than ever before. It was odd when I considered all the points. She had a child, and I had never even kissed a girl. She was Olympic beauty, I was a Spartan beast. She was an athlete, I was a composer of music. And yet, for some reason, none of that mattered when we talked that day. There was nothing but the void and Rebecca Jackson.

 

---

I see Becca’s eyes in Kate-Lyn again. I bite my lip and remember the way she bit hers. I move back to the piano still a composer of music.

A minor. I hit an A minor chord, and let it resonate. I sit down, close my eyes….

 

---

“That’s wonderful!” Becca said as she sat next to me on the bench. “I’ve…wow! You wrote that for me?”

“Of course,” I said. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. She smiled back at me. I wished so badly that I could kiss her beautiful red lips. But I couldn’t. She wouldn’t let me.

She had told me about the disease after we had been going out for six months. Becca had had complications giving birth to Kate-Lyn, and had needed blood to save her life. It ended up killing her–it was tainted with HIV that had somehow had slipped through the cracks at the blood bank.

Becca cried when she told me. She sobbed, but would not let me comfort her. I told her I couldn’t catch it by kissing her, but she said she would take no chances at all. How did I know I was right, she asked me. I closed my eyes in defeat. I really didn’t know much about AIDS. I had never bothered to study it. It was something that only happened to gay people. Not to mothers. Not to people I loved.

Becca sat back, held her hands together, and looked quizically at me. Since I had first met her a year earlier, she had lost twenty pounds. She had been thin before, but now she looked like a holocaust survivor. She still smiled at me, but it was empty and hollow. She was in pain.

She had been living on painkillers for three months now. The pneumonia in her lungs had taken six months to get rid of. And now it was back. She had no immune system to fight it off. The virus was hitting her hard and fast.

After she had told me she was infected, I did the only thing I could think of. I asked her to marry me. I told myself it was because Kate-Lyn needed a father.

 

---

And now she needs a mother. I sit still at the piano, the music rushes by in A minor, running through me again. Pouring my soul out. Kate-Lyn sits in silence and watches my fingers move. She has the perfect vantage point from her perch on the couch. I close my eyes again and lean back as the hot lava pours out of my tear ducts.

 

---

The hospital was clean and smelled like antiseptic. The heart monitor beeped with the pulse of Rebecca VanTill’s heart. I smiled down at my wife, the woman who used to be called Miss Jackson. Now, Mrs. VanTill smiled back at me, her eyes still that haunting shade of blue.

I squeezed her hand and smoothed back her hair. She had been injected full of drugs. But it was no use. She was just a skeleton.

A skeleton that held the soul of the one I loved. I gave my heart to her, all that I was…but I could not literally tear it from my chest to save her life. I could not exchange my blood for hers. God didn’t work like that.

I felt the tears in my eyes as I looked into hers. “I love you, Becca,” I said. The twenty-four-year-old girl who looked eighty winced. I gripped her hand and kissed it.

Oh how I wished that we could have been together as husband and wife as I looked at her then, and I kicked myself, thinking about sex like a teenaged boy. I looked down at her small frame, all of eighty-seven pounds. And I cried.

She leaned back in the bed, her eyes closed. “I love you too,” she whispered, barely loud enough to be heard. “Todd, it’s going to be soon. Stay with me and don’t let me go until you’re sure, okay?”

I sat next to her. God, don’t do this to me, I thought as I pressed her hand to my tear-streaked cheeks.

“I promise.”

I pulled down the bar on the side of the bed and slowly eased my arm around her frail body. My heart swelled and I wished again that I could give her my own life in exchange for hers.

“Take…take care of Kate-Lyn,” she whispered in my ear, her eyes still closed. I kissed her ear.

“I promise.” My hand brushed back her hair again, and I remembered how it was so perfect when she moved, dancing to the techno beat when I first met her.

“Becca…Becca,” I repeated. She opened her eyes, and I fell into them as I always did. I saw her deep blue, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I leaned close and kissed her lips, held her tightly to my body.

“I love you,” I said again. Meaning it more than I could say. She smiled, staring up at me.

Staring up at me.

It took me a while to realize the heart monitor had flat-lined. There was no code blue. There was nothing. The nurses had been told. It was time to let her go.

It was time to let her go.

It was time….

 

---

But I can’t. How can I?

“Where’s mommy?”

“She’s in heaven, Kate-Lyn.”

“When will she get back?”

“She’s not coming back, honey. She’s there with God.”

“Oh. Doesn’t she love us?”

“More than anything. More than anything!”

“Then why doesn’t she come back?”

“Because she can’t, Kate-Lyn. People can’t come back from heaven.”

“Why? Does God hate us?”

“No.”

“Then why won’t he let mommy come back?”

“Because…because….”

 

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They say there’s one for everyone. And not just anyone, but the one. The only. And there’s one for everyone….‘

John Loftus is continuing his break-up. Now he has posted on hell. The title says it all: “Any View of Hell Needs To Pass the Moral Test.”

Now this is a misquote of Clark Pinnock (despite it being in quotation marks), but Loftus apparently approves of it nonetheless.  He then concludes his statements by stating:

[Presuppositionalists, don't even start. If you cannot see that it's plausible that the traditional view of hell is unjust without having an ultimate moral standard, then you're just not thinking].

Here’s the problem for Mr. Loftus. What is the reason that any view on hell needs to pass the moral test?  What need is there for a view to pass any moral test?  This need is not a logical need, for all that logic needs is logical consistency.  This need can only be a moral need.

Thus, John Loftus presupposes a definition of morality before he presupposes a second moral view on hell.

Mr. Loftus seeks to avoid all discussion whatsoever by cutting off the response that he knows is coming.  The only moral imperative that is involved here is the moral imperative that Mr. Loftus assumes.  This is not even a “common” moral argument–this moral argument of Mr. Loftus is: “It is a moral imperative that you provide a view on hell that is consistent with my moral system.”

The big problem here is that that the term “moral” changes definitions in mid-process.  ”It’s a moral imperative (Moral 1) that a view on hell is consistent with my moral system (Moral 2).”  Moral 1 is not Moral 2; Moral 1 superceeds Moral 2.  But where has Moral 1 been proven (let alone Moral 2)?

The only need for “any view on hell” to pass Mr. Loftus’s morality is found in Mr. Loftus’s morality (Moral 1) and only in Mr. Loftus’s morality.  This moral imperative (Moral 1) does not exist outside of Mr. Loftus’s brain, except insofar as others might agree with him (as mentioned before, he would then use the “might makes right” to force those who disagree with him into agreeing with him anyway).

So Mr. Loftus is not only asserting a moral claim (Moral 2) here, he is asserting two moral claims.  He is asserting that it is morally necessary (Moral 1) that any view on hell must conform to his moral viewpoint (Moral 2).  But since I reject all of Mr. Loftus’s morality, what basis does he have for claiming that Moral 1 is to be enforced?  Mr. Loftus cannot say that “Any view on hell needs to pass the moral test” and mean anything other than “In my subjective moral opinion, any view on hell needs to pass my other subjective moral test.”

I reject both of Mr. Loftus’s points, and thus defuse the force of his argument immediately.  I have no moral imperative to conform to Mr. Loftus’s subjective moral opinion, and therefore I won’t.  If he doesn’t like it, he can lump it, but he certainly can’t force his morality on me.

I had an interesting experience this morning on the bus.  There were two individuals who were discussing theology.  It quickly became apparent that neither of them had a clue about Christianity (which is what they were discussing).

For instance, the woman in the conversation mentioned that “Christ” was not Jesus’ last name (this much is true).  However, she said it was Greek for “Lamb.”  Which I thought was ironic, considering that Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Messiah” which means “annointed one.”  The guy, not to be outdone, responded with: “I don’t believe Jesus exists.”  Later, he said, “Jesus never claimed to be God, it was something His followers made up after He died” (which begs the question, how do you make up something about someone after they don’t exist to die in the first place?)

Oh, the wonders of modern theology.

Two men are willing to die for their beliefs. The first is a Christian in Afghanistan who refuses to submit to Islam. The second submits to that Islam.

The first guy was working for an international Christian group, helping Afghani refugees in Pakistan.  He was arrested for carrying a Bible.

The second man went to Afghanistan and talked with Osama bin Laden about becoming a suicide pilot.  He dreamed about flying a plane in an attack on the United States.  He was arrested and then lied to investigators so 3,000 innocent people could be killed.

Which one of these individuals would you like to hang out with?

San Francisco condemns a Christian meeting. Yup.  The “most tolerant city” has no tolerance for Christian views.

Not that we’re shocked by that.

Apparently, John Loftus over at Debunking Atheism has a problem with morality.  He insists he has a reason to state something actually is moral and another thing actually is not moral.  But when you ask him how this could be the case, you’ll quickly find him escape to the realm of It’s-moral-according-to-a-certain-framework which is nothing less than pure relativism and thus not applicable to anyone outside of that relative framework (and thus, not actually moral or immoral).

In point of fact, Mr. Loftus’s “morality” is nothing more than “might makes right.”  Indeed, that is the only kind of morality any atheist can have.

Oh, they’ll couch it in different terms. They’ll say that society dictates the norms of behavior (but which society? Oh, that’s right–the one with the might to enforce it).

Atheists hate this though.  I, for one, can’t understand why they would have such a reaction as the meltdown they go through on the issue of morality (I mean, if they actually believe their atheism what’s the problem?).  They’ll use words like “altruism” “where moral behavior is its own reward.”  But what reward is that?

You’ll “feel” better.

But what if I feel better hacking you to pieces with an axe?  What if I like torturing people?  I would certainly not feel better if I was not allowed to engage in such behavior.  So why should your feeling better mean that you can force your morality on me?

“No, if you feel that way then that is “deviant” behavior–it’s wrong!”  But why is it wrong?  It is only wrong because you feel it is wrong.  If I don’t feel the same way, then I am not violating my own version of morality.  Thus, we are back to square one yet again: might makes right.

There is no way around it, this is the only kind of “morality” that atheists have.  It’s the morality that says that Hitler wasn’t actually evil, that if the majority of the world happened to be Aryan then the moral thing would have been the extermination of the Jews.  Morality, for an atheist, does not exist outside of power.  There is nothing intrinsically good or evil about anything.

So, Mr. Loftus, what reason is there that stops anyone from (to put it as personally as possible) killing you?  If might makes right, then why can’t I force you to agree with me at the point of a gun?  How would that possibly be wrong?  How do your feelings determine reality?

This is all the morality you can muster in atheism.  You force your views on people for the sake of your feelings, so that you can feel better about yourself, and then you self-rationalize it and pretend that it’s how the world will be a better place.  But “better” is a term that is only defined relativistically–it was certainly better for the Nazis if Jews were dead.

Thus, all morality is is an arbitrary rationalization of the projection of power.  You have the power, so you say “This is how you ought to act.”  There is no truth behind that power–it is only the excercize of power. 

Frankly, if this is how morality really is, why bother to even rationalize it?  Why not just live consistently and force your views on everyone you have the power to force them on?  Why even go through the trouble to justify it?

Everyone over at the Debunking Atheism website seems to have an interresting deconversion story, so I’m going to give you my deconversion story.

It began when I was two.  When I turned two, something happened: Mt. St. Helens erupted.  I decided that God couldn’t exist if a mountain spewed forth ash like a dragon. Dragons didn’t exist, so God couldn’t exist either. 

This was only further proven by the time I was seven when I asked my Dad, “If God is eternal then doesn’t that mean He had to wait forever before He could create us?”  Obviously, it was bunk to believe in God since forever would take forever to get here.  It’s much more logical to believe the universe has been around forever than it is to believe in a God that could be around forever.  I mean, inert matter has patience to wait forever before spontaneously evolving us; God is impatient and wouldn’t have waited that long.

By the time I turned thirteen, I realized that God was patterned after my father.  Thus, He was stupid.  He wouldn’t let me drink beer and trampled my rights, just like the Old Testament.  I realized that if God was really a parent, He would have made me faster than every other kid on the playground so that I could become a superstar and have unprotected sexual relations with every girl on the cheerleading squad.  Since I didn’t get what I wanted, God obviously didn’t exist.

Of course, my Christian friends told me that He DID exist.  They said, “If God made everyone faster than everyone else that would be a contradiction!” but they said God could do anything, so they’re the stupid ones.  Then they said that what I wanted was actually “immoral.”  I decided that it wasn’t immoral therefore it wasn’t actually immoral.  I furthermore decided that it was really God who was immoral, and therefore He didn’t exist.  Nevermind the fact that I think Christians are immoral too but I don’t doubt that they exist; for some reason this argument still applies to God because otherwise it wouldn’t be an argument.

Then I turned eighteen and realized that God was really just another form of Government.  God was invented to keep the masses stupid.  I wasn’t stupid, therefore God didn’t exist.  People in power forced everyone else to believe in a magical fake miracle man up in the sky when it was really George W. Bush’s satellites up there spying on you.  Religion was just a tool of oppression used by the Government to keep the sheep in line.  Nevermind the fact that I can’t explain how it is possible that everyone else on Earth would be so stupid that the Government could make up a fictional God from whole cloth and magically make them believe in this mythical being when the Government can’t even make us believe anything politicians say.  I just take it for granted that I am the only one enlightened–it makes arguing much easier that way.

After college, I realized everything I thought I knew about God must be what God really was like.  I would talk to Christians and they would tell me that the God I was destroying in my arguments wasn’t the real God–but c’mon, they’re already deluded into BELIEVING He exists so why would you expect them to define Him correctly instead of me?  If you believed in unicorns, would that make you an expert in defining unicorns?  I think not.  It would make you an expert canidate for the room with all the padded walls.

All of the above is pretty compelling evidence as to why God does not exist.  It’s compelling evidence because I say it is.  Therefore it is.  Therefore, God does not exist.