Random Bible Verse of the Day: Romans 8:28

Remember, I gave you cancer because I love you 🙂

As we continue our journey through the most popular bible verses on biblegateway.com, we come to Romans 8:28, which once again presents a superficially positive message.  But, as is often the case with the bible, once you start to think about the implications of the verse, while assuming god’s benevolence and omnipotence, you realize that either a) god doesn’t exist or b) god is a capricious asshole that doesn’t deserve a flaming bag of cat shit on a hot day.

But let’s take a look before we get too far ahead of ourselves:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Those first three words really chap my ass; of course none of the preceding or subsequent verses give any indication on how this purported truth was discovered. …But I can guess at what a Good Christian might say: “We know God works for the good of those who love him because he gave his only son to the world”, which is basically just a re-phrasing of John 3:16.  Besides the silliness of that verse, the logic is patently stupid.  Once you strip the bible-babble from it, it would sound like this “Good things will happen to me because a guy died two thousand years ago.”  Absurd, unless you’re willing to accept fantasy as reality.

A Perfect Metaphor For the Search For Noah’s Ark

The actress Donna D’Errico has been searching for Noah’s Ark from the Bible. Apparently she has no friends because none of them stopped her by patiently explaining that the story is a myth and there really wasn’t a worldwide flood. To her credit, she’s actually been looking for it personally and not just coordinating the search of a team of outdoorsy types who snicker at her behind her back because she recently fell off a mountain during her search.

Snake Handlers! Satanic Football! Feminist Dispatches From Kolob!

God watches over Moe.

A lot of religious claims and justifications that persist down through the generations do so because they’ve managed to escape empirical testing. So if you ask most religious people if they believe in the power of demonic possession in the straightforward literal sense embraced by the faithful in past centuries, most of them will probably say they don’t. We’ve found better explanations for floods and droughts and other things that used to be blamed on demons. The superstitions that haven’t been filtered out of religion with scientific rigor just becomes what we call religion today.

But even still, lots of superstitions remain intact despite them being proven demonstrably wrong. So for example we have this, from Luke 10:19

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Some Christians reinforce this passage with one from the Book of Roadhouse, wherein Patrick Swayze sayeth unto us, “Pain don’t hurt.”

In Which We Jump on the Tebow-Bashing Bandwagon

There are lots of numbers associated with football games. But what do they mean?

A lot was made of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow throwing for 316 yard in last week’s footsball game against the terminally unemployed steel-workers of Pittsburgh. You see, Tebow stood out from other quarterbacks for painting Bible verses on his face, a favorite of his being John 3:16. People imagined there was some connection between the number of yards Tebow threw for and the placement of one of the more important verses in Christianity within one of the later Gospels.

Kurt Vonnegut vs. The Bible

“Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”
–Psalms 137:9

The high school board of education for the city of Republic, Missouri last week voted unanimously (4-0) to ban Kurt Vonnegut’s classic antiwar novel Slaughterhouse-Five from the school’s library. The board was responding to public complaints by one Wesley Scroggins, who was outraged that the city would use his tax dollars to store books which teach “principles contrary to the Bible” for children to read.

Harold Camping Interview

Harold Camping is a Christian radio broadcaster and president of Family Radio. He is the man behind the recent nationwide billboards which warn commuters that The Jesus will return to Earth on May 21, 2011. We talk about his prediction, the Bible, how there are actually 12 hours in a day and not 24, and puppies. Will I be convinced and start believing in God and The Jesus? You will have to listen to find out.

Ken Ham Will Have a Completely Normal Replica of Solomon’s Temple, Not Like That Weird One You Have

Like I said before, I really feel sorry for whoever works at the People For the American Way whose job it is to watch and listen to all those hours and hours of Christian broadcasting to try to find the oasis of awesomeness in the middle of the desert of praisin’ the loard.

Killing Dogs for God in South Carolina

So in South Carolina, this kid brought his devil-worshipping dog to his aunt’s house, where she then did the responsible thing and made sure it couldn’t harm any children. At least that’s one way of putting it.

Another way of putting it would be that some crazy lady tortured and killed her nephew’s dog because it chewed on her Bible. From CBS:

Arguments Atheists Shouldn’t Use

With all the “new atheist” brouhaha, there’s bound to be a few kids who are new to freethought making bad arguments, messing up our lawns, and otherwise making the rest of us cranky. When believers encounter nonbelievers like this, they might understandably take such bad arguments and lack of concern for lawn care to be characteristic of atheists, which would only then serve to reinforce their faith. So here are some quality control tips for the kiddies.