RagingRev

Alright guys…i knew it was coming…but its official…i dont know what to blog about…i mean, trust me, there are PLENTY of silly things going on in the world of the religious…but I want to blog from the heart here….so i need some help.  I want you guys to comment here and give me topics that interest you…from technology, religion, apologetics, atheism, books, science, politics, conspiracy, 911 truth, or the occult…if it is in my realm of understanding i would be glad to answer any questions or blog about any topic you can provide. Im just stuck and I need inspiration…and im tired of hearing about McCain, Obama, and the Financial Crisis.

Ok, this might be a bit off of our normal topic, but I just wanted to let the Linux fans out there know that Ubuntu 8.10 aka Intrepid Ibex just released today, it is ready for download now. I run Ubuntu on my rig at home, and it runs much better than  Windows XP or Vista ever did. It takes some time to get used to, but if you are looking for a powerful alternative to Windows XP or Vista, and you are tired of dealing with Viruses ALL THE TIME!…you really should check this out.

Ubutu is Free, Ubutu is Open source, Ubuntu is constantly being updated, Ubuntu gets a new automatically updated release every 6 months. Ubuntu comes with everything you need to start using your computer after the install—Microsoft Office alternative OpenOffice.org is pre-installed, as well as Firefox 3.1, GIMP, and the list goes on.

When you download Ubuntu, you have to Burn it from what is called an ISO file, most CD burning software can do this automatically, but if you dont have one check out  IMG BURN, makes it really easy for anyone. Once you get it burned to the disk, you can just put the disk in the CD-rom drive and reboot your computer…from there you can actually play around on the desktop environment without ever installing Ubuntu or erasing your data from windows…when you do decide to install, it makes it easy, by detecting your Windows versions, setting them to the side, and creating new partitions for you for Ubuntu, or you can just install it on top of Windows in its own folder (its a bit slower but it works)

If you decide to go for it, let me know, and let me know how you like it.

Here are the download links:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu

Release notes here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes

So I guess I knew it would happen sooner or later, with public openness in such a vast forum as the interweb, one is bound to have his views spread about to his locality. I think I messed up when I added a few of the wrong people to my facebook account, where I often publish links to my posts. Well someone has informed my Wife’s mother that we are Atheists.

Now, my wife, she isn’t an Atheist  (yet hehe). She says she doesn’t know, which is understandable, but that she definitely doesn’t believe in Jesus or Christianity. Now, let me just say, I didn’t have anything to do with this, somehow, some way, we ended up moving away from the faith at nearly the same exact time…one day we were sitting together talking and she brought it up…I NEVER DID, this was during the time where i couldn’t even express all my conflicting thoughts about my faith, so this was a HUGE relief for me. So anyway, her brother called her Saturday and asked her if she was an Atheist.

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Just wanted to give an update on the issues from yesterday. If you don’t know, my dad  has been a non-present entity for most of my life, the times that he was there he didn’t generate very many good memories–what with his alcoholism, physical/mental abuse, and drug abuse. He likes his pills…lots of of em too. My whole family on his side is pretty well on this crap or has been at some time. I used to call it my family curse…but now i just think its lack of will power and education…

anyway, a while back we had him commited to a nursing home, you cant care for an abusive drunkard that takes all of his monthly meds within a week of filling the perscription…I can’t anyway, and i sure as hell won’t-especially for a father like him. So he stayed at that nursing home, about 2 minutes from my house, for about 2 weeks….he started claiming they were trying to kill him because he couldnt get high—so i removed him after he promised he wouldnt do it again—he was ok for about a week. I also told him it was his last chance with me, I wasn’t gonna do it again.

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I was about to write a post but there have risen some issues with my dad…the alchoholic and narcotics addict. Seems he is abusing the staff at the nursing home…

this should  be fun

One of my many holdups from my former faith, is that I still really like alot of the old Christian bands I used to listen to. Underoath, Norma Jean, Demon Hunter (cheezy I know), Living Sacrifice, and mewithoutYou—the list goes on and on. These bands always spoke to me, most of them have a lyrical content that shows frustration with the Church, like I always did and speaks to the hardships of attempting to live a lifestyle that is pleasing to God. One such band is Norma Jean, and they just put out a new album titled Vs. The Anti-Mother.
I just wanted to share with you some of the lyrics from one of the songs on the Anti-Mother, that I feel can speak volumes. The song is titled Vipers, Snakes, and Actors:

Carry your flags, march into that fictional cause and show off that medal
Just don’t reach for that gun
Reach for that gun
Carry that banner, build that heart out of stone
Just don’t reach for that gun
You scaled the high horse and I felt the change
I know the difference between you and me
You cleaned the outside of your chalice but it’s filled with robbery
And self indulgence…Just like the rest of us
You wear that cross like a crown. You wear that cross like a dagger
Come down from that tower,
Nothing will be the outcome.
Nothing is the outcome

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I know this is off of my normal topic…but I think this is important

From the NY Post:

Joe Biden wonders whether Barack Obama is qualified to be commander-in-chief.

“Mark my words,” Biden warned Sunday at a Democratic fund-raiser. “It will not be six months [after the inauguration] before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”

Then he added, “Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Now, here’s where it gets scary.

Obama’s “gonna need your help to use your influence within the community to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

He’s going to need help?

Terrific.

What’s particularly disturbing is Biden’s Kennedy analogy.

For those who don’t recall, it was a scant five months after JFK became president that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev took his measure.

Kennedy had just bungled the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, then went off to a summit in Vienna – where Khruschev determined that the rookie chief executive could be had.

Two months later, construction began on the Berlin Wall, precipitating a crisis that nearly led to a US-Soviet shooting war in Europe.

And 14 months after that came the Cuban Missile Crisis – when nuclear Armageddon was only barely averted.

Is Biden saying that America’s current enemies – sorely aware of Obama’s inexperience – plan to test a President Obama with similar crises, to see what he’s made of?

Sure seems like it.

But what if Obama is still on the wrong side of the learning curve when this major international crisis hits?

More important: What if he makes the wrong decision – as even Joe Biden suggests he might?

After all, Obama was wrong about the troop surge in Iraq.

And he was wrong in his initial response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia – when he urged the victimized nation to “show restraint.”

And he was wrong when he said he would gladly sit down unconditionally with people like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – the very people his own running-mate now says are planning to “test” him.

As John McCain said yesterday, “We don’t want a president who invites testing from the world . . . The next president won’t have time.”

Little wonder, then, that Biden later admitted that he “probably shouldn’t have said all this.”

But why not, Joe?

It’s doubtless all true.

And it’s much better to get it all out now – rather than wait until it’s too late to do anything about it.

Does this disturb anyone? I think he is right, but who is generating this crisis? Comment, DIGG the story and stumble PLEASE!

Pick a door

A person I recently met through the Christian Bloggers Unite blog named Lisa recently posited the question to me thusly:

Then my only other question would be: What if you are wrong? Surely that thought lives somewhere in the depths of your heart? And if you are, do you really want the blood of those whose ‘exits’ you have encouraged on your hands? Again, no condemnation. Just an honest question.

I told Lisa I was working on doing a blog about that subject, and here I am, doing just that (I’m such an honest guy, I know).

Now this is a question I often asked whilst debating Atheists while I was a devoted apologist, I spent countless hours in conversation with people from different faiths and Non-theists were those that I remember asking this question the most, I guess it is a question that could apply to any religious circle, but no religious circle understands that it is something also applicable to their own constituency. IE: The Muslim could just as easily ask this question of a Christian as a Christian could a Muslim…that’s one of the things about reward vs. punishment religion; of the thousands of them, according to themselves, only one could possibly be right. Still, despite this nearly universal paradox, this question is asked to any infidel of any belief system thousands of times a day (i would guess).

So, what if I am wrong?

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Dizzy answers

Dizzy, at Veritasdomain.wordpress.com was kind enough to post answers to my last post criticizing Ray Comforts Huntington Beach video.

First of all, thank you dizzy for your response and very well thought out rebuttal, also thanks for making it point by point, certainly makes response easier.

I am gonna do this like we normally do around here,  post what Dizzy did, just copy and paste it from THIS LINK and then respond to it,  my responses will be in Bold whilst Dizzy’s text will be in Italics.

Dizzy: Thanks for your post. Since you were kind enough to make a passing reference to veritasdomain as another Christian blog, I thought I’d answer your critique of the debate point by point.

For 0:10 you mention that it’s sad to to start off a video with fear mongering. However, pointing out that Ray Comfort is trying to “peddle” fear doesn’t prove anything but your opinion. “You’re not crazy if they’re really out to get you.” Likewise, it’s not mongering, if hell exists.

Me: At this point in the video I am not really trying to prove any point at all, it is my opinion, as a former apologist of this very faith that the tactic of fear mongering results in a less than productive faith (through experience mind you) in some situations. You are right though, if hell DOES in fact exist i guess it wouldn’t be fear mongering as much as it would be just trying to save someone…the problem with that is that Mr. Comfort is propagating fear of something he can’t prove does indeed exist-if he or anyone can prove that it does then I welcome you to do so. You make a good point none the less, and I truly don’t question the MOTIVES of Mr. Comfort, but his method of delivery is lacking here—as well as his logic.

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OK, Let me just say this, I know that the Ray Comfort post I made last was a tad on the easy side…but, I mean, you can’t blame me for taking on a guy like this….so much pride and assumption rolled into one little man…its just a temptation I can’t possibly refuse….and now, I have even more for this guy. This time I am gonna openly invite Mr. Comfort to this blog to engage me—I have a feeling he has already been here, so this should be pretty easy, but I’m gonna make sure he knows that I am waiting for him by responding to one of his blog posts.

Secondly, I was perusing the inter-web the other day and I found this video linked on another Christian blog…it simply amazes me how Christians are eating this crap up, they really think these are good arguments…all I see is a fast talking salesman with an inch of magnetic hypnosis at the end. Without further ado, here is the video:

im going to go through this with time stops…just follow along:

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