Saturday 5 November 2011

A Charming Little Christian Festival

Remember! Remember!
The fifth of November.
Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot!

Bonfire night. Until recently, the night English families, often in larger groups, gather together around a bonfire and let off fireworks. Traditionally the bonfire would have a human effigy or 'Guy' on top and a cheer would go up when it burned.

Nowadays these events tend to be very large organised events due to the frequency with which people fell in the bonfire of blew hands off or eyes out with fireworks which, inexplicably, shops sold to children and even adults thought were safe to hold.

Oh! Those were the days! How well I remember my mother's screams as the threepenny rocket bounced off my little sister's head. I had clearly misjudged the angle of the home-made bamboo rocket launcher with cotton-reel handles. Her hair was quickly put out though, and the swelling went down in a few days, so no real harm done. I must say though that the burn on my hand from the flaming paraffin which ran down the handle of my home-made flaming torch lasted a few days longer. Maybe I should have made a better seal in the bottom of the treacle tin where the nail went through.

But enough of this sentimentality...

This annual festival celebrates the burning at the stake of Guido (Guy) Fawkes, one of the alleged conspirators in a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. So alarmed were the Protestant authorities by this plot that they instigated an annual celebration of it as a reminder of the ever-present danger of an overthrow of Anglicanism, God's one true faith, by the agents of Satan in the form of the Whore of Babylon (The Pope) and his satanic minions (Catholics).

There are those who argue that the Protestant authorities might well have encouraged, or even fabricated the entire 'plot' as an excuse for yet another pogrom against Catholics and a bout of yet more blood-letting in the name of the God of Love in that charming way Christians have for settling theological matters between themselves.

Roman Candle
The fireworks will include the ever popular and charmingly named, 'Roman Candle' which shoots coloured flares and 'screamers' into the air to simulate the Satanic demons being released from the bodies of Catholics as they were burned on fires - the prescribed punishment for Catholic heretics in those days.
Another popular firework is the 'Catherine Wheel' named after a legendary Greek Orthodox saint from Alexandria who was condemned by the Roman Emperor Maximus Daia to be 'broken on the wheel'. However, God intervened and broke the wheel instead.

Phew!

Unfortunately, God then seems to have lost interest, as Maximus Daia promptly had Catherine's head cut off instead.
Catherine Wheel





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Friday 4 November 2011

And Let Them Have Dominion...

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (KJV Bible)

Photograph: Martin Harvey/WWF International
The white rhino Ceratotherium simum. Killed by poachers for its horn and fuelled by demand from Vietnam,
rhino poaching in South Africa shows no signs of abating, with a record 341 killed there this year to date.

Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up.

Which is the real Jesus?

Is he the one who:
  • was born when Quirinius was Governor of Syria (6-12 AD) (Luke 2:2)
  • or the one born when Herod the Great was King (37-4 BC) (Matthew 2:1)?

Is he the one whose adopted father Joseph was:
  • the son of Heli (Luke 3:23)
  • or the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16)?

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Children Of An Amoral God.

How many times do you hear a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Sikh claim there can be no morality without a god? How many times do you see Atheists on Twitter and elsewhere being told they have no morals and have no way of telling right from wrong; that you can't trust an Atheist because they don't know why it's wrong to kill, rape, steal and abuse children?

Let's look at this for a moment.

Do these people really believe that, before their holy book was written down and people heard about their god's laws, people simply went around killing, raping, stealing and abusing children and it didn't occur to anyone that it was wrong in any way? Do they really believe that suddenly people heard of these new laws and thought, "Ah! In that case I had better stop this killing, raping, stealing and child abuse, or a god will punish me"? Is it realistic to assume that, before the Bible or the Qur'an were taken outside the Middle East to Europe and Asia, society consisted of people raping, murdering and stealing and that no child was safe?

Richard Dawkins on William Lane Craig

Richard Dawkins' explaining why he refuses to debate with William Lane Craig.

Interesting as much for Dawkins' reasons as the revolting WLC quotes where he attempts to justify genocide and child murder. One can almost hear Adolf Hitler saying "I wish I'd said that!" (Tweet this)



It speaks volumes of certain branches of modern Christianity that William Lane Craig is highly regarded as a leading exponent of the faith. Other leading Christians have been noticeable by their reticence to come forward and publicly dissociate themselves from William Lane Craig's repugnant views.

They may, of course, avail themselves of the comment section of this blog should they wish to purge themselves of that sin of omission.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

The Darwin Creationist Award - A Clear Winner

This year's Darwin Creationist Award winner, by a very clear margin, is

@ImHome with:

"obviously evolution is garbage because rocks are not conscious,"

@ImHome received 8 times the number of votes of the next closest candidate who was... er... also @ImHome with:

"@JoeUnseen Believing stupidly w/out knowing, that ur Origin are Unconscious Dead Stones over Conscious GOD, is also an exercise of freewill."


Candidates to be highly commended include:

 @yprimachenko With:

"@JoeUnseen Secondly... Every other religion their god died and has a grave... But when you go to Israel you will find His grave is empty..."

@JeffreyHarkins With:
"@RosaRubicondior You know your an atheist when you kill your brother because he looks to much like a ape."

And @GodsDontExist With

"so one last time: Good and evil are distinguished by distinction. and youre a moron if you dont think so. #god #atheist"




The Darwin Creationist Award is for a Creationist chosen by popular vote as having produced a tweet on Twitter so outstandingly stupid it reduces the influence of the creationist meme in the human meme-pool and so progresses human cultural evolution.

@ImHome is a very worth first winner of this award.






You may still enjoy the other candidates efforts here.

Come See A Christian Promoting Genocide

Yesterday we in the Twitter community witnessed the grotesque spectacle of another Christian apologist trying to justify and defend genocide and child murder:

Admittedly he was only taking his inspiration from a leading apologist, William Lane Craig.  Apparently, it's fine, just so long as you remember to blame it on a god.

Anyone wishing to copy this image is more than welcome to do so.


Saturday 29 October 2011

A Few Words From The Big Book Of Love

A quick word/phrase count using my searchable KJV Bible on my Kindle:

In order of occurrence:

Brain (0)
Intelligent/Intelligence (0)
Logic (0)
Rational (0)
Conscious (0)
Ethic(s)/Ethical (0)
Thoughtful (0)
Hopeful (0)
Equality (0)
Democracy (0)
Vote (0)
Jury (0)
Rights (0)
Racism (0)
Slavery (0)
Freed (2)
Freedom (2)
Abuse(d) (3)
Trial (6)
Liberty (27)
Happy/happiness (28)
Edge of the sword (28)
Conscience (32)
Care/carest/careth (38)
Tremble (54)
Pleasant (58)
Smitten (63)
Kindness (78)
Captive(s) (100)
Hate/Hated/Hatest (100+)
Fear (100+)
Obey (118)
Captivity (122)
Smite (139)
Slay (151)
Slain (181)
Afraid (191)
Slew (194)
Smote (229)
Destroy(ed) (461)
Command (902)

Some of those latter words really whizzed up the count. Unfortunately, my Kindle only counts up to 100, otherwise we could be seeing some really impressive numbers on those latter words.

I'm saying nothing, of course...

[Later Note: I am indebted to Plasma Engineer for supplying some of these numbers. See his comment below]





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What Is Life?

We all talk as though we understand what 'life' is.

We all use words like 'alive', 'living', 'lively', 'life' without any real thought as to their meaning.  We all know what we mean when we talk about a new life, don't we?  We mean a new instance of life; a new example of it, as though some new 'life' has entered the universe.

So what is this stuff called life?

Let's see if we can define 'living' as it applies to 'non-living' things:

Living things grow and repair. Well, yes, to an extent. But single-celled organisms don't repair in the sense that a human can grow some new skin to heal a wound, or can grow new bone to repair a fracture. They may be able to repair some damaged membranes but growth is limited to splitting into two smaller versions and then growing to full size to repeat the cycle.

Friday 28 October 2011

Alternative Reality

Joshua having a vision in Jericho. (Why would an angel need a shield?)
Here's a strange tale from the Bible. It started me wondering about the role of hallucinations, mind-altering substances and plain old insanity in religion.

And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?

And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the LORD's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.
Joshua 5:12-15

And that's it. Nothing more of this tale at all. Tactfully, no one mentioned it again...

I wonder what people thought when they found Joshua standing there with his shoe off, claiming a magic man told him to do it. Maybe others were feeling the effects of eating of the 'old corn' and the 'fruits of the land of Canaan'. Ergotamine sandwich, anyone?

Perhaps wacky baccy was a lot more common then than we realise....





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Wednesday 26 October 2011

What Are Christian Missionaries For Exactly?

Let's play a little game. Let's pretend for a moment that there is a god, that people have souls, that there is a Heaven and a Hell and Satan; that the souls of people go either to Heaven or Hell when they die and that only Christian know the way to get into Heaven and to avoid being thrown into Hell.

Let's enter the world that Christians claim to inhabit in fact.

If it really is essential to accept Jesus to get into Heaven, as Christians are forever telling us, how did this god arrange it so his message did not even get revealed to us until about 2000 years ago, and in a way which ensured it would take another almost 2000 years for it to reach everyone?

Clearly, if this god thought it's message was that important and accepting Jesus is the only way to get to heaven it would have ensured that ALL people were aware of it and understood it - if it cared that is.

So, we can be sure of one of two things (and we are still pretending this god actually exists, remember). Either:
  1. It isn't a loving god.
  2. It isn't necessary to know about it, or accept Jesus, to get to Heaven.

So, let's give this god the benefit of the doubt and assume it is as loving as it's followers tell us.

Now, consider a person living at the Cape of Good Hope in the 15th Century, on some remote Pacific island in the 17th Century, the Central Highlands of Papua-New Guinea in the 19th Century, or the Amazon Rain Forest in the 20th Century, or indeed anyone living outside the Middle East 2000 years ago. None of these people would have known the first thing about Jesus. None of them were even capable of reading any of the translations of any of the books this message was supposedly written in.

Surely, any reasonable god would give these people a free pass to Heaven, wouldn't it? How could they have disobeyed it if they had never heard about this god and had no knowledge of it's laws or what they needed to do? In their case, ignorance would have been a passport to Heaven and their souls would not have been accessible to Satan. Their innocent ignorance was their shield.

Now, along comes a Christian missionary and tells them about his or her god's laws, and about Satan, and about sin, and what they have to do to make ammends. And how they need now to accept Jesus to avoid Satan getting their souls.

So, what has the Christian missionary now achieved? He has taken souls which were guaranteed entry into Heaven, taken away their free passes and has made them accessible to Satan. To get their passes back they now have to do what the missionary says and give him control over their lives, their customs, laws and culture - all to be in exactly the same position they were in before. The missionaries haven't saved souls for God, they've made them available for Satan - if you buy into that superstition.

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Jomo Kenyata,
first president of independent Kenya
Either that, or missionaries believe their god is not the loving god they claim it to be; that their god has been happily creating people for millions of years with no hope of avoiding eternal pain and suffering; no hope of salvation because it didn't tell them how to be saved. People created to live a life of blissful ignorance not knowing what's in store for them and completely denied any opportunity to avoid it.

And this god waited until 3500 years ago, then only told a small band of desert-dwelling nomads so it took 1500 years before anyone else heard the message and another 2000 for it to spread to everyone.

Could it be that Christian missionaries are simply trying to guarantee their own entry into Heaven at the expense of those whose 'souls' they make available to Satan?

Or is there some other agenda going on which has nothing to so with 'saving souls'; something like wanting to control people and even take away their land and destroy their culture?

Perish the thought.





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Sunday 23 October 2011

How Dan Destroys The Bible


First, a word from Thomas Paine:

Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian tales, without the merit of being entertaining; and the accounts of men living to eight or nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the immortality of the giants of the Mythology.

Thomas Paine - The Age Of Reason


And, self-evidently, Thomas Paine is right.

So, what is the evidence?

A few facts, all from the Bible itself:

And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.

Genesis 14:14

Clearly, this could only have been written after there was a place named Dan, just as an account of someone going to, say, New Hampshire, could only have been written during or after 1629 when New Hampshire was first named.

And now this:

Saturday 22 October 2011

I Can't Believe It! The Bible Is Made Up!

Death of Moses (James Tissot)
Just look at what we find in Deuteronomy 34:1-7!

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho.  And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, And all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, And the South, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar.

And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.  And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.  And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

Hmm...

So, if we're to believe all the Christians and Jews who tell us Moses wrote the Pentateuch, including Deuteronomy, we have to believe Moses wrote about his own death.  Even the great Jewish historian, Josephus, tells us that Moses wrote it.  Josephus is the historian Christians quote as the earliest existing 'evidence' for Jesus.  They tell us his authority is beyond dispute.

Hmm...

Thomas Paine
Rather than go into the obvious problem here myself, I'll quote Thomas Paine who says it far more eloquently than I could:

The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, (for it is not an anonymous work), is obscure, and also in contradiction with himself, in the account he has given of Moses.

After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it does not appear from any account that he ever cam down again), he tell us that Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab; but there is no antecedent to the pronoun he, there is no knowing who he was that did bury him.  If the writer meant that he (God) buried him, how should he (the writer) know it?  or why should we (the reader) believe him? since we know not who the writer was that tells us so, for certainly Moses could not himself tell us where he was buried.

The writer also tells us that no man knoweth where the sepulchre of Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which the writer lived; how then should he know that Moses was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, as is evident from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a great length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly was not at his funeral; and on the other hand, it is impossible that Moses himself could say that no man knoweth where the sepulchre is unto this day... "

"... The writer has nowhere told us how he came by the speeches which he has put in the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore we have the right to conclude, that he either composed them himself, or wrote them from oral tradition.  One or the other of these is the more probable, since he has given in the fifth chapter a table of commandments, in which that called the fourth commandment is different  from the fourth commandment in the twentieth chapter in Exodus....

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason. 1795

So, as Thomas Paine has clearly shown, Moses could not have written Deuteronomy at least, and the laws Christians and Jews believe were given directly by their god to Moses, and which he wrote down, are nothing more than oral traditions at best and just made up by the Bible's real authors at worst.

And so the entire body of Old Testament biblical law, including all the food taboos, dress codes, marriage laws, proscribed punishment for transgression, etc, has no divine authority at all. It is nothing more than an oral tradition later written down or even the invention of one or more writers writing long after the events they were describing.

And all the genocides, child abuse, misogyny, sanctimonious homosexual condemnation, racism and war crimes supposedly ordered by this god are nothing more than retrospective self-justifications for antisocial acts and attitudes and attempts to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own actions.

And the entire foundation of both the Jewish and Christian religions has collapsed. All because of a few careless words in the Bible and poor editorial control.

You really would have expected an omniscient god to make a better job of it than that, wouldn't you?





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Friday 21 October 2011

Holy Moses! Another Bible Blunder!

Holy Moses, Meek and Mild
Everyone knows that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, don't they? You know, the first five books of the Bible which includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Ask any Christian and they'll tell you Moses wrote those. Even the laws in them are called the Laws of Moses or the Mosaic Laws. That great Jewish historian, Josephus even confirmed it and all Christians will tell you what a reliable historian he was. He even 'proved' Jesus was real, so they claim...

But what's this we find?
(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)
Blimey! If Moses wrote that about himself, that wasn't very meek of him. In fact, the terms 'vain' and 'arrogant' are more apposite. There'll be no inheriting the earth for him!

So what's going on here? Is Moses lying or is that someone else writing about him?

If it's someone else, who is it? There's no mention anywhere of Moses having a personal scribe who wrote everything down, including all the laws the Bible says Moses heard God speak unto him.

So, was it all made up later and the story about Moses writing it is just a lie, or is Moses lying about being 'very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth' when really he was vain and arrogant?

And if it WAS all made up later, so were the laws which supposedly God gave directly to Moses. They are just the work of the author and have no divine authority whatsoever... Oops! Crikey!

What a Bible Blunder! You'd have thought an omniscient god would be a little more convincing than that wouldn't you. (Tweet this)

I expect Bible literalists have a sensible explanation and can clear it all up for us.





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Good Thing The Good Samaritan Wasn't A Christian!

Remember that tale in the Bible about a man from Samaria who came across a man on the roadside who'd recently fallen among thieves? He did the decent thing, like any Humanist would, and helped where he could. He could have passed by on the other side but chose not to because he was, basically, a decent human being so he helped a fellow traveler in trouble.

A few months ago a thief named Harold Camping thought up a scam for taking literally millions of dollars off gullible and vulnerable people. He told them he was receiving messages that a magic man in the sky was going to come and kill everyone but he would save people who gave Harold Camping all their money. So people even sold their homes and all their possessions hoping they would be saved.

He tried the same scam again a few months later and stole even more money off more gullible and vulnerable victims.

Strangely, even though Christians claim to follow the man who supposedly told the story of the Good Samaritan and used it to illustrate how good Christians should try to be like Humanists and behave decently, no Christian seem to have come forward to help the victims who fell prey to Harold Camping.  Instead, to a man, and to a woman, they seem to have passed by on the other side.

Clearly, Christians still have much still to learn from Humanism.





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Thursday 20 October 2011

On the Eve Of The Rapture.

Written the day before the End Of The World scheduled for 21 May 2011. Several more have come and gone with no one noticing since then.

So, Christians! Tomorrow is the big day, eh? The day you've all been awaiting eagerly for about 2000 years. The day Jesus finally keeps his promise and comes back to Earth.

But, what if you’re wrong?

What if it’s NOT Jesus but some god from history, like Ra or Apollo?

What if it’s a god you’ve never heard of, say a god only believed in by a tribe of Amazonians or from a Papua-New Guinea mountain valley?

What if it’s a god from some other planet entirely in a far-off galaxy we’ve not discovered yet?

What if it’s a god no one anywhere in the universe knows about because it was too modest to make its existence known – until now; a god who detests religion and has come here looking for free-thinkers...?

Whatever will you say? How will you explain why you told everyone it was a false god and they shouldn’t believe in it? How will you explain telling other people that they’re going to be burned alive for not believing in the wrong god and how your god is going to come and kill everyone who disagrees with you?

I’ll bet you just WISH you had some evidence you could show it to explain yourself; to offer up as an excuse for misunderstanding it. Something you could blame for your mistake. As it is all you have is the excuse that someone told you it was true, but you never checked because they also told you it was wrong to doubt...

You see, that’s the problem being fooled into accepting what you’re told and swallowing the notion that ‘faith’ is a virtue so you shouldn’t question, just believe.

And you thought Pascal’s Wager was such a GOOD argument..!

Don’t worry too much though. Both you and I know it’s not going to happen don’t we! It’s just that I don’t mind other people knowing I’m an Atheist because I have the courage to think for myself and don’t mind if others disagree with me; I don’t feel I have to pretend to be conforming to something I suspect most people are just pretending to believe in too, because they’re also too afraid to be honest with themselves.





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The Slug Mite - What is it FOR Exactly?

The White Slug Mite Riccardoella limacum
As a youngster I often used to look for the large garden snails which are common everywhere in England. I also use to find the larger, creamy white 'Roman' snails, also called the edible snail or escargot. These are fairly common in and around the area of north Oxfordshire where I lived.

One of the things I found fascinating was that some of them would have several tiny white creatures moving over their surfaces and very often going in and out of the hole in their side, the pneumostome, which leads to the air sack under the shell and through which snails breath.

I've since learned they are a group of mites. Mites are a group of arthropods similar to spiders but lacking the abdomen. Very many of them are microscopic - you will almost certainly have one or more living in most of your eyelash follicles. One particularly nasty little thing, Sarcoptes scabiei, sets up home in human skin and causes the intensely itchy rash called scabies.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Unintelligent Design - The Head Case

Sinuses in the human face
What's wrong with the human head?

1. Sinuses.
Sinuses are air-filled spaces extending from the nasal cavity into the facial bones. As well as making the facial bones lighter they give timbre to the voice and also help heat and moisturise inhaled air

Problem: Sinus problems are common in humans, usually because of inflammation caused by an opportunist infection following a cold. The problem is cause by our sinuses being poorly drained, especially when the lining is swollen or mucus production is high. These warm, moist, protein-filled spaces are an idea environment for several species of bacteria which the body finds difficult to cope with by the normal blood-born defences. White blood cells are sent into the infected sinus where they, together with dead bacteria, form pus.


In chronic infections an abscess may form which can erode the facial bone and even penetrate to the brain, causing bacterial meningitis and death.

Cause: The human face is rotated downwards by about 90 degrees compared to most mammalian facial skeletons to compensate for our upright gait. Our faces have also become flattened with the usual mammalian muzzle receding back under our noses. By normal mammalian standards, humans have a strangely deformed face. One result of this is to distort the sinuses and restrict the drainage channels.

Human skull
2. Middle Ear.
The middle ear is an air-space between the outer ear and the inner ear where the hearing mechanism is located. A narrow tube, the Eustachian tube, connects this space with the back of the throat so that the pressure in the inner ear can be equilibrated with the outer air pressure so maintaining a constant pressure on the eardrum. This tube is normally opened during swallowing.

Problem: During a cold the Eustachian tube can become inflamed and, like the sinuses, is prone to secondary infection by opportunist bacteria. It can then become difficult to drain and equilibrate the pressure in the middle ear. This can cause severe pain and may rupture the eardrum. In children especially it may lead to 'glue ear' needing surgical insertion of grommets to keep a hole open in the eardrum to allow the inner ear to drain. In extreme cases, it can cause an abscess to form. Infection may track down the auditory nerve to the brain causing meningitis and even death

Cause: The same as with sinuses due to distortion of the bones of the skull associated with an upright gait.

3. Wisdom Teeth.
Wisdom teeth are molar teeth which normally erupt in adolescence. A few individuals fail to produce them and suffer no detectable disadvantage.

Problem: Fairly frequently, the teeth develop but fail to break through the gum. They may even grow in the wrong direction and become impacted, causing pain and difficulty chewing food. They often need to be surgically removed. Occasionally they can become infected and an abscess may form in the mandible or maxilla.

Cause: As the human face has receded from the normal mammalian skull pattern the number of teeth has been reduced. This process in incomplete.

Human cervical spine
4. Cervical Vertebrae.
The cervical vertebrae, or neck bones, carry the weight of the skull and allow the skull to rotate from side to side and to flex back and forth. To help with this the foramen magnum, a hole in the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes, has moved under the skull compared to the normal mammalian anatomy. It is also assisted by a broad ligament which attaches to the back of the skull and runs down to the shoulder bones. This helps stabilise the skull during running.

Problem: The neck muscles frequently become fatigued causing head-ache. During rapid acceleration such as during a rear-end automobile accident, or due to a fall, the skull can hyper-extend, bending the neck backwards and fracturing one or more of the cervical vertebrae. Fragments of bone may damage or transect the spinal cord, causing paralysis or death. Arthritic problems may also develop in later life.

Cause: Adaptation to an upright gait combined with a large cranium to house a large brain has meant compromises in the basic mammalian anatomy. This process is incomplete.

Human Pharynx
5. Laryngopharynx
The laryngopharynx is a passage common to the airway and the food passage. Air-breathing vertebrates have a basic flaw in their body plan in that the air and food passages cross in the pharynx. Protective mechanisms normally prevent food entering the airway. These may include mechanisms to close the airway during swallowing and coughing to expel inhaled food.

Problem: In humans, choking is a fairly common cause of sudden death in an otherwise healthy adult or child. Choking occurs when the air passage becomes blocked by food when the protective mechanism fail. In humans, a protective flap - the epiglottis - is present and is normally effective as the larynx is pushed up against it during swallowing. Occasionally however, this fails and food may enter the air passage. A second line defence reflex, coughing, may also fail and may make matters worse as the victim attempts to breath in in order to cough, driving the blockage further into the air passage. Vomiting, also a defence reflex, may also occur and may add to the problem as the victim is also unable to clear accumulating vomit.

Cause: As an adaption to speech, our pharynx - the space at the back of the throat between our mouth and the larynx - has lengthened creating a greater likelihood of food entering the laryngopharynx before it can be fully closed off. The protective mechanisms have lost some of their effectiveness in the process and have not yet been compensated for.

All these are perfectly understandable in terms of evolution as the advantages of the adaptations far exceed the disadvantages. The greater likelihood of survival and reproductive success of genes carried by people with these evolving adaptations outweighs the loss of some individuals due to the problems they may cause.

In terms of intelligent design, these flaws make no sense at all since an intelligent designer, especially a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-benevolent one, would have produced a faultless design in the first place.

The situation is exactly as you would expect with a mindless, utilitarian process of evolution driven by whatever works to produce more copies of the genes in the next generation, differentially selected naturally from among variants in the gene-pool.





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Liam Fox, Adam Werrity and No Brown Envelopes.

The first report into a Conservative Government Minister's abuse of high office during this period of Tory-led government.

It appears that no brown envelopes were involved.





Sunday 16 October 2011

Intelligently Designed By A Loving God?

Some living creatures, which, if you believe in biblical creationism, you should be able to explain in terms of being perfectly created for a purpose by a loving creator god.

  1. Liver Flukes
    Liver Fluke (Fasciola Hepatica)

    A trematode or fluke measuring about 3cm by 1cm and infecting sheep, cattle and humans.

    Complex life-cycle involving water snails and water plants. When ingested the fluke develops in the intestine, burrows into the peritoneum and then to the liver where is eats liver cells for a few weeks then migrates to the bile duct where females can produce up to 25,000 eggs a day.  Eggs are released into the intestines from where they are expelled in faeces. On reaching water they hatch and infect a water snails and so complete the life cycle.

    Symptom:
    Diarrhea, eosinophilia (raised white blood cell count), fever, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, hepatitis, obstructive jaundice

    Benefits to the host:
    None.
  2. Blood Flukes
    Blood Flukes (Schistosoma mansoni, S. haematobium, S. japonicum, S. intercalatum, S. mekongi)

    A genus of trematodes causing snail fever, also called bilharzia. Infecting an estimated 200 million people worldwide.

    Complex life-cycle involving water snails and several larval stages. Eggs hatch in water and lava infect water snails where they develop into a second larval stage which is free-swimming. On detecting human skin then attach themselves and burrow through the skin, often via a hair follicle. They then migrate to the circulatory system where males and females pair up and migrate to rectal or mesenteric veins where they live for many years producing 300-3000 eggs per day which are shed via the faeces or urine. When in water they hatch and complete the life-cycle.

    Symptoms:
    Rash, itching, chills, cough, diarrhea, fatigue, fever and muscle aches. In children, anaemia, learning difficulties and malnutrition. Inflammation of intestines and liver may occur and, if the central nervous system becomes infected, paralysis, seizures and inflammation of the spinal cord may occur.

    Benefits to the host:
    None.
  3. Tapeworm

    Head or Scolex of Tapeworm
    Tape worms (Diphyllobothrium latum, Hymenolepis nana, Taenia saginata, T. solium)

    A group of segmented Cestoda known as tapeworms which live in the human intestinal tract, absorbing digested nutrients directly through their skin. H. nana can grow to a few centimetres in length, however, the other three listed here can reach many meters.

    The head, or scolex, of the tapeworm has hooks with which it attaches to the wall of the intestine. Each segment has its own male and female reproductive organs and can produce eggs on their own, however, they may mate with other segments from the same or another tapeworm. Eventually, when the segment is full of eggs it is shed from the end of the worm and is expelled from the host where it may be eaten by the secondary host (fish, rodent, cattle or pig respectively).

    In the secondary host the eggs hatch in the intestines, the larval form then migrate to muscles and form a cyst which may eventually be eaten by a human to complete the life cycle. In the case of H. nana microscopic eggs are shed via faeces from where they may contaminate food or be picked up on fingers. An estimated 30% of rodents sold as pets in stores in Connecticut are infected with H. nana.

    Symptoms:
    Anal itching, bloody diarrhea, diarrhea, headache, increased appetite, insomnia, loss of appetite, muscle spasms. nausea, nervousness, seizures, stomach ache, vomiting,& weakness, weight loss.

    Benefits to the host:
    None.
  4. Giant Roundworms in the Intestinal Lumen
    Giant roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides)

    This nematode worm infects some 25% of the human population. It is passed on when eggs are accidentally swallowed from dirty fingers or contaminated food or water. Larva hatch from the eggs, penetrate the intestinal walls and enter the circulatory system via which they pass into the lungs where they develop for two weeks before travelling up the respiratory tract to the throat, to be swallowed again as adult worms.

    The worms attach themselves to the intestinal wall and get nutrients from the host. Adult female worms are 20-35 cm long and 3-6 mm in diameter. Males are 15-30 cm long and 2-4 mm in diameter. On mating a female can produce 200,000 eggs a day and can live for two years. The eggs are passed out of the host in faeces and can survive for several months until swallowed by a human to complete the life-cycle.

    Symptoms:
    Blockage of the biliary tract, diarrhoea, fever, nausea, obstruction of the bowel (which can be fatal), stomach ache, slower growing of a child or a teen, vomiting, weakness. During the larval stage, when the larva are developing in the lungs, symptoms may include breathing difficulty, cough and/or coughing up blood, eosinophilic pneumonitis.

    Benefits to the host:
    None.
  5. Entamoeba hystolitica
    Entamoeba hystolytica.

    A protozoan (single-celled organism) which causes amoebiasis. About 50 million people are infected world wide. The parasite lives in the large intestine and reproduce by simple binary fission. Some individuals form microscopic cysts which are passed in faeces and can survive for many weeks until ingested in food, contaminated water of by dirty fingers. Very occasionally they can be sexually transmitted.

    Symptoms:
    Flatulence, intermittent constipation, loose stools, stomach ache, stomach cramping, anemia, appendicitis, bloody diarrhea, fatigue, fever, genital and skin lesions, intermittent constipation, liver abscesses (can lead to death, if not treated), malnutrition, painful defecation, peritonitis, pleuropulmonary abscesses, toxic megacolon, weight loss.

    Benefits to the host:
    None.
  6. Plasmodium (Malaria) Life-cycle.
    Malaria (Plasmodium falciparum)

    A protozoan with a complex life-cycle involving the anopheles mosquito and infecting some 200 million people annually. It is the deadliest of all human parasites killing over 1 million people a year. Most deaths are of children under 5 years of age.

    Infection begins when a mosquito injects a form of the parasite into human skin when taking a blood meal. This form migrates via the circulatory system to the liver where it infects a liver cell. This can produce 30,000 - 40,000 daughter cells within six days, each of which can invade a red blood cell and produce 8-24 new parasites each of which can infect a new red blood cell. These cells may also produce a form which can infect a mosquito when it takes a blood meal. These then undergo sexual reproduction and via several stages migrate from the mosquito's digestive tract to its salivary glands, where it is ready to infect another human.

    Symptoms:
    Chills, diarrhea, fever, general discomfort, headaches, muscle pains, nausea, sweating, vomiting, weakness, enlargement of the spleen or liver, hyperpyrexia, increased breathing frequency, mild anemia, mild jaundice, breathing difficulties, coma, confusion, focal neurologic signs, seizures, severe anemia, abnormalities in blood coagulation, hemoglobin in the urine, high acidity of the blood, hypoglycemia, low blood pressure, kidney failure and death. In pregnancy it can cause premature birth and low birth-weight. Babies can be infected from the mother and may cause blindness, deafness, speech difficulty, dyskinesia and paralyses.

    Benefits to the host:
    None.
So Creationists, just six examples out of many, some more of which can be found here.

What on earth was your loving creator thinking of? How do these organisms fit into a model in which a creator created humans and made all the other living things FOR their benefit?

By the way, on a slightly different note. Some of the examples of parasitic worms have, during their evolution, become less complex since they no longer need to worry about evading predators, finding and digesting their own food, etc, so they show that an evolutionary process does not always mean increasing complexity. This is a very common phenomenon in parasites.

So tell me, how does less information give greater adaptation?





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