{"id":1320,"date":"2014-04-24T07:05:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T11:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/?p=1320"},"modified":"2014-04-24T00:46:33","modified_gmt":"2014-04-24T04:46:33","slug":"jarred-back-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/2014\/04\/24\/jarred-back-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Jarred Back To Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/files\/2014\/04\/chicktrack.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1342\" alt=\"chicktrack\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/files\/2014\/04\/chicktrack-300x155.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/files\/2014\/04\/chicktrack-300x155.jpg 300w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/files\/2014\/04\/chicktrack.jpg 462w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I was having a discussion with a Christian recently and we were talking about blood sacrifice and how Jesus was the Innocent Lamb of God. My Christian friend reminded me that because of the sacrifice of Jesus we don\u2019t need to sacrifice animals any more. That reminder jarred me back into reality and I had to remind my Christian friend what century this is.<\/p>\n<p>It is really great to know that we don\u2019t \u201cneed\u201d to sacrifice animals (or virgins for that matter) in order to appease deities. Our crops will continue to grow since that deity has already gotten his fill of Jesus blood. A bountiful harvest is assured because Jesus was a pretty big fucking innocent lamb. And the rain\u2026 Jesus must have done the ultimate little dance as he was being crucified on the cross for the amusement of God. He didn\u2019t overdo it either, because God didn\u2019t drown the whole world again.<\/p>\n<p>Are we really having this fucking conversation in the 21st Century? Look, I know religious believers hate to hear this, but I have to keep pointing it out anyway. Your beliefs are ridiculously primitive!!!! I\u2019m just say\u2019n, blood is not magical. Killing shit doesn\u2019t magically fix wrong doing. Trying to make things right for the people you wronged is the only way to fix wrong doing and if that can\u2019t happen, then trying to make things right for others as best as you can. Burnt offerings to a deity is not going to fix things. A prayer to a deity is not going to bless you with forgiveness. If you want to be forgiven for your wrong doing, you have to get that forgiveness from the person or people you wronged! That\u2019s all I\u2019m say\u2019n.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe when humanity was still young, ignorant, and primitive we believed this stuff, but in the 21st century, we really should know better. We have science now and yet roughly half of Americans reject the strongest supported scientific theories we have in favor of a poorly written Lord of the Rings book series written in the late 1st century\/early 2nd century.<\/p>\n<p>Hello??? We learned some stuff about the world since then. For starters, we earned that blood isn\u2019t fucking magical and deities don\u2019t exist. We learned why the weather is what it is and now thanks to science we can actually predict severe weather events days in advance. We can prepare for these events. They don\u2019t just happen at the whim of some unappeased deity.<\/p>\n<p>I get sucked into these conversations with religious believers where I feel the need to take their bullshit seriously because they sincerely believe it, but the reality is that it doesn\u2019t matter how sincerely someone believes something if what they believe is completely ridiculous. Somewhere in their 21st century brain, they have to realize that Dungeons and Dragons isn\u2019t real. Sure, it is a fun game to play, but there really isn\u2019t a Dungeon Master calling the shots and guiding us through life.<\/p>\n<p>The Bible is fiction! It isn\u2019t real. We shouldn\u2019t be having a conversation about this. You don\u2019t have an intellectual debate with someone who is convinced that a magical world lies inside a wardrobe and we shouldn\u2019t have intellectual debates with people who believe in angels, demons, and deities.<\/p>\n<p>I mean no disrespect to the people who believe this bullshit; I know it isn\u2019t their fault. They were indoctrinated from near birth with these beliefs that all of society reinforces but it really is time that they seriously think about the things they believe. They are silly and some part of their reasoning brain has to realize that.<\/p>\n<p>Just put yourself in my shoes. Someone comes up to you and starts spouting off some story about how in order to get the Wizard\u2019s protection from the Dragon King, you need to accept the Wizard\u2019s blessing into your heart and follow the Book of Origin. You can\u2019t see the Wizard because he is the great and powerful and lives in the Emerald City of the afterlife.<\/p>\n<p>What do you do? Do you have a debate about whether this wizard exists or do you laugh your ass off? My problem is that 80% of Americans believe some aspect of an even more ridiculous tale. Many Americans believe all of it devoutly and without question. These beliefs influence who they vote for and what priorities the government should have. Those beliefs strongly affect the lives of the rest of us living in reality in more direct ways too.<\/p>\n<p>I know I have written about this type of thing before, but for some reason I keep getting pushed back into having serious conversations about things that no one in the 21st century should really be having serious conversations about. Hello? We put a man on the moon and now we are debating whether or not a man walked on water 2000 years ago through magic. The answer is no, no one walked on water using magical powers because magic doesn\u2019t fucking exist. You know what I\u2019m say\u2019n. If someone told you that the guy down the street did any of the \u201cmiracles\u201d Jesus was said to have done, you would think it an interesting trick, but you wouldn\u2019t take it seriously\u2026 and you shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Religious believers need to step out of their religious thinking and get jarred back into reality. Miracles, magic, demons, and angels don\u2019t exist. Prayer doesn\u2019t work; Heaven and Hell aren\u2019t real and God is imaginary.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/2014\/04\/03\/tyt-takes-religion\/\" target=\"_blank\">TYT Takes Down Religion<\/a> (skepticink.com)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/2013\/02\/21\/religion-is-comfortable-with-science-only-to-a-point\/\" target=\"_blank\">Religion Is Comfortable With Science&#8230; Only To A Point<\/a> (skepticink.com)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/2013\/09\/04\/5-best-books-to-de-convert-a-christian\/\" target=\"_blank\">5 Best Books To De-Convert A Christian<\/a> (skepticink.com)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/2013\/01\/08\/getting-to-the-24th-century\/\" target=\"_blank\">Getting To The 24th Century<\/a> (skepticink.com)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/atheism-101-response-to-can-t-prove-god-doesn-t-exist?cid=rss\" target=\"_blank\">Atheism 101: Response to &#8216;can&#8217;t prove God doesn&#8217;t exist&#8217;<\/a> (examiner.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px;height: 15px\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: none;float: right\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=11640d67-fe5e-4f25-8151-bbd209284b8e\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was having a discussion with a Christian recently and we were talking about blood sacrifice and how Jesus was the Innocent Lamb of God. My Christian friend reminded me that because of the sacrifice of Jesus we don\u2019t need to sacrifice animals any more. That reminder jarred me back into reality and I had to remind my Christian friend what century this is. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,51,758,28,322,17,218],"tags":[38,1060,682,832,1066,83,831,1076],"class_list":["post-1320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-2","category-christianity","category-featured","category-forgiveness","category-philosophy","category-religion","category-sacrifice","tag-atheism","tag-bible","tag-deity","tag-dungeons-and-dragons","tag-god","tag-jesus","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-sacrifice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}