God vs Evo - Part III

So how does an engineer come to believe that life was designed, discarding a heck of a lot of data to the contrary, as well as a perfectly good explanation? It didn't take a lot of thinking. The first is obvious. Having grown up in a religious setting makes for a prediliction of seeing design in life. We often borrow ideas from nature and incorporate them into things we actually do design. The mind is prepared by both a religious upbringing and a career in engineering to see design. But nature does what works, discarding things that don't. This creates an illusion of design.

Remember, 99% of all species that have ever lived on this planet are long gone. We see a progression of complexity everywhere we look. The eye is more complex in new species than in phyla which have been around longer. The brain of humans is more complex than that of a chimpanzee, but not dissimilar. There are so many examples that I could give, but other authors have said it better elsewhere. Common descent is the only explanation for the similarities and the dissimilarities that we see.

Anyhow, back to the battle. I left off with Don attempting to tell me that atheists want minority rule....

It is instructive to look at a more secular society in comparison. From here in The Great White North, we look southward and see politicians tripping over each other in their eagerness to demonstrate that they are more religious than their opponents (it's embarrassing to watch…); we see biblical references in what should be secular institutions like judicial buildings even though neither your legal system or ours has anything to do with them and the law must be for everyone, not just Believers; we see official favoritism towards Christian groups even though the First Amendment was placed in your own constitution to prevent that very thing. That's just for a start.

In Canada, no one running for public office either expresses their religiosity or questions that of others; we do not place obviously divisive symbols representing only one group (and thereby giving that group preferential treatment) in our public institutions. I was asked to take an oath last year. In Canada, there are different oaths depending on whether you are theist or atheist. Both are equally legally binding. This kind of accommodation hurts no one and at the same time does not show any favoritism. It works incredibly well and completely circumvents the current hiccups in the American system due to theocratic 'reforms'. I was not a vocal atheist at all until my eyes were opened by people like Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and their intolerant ilk. We don't have them up here, yet there are many theist politicians in Canada. It just doesn't matter to us unless their religiosity starts to become policy. It's not that we don't care about beliefs, it's just that we accept that everyone is an individual and we go out of our way to accommodate widely varying beliefs. As a result, we have almost completely avoided the problems that occur when religion is mixed with politics. We have seen what happens when societies become theocratic. Life under the Taliban was truly repressive, and if you don't think that America can end up that way you are kidding yourself.

I was surprised that Don didn't bring up Michael Behe's concept of irreducible complexity, though he does list his book as reading material at the end. The only thing as discredited as the concept of irreducible complexity (demolished even before the book was published) was his atrocious and laughable testimony at the Kitzmiller trial. Behe can't even be bothered to keep up with the relevant literature, so how can he be taken seriously? Contrary to Don's belief, there is no conspiracy in Science to keep ID out of the journals. From Science classes, yes, but that's because ID contains no Science. It's vacuous. The trick to getting published is to present positive evidence for something, not negative evidence against something else. ID has no positive evidence in its favor and Judge Jones recognized this in the Kitzmiller trial. The only place where Evo is in crisis is in the court of public opinion and the Disco Institute has done a remarkable, if harmful, job of it. The US is the laughing stock of the world, ranking second only to Turkey in rejecting Evo.

In essence, and as usual, the sum total of evidence presented for design was zilch, unless you count "I am an engineer. I know design when I see it. This is design." This sums up the ID position in toto. The rest just seems to be twisted attacks on Evo, which is to say, not evidence at all.

And since he spoke of Newton, perhaps the greatest mind in history, Newton found the inclusion of God unnecessary in his Principia till he hit a snag. He couldn't get the planetary system to stabilize in his math, so what did he do? You guessed it. He invokes God. Perturbation theory solved the problem later on, of course. I mention this because it shows that even the greatest minds jump to a supernatural conclusion when they find that they can't explain something. God has always been the God-of-the-gaps. Your friend himself retreats into this trap himself several times. For instance, he says "If evolutionists know that life evolved from non-life why don't they create life in the laboratory." (He never did answer my question as to why a designer would incorporate a broken enzyme into the design. There are a lot of other reasons, all in a similar vein, to reject the design hypothesis- the eye (wired backwards), the ureter (makes a rather unnecessarily circuitous route), etc. As an engineer, I'm surprised that he has missed all this. I mean, what kind of designer throws away 99% of his designs after he builds them? "if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck….", you fire the duck's ass for incompetence.)

As to the complexity of the brain, I don't know enough about devo to answer his criticism properly. But then, neither does he to have made it in the first place. (I've asked a devo specialist for insight into this...) But I do know that the brain does self-assemble under biochemical control, which places it under the purview of Evo (actually, Evo/Devo). A great deal is known about brain development, and none of the explanations involve magic. My limited understanding that chemical signaling is important, which means that the timing of when genes are turned on and off is critical in terms of the final outcome. A gene for consciousness, you ask? There isn't one, of course. Don seems to maintain this strawman view of Evo – one gene, one trait. There are a couple of reasons why mathematics is a bad way of dealing with Evo. First, Evo simply doesn't lend itself well to mathematics, though it is used in simulating it with computer modeling. Second, there aren't many (if any) mathematicians out there that are also well-versed in the nuances of Evo. Evo is not for the faint of heart (or mind), and William Dumbski [sic] especially seems utterly incapable of understanding it. Spend less time trying to prove that brain development is magic and more time looking at how it does in fact develop. And Don wonders why I think mathematicians without training in Biology (like Dumbski [sic]) should stick to mathematics.

"Science is built on truth not consensus," Don said. Sort of, but I'm not sure what truth means. Is truth the observation? It's certainly not theories. Truth is an absolute. Scientific theories are provisional hypotheses which: explain the current data; explain data obtained after positing the hypothesis; makes testable predictions; and is falsifiable. Theories model reality (truth). In discussing the current thinking about a particular theory, it is often useful (as in the case of Evo) to poll the experts. Each individual expert, however, judges the validity of the theory according to the characteristics that I have just listed. Truth is the ideal goal, but I don't think that any scientific theory has accomplished this. Pretty much everything he wrote was just a rehash of failed apologetics mixed in with Disco Institute PR releases (which is all they have ever produced on ID).

Don brings up the old 'evil atheist' list. But the implied insult to all atheists is that old canard of the evil atheist list, and I took it personally. Very personally. Is he saying that I am prone to mass murder? That in being an atheist, I am evil? Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler... Wait - Hitler? Sorry, while ideologues all with personal ambition (to the point where they were really promoting religions without a deity), Hitler was a THEIST. He was born and raised Catholic (and tellingly never excommunicated) and said often that in his final solution he was doing God's work. I would not insult any Believer with a list of theists that committed atrocities in the name of religion, even though the body count would be far higher my list, starting with numerous characters in the Bible, to de Torquemada, to Jim Jones, to David Karesh, to Paul Hill. (Ooops. That's a list, isn't it?) I don't like to speak in biblical terminology, but if there is such a thing as evil, Jerry Falwell (a man who promoted hatred and fear in his followers) would be my candidate as its personification. George Bush Sr. knowingly allowed 500,000-1,000,000 Iraqis (the estimate provided to the White House by the NSA) to die due to ineffective sanctions post-first Gulf War. All he had to do was give the Shiites and Kurds ammo and Hussein (a man Bush himself helped to power) would have been toppled with far less loss of life. Not ideal, but far better than what actually occurred. Most of those sanction victims were children. That puts him in amongst the top killers of all time, but history is written by the victors. After all that killing by proxy, I don't remember George acknowledging his atheism. In fact he has been quoted as saying he doesn't think atheist Americans should be considered citizens. How Christian of him.

I live a very moral life, though my morals and ethics may be different from yours and your friend's, I will put them up against anyone else's for comparison any time. I would much prefer to speak of those atheists that have done something with their lives, like Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln (probably a deist, but certainly not a Christian), Thomas Paine (a deist, but with significant atheist leanings), Oscar Wilde, Albert Camus, Isaac Asimov and many, many others, as I would of theists that have performed similar works. Religion is no guarantee of morality. The Bible itself condones slavery (amongst other unsavory behaviors), something that today we find reprehensible. To make that list and recite it to me, your friend made my case for me against religion. I am dismayed, despondent and insulted beyond measure by the response. The Evolution of our species (and others, it has been found) has resulted in an innate set of moral rules. The so-called Golden Rule is just a codification of this. Mere babies will behave in accordance to this rule, far younger than they could have been taught it, or acknowledge the existence of God. Science has at every turn peeled back the layers of religious belief till there is essentially nothing left but denial.

In the final part, Don shows his true baseless prejudice against atheists (and pissed me off) when he quotes Julian Huxley....

Just 'beatiful'....

Religious processes never cease to amaze me. Say a few words in Latin (which nobody understands anymore) and sprinkle a bit of water (holy or not, it's just water…) and your soul is cleansed. Sound glib? I don't think so. Heck, I have yet to see even the slightest evidence in favor of the existence of the soul. Holy water is just good ol' H₂O.

Take for instance the current beatification and canonization of the late Pope John Paul II. Since John Paul can not be considered a martyr (though this was almost the case), it must be shown that a miracle has taken place by his intercession. These days this miracle almost always takes the form of a disease. Catholicism, with all its saints (that are really lesser deities), makes the hierarchy of Hinduism looks simple.

So, what was John Paul's miracle? "John Paul's cause has been bolstered by the testimony of a French nun, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, who says she was cured of Parkinson's disease after she and her fellow sisters prayed to the late pope." Wow. Why do I remain unimpressed? First, how was her Parkinson's diagnosed? There are similar paroxymal dyskinesias which can undergo spontaneous remission that can easily be mistaken for Parkinson's. Even if the diagnosis was correct, temporary or (more rarely) permanent remission is not unknown.

Statistically speaking, if you have a large body of believers that are afflicted with Parkinson's disease that pray to John Paul (and I'm sure there are more than a few), some of them will show signs of a recovery. This is hardly miraculous, though the person afflicted might feel that way, and not incompatible with the known course of the disease. Certainly, the prayer to the specific individual has not been shown to be causal and is mere happenstance. But the Church needs to be seen to go through the motions to make those clamoring for John Paul's deification happy.

Miracles are getting scarcer, aren't they? Is it because God isn't granting them as much? Or is it that there are fewer individuals with the required purity of heart? How about this one- Miracles are scarcer because they don't happen. What people long ago took to be miracles simply have natural explanations. Back in the days of Jesus if you didn't perform miracles you were nothing. Miracles were indeed commonly claimed back then, and not just by Jesus. Today we are better educated and the supernatural is failing more and more to be a satisfyingly explanation for anything. People are taught to think more critically (with the exception of those religious zealots of the American bible belt) and analyze events more deeply. As Martin Luther once remarked, "Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding." Why? Because reason, sense and understanding lead to the truth: "there is no spoon".

As an outsider looking in, this so-called miracle just doesn't cut it. The lack of a connection between cause and effect of this nun's prayer makes it look ridiculous and at best over-reaching, but not to the truly faithful. This suspension of reason is what all religions, even those I might call more moderate, have in common. You have a brain, people. Use it!

I just wonder what Karol Józef Wojtyla would think of all this.

Soul Cravings

I have just finished listening to the webcast on The Things That Matter Most (hosted by Rick Davis and Leal Arrington) with guest Erwin McManus. His new book, Soul Cravings, is discussed:

We can spend our whole lives trying to satisfy the one insatiable part of our being, our soul craving. Our capacity for spiritual experience both proves our need for something greater than ourselves and leaves us wanting when we fill it with anything but God.

Soul Cravings is a powerful, down-to-earth exposition that interprets our need for community, meaning, and destiny as common sense apologetics pointing to the existence of and our need for God. The book will deeply stir the reader to consider and chase after the spiritual implications of their soul's deepest longings.

The show summary was as follows:

Erwin McManus makes the case that we can find evidence for God and eternity within our own souls and persistent desires for love, destiny and meaning. And this evidence is even more compelling than the empirical evidence from textual criticism, archaeology, fulfilled prophecy and the hard sciences.

Well, what I expected was the usual gloss-over on exactly just what a soul is and just when was it that the existence of said soul was established. I said in an earlier blog that the this sort of gnostic evidence is tacit to an admission that empirical evidence, where it does not totally refute theistic positions, is nonexistent so we have to fill the void with emotional arguments.

Only one person has ever been needed to destroy such nonsense: David Hume. As Hume said, "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." Couldn't have said it better myself. How does one 'know' that they have a soul? You may feel that you have one, but could this not be an illusion? You bet. Humans evolved to see patterns, even where there aren't any. So-called inner knowledge is so subject to bias and interpretation that it is completely useless.

Can Evolution explain Love? The hosts and their guests seem to think that propagation of genes involves only sex. In some animals this is true, but not for mammals. Our young are born at a stage of development where they are still completely helpless and need rearing to survive. In fact, how can rearing be explained without the existence of something like Love? It can't, of course. So what did their guest prove? Nothing. These people need to read a book on Evolution NOT approved by the Discovery Institute. Obviously, they have never heard of Hamilton's Rule.

But my favorite part was an attempt to counter an argument made by Brian Sapient, founder of the Blasphemy Challenge, based on the Argument from Evil: the existence of hell shows that God is not a god of love and therefore the Christian god does not exist. What McManus says is that because Sapient does not believe in hell, his argument is disingenuous. "One minute you say that you don't believe in God because of hell, then say that you don't really believe in hell. So you can't use hell as an argument if you don't believe in hell. Let's say that there's no hell. Now prove to me there is no God." How many things are wrong with this? What Brian Sapient is doing is pointing out the inconsistencies in the framework that McManus et al are proponents of. Sapient's belief in hell is irrelevant. If there is no hell, then the Christian position falls apart since it depends largely on the existence of hell. This is just stupidity.

I gave this a fair listen to, as I promised. I did have some presuppositions, but the hosts and their guest could have dispelled these had they so chose. For instance,

• A clear definition of the soul was not presented;
• Evidence for the existence of a soul was not only lacking, but its existence was assumed and that everyone would be happy with that;
• Love, a sense of community, meaning were presented as if they lead to the existence of God, yet totally ignoring other perfectly satisfactory naturalistic explanations. Leal erroneously suggested that Evolution can in fact not explain these things;
• Non-emprical 'intrinsic' evidence is posited to have as much value as empirical evidence, to which David and I say 'Hogwash!'. Theist apologists such as McManus or Plantinga need this to be seen as the case, otherwise their arguments are completely unsupported by any evidence at all.

The only thing I agreed with that was said in the whole show was that our lives need to have meaning. But I've done fabulously without any need for a deity. I offer myself as a living refutation of this book. As for buying it, I'll pass.

The sad state of affairs in US religio-politics....

I think by now most of us have seen that shameful discussion on CNN on the segue Paula Zahn Now about atheists and the societal (if not institutional) discrimination against non-believers. The sheer stupidity would be laughable if the anti-atheist vitriol weren't utterly horrifying. After a news story about an atheist couple driven from their home by religious zealotry, a discussion panel was formed on air to talk about why atheists are so despised. Count them: the moderator, three believers, and- Wait. Nope. NOT ONE ATHEIST AMONGST THEM. Not even token representation. Great journalism, CNN! Is it any wonder it turned into an atheist bashing session? C'mon, there's at least 3 million atheists in the US. You'd think they could find just one.

The panel members: sports writer Steven Smith was clearly the most moderate of the three panel members, but even his prejudice was thinly veiled. I got the feeling that his emotions were warring with his intellect about it. In a man a member of a group which is routinely discriminated against, this must have felt extremely odd to him. From a member of a group so visciously persecuted in Nazi Germany, lawyer Debbie Schlussel's seemingly natural ability to reverse the role to become persecutor is chilling. But the worst of the three was clearly Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Karen Hunter. Too bad her brains aren't anywhere close to the size of her bigotry.

Read along as you watch the inanity from the above link....

The first blunder goes to Paula Zahn herself: "Do you think atheists should keep their religious beliefs secret?" Oops. We atheists do not hold religious beliefs. Freudian slip? Hmmm.... Karen Hunter's prejudice comes front and center immediately: "What does an atheist believe? Nothing." She knows nothing about atheism. I'm an atheist and I believe many things, including the belief that imposing beliefs on others is wrong. This is the whole basis, the reason d'etre of the separation of Church and State! We atheists are simply pushing back, trying to keep the walls from closing in on us, on OUR beliefs. My gut feeling tells me that this is just another manifestation of the unsupported, unsubstantiated and untrue belief that godless atheists hold no morals. "We took prayer out of schools. What more do they want?"

Simple. To be treated with respect by the religious, to not have to be insulted by swearing legal oaths to what we believe to be nonexistent deities, to not have people "witness" to me and in the same breath be offended when I counter with my own reasons for not believing. Institutionalized prayer, not prayer itself, was removed from public schools. Last time I checked I was a member of the public and I do not pray. To force anyone to pray is simply an immoral act. It was theist discrimination that was removed from shools, not trampling of theist belief being introduced.

Schlussel agrees with Hunter, completely in denial of the news item preceding the discussion: "I think that the real discrimination is atheists against Americans who are religious." Oh, the poor theists! They only make up 90% of the population! I'm sorry, but it is atheists that are forced to see religious icons everywhere in society, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that my Darwin fish on the back of my car offends many strong theists. Have they ever considered that Jesus fish are equally offensive to me? I'll take off mine when they take of theirs. She goes on: "Listen, we are a Christian nation-" Stop right there. The US is not a Christian nation, but a nation full of Christians! There is a big difference. The Founding Fathers of America were, for the most part, Deist, not Xian. Thomas Paine was unequivocal in his disdain for Xianity: "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter." - Thomas Paine.

Schlussel goes on: "...and freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion..." Ok. Now this is just asinine. Freedom is freedom, no exceptions. Amongst other reasons, the first amendment to the US constitution was added in reaction to the population of Britain being compelled to attend weekly Anglican services by royal decree. "[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." - Thomas Jefferson. Sounds like freedom of religion encompasses freedom from religion, at least to Jefferson. Some lawyer Schlussel is.

Schlussel: "You have these atheists selectively, I believe, attacking Christianity..." I guess it's just upstanding (when not intoxicated) theists like Mel Gibson that attack the Jewish faith. When the demographics are such that 80% of the population is Xian and it is that segment of the population generating by far the greatest amount of anti-atheist sentiment, you might think she'd expect that's what the secular community would target. But she doesn't. "I really believe that they are the ones intolerant against Christians..." As usual, conservatives get it ass-backwards. We are only intolerant of those imposing their beliefs on us.

Hunter equates the removal of institutionalized prayer from schools as removing morality from schools: "I think they need to shut up about crying wolf all the time and saying that they're being imposed upon. I personally think that they should never have taken prayer out of schools. I would rather there be some morality in schools." I'm all for teaching morality, but what's that got to do with prayer? It's that old standby, religion is the sole arbiter of morality and atheists can't be moral. Hogwash.

Stephen Smith is probably correct that most anti-atheist attacks occur in the south, anywhere with a high percentage of right-wing Xianity. He was far more tolerant and said something oddly humanist: "... you are entitled to believe what you want as long as you are not, you know, imposing your beliefs on other people..." Why can't all theists think like that?

Of course, it was ruined by Hunter: "They don't have a good - marketing. If they had Hallmark cards, maybe they wouldn't feel so left out. We have Christmas cards. We have Kwanzaa cards now. Maybe they need to get some atheist cards and get that whole ball rolling so more people can get involved with what they're doing." Wow. Isn't that amazingly stupid? "I think they need to shut up and let people do what they do. No, I think they need to shut up about it." So much for Freedom of Speech. Oh, would that fundamentalist Xians heed that advice! That's the whole reason atheists like myself are becoming vocal. Religion is beginning to encroach on letting us do what we do. Of course we're pushing back! We have NO CHOICE ANYMORE! Our right to OUR beliefs are being threatened, and Schlussel doesn't even think we should be accorded that right! At least at this point Smith spoke up in favor of free speech for everyone.

More pot-calling-the-kettle-black from Schlussel, speaking of one man that went "all the way to the Supreme Court for his child, the child doesn't know what's going on, to try to get 'under god' taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance..." This is exactly why I think exposing children to religion is tantamount to child abuse! A child is incapable of making a decision for themselves on their beliefs. What beliefs do atheists force on their children? Free thinking? How terrible! And excuse us for being offended when it is demanded of us that we pledge allegiance to a product of Bronze Age ideas that we've outgrown!

Again, Smith puts in his bit appealing for moderation, which falls on deaf ears: "There's a whole bunch of people in America that need to shut up. And they don't. So why should atheists do anything less? ...We're supposed to be tolerant, we're supposed to accepting of other peoples viewpoint even when they are not our own and the fact that they are atheists is their right..." He gets it!!! If everyone was like him I wouldn't be writing this blog. I'd have no need to. We don't all have to share the same beliefs. Individuality is one of the beautiful aspects of humanity. We just have to respect each others beliefs. Forcing children from atheist families to pray in school is not about respect but about control, about spreading theist beliefs, about institutionalized conformity to theism. This is the quintessential definition of IMMORAL.

Hunter shows her true colors, demonstrating her prejudice even as she makes a half-hearted attempt at being conciliatory: "They're not hurting anyone. I don't personally have a problem with atheists and believe or don't believe what you want, but don't impose on my right to want to have prayers in school, to want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, to want to honor my god..." HYPOCRIT! Hunter wants to be allowed to impose her belief systems on others, while remaining immune from the reverse. No one has ever tried to take away her right to believe in god, to pray, to say the Pledge. But she wants more than that. She wants the right to make sure everyone else does, too.

What I found equally interesting was that Steve Smith had great difficulty in believing the study which showed that atheists are the most despised of all recognized groups. While we are not a visible minority, as was pointed out, we are an ideological minority. The views expressed in this debacle simply underscored the results of the University of Minnesota study, Smith's incredulity notwithstanding. With intolerant, bigoted attitudes such as those expressed by these hypocrites, how far is the US from shipping atheists to concentration camps in cattle cars? Would it stop there? From the comments by these supposedly learned people it is not a big stretch of the imagination. And that's frightening.

Maybe if people such as these panelists would bother to take the time and effort to attempt to understand what it means to be an atheist, things can change. Agreement is not required, but respect is. Preconceived ideas about who and what we are need to be exposed as the misconceptions that they are.

I'm not hopeful.

This game should be "Left Behind" on the shelves...

I was in a video game store some time ago and saw on the shelf in the 'Coming Soon' section something that made me groan aloud: 'Eternal Forces'. A game based on the 'Left Behind' series, a rather popular religious series of novels relating to the Rapture. Popular? I dunno. I certainly do not know anyone that has any of them (same for anything by that wacko L. Ron Hubbard, perhaps the most boring science fiction novelist in history but his books seem to be always on best seller lists even though no one has any), but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

I really can't imaging a religion-based video game having any appeal, being a hard-core Grand Theft Auto fan myself, but then I read a review on the game's contents (CTV news story and The San Fransisco Chronical). If there's violence in it maybe it ain't all that boring.

But trust a fundie to take all the fun out of violent games. "Our game includes violence, but excludes blood, decapitation, killing of police officers,'' the company says on its website, noting that a player can lose points for "unnecessary killing'' and regain them through prayer. Wow. Prayer works just like in real life! The ol' "I-killed-someone-but-it's-okay-now-because-I-prayed-about-it" trick. So much for love in fundie Xianity, but then, that goes without saying. I wonder, though, if killing atheists gets you bonus points in the game... Wouldn't surprise me.

Worse, you can't win if you go 'dark-sided': Players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on Carpathia's side. Now if that just doesn't suck.

"Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces,'' said the Rev. Tim Simpson of Jacksonville, Fla., who heads the Christian Alliance for Progress. "It is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.'' Is it? I could quote a few passages here to the contrary, but at least there is one Xian organization out there that is fighting the good fight. The Christian Alliance for Progress was founded in response to the growing Xian right.

Wal-Mart demonstrates the moral superiority they've always had: "The product has been selling in those stores,'' said spokeswoman Tara Raddohl. "The decision on what merchandise we offer in our stores is based on what we think our customers want the opportunity to buy.'' So, we should have a market-driven morality, eh? How Republican. Sounds like the mission statement for Halliburton. I want a George Bush voodoo doll, and I'm sure a lot of other people want one as well, but I can't seem to find THAT in a Wal-Mart.

In response to their critics, CEO of Left Behind Games Troy Lyndon replies: "They're good-minded people,'' he said. "They want to keep us from making games that are jihad in the name of God.'' This is not something an imam in the Middle East is saying, but a fundamentalist game developer (I would never have thought I could string those words together...) in California! And people say religion doesn't spawn violence?!? The gaming company's president Jeffrey Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But "Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ" -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game. So you get to mow them down, too. Ann Coulter would be proud.

Another critic, author Frederick Clarkson, is spot on: "It becomes a tool of religious instruction,'' he said. "The message is. ... there will be religious warfare, and you will target your fellow Americans, people from other faiths, people who you consider to be sinners.''

I've said that I am a hard-core fan of the Grand Theft Auto series of games. Does this make me hipocritical? No. I enjoy playing them, but I do not even for one moment relate the cartoonish violence in GTA to reality. Hollywood action films are no different than GTA in their subject matter, not to mention much more graphic in their violence, and are the greatest influence on their story lines.

So what's the difference? The difference is that people that play this game are generally going to be believers in the Rapture. This game represents a scenario that they believe will actually play out in the near future. This is their future reality and a game like this simply serves to reinforce their intolerant beliefs that they are our moral superiors and that violence against all others is not only okay, but commanded by God. This game is more like a religious terrorist training manual than a form of entertainment. It would not surprise me in the least if this game shows up in 'Jesus Camp II'.

But Plugged In, a publication of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, gave the game a "thumbs-up." The reviewer called it "the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior -- and use to raise some interesting questions along the way." Isn't that just heart-warming? Now Mommy and Daddy can play Religious Rambo with little Johnny....

Gamespot.com gives this game a 3.4/10. Guess fundies really CAN'T write good game software.

UPDATE: It gets even worse. I read one user's review at gamespot.com: "women cannot be any unit except a nurse. Want to preach the Gospel and convert other people to your side? You need a man."

Or, how about this? "All the good units are white. Full-white mayonaise-eating Cuacasians. That's not to say there are no African-Americans in this New York City, there are. But they are the "evil musicians". All of them are black. They play guitar riffs which were about the only cool sounds in the game but are labeled as "the Devil's Music" in the game."

And this piece of trash if rated "T"?!? How progressive....