tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069028752161632102024-03-06T15:02:16.964-05:00Drenched With BloodGodly bloodlust from talking snake to lake of brimstoneBart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-87320538387938758642016-01-05T07:56:00.000-05:002016-01-05T07:59:45.254-05:00Coeliac disease and the Catholic Church
When Mel Lastman said in June 2001, before going to
Kenya in support of Toronto's 2008 Olympics bid:
What the hell would I want to go to a place like Mombasa for?...I
just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around
me.
he was heavily criticised for this "racial slur", and
was encouraged to apologise for it.
While reprehensible, I would argue that it isn't a Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-59864005367187947642015-11-22T20:20:00.001-05:002015-11-23T18:57:46.487-05:00Freedom of religion
I had not
thought it possible, but it seems that we are once again entering a
period of religious warfare. Religion is toxic, a virus of the human mind.
While I will always continue to defend freedom of religion on a personal level,
I will not relent in my battle against it on a societal level.
I have always
advocated teaching the scientific method at the youngest possible age. While
science Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-18772466304888105022015-11-22T07:03:00.000-05:002015-11-27T17:43:46.581-05:00John Lennox: Ten quick responses to atheist claimsAn article by Heather Tomlinson about John Lennox was recently brought to my attention: Ten quick responses to atheist claims. In the article, she reports Lennox' replies to ten claims he claims atheists make. This my attempt at replying to what he says.
Please do not hesitate to point out where I am wrong, and why. If your argument is sound, I will change my view.
1) You don't Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-50564035294551850022013-10-28T15:46:00.002-04:002013-10-28T15:50:04.847-04:00Another needless death from measlesThere is currently a measles epidemic in the Bible Belt of the Netherlands. People have been withholding the measles vaccine (and others) from their children because – according to them – their god doesn't want them to vaccinate their children.
As a result, 2016 patients with measles have been counted since May 2013. There were several hospitalisations, and now, the first confirmed death, an Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-13123388512136363752013-07-02T09:17:00.002-04:002013-07-02T09:20:26.817-04:00The limits of "freedom of religion"I have always been a defender of the freedom of religion, and the freedom of believing in any other type of nonsense, on one simple condition: that freedom must stop where it harms others, just as any other freedom must stop there.
In the Netherlands, there is now after 14 years, a new outbreak of the measles. At least 160 children are infected, all in the Dutch version of the Bible belt, 5Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-60883356081082869672012-04-07T11:57:00.001-04:002012-04-07T12:01:30.431-04:00Why is Elton John harmful to me?The resistance against gay marriage is probably the best evidence that Christians and other religious nutjobs are not after "tolerance" but rather "domination". If a Christian does not want to marry someone of her/his own sex, fine. That doesn't harm me, it doesn't change me, it does absolutely nothing to me.
On the other hand, how exactly is a Christian harmed by -say- Elton John's marriage? Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-55751234419607990672012-02-28T03:37:00.001-05:002012-02-28T04:08:33.839-05:00Richard Dawkins: I am an agnostic
Richard Dawkins
Evolutionary biologist and zoologist Richard Dawkins is renowned as one of the world's leading public atheists. Religionists often call him arrogant, shrill, intolerant and aggressive in his defense of atheism.
Many religionists claim that Richard Dawkins' atheism is nothing but another form of religion, that he is an ignorant clown who doesn't know much, and that his Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-41863994333255247352012-02-24T09:02:00.000-05:002012-02-24T10:10:16.931-05:00Why William Lane Craig cannot be trusted
William Lane Craig [04]
In case you are not familiar with him, William Lane Craig [01] is an individual who works as a Jesus shill for Biola University [02], an institution of questionable academic integrity that requires all its staff to accept an intellectually untenable doctrinal statement [03].
This is a text, full of unproven claims, which I don't feel like reproducing here, since it canBart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-31670667218336409222012-02-12T21:25:00.003-05:002012-02-12T22:00:53.963-05:00Bill Maher: Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position
Bill Maher (Photo: Wikipedia)
First, let's be clear: I am not all that fond of Bill Maher [01]. Anybody who suggests that headaches are not caused by Aspirin deficiency [02] and that Aspirin should therefore not be taken when one has a headache, is a bit of a loon and a crank, and almost certainly does not score too high on any reasonably reliable intelligence scale.
When we have an acute Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-49313868205128579792012-02-08T04:17:00.000-05:002012-02-11T14:33:25.109-05:00Are you a Christian?
Sacrifice of Isaac (1635)
Most Americans claim they are, but are they? There are numberless Christian sects in the US, and all over the world for that matter. They all differ in what they consider Christian and what not except for one major point: they almost all agree that they are right, and that all the other Christians are wrong.
Only the viewpoints of their particular sect are the right Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-706902875216163210.post-50132226618993410322012-02-07T05:34:00.001-05:002012-02-08T02:47:02.820-05:00WelcomeI grew up with a Catholic extremist father, a failed Trappist monk, and a mother who didn't seem to believe in much of anything, except for the hypocrisy of going through the movements.
Both my parents firmly believed in the Biblical "Spoil the rod, spoil the child" adage, and they applied it with great enthusiasm and creativity. While Christopher Hitchens had to learn through voluntary Bart B. Van Bockstaelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689331945672800561noreply@blogger.com0