An Article of Faith

The other Baptist Record article that I want to tell you about is called, "The Impossibility of Christmas." As you recall, my mother had given me a copy of this publication in one of my gift boxes for Christmas and had marked three articles for me to read. This article caught my eye because it was timely and the headline smacked of truth.

The author, William Perkins, claims (quite rightly, I think) that the literal Christmas story would be incredibly difficult, almost impossible, to believe by a person who relied on scientific evidence. These are the points that he brings out to stress the implausibility of the tale:

1. The Bible is an ancient text based on oral traditions and tales that cannot be confirmed.

2. The Bible makes predictions based on personal revelation.

3. The greatest Biblical prophecy, that of the Messiah, was fulfilled in a poor Jewish bastard child (I use the word deliberately because, if the story is literally true, Jesus was conceived out of wedlock) that nobody really ever understood.

People wouldn't believe just any book they picked up that made such ridiculous claims. Why do they automatically assume that these assertions have more authority simply because they come from the Bible? The author will tell us why once he's finished listing the other questions that any sane, rational person would ask:

1. How can a virgin female, one who has engaged in no sex acts of any kind, get pregnant and give birth?

2. What kind of genetic makeup would the child of such a birth have? Would it have only 23 chromosomes? Sexually, it would have inherited an X chromosome from virgin mom but there would be no Y chromosome from the other side so how could such a creature be male? Could it even be human?

3. How did mom survive a trip to Bethlehem on a donkey when she was so far along? How did the newborn survive?

4. What time of year was it anyway? We don't really know for sure.

5. Why should be place any weight on Joseph's dream? People have crazy dreams all the time. When they start believing in those dreams and basing their relationships and future around them, we put them in mental institutions. Why was Joseph exempt from this critique?

Perkins finishes his list with this question, "No reasonable explanation can be found in science for the impossible circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth, so why should we believe the Bible account?

Why indeed? Why should a reasonable person believe any of that is true? Perkins gives us the answer in one simple word: Faith.

Hebrews 11:1 defines "faith" and I want to share with you a few different translation:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (King James Version)

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (New International Version)

Faith is what makes real the things we hope for. It is proof of what we cannot see. (Easy-to-Read Version)

It's hard for me to come away with anything more than the kind of assurance we hear in books like The Secret. Faith is the practice of believing in something without any evidence and doing it so hard and for so long that one's wish will eventually come true.

As a skeptic, I can't accept faith as a reason to do anything- especially make important life decisions regarding who I love, who I am intimate with, what kind of health care I choose, and how I treat my fellow humans. I simply cannot use faith as a tool for living because it is irrational and immoral to me. It is irresponsible. It is unhelpful.

My mother has told me on a few occasions that she is fuzzy on the evidence for the Bible but that she doesn't need to know it because her belief is based on faith. I understand why she has chosen that path. It's a safe path for her and it helps her cope with life. But I believe she is wrong about the nature of faith and I cannot follow her down a road I know to be false.

Perkins tells us to forget all the questions he listed and just have faith. He asks me to be intellectually lazy and morally irresponsible. I won't do it. I have too much integrity to be faithful.

Anyone who scoffs at New Age thinking, The Secret, and such but reveres faith in the Bible has a lot of explaining to do to me because, for the life of me, I cannot understand.

A Look Back - N. Piccolo

Well, here it is the ever dreaded 2012 - end of the world scares shall begin hence forth. Pfft, whatever this "End of The World" has been talked about for last 100+ years.  People say "but we have the Mayan Calender." Oh that's nice, I have the new " Logical Thinking" calender and it has a few pictures. We have all year to debate that issue so I'd like to take a look back at last year and reflect a few key events that made last year special to us here at DFFT.

On a personal note last January 1, 2011, I celebrated my 2nd sober New Years in 12+ years by sleeping in with Tweenky. At the end of the month I took Tweenky out for an authentic Italian dinner in Gulfport, MS at Pasta Italia Trattoria. About half way through our salad, Tweenky suffered a severe nose bleed and we ended up in the hospital. There we discovered that she had high blood pressure which resulted in a posterior tear in her nasal cavity, but the high blood pressure was caused by her being pregnant...... Yes I said pregnant, something I was told previously some years ago would be impossible for me after sustaining an injury and some painful swelling. Nevertheless, the results came back positive and she was approximately 21-22 weeks and it was a boy. We were both surprised, scared, excited and lost to say the least. Neither of us had planned on ever having kids - it was something I once longed for but had been denied early on in life, thus given up on. Tweenky had decided that she hadn't had any yet and just didn't really think she wanted to have any as she got older.

It was about a week later when I got up for work and she said she was having trouble seeing; in fact she had gone completely blind for a few minutes and then the seizures happened. I had managed to get her into the car when she came back around and we headed straight to the hospital where she had 2 more seizures in the ER. After finally getting her stable, they tried 3-4 different times and with different equipment to find and check the baby's heartbeat. The ER doctor took me outside and said, "There's no heartbeat or movement and we are moving her to labor and delivery." I felt my world stop, fall around me, and there was nothing else around me except Tweenky. After calling family on both sides, I stayed at her side while the ob-gyn ran tests. It was within a half hour the doctor confirmed that our son had in fact died, but that was only part of the problem. Tweenky was suffering a severe type of pre-eclampsia called HELLP Syndrome, symptoms of DIC and her kidneys were barely functioning. Her platelet count had dropped to almost 30,000; it should be around 250-300,000. This meant surgically removing our son (which would stop the DIC and release from the HELLP syndrome) was not an option and she would have to perform a vaginal birth. Tweenky fell in and out of consciousness 3 times after being moved to the ICU. I know that it was 3 times because, when she would come around and ask what was going on, I had to tell her that we lost the baby each time. The doctors came to me with paper work for a blood transfusion and other life-saving permissions, I signed them all without hesitation. I wanted them to do everything imaginably possible to save her. All the while they were telling us to plan for the worst. Thankfully, she was given prostaglandin suppositories to induce labor; otherwise, she would continue to slowly die from our dead son who was now becoming septic to her body. I spent the next week at her side in the hospital as she slowly recovered. Though she suffered seizures, there wasn't any permanent damage. Personal care, medicine for high blood pressure and depression would be a constant fixture for a long while. I quit my job in Biloxi and we moved  just north of Tupelo, MS, to be closer to family.

I started up my own company and this allowed us to work around "Our" schedule. Having more free time, we took time for ourselves and went to Lake Hypatia in Talledega, AL, in July and met with other freethinkers,  atheists, and agnostics. We met people from all over the south and a few from far reaches of the US - even Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. But only 3 people were from MS and we were 2 of them. This was a thought-provoking experience as we talked to and heard from several others about their podcasts, web sites, blogs, and other activities they were engaged in. It was invigorating and inspiring at the same time. "We could do this!" or "We should do this!" were constant conversation pieces over the next few months.

August, hot as usual and not just from the weather, this was the first we had heard about "Amendment 26" and it was a close and personal subject that struck a nerve with us both so deep that, by the first week of September, the Deep Fried Free Thinkers was born. We stumbled into existence and were soon into a full sprint. We joined every group we could find that was against this insane, bible-driven amendment and put all of our energy into getting the word out to everyone any way we could. By the time the election was over and the amendment defeated, we had joined 10 Facebook groups, produced 21 videos, 50 blog posts, and it wasn't over.

We continued covering issues like Phil Bryant and his "Satan wins" and thwarting AFA attempts to continue personhood by making counter videos and exposing their lies every chance we got. All the while, we were searching every state for more groups that are in opposition to personhood and letting them know of national groups like Americans Against Personhood and Parents Against Personhood. Hoping that by having national groups, more people would get informed and stand up against it.

What started out as the worst possible year of our lives has turned into a fun adventure in the end. We have learned a great deal and have so much more to discover. Even after 5 podcasts, 35 videos, and 64 blog posts, there is still so much for us to learn and teach as well. We look forward to reading every email, comment, and article that is sent to us and replying to as many as possible.

Thank you all from the bottoms of our hearts, for all your support and words of encouragement, without which the DFFT would be all for naught.

Thank you,

Nathan Piccolo and Tweenky Dee