The End Of GodKillzYou [An Atheist Matures]

Introduction

For anyone who’s at all familiar with my writing, this blog or me personally, you’ll know that I’ve used the name GodKillzYou for pretty much all of my internet activity. Any account I’ve ever registered basically had that screen name associated with it.

So where did that name come from? Well, when I first de-converted from Christianity I was angry. I slowly began to realize that everything I believed was founded upon my own faulty reasoning, and that God was something I wanted to exist – not something that could be shown to exist. And because I’m a person who tends to take things to extremes, the result of my apostasy was my new screen name: GodKillzYou.

Good or bad, I went with it. I tended to adopt a point of view and portray an image that a name like GodKillzYou would put forth. I became the snarky, cynical, condescending, skeptical atheist that a name like GodKillzYou would fit.

Of course, I wasn’t like that all of the time in my writing. As my writing, as well as my personal journey into Atheism progressed, I found myself growing more and more understanding and sympathetic toward believers; not only of Christianity and other religions, but also of those who believe other things (ESP, Dowsing, Astrology, Psychic Abilities, etc.).

But my sympathy and understanding does not translate into acceptance of those claims. I simply understand more clearly how we arrive at those conclusions, and my attitude has come to reflect that. My intentions are much more driven by the desire to reach a common understanding with those whom I disagree with.

Re-Branding Myself

So, in this attempt to re-brand myself I’m hoping that my new screen name, TheSkepticalAtheist, will bear a closer resemblance to my worldview. “TheSkepticalAtheist” doesn’t carry with it that angst-ridden, spiteful, cynical tone that I’m looking to get away from.

I also realize that doing something like this is akin to changing a phone number. I will still leave my https://godkillzyou.wordpress.com/ (In Case You’re Interested…) blog up. There is a lot of useful information there, aside from my writings on religion – tech stuff, iTunes fixes, etc. I’ll also still respond to comments on that blog, as I still get plenty.

And with that, I’m saying farewell to GodKillzYou and any stigma the goes along with it. I am branding myself TheSkepticalAtheist.

My new blog can be found here: http://theskepticalatheist.wordpress.com.

Lying For Jesus [Part III – The Sneak-Attack Baptism]

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

That’s Mark 16, verse 15 (KJV). It also happens to be the impetus behind Christians going out and knocking on doors at 9:00am on Sunday mornings. As bad as that is, I don’t have a problem with it. I think if they’re that compelled by an ancient book that can’t even maintain internal consistency, then bring it on.

What I’m not ok with is lying to gain converts. Deceiving children, no less. Lying to parents and the children in order to get a few more baptisms under your belt. I’m pretty sure Jesus doesn’t keep a scorecard, or a running tally on what church gets the highest number of baptisms or converts.

Last month (August 26, 2009) Breckinridge County High School (Kentucky) football coach Scott Mooney led a group of players from their school’s football team to see what he told the parents and children would be a “motivational speaker” and a steak dinner. What Mr. Mooney failed to mention to anyone was the fact that this “motivational speaker” was the pastor of his church, Ron Davis (Franklin Crossroads Baptist Church). And the “steak dinner” was, in fact, a mass baptism and the teammates were to accept Jesus Christ as their “Lord and Savior” as a way to, as coach Mooney said, “bring the team together.”

So coach Mooney used peer pressure to get all of those teammates baptized in his church. He lured them under a false premise of going to see a “motivational speaker.” Not only this, but he used a public school bus, with the expressed permission of superintendent of the district, Janet Meeks.

What seems to be at issue here is the fact that believers take Mark 16:15 and use it as an excuse to do whatever is in their power to force their religion on everyone they can, honestly or not, willfully or not. If you have to lie, cheat and deceive to get a few more converts, then all the better for the receiving church.

Thankfully, one of the teammates parents is considering legal action against the school district. A lawyer, Bill Sharp, from the ACLU was contacted and he said that…

The message conveyed to the students is there’s an official endorsement.

And also that…

There’s certainly a coercive element. He’s in a position of authority.

I think one of the biggest tragedies of all wasn’t even the fact that these kids were corralled into a big baptism fest. The biggest problem for me was the fact that when one of the kids was asked by his parents, after returning from the trip, what baptism actually means, he hadn’t a clue. This entire process was nothing more than a “getting saved” assembly line. Pump ’em through the system and get them into the fold as quickly as possible, before they realize what’s happened to them.

I think this is a big problem with the mentality of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians. They’ve got this mindset that they have to get everyone saved as quickly as possible. They just need to get as many people  as possible to say a certain prayer as quickly as possible, regardless of whether or not they understand what’s going on. The important part is that the person says the words just right.

Anyway, if all goes well and the parents follow through with their legal action, hopefully any faculty involved in this incident will be fired, including the coach and the superintendent.

The public school system is not a place to push your religion on children. And more importantly, without permission from their parents – and that means ALL of the parents… not just the Jesus lovers of the group.

My conclusion? Believers, stick to knocking on doors at 9:00am on Sunday morning. Keep your religion out of the school system. Also, Mark 16:15 doesn’t condone lying, cheating or deceiving in order to follow through with that verse. Remember the 10 Commandments? Bearing false witness?

iTunes Crashes On “Determining Song Volume” [Fixed]

Introduction

Today I downloaded a couple podcasts into iTunes (QuackCast and Psychology Podcast). After completing the download, I ran into a problem. iTunes crashed when the “Determining Song Volume” process started.

iTunes determines the song volume when “Sound Check” is enabled. This ensures that all your songs play at the same volume.

So, not only did iTunes crash when I completed downloading the podcasts, but it would immediately crash as soon as I tried to start it up again. It would attempt to determine the song volume of the new podcasts and immediately crash.

I tried restarting the computer, and still nothing. Instant crash as soon as I opened up iTunes.

It turns out that iTunes isn’t entirely stable on multi-core processors. A quick search online revealed exactly what the problem was. iTunes needs to run on 1 processor core, at least when running the “Sound Check” process.

The Solution

It turns out that it’s possible to set individual programs to only use a certain number of processor cores. And that’s what I did with iTunes.

Here’s how you do it.

1. When iTunes attempts to start up, try to hit the little ‘x’ next to “Determining Song Volume” to cancel that process. It may take a few tries to click it before iTunes crashes.
2. Next, in iTunes, go into Edit/Preferences/Playback tab. Disable “Sound Check.”
3. Open up the Task Manager (CTRL + Shift + Esc). Open up the “Processes” tab and right-click on iTunes. Select “Set Affinity…” And be sure only 1 core is selected (CPU0, 1, 2, 3, etc – depending on how many cores your computer has.).
4. You can now go back into iTunes and enable “Sound Check.”

That’s it. iTunes should determine the song volume of your newly imported music and you’ll be all set.

You can also find these instructions here.