Did you know that the Tyrannosaurus Rex, in those years that it roamed the Earth alongside humans and turtles and bunny rabbits and whatnot, only ate sinners? Among evangelicals, it’s apparently common knowledge that the T-Rex was like Loki’s sword, just another tool in God’s arsenal to help him smite the wicked, much like swarms of locusts or Matt Damon’s glock. The T-Rex’s preference for the sweet, clap-ridden flesh of the wicked aside, carbon dating roundly proves that humans and dinosaurs roamed the Earth millions of years apart. Want more proof? Well, nobody has ever found the bones of a hapless cave man who for all we know, may have pissed God off by coveting his neighbor’s rock collection or something, inside a fossilized Tyrannosaurus. The folks at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ken., where the wife, some friends and I visited a couple weeks ago would tell you that they probably exist, but God is just waiting for the right time to reveal them. We went for a laugh, and in a lot of ways got exactly what we expected. There were a lot of modestly dressed Southern Baptist families pouring out of 15 passenger vans. There were dinosaur statues, dioramas of ...

Dear Religious Right, I saw one of your billboards the other day, it said "All life is sacred, from conception to death." It was a nice billboard, the typography was clear and easy to read from my car. Well done. Oh, except for one thing: the message you were trying to portray, that we should all be pro-life and anti-euthanasia, is just a tad contradictory to the battle you are currently waging against health care reform. You see, there are 43 million uninsured people in this country, give or take. You may have insurance, so you don't really think about it too much if you get the flu or break your leg. You just go see your doctor or head to the emergency room and it's all taken care of. Your 43 million fellow citizens, however, can't go to the doctor if they get the flu. While you may pay $10 or $20 dollars per office visit, these people are responsible for the entire cost. Trust me, when you're struggling to make ends meet, you don't have a couple hundred bucks laying around to go see the doctor, and don't even get me started on how much the prescription would cost with no insurance. So you ...

We have a long tradition of trying to legislate morality in this country, which makes it all the more earth shattering when political leaders like Mark Sanford — who announced yesterday that his recent "disappearance" was in fact a trip to Argentina to visit his mistress — fess up to sexual indiscretions. Republicans seem to have been tangled up in a few more scandals lately than their Democratic counterparts. Whether it was John Ensign cheating on his wife, Larry Craig doing a homo tap dance in a Minneapolis airport bathroom stall or Mark Foley telling teenage male Congressional pages to "get a ruler out and measure it for me," the GOP has had a rough time living up to it's self-proclaimed title as the party of morality and family values lately. Democrats aren't immune to these types of scandals. Former President Bill Clinton canoodled with an intern (and a few others) and Elliott Spitzer likes the high-priced hookers. The point is, recent scandals should show us that it's time to separate our moral leaders from our political ones. Now I know what you're saying. If we no longer look to our political leaders for moral guideposts, Washington will be more out of control than ...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife I remember hearing the news that Saddam Hussein had been executed and thinking "It's about time, that bastard got what he deserved." I mean, c'mon, the guy murdered hundreds of thousands of people. He deserved to die, right? What about the Nazi leaders after World War II? What about Pol Pot? These men were monsters who committed genocide, right? So I read a blog entry from a classmate of mine in college who said he's having mixed feelings about the murder of Dr. George Tiller this past Sunday in Wichita. You can find the blog entry here. Dr. Tiller performed late-term abortions and because of that has been a lightning rod for the abortion issue for many, many years. In any case, my classmate, a staunch conservative, said that while he thinks the murder was a tragedy (too strong of a statement, Eric?) he doesn't feel sympathy for Dr. Tiller. The man, he said, was responsible for thousands of deaths. Now, I don't agree with my friend, but I think to effectively argue the other side, you have to understand where your opponent is coming from. The argument he and many others on his side of the issue are ...

From a message board, via Reddit. No, Moslems don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Think of it like a movie. The Torah was the first one, the New Testament was the sequel. Then the Qu'ran comes out, and it retcons the last one like it never happened. There's still Jesus, but he's not the main character anymore, and the Messiah hasn't even shown up yet. Jews liked the first one but ignored the sequels. Christians think you need to watch the first two, but the third one doesn't count. Moslems think the third one was best. And Mormons liked the second one so much they started writing fanfiction that doesn't fit with ANY of the cannon.

I'm not an anti-religious person. I'm definitely not an atheist, or even an agnostic. I think there's a God, and I think he (or she?) is up there, writing clever songs that misuse words like Ironic and working daily to thwart plans by the devil (who was often disguised as girls I'd date.) In any case, I believe that God has his hands full just pulling the levers and pushing the buttons that make the world go around. It's a big job keeping this rock spinning in the right direction. God sure as heck doesn't have time to bless your favorite sports team, help you on your exam or keep you safe on an airplane. Which brings me to a ridiculously annoying letter that appeared in the Muskegon Chronicle yesterday. Letter: Why didn't flight crew mention God? Dena Malda, Muskegon On the Feb. 8 "60 Minutes" program, we were captivated while viewing the Katie Couric interview of the crew and passengers of Flight 1549. However, we were struck there was not one mention of God, who directs pilots of planes and secures the safety of passengers.We have written CBS and asked them for more realistic programming. Help protect our freedoms. Write CBS about this. I fly ...

Image by Daniel Greene via Flickr The Bible — the Word of God itself — says we are right in this cause. These people are not equal, nor shall they ever be. This was the argument James Jackson, a representative from Georgia to the 1st Congress in 1790 and Revolutionary War hero, used in defending slavery. The Bible says it's all right. It's safe to say that time has proved Jackson — an otherwise intelligent, able Patriot — to be on the wrong side of history. I know it's been beaten to death, but stick with me here. Two hundred and nineteen years later, we're inaugurating our first black president. Someone who Jackson, a man who was there when our Constitution was created, would consider no better than a piece of property. Someone to pick the cotton and drain the swampland. This post isn't about race or Barack Obama though, it's about religious leaders hiding behind their misinterpretations of scripture to defend their ignorance and hatred. Recently a Lutheran School in California expelled two girls because they were suspected of being lesbians. The California Supreme Court backed the school up because it isn't a business. Here is the story. So, fair enough, it's not a business ...