Glycine in a comet tail might not sound like much but abiogenics is a set of provable facts which have the advantage,over ID, of not being looney rubbish.
SMH Article:
Monday, August 24, 2009
Dawkins in Free Inquiry
"If you live in America the chances are that your next door neighbors believe the following: the inventor of the laws of physics and Programmer of the DNA code decided to enter the uterus of a Jewish virgin, got himself born, then deliberately had himself tortured and executed because he couldn't think of a better way to forgive the theft of an apple, committed at the instigation of a snake. As Creator of the majestically expanding universe, he not only understands relativistic gravity and quantum mechanics but actually designed them. Yet what he really cares about is "sin," abortion, how often you go to church, and whether gay people should marry. Statistically, the chances are that your neighbors believe all that-and they vote."
Richard Dawkins, -- In his letter to recommend the magazine Free Inquiry.
Richard Dawkins, -- In his letter to recommend the magazine Free Inquiry.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Answering "... but atheism is a religion"
The Good Atheist blogs about:
Tired Christian Claim #1: Atheism is a Religion
Abiogenics is mentioned in the comments with a reference to the Miller-Urey experiment.
Tired Christian Claim #1: Atheism is a Religion
Abiogenics is mentioned in the comments with a reference to the Miller-Urey experiment.
Darwin's work vandlised
Darwin's Origin of the species has been forwarded by a fundie. Make sure you don't buy this version and that your school doesn't have this tampered with copy available to students.
TheGoodAtheist's blog post.
TheGoodAtheist's blog post.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The rape challenge: upsetting fundies.
Austin Cline blogs about atheism on About.com
He issues the following challenge to anyone who cares to accept it, but especially to anyone who holds that the Bible is a book of good morals. Make the following three declarations:
1. I denounce rape as morally wrong: there are no exceptions.
2. I denounce as evil the practice of forcing rape victims to marry their rapists.
3. I denounce as evil any law, code of ethics, or any other statement of moral principles that contains an injunction requiring a rape victim to marry to her rapist.
Since the Bile does contain such an injunction, accepting this challenge necessarily means that you are denouncing the Bible, declaring it NOT to be a good source of moral guidance.
This is where the wheels will fall off your wagon cause they'll go on about how that part of the bible was not written for this time. Like the not eating things that swim without fins, prawns, and wearing eyeglasses before the lord... how the hell are you supposed to know where he'll be? Unlike the homosexual bits... they were definitely written for this time, yes?
How can a book written by an omnipotent, omniscient being not be universally applicable throughout all time... as one would expect it to be?
About.com article:
He issues the following challenge to anyone who cares to accept it, but especially to anyone who holds that the Bible is a book of good morals. Make the following three declarations:
1. I denounce rape as morally wrong: there are no exceptions.
2. I denounce as evil the practice of forcing rape victims to marry their rapists.
3. I denounce as evil any law, code of ethics, or any other statement of moral principles that contains an injunction requiring a rape victim to marry to her rapist.
Since the Bile does contain such an injunction, accepting this challenge necessarily means that you are denouncing the Bible, declaring it NOT to be a good source of moral guidance.
This is where the wheels will fall off your wagon cause they'll go on about how that part of the bible was not written for this time. Like the not eating things that swim without fins, prawns, and wearing eyeglasses before the lord... how the hell are you supposed to know where he'll be? Unlike the homosexual bits... they were definitely written for this time, yes?
How can a book written by an omnipotent, omniscient being not be universally applicable throughout all time... as one would expect it to be?
About.com article:
Melbourne, Australia: The Rise of Atheism Convention
Atheist Alliance International and Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc
Present... "Rise of Atheism"
The 2010 Atheist Global Convention Melbourne, Australia * 12-14 March
Register your interest in attending via this web site.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
"Old guy dancing for jesus"
Is this another example of Jesus teaching people how to be good? First, the old dude... does this... then, not one person thinks to stand up, or stop "singing" to see if he's OK. WTF?
Monday, August 10, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Mother of dead girl: sickness was test of faith
The mother of an 11-year-old girl who died of undiagnosed diabetes as the family prayed for her to get better has testified that she believes sickness is caused by sin and can be cured by God.
This is how christianity helps to form strong, healthy families.
Abstinence-Only Lunch Programs Ineffective At Combating Teen Obesity
Abstinence-Only Lunch Programs Ineffective At Combating Teen Obesity
Abstinence only programs are failing in the fight against childhood obesity just as abstinence only programs failed to decrease teenage pregnancies. When the abstinence formula is presented for another problem the flaws are made more obvious.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Texans re-writing history.
Christian school history books are being re-written to ramp up God's role in the establishment of USA.
Guardian Article
Guardian Article
Child dies while parents pray
A child has dies of treatable conditions because the parents thought they could just pray and she'd be fine.
MSNBC article.
MSNBC article.
Christians lying to school children
Christians want to simply lie to children about reproductive science.
This is too silly to be a real article:
This is too silly to be a real article:
More outrageous behaviour from theists:
Article:
Is this another example of how religion teaches young people how to be good? If these teenagers aren't having nightmares about this I would be very surprised. I would be having nightmares about it!
But, and now comes my problem, how are we going to use this news story to bring better understanding of religion's outrageous claims into the public sphere? How can atheists really use all of these stories to illustrate the redundancy and moral bankruptcy of religion?
It's nice for us to all agree that this was horrible but this doesn't stop dumb stuff like this from happening again and again and again without it sticking to religion in general and all the while they denounce us as evil.
I'm not saying that I don't want to read stories. I'm not accusing others of doing too little. I just read this and think: 'What can I do about this?'
Is this another example of how religion teaches young people how to be good? If these teenagers aren't having nightmares about this I would be very surprised. I would be having nightmares about it!
But, and now comes my problem, how are we going to use this news story to bring better understanding of religion's outrageous claims into the public sphere? How can atheists really use all of these stories to illustrate the redundancy and moral bankruptcy of religion?
It's nice for us to all agree that this was horrible but this doesn't stop dumb stuff like this from happening again and again and again without it sticking to religion in general and all the while they denounce us as evil.
I'm not saying that I don't want to read stories. I'm not accusing others of doing too little. I just read this and think: 'What can I do about this?'
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Sex without mumbo-jumbo.
An article by Greta Christina on sex without mumbo-jumbo:
I want to offer a positive way of looking at sexuality and sexual transcendence that doesn't involve any sort of belief in the supernatural. I want to offer a sex- positive philosophy that is entirely materialist. The materialist view of life in general and sex in particular is often viewed as cold, bleak, narrow, mechanical, reductionist, and generally a downer. I don't think it is. And I want to talk about why.
Read blog:
I want to offer a positive way of looking at sexuality and sexual transcendence that doesn't involve any sort of belief in the supernatural. I want to offer a sex- positive philosophy that is entirely materialist. The materialist view of life in general and sex in particular is often viewed as cold, bleak, narrow, mechanical, reductionist, and generally a downer. I don't think it is. And I want to talk about why.
Read blog:
Catholic Church in Ireland Probed
It is the first time the state has investigated how the once-powerful Church in mainly Catholic Ireland has run its affairs.
It probed whether the Church reported abuse allegations or attempted to "obstruct, prevent or interfere with the proper investigation" of complaints.
SMH Article
It probed whether the Church reported abuse allegations or attempted to "obstruct, prevent or interfere with the proper investigation" of complaints.
SMH Article
Monday, July 20, 2009
More cruelty from theists.
NZ man hits his daughter on the head with a lump of concrete and kicks her in the face because she refused to attend his morman church. Link >
US student forced into ex-gay by parents when his mother finds out he is gay. Link >
Beyond Ex-Gay is a support group for people who have had contact with ex-gay.
Sharia law forbids the execution of virgin women or girls. How to get around that? Rape them and then execute them. Link >
US student forced into ex-gay by parents when his mother finds out he is gay. Link >
Beyond Ex-Gay is a support group for people who have had contact with ex-gay.
Sharia law forbids the execution of virgin women or girls. How to get around that? Rape them and then execute them. Link >
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Theism teaching us how to be good, again.
A nurse accused of shooting her ex-husband in the groin inside his chiropractic clinic while their two young daughters waited outside had written in her diary that she needed to create "portals of exit" for demonic spirits, a detective testified Friday.
Link >
Where did this person learn about demons? If it wasn't church I'd be very surprised. So, essentially, church taught her that she should leave her kids in the car while she walks into her ex-husband's workplace to shoot the demons out of him.
What did her church do to disabuse her of these notions?
Why didn't this faith group see that she was struggling or confused about this part of their world view? Or do they agree that demons inhabited this person's groin?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Religious expression more important than feeding a 3 year old
Orthodox Jews rioted accusing authorities of interference with the mother accused of starving her 3 year old boy.
Remember, religion is the only way to raise children properly.
Remember, religion is the only way to raise children properly.
Friday, July 17, 2009
God making people good again.
Two Jehovah's Witnesses 'murdered 13 people on mission from God to cleanse world of sinners'
This is how God shows you how to be good? I'm just surprised that this shit doesn't happen more often. This is what the bible instructs believers to do.
This is how God shows you how to be good? I'm just surprised that this shit doesn't happen more often. This is what the bible instructs believers to do.
If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; ... Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
Deuteronomy, Chapter 17:2-3,5
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Religion teaching children how to be good again
"They got so bad," she said.
She said her eldest daughter, Brittany, was possessed by a demon she called "Jezebel," a prostitute who caused suffering and spread disease.
"With demon possession, you are a demon, period," Jacks says on the recording.
Jacks said Brittany would fight her and she had to fight back. She said her younger daughters made horrible "screeching" noises and caused other problems.
Once again we see religion's intolerant, irrational ideas of how to raise children. This killing of these children is the other side of the coin to the christening of children. Newly born infants are said to require ritual cleaning and supernatural protection from evil. This is all part of the same myth.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Jill Mytton Interview - Richard Dawkins
Jill Mytton talks to Prof. Dawkins about her struggle to deal with her Exclusive Bretherin upbringing.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Mansfield man, 75, sued for sex abuse
David Harvey of 2061 Ranchwood Drive is named in the suit, along with the Rev. Sonny Thayer, 2878 Millsboro Road; Dianna Kochheiser, 1109 W. Hanley Road; and Russ Harvey of Galion. Grace Brethren Church, 531 Marion Ave., also is named.
Article
Once again, religion shows that it is incapable of forming a good society that protects children.
Article
Once again, religion shows that it is incapable of forming a good society that protects children.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Celebatheist gave me an idea...
The idea killer for the "Hitler was an Atheist" chant that the fundies come up with almost every time.
Churchill was a declared agnostic and the Third Reich was a faith-based, Catholic initiative. So, the victory against the Germans was a victory of a secular society over a faith based society.
Celebrity Atheists:
Churchill was a declared agnostic and the Third Reich was a faith-based, Catholic initiative. So, the victory against the Germans was a victory of a secular society over a faith based society.
Celebrity Atheists:
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis
It's been 55 years since the Miller-Urey Experiment, and science has made enormous progress on solving the origin of life. This video summarizes one of the best leading models. Yes there are others. Science may never know exactly how life DID start, but we will know many ways how life COULD start. Don't be fooled by creationist arguments as even a minimal understanding of biology and chemistry is enough to realize they have no clue what they are talking about.
Theists confuse evolution with aboigenesis... actually, they confuse any science that contradicts the bible (what science doesn't) with evolution. Aboigenesis only talks about non-life forming life. We are just a bag of chemicals after all.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Theist's free pass:
Atheists are accused of hate speech if they say there probably is no god but theists are allowed to say that an unchristianed child will burn in hell for eternity because the parents were atheists.
Which one of these statements sounds more hatefull?
Which one of these statements sounds more hatefull?
Religion is worming its way into Australian politics.
SMH Article:
One thing that I didn't want Australia to follow the US lead on was religion in politics. Anna Crabb has done some research on the topic.
One thing that I didn't want Australia to follow the US lead on was religion in politics. Anna Crabb has done some research on the topic.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Accusation: Atheism is a Religion
I've wondered why the dumb fundies say that atheism is a religion. A reply posted on this blog gives me an idea of what they are up to.
Fundies are trying to get the USA separation of church and state to work against atheism as it works against theism. They confuse secularism, which is required only to not make laws for or against any stance on religion, with atheism. Generally, atheists are not calling for religion to be banned. Theists are calling for Jesus to be legislated into being. Secularism just wants the laws kept neutral.
What is a religion? Some say it is a 'way of life' or a 'life stance'. For me, this definition lacks clarity and doesn't tell the whole story.
As outlined in this wikipedia entry:
A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth. It may be expressed through prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.
This is different to the soft "way of life" description. There is a lot of baggage in the name religion. Baggage that atheism doesn't carry.
Atheism is not a way of life. Atheism is nothing. On top of atheism you need to define a moral system. Humanism is a good system as a starting point. But humanism doesn't really tell us how the world works so then we look to science to describe the world around us. There is nothing dogmatic about science, when it is wrong it just accepts it and moves on. When it is right it can seem dogmatic. The difference is that a scientific theory is supported by so much evidence that many arguments against it have already failed. Science then goes on to make accurate predictions. Religion doesn't tell us how to build a plane, only fly it into a building.
I've lost direction on this post and it's late so I'm gonna put it up and fix it later. No-one reads this blog anyway so it wont make any difference. This is a topic I'm working through.
atheistliberty said,"However, Atheists have ethics, morals, and principals (sic) that guide their lives."
This proves it. Straight from an atheist's mouth. Atheism IS a religion. Let's ban the religion of atheism from influencing our government. Separation of church and state issues apply to the religion of atheism as well. So if the religion of atheism is banned from government, that means the government has to acknowledge a god, otherwise government is practicing the religion of atheism. This would default us back to the way things used to be. We wouldn't have a state or national church, but government would acknowledge again that we are a Christian nation.
Fundies are trying to get the USA separation of church and state to work against atheism as it works against theism. They confuse secularism, which is required only to not make laws for or against any stance on religion, with atheism. Generally, atheists are not calling for religion to be banned. Theists are calling for Jesus to be legislated into being. Secularism just wants the laws kept neutral.
What is a religion? Some say it is a 'way of life' or a 'life stance'. For me, this definition lacks clarity and doesn't tell the whole story.
As outlined in this wikipedia entry:
A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth. It may be expressed through prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.
This is different to the soft "way of life" description. There is a lot of baggage in the name religion. Baggage that atheism doesn't carry.
Atheism is not a way of life. Atheism is nothing. On top of atheism you need to define a moral system. Humanism is a good system as a starting point. But humanism doesn't really tell us how the world works so then we look to science to describe the world around us. There is nothing dogmatic about science, when it is wrong it just accepts it and moves on. When it is right it can seem dogmatic. The difference is that a scientific theory is supported by so much evidence that many arguments against it have already failed. Science then goes on to make accurate predictions. Religion doesn't tell us how to build a plane, only fly it into a building.
I've lost direction on this post and it's late so I'm gonna put it up and fix it later. No-one reads this blog anyway so it wont make any difference. This is a topic I'm working through.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Mr Deity
If religion seems a little odd, imagine having a fly on the wall view of god deciding on all the little details in the bible.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Child witches in the Niger Delta
Niger Delta Children being denounced and punished as witches. ABC Australia's 4 Corners report:
This is just sickening. Frightened children are accused of witchcraft because of some misfortune encountered by their family or village. The solution is to kill or maim them. Travelling religious... people offer to tourture the children for a substantial cost equivalent to a month's pay. All of this is based on folk lore of witches combined with evangelical christianity's paranoia about evil being all around them.
This is a video which promotes this nonsense:
This is just sickening. Frightened children are accused of witchcraft because of some misfortune encountered by their family or village. The solution is to kill or maim them. Travelling religious... people offer to tourture the children for a substantial cost equivalent to a month's pay. All of this is based on folk lore of witches combined with evangelical christianity's paranoia about evil being all around them.
This is a video which promotes this nonsense:
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
And another one - keep kids away from religious schools
Antoher teacher charged...
SMH Article
A ninth man has been charged by police investigating child sex offences at two colleges in Bathurst.
Police investigating allegations of assault at St Stanislaus' College and Bathurst Anglican School today charged a 79-year-old Sydney man with five counts of indecent assault.
SMH Article
A ninth man has been charged by police investigating child sex offences at two colleges in Bathurst.
Police investigating allegations of assault at St Stanislaus' College and Bathurst Anglican School today charged a 79-year-old Sydney man with five counts of indecent assault.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Hitler Quotes
Fundies are always trying to link Hitler to atheists. Here are some quotes that don't support that idea.
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited. "
Adolf Hitler, in a speech made on 12 April 1922
No, it is not we that have deserted Christianity, it is those who came before us who deserted Christianity. We have only carried through a clear division between politics which have to do with terrestrial things, and religion, which must concern itself with the celestial sphere. There has been no interference with the doctrine (Lehre ) of the Confessions or with their religious freedom (Bekenntnisfreiheit ), nor will there be any such interference.
On the contrary the State protects religion, though always on the one condition that religion will not be used as a cover for political ends….National Socialism neither
opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity…. For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life… These are not antiChristian, these are Christian principles! And I believe that if we should fail to follow these principles then we should to be able to point to our successes, for the result of our political battle is surely not unblest by God.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech at Koblenz, to the Germans of the Saar, 26 Aug. 1934
We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls…. We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity… in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Passau, 27 October 1928, Bundesarchiv
Berlin-Zehlendorf, [cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich]
We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933 [This statement clearly refutes modern Christians who claim Hitler as favoring atheism.]
Suck it up fundies!
From:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited. "
Adolf Hitler, in a speech made on 12 April 1922
No, it is not we that have deserted Christianity, it is those who came before us who deserted Christianity. We have only carried through a clear division between politics which have to do with terrestrial things, and religion, which must concern itself with the celestial sphere. There has been no interference with the doctrine (Lehre ) of the Confessions or with their religious freedom (Bekenntnisfreiheit ), nor will there be any such interference.
On the contrary the State protects religion, though always on the one condition that religion will not be used as a cover for political ends….National Socialism neither
opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity…. For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life… These are not antiChristian, these are Christian principles! And I believe that if we should fail to follow these principles then we should to be able to point to our successes, for the result of our political battle is surely not unblest by God.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech at Koblenz, to the Germans of the Saar, 26 Aug. 1934
We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls…. We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity… in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Passau, 27 October 1928, Bundesarchiv
Berlin-Zehlendorf, [cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich]
We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933 [This statement clearly refutes modern Christians who claim Hitler as favoring atheism.]
Suck it up fundies!
From:
Friday, June 19, 2009
Here's an idea: what if the Government introduced voluntary gay marriage?
Here's an idea: what if the Government introduced voluntary gay marriage?
SMH opinion piece:
It's got humour and barbs, and best of all it's up moralizing dumb fundies. :)
SMH opinion piece:
It's got humour and barbs, and best of all it's up moralizing dumb fundies. :)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The anti GLBTI league are at it again:
Story:
My post which probably wont go up cause it's too long and just rambles on with my reactions to other people's posts:
I'm 39, have been married for 15 years and am straight and I want gay people to be allowed to get married. We don't have children, so getting married isn't for that. I don't believe in any of the thousands of gods available for belief in, so it's not for that. People have a very narrow view of what marriage is for and what it does. My view is also narrow. It is for love. Why can't people get married if they are in love regardless of sexual orientation.
GBLTI people don't effect me. They are doing their own thing with their own lives. However, the moralising prudes who oppose gay marriage do have an effect on me. This minority of busy bodies sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong effects my life too. If you want to live your life by some set of rules made up by goat herders in a time when "the wheelbarrow was emergent technology" (Harris) then go and do that and leave the rest of us to get on with our information age lives. The Amish might have the lifestyle you're looking for.
Do people really imagine that coupling in permanent relationships is a thing that came to humanity via religion? The married state of two people looking after children together resulted in more children. This married state was been co-opted by religion because they knew that they needed to get control of the sex lives of people or they would have no social recognition. As soon as people gave this control to the church, the church knew it had us byt he short and curlies... literally.
Just read the Galaxy report. How would the people complaining about the quality of the survey like the questions to be surveyed? "Thinking about how you will burning in hell for all eternity for supporting gay rights, we're thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah here people, would you say that evil, dirty Gays should be allowed to destroy the world by getting married?" Would the phrasing of that question have made the religious right happy?
Really the GLBTI community is not asking for the right to be married, they are asking for the restriction on their marrying being removed. It is not self evident to me that GLBTI marriage should not be allowed.
Christianity (I'm assuming that this is the god that many people has sighted) has had just shy of 2000 years to make the perfect society. There is a special word for societies where religion has the absolute power that they think they deserve through divine right. That special word is a dark age. Islam is in a dark age at the moment where women can be beaten on the street for dressing in a manner unacceptable to someone holding the Koran and couples can be gaoled for having an affair. Before people want their holy books brought in as law they should have a close look at what they will be tortured and gaoled for. Poly-cotton, eye glasses and shell fish would be crimes carrying the same punishment as being gay.
I don't think that gay people are going to want to force churches to marry them. Why would anyone want to be married in a church where people hate them?
My post which probably wont go up cause it's too long and just rambles on with my reactions to other people's posts:
I'm 39, have been married for 15 years and am straight and I want gay people to be allowed to get married. We don't have children, so getting married isn't for that. I don't believe in any of the thousands of gods available for belief in, so it's not for that. People have a very narrow view of what marriage is for and what it does. My view is also narrow. It is for love. Why can't people get married if they are in love regardless of sexual orientation.
GBLTI people don't effect me. They are doing their own thing with their own lives. However, the moralising prudes who oppose gay marriage do have an effect on me. This minority of busy bodies sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong effects my life too. If you want to live your life by some set of rules made up by goat herders in a time when "the wheelbarrow was emergent technology" (Harris) then go and do that and leave the rest of us to get on with our information age lives. The Amish might have the lifestyle you're looking for.
Do people really imagine that coupling in permanent relationships is a thing that came to humanity via religion? The married state of two people looking after children together resulted in more children. This married state was been co-opted by religion because they knew that they needed to get control of the sex lives of people or they would have no social recognition. As soon as people gave this control to the church, the church knew it had us byt he short and curlies... literally.
Just read the Galaxy report. How would the people complaining about the quality of the survey like the questions to be surveyed? "Thinking about how you will burning in hell for all eternity for supporting gay rights, we're thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah here people, would you say that evil, dirty Gays should be allowed to destroy the world by getting married?" Would the phrasing of that question have made the religious right happy?
Really the GLBTI community is not asking for the right to be married, they are asking for the restriction on their marrying being removed. It is not self evident to me that GLBTI marriage should not be allowed.
Christianity (I'm assuming that this is the god that many people has sighted) has had just shy of 2000 years to make the perfect society. There is a special word for societies where religion has the absolute power that they think they deserve through divine right. That special word is a dark age. Islam is in a dark age at the moment where women can be beaten on the street for dressing in a manner unacceptable to someone holding the Koran and couples can be gaoled for having an affair. Before people want their holy books brought in as law they should have a close look at what they will be tortured and gaoled for. Poly-cotton, eye glasses and shell fish would be crimes carrying the same punishment as being gay.
I don't think that gay people are going to want to force churches to marry them. Why would anyone want to be married in a church where people hate them?
Monday, June 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
ReligionIsBullshit.net
Religion is bullshit has an excellent description of atheism.
I like what the writer is saying about "denying god". Dumb fundies always want to way that I am denying god. I've never been able to put my finger on why this bugs me so much.
I like what the writer is saying about "denying god". Dumb fundies always want to way that I am denying god. I've never been able to put my finger on why this bugs me so much.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Some Quotes
It is often imagined that atheists are, in principle, closed to spiritual experience. But the truth [… ] is that there is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing self transcending love, or ecstasy, or rapture, or awe. In fact, there's nothing that prevents an atheist from going into a cave for a year or a decade and practising meditation like the profit Misif (?). What atheists don't tend to do is make unjustified and unjustifiable claims about the cosmos on the basis of those experiences.
Sam Harris
We're all connected. To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To rest of the universe, atomically. That's kinda cool. That makes me smile. And I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It's not that we are better than the universe, we're part of the universe. We're in the universe and the universe is in us.
Neill deGrasse Tyson
I don't want the religious person in the lab telling me that God is responsible for what it is they cannot discover. Cause look at the hubris of that. You're in the lab and he says "I don't know how this works and not only that but no one on earth knows how this works. And not only that no one that will ever be born will know how this works. That's kind of audacious when you think about it. Then you put it down and go onto the next problem. This problem is the cure for alzheimers, the cure for cancer, or what ever else. I don't want them in the science class room. So the issue is simply about progress and discovery.
Neill deGrasse Tyson
Sam Harris
We're all connected. To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To rest of the universe, atomically. That's kinda cool. That makes me smile. And I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It's not that we are better than the universe, we're part of the universe. We're in the universe and the universe is in us.
Neill deGrasse Tyson
I don't want the religious person in the lab telling me that God is responsible for what it is they cannot discover. Cause look at the hubris of that. You're in the lab and he says "I don't know how this works and not only that but no one on earth knows how this works. And not only that no one that will ever be born will know how this works. That's kind of audacious when you think about it. Then you put it down and go onto the next problem. This problem is the cure for alzheimers, the cure for cancer, or what ever else. I don't want them in the science class room. So the issue is simply about progress and discovery.
Neill deGrasse Tyson
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
