Germany Has the Right Idea

Outside of Scientology headquarters in Berlin, officials have posted a warning sign expressing opposition to activities of the sect and asking people to keep a critical eye out (read Der Speigel article here).

The German government has never recognized Scientology as a religion, refuses to exempt it from taxes, and keeps a constant eye out for "anti-constitutional activity" because of aggressive recruitment.

While I applaud Germany for seeing Scientology for what it is, I can't help but notice the hypocrisy of it. Just like in the US, many Christians are quick to call Mormons or Scientologists crazy cult members.

In my mind, the only thing that Christianity has on Scientology or Mormonism is age and popularity.

It seems that people will continue to ignore the absurdity of their own beliefs while laughing at the equally insane beliefs of others.

You're a Mean One

Group's new Christmas message: Be good, not godly

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington buses starting next week and running through December.
...
The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.
...
"It's the ultimate grinch to say there is no God at a time when millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Christ," said Mathew Staver, the [Liberty Council's] chairman and dean of the Liberty University School of Law. "Certainly, they have the right to believe what they want, but this is insulting."

Certainly he has the right to be insulted as well. Just as everyone around him has the right to disbelieve in his religion despite it putting a damper on his Christmas spirit. Freedom of religion is a bitch.

Posthumous Baptisms

I suppose I would be irritated if the Mormon church was trying to posthumously baptize my family members. But only slightly, since it's entirely nonsense and has no effect on reality.

Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
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"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."
...
"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," Wickman said. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."

Flawed

Around the country early voters are having to wait in long lines to cast their ballots. These waits have been as long as 8 to 10 hours.

It is unconscionable that we still do not have an organized national voting system instead of a disorganized mess that lends to so much unfairness and error.

This is unfair to voters who cannot afford to stand in line for that long because of their jobs, children, or disabilities. How many people give up and go home?

Read an article about the poll waits in Atlanta here, which includes a news video.

Private

The other day I set my blog as private. I was thinking about discontinuing it, but did not want to do anything hasty like deleting it.

I was surprised that some of you noticed, as I have been a bad blogger lately and have not written anything in ages, so I suspected that I had lost most readers.

I realize that doing that without saying anything was in bad form and I apologize.

I promise you there is no drama involved. I simply don't feel that I have anything to write here anymore and began to wonder why I should maintain the blog.

I still frequent all of your blogs, and enjoy keeping up on the current "happenings", but lately do not feel I have anything to add. I have also been pretty preoccupied with my personal life and obsessed with the U.S. elections, and I realize that the things I want to say about that have already been beaten to death.

So I will keep this blog open until further notice, and perhaps the mood will strike again someday and I will write something.

To those who contacted me, thank you for caring and I'm sorry for causing concern.

Amiable

Vote!

Hey everyone,

I'm back from my honeymoon. Thank you for all of the kind wishes. We didn't really have a ceremony, we did it city hall style and then went backpacking around Croatia for a little over a week.

I just got my absentee ballot in the mail today and voted for Obama!

Hope everyone else votes as well.

Cheers

Absent

Please excuse my absence, I'm on my honeymoon for the next week or so.

Cheers!

Meddling Kids

As a kid I remember being slightly disappointed that Scooby Doo always ended the same: every mystery would have a rational explanation.

I guess I was lucky enough as a child to have seen a couple of good shows in the midst of all the rubbish on TV, like Scooby Doo and Bill Nye the Science Guy.

I was reading Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World the other day(yes, it takes me this long to read it!) where he talked about how useful television could be in instilling a passion for science in children, but how it often fails miserably to do so.

Of course the most outlandish and wild explanations are the most interesting. This is a big problem that science has in appealing to people, especially kids.

I think it can sometimes go against our instincts to accept rational explanations. The fantastic ones are so much more appealing and easy. It's something I hope to instill in my kids if I have them one day, a passion for learning and a healthy skepticism.

Love Letter

It was pretty lame being the youngest kid in youth group.

I had just turned 13, so they forcibly removed me from the safety of Sunday school class with my younger brother and made me go alone to the class with all of the scary high schoolers who were all at least 16 years old.

I felt like such a dork. Junior high was bad enough without having to hang out with these older kids who clearly thought I was a weirdo every Sunday.

During one of our youth groups we all sat in a circle and I was sure we were going to start talking about things that would make me blush.

Sure enough, our youth leader asked, "Have you ever received a love letter?"

Of course everyone in the youth group had received a love letter. They talked about who they were from and what it had felt like.

When it was my turn to talk, of course, I was the only one who had not received one. It never occured to me to consider that one that was scribbled on note paper with too many exclamation points and bad handwriting in the sixth grade from that boy who told me he really, really, really liked me. Yuck! So I said I hadn't.

This was horribly embarassing. I felt like such a moron because everyone in the youth group was so much cooler than me and they obviously already had more exciting love lives than I did.

Fortunately I recovered from my shame quickly as our youth leader informed us that we had all been given a love letter!

This love letter was, of course, from God and it was the Bible! Duh, silly!

So that got me wondering, how would I feel about getting this love letter today?

A letter that is genocidal,sexist, incestual, violent, and just plain absurd?

A letter that threatened me with eternal pain and suffering if I do not love and obey the author?


I think I would need a restraining order!

Scum of the Earth

Former ROB ZOMBIE guitarist and current SCUM OF THE EARTH frontman Riggs' 13-year-old son was reportedly reprimanded by his eighth-grade art teacher for wearing an inappropriate t-shirt in the classroom. The art teacher allegedly insulted the student in front of his peers, dragged him out of class into the hallway and forced him to pray on his knees for forgiveness from Jesus Christ.

"This is ridiculous," says Riggs. "[The school in question] is a public school, and there's supposed to be a separation between church and state. The shirt my son was wearing was for my band, SCUM OF THE EARTH. It didn't contain any foul language, it's simply a drawing of a monster on a cross... and nothing more. You would think that someone who's an art teacher would have some understanding of the concept of freedom of speech, and artistic freedom of expression, however this lady is clearly a religions nutcase. It's just another example of how these people have infiltrated public schools, government and politics in an effort to force their own agenda upon anyone who doesn't necessarily believe exactly what they do — regardless of what the First Amendment of the United States Constitution says."

"This whole town is whacked... we're an honest law-abiding family that doesn't cause any harm to anyone around here. Just because I have lots of tattoos, long hair and play in a rock band, the entire town thinks we worship Satan and sacrifice animals to the devil. It's difficult for me to see what's going on in this country, how the religious right is slowly making it acceptable to violate the very laws upon which our great country was founded. I can respect freedom of religion, but shouldn't that also mean that religious people should respect non-religion or other religions as well? Time and time again, we see that the religions right clearly doesn't believe so."

Wow, can you imagine the outrage at this, if the teacher had been a Muslim forcing a Christian child to pray to allah?

I really hope that this guy's celebrity helps to bring some attention to this.


Thanks to RichardDawkins.net