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.

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.
...
"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."

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

Biden on Religion in Politics

Sen. Joe Biden talks about abortion and his faith on Meet the Press.



Sen. Joe Biden: I know when it begins for me. It is a personal and private issue. For me as a Roman Catholic I'm prepared to accept the teaching of my church. But let me tell you, there are a lot of people of great confessional faiths, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others, who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They're intently as religious as I am religious. They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views. I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception, but that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally, maybe even more devout than I am, seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society...

Sen. Joe Biden: ...what I've voted against is curtailing the right, criminalizing abortion. I've voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view, that it's a moment of conception. ... How am I going out to tell you or anyone else, that you must insist upon my view that is based on a matter of faith, and that's the reason I haven't. This is a matter between a person's God, however they believe in God, their doctor and themselves, and what we're going to be doing is make sure that we reduce considerably the number of abortions that take place by providing the care, the assistance and the encouragement for people to be able to carry to term and to raise their children.

This is an attitude I wish more religious people had. Biden is religious, but he does not want to impose those beliefs on anyone else, because he knows everyone has their own beliefs and are entitled to them.

If more religious people thought like this, I would have no problem at all with them.

But I do have a problem, because too many of them do not respect differing beliefs and want to impose their religious views on everyone else.

This is the biggest difference I see between the two parties competing for the White House. One assumes their beliefs are the best and seeks to impose them on everyone, while the other recognizes that their faith is not the only or best one.

Source

Communion on the Moon

Here is a short article titled Communion between God and science by Rev J Williams.

Immediately after Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon in 1969 and his ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind’ speech, his colleague Buzz Aldrin celebrated Holy Communion in the landing craft.

Buzz, after whom the toy Buzz Lightyear is named, asked Mission Control for silence.

Then, to mark this historic moment, he took Holy Communion which had been prepared for him in advance by his church.

The first bread consumed on the moon and the first wine drunk there were the elements of Holy Communion.

This symbolic act was deliberate.

The astronaut was sending the world the message that Christian belief and science are in harmony.

He was at the cutting edge of science and yet, at the same time, a believer in God and a church-goer.

Science merely tells us how God makes things work. The Bible on the other hand, tells us why we are here.

Many people imagine that science and religious belief are incompatible, but in reality, across the world, millions of scientists believe in God.

These people see scientific discoveries as proof the universe has been designed by a Supreme Intelligence.

Science shows that the nucleus of every cell in the human body contains as much data as that found in a 30-volume encyclopedia. Such complexity cannot have happened by chance and is clear evidence of the existence of a Creator God.

Sadly, whenever reference is made to science and religious belief in the British media, it is done so assuming that there is conflict between the two.

In reality, many scientists believe in God precisely because of their scientific studies and see true science as the friend of religious belief.

With this fact rarely mentioned, it is no wonder that the UK is one of the few places in the world where church attendance is declining.

Well, I had never heard the story about Buzz Aldrin before, so that was...interesting.

And I am thrilled whenever I hear a religious person speaking favorably about science. Too often I see the articles or hear the stories of those that do not value it. I hope I am looking in the wrong places.

I am not sure, however, if the author is right. Are science and religon compatible?

Clearly a literal interpretation of their holy books is not compatible with a scientific worldview. In order to maintain religious belief and accept the findings of science, one must either "compartmentalize" or accept that many of the stories in their holy books are simply that: stories.

Since science led me to doubt the existence of God, I sometimes feel that is where it must inevitably lead everyone with an open mind.

But maybe I am wrong. I recognize that one can still hold belief in a greater power and call it "God".

Will Christianity and Islam, specifically, continue to modernize and adopt a more rational and tolerant worldview?

I hope that is the case: that they continue to take steps forward instead of trying to drag us all back with them.

Response to Kitty Foth-Regner

This is my response to a comment left by Kitty Foth Regner, author of the book Heaven Without Her.

Original comment is here.

You mentioned several different topics in your comment to me, which you probably realize have already been addressed and answered hundreds of times by more qualified people than me, and that the responses are available for you to see on the internet and have been for a long time.

Clearly if the answers were enough to change your mind, you would have, just as if your arguments were enough to change my mind I would have already done so. Your arguments and mine are not original thoughts, but things that have already been thoroughly discussed by many qualified people.

So these answers are not really for you, because I know you are aware of the responses to your arguments and that they will do nothing to change your mind coming from me. But I have decided to try to provide responses to your arguments point by point mainly because I want those responses to be available to anyone who happens to see your comment.

Now, I am the first person to admit that I am no scientist, and I believe that you are not either. But I spent a lot of time researching the arguments you referenced against evolution and I will try to either answer them or refer you to existing responses:

Why do so many people oppose evolution? Is it because they do not like its implications? Regardless of whether we like the conclusions, the evidence overwhelmingly points to this. Just because it makes many people uncomfortable, does not make it any less true.

…children are not learning “differing viewpoints.”… They are learning only evolutionary fairy tales.

Intelligent design does not deserve equal standing in a science classroom with evolution because it is not a science. Science is a system of acquiring knowledge and intelligent design is based on personal religious belief.

Equal time would mean teaching every other creation story that mankind has believed in (Muslim, Hindu, Native American, and countless others). But they obviously do not want fair and equal time, because that would be ridiculous. What they really want is for the intelligent design to get preferential treatment simply because the Christian faith is dominant throughout the western world. But that does not give it any more validity.

The main argument for intelligent design is that the world seems like it was created. If that is the case, then why, necessarily, was it created by your creator? You have no specific proof that it was created by the God of the Bible.

Intelligent design is creationism disguised as a science in an effort to get it taught in schools, after the Edwards v. Aguillard made it unconstitutional. It is promoted by Christian groups because its main purpose is to promote the idea of the Biblical God as designer.

For more information on why intelligent design is creationism visit Talk Origins.

Another reason intelligent design does not deserve equal footing with evolution is that it has no evidence. On the other hand, evolution has mountains of evidence, and many other fields of science support the fact of evolution. Evolution is one of the most heavily criticized theories of science, and yet it has stood up to all of this intense criticism. If the evidence for evolution were not extremely strong, people would have succeeded long ago to refute it. But they cannot because the evidence is there.

Instead its proponents merely try to poke holes in the theory of evolution. But just because you think you can disprove Theory A, does not necessarily prove Theory B. You have to provide evidence for the “theory” of intelligent design, not just try to poke holes in evolution.

No taxpayer-funded teacher or professor ever mentions, for instance, that before he died, the late great evolutionist Stephen J. Gould of Harvard resorted to resurrecting the “hopeful monster” theory of our origins – “punctuated equilibrium,” he called it to give it more dignity – because, as he admitted, the transitional fossils that evolution theory requires simply do not exist.

This is an example of quote-mining and a misrepresentation of what Gould actually said in his essay “Return of Hopeful Monsters”.

Please visit Answers in Genesis Busted for more info on the misuse of this quote.

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists--whether through design or stupidity, I do not know--as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled 'Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax' states: 'The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge...are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible.'"

That was a quote from Gould’s essay “Evolution as Fact and Theory”

And you can visit Talk Origins for more discussions of misquotations commonly used by antievolutionists.

No taxpayer-funded teacher dares to look at the irreducible complexity or at the fact that positive, additive genetic mutations do not occur.

Irreducible complexity implies that a system cannot function if one of its parts is missing, therefore it couldn’t have evolved by the addition of single parts without a loss or change of function. But there are still other evolutionary mechanisms that have been observed in genetic mutations:

• deletion of parts
• addition of multiple parts
• change of function
• addition of a second function to a part
• gradual modification of parts

Even if irreducible complexity did provide difficulty for the theory of evolution, intelligent design does not necessarily follow. This is an argument from incredulity or “god of the gaps”.

For more information on irreducible complexity: Talk Origins.

Here are Responses to Michael Behe

And here is more about the argument from incredulity, or “god of the gaps”.

No taxpayer-funded teacher dares to even wonder aloud how the laws of thermodynamics or biogenesis fit into evolutionary thought.

Intelligent design supporters believe that the second law of thermodynamics does not permit order to arise from disorder, therefore showing that macroevolution is not possible. But the second law of thermodynamics says no such thing.

“It says that heat will not spontaneously flow from a colder body to a warmer one or, equivalently, that total entropy (a measure of useful energy) in a closed system will not decrease. This does not prevent increasing order because: the earth is not a closed system and entropy is not the same as disorder.”

“The only processes necessary for evolution to occur are reproduction, heritable variation, and selection. All of these are seen to happen all the time, so, obviously, no physical laws are preventing them. In fact, connections between evolution and entropy have been studied in depth and never to the detriment of evolution”

For more information on the second law of thermodynamics and entropy check out Talk Origins: here and here.

The law of biogenesis states that modern organisms do not spontaneously arise in nature from non-life.

“The spontaneous generation that Pasteur and others disproved was the idea that life forms such as mice, maggots, and bacteria can appear fully formed. They disproved a form of creationism. There is no law of biogenesis saying that very primitive life cannot form from increasingly complex molecules.”

For more information check out Talk Origins Abiogenesis FAQs

Essentially, “no taxpayer-funded teacher dares to even wonder aloud” about these things, because they have already been addressed many times over by scientists. It is not as if these points are being hidden, they are discussed in the open and not viewed as a threat to evolution. These issues require a lot of background in biology to even understand, and that is why they are not taught to beginning students.

Also, attempting to expose weaknesses in the theory of evolution does not in any way make intelligent design more viable. This assumes that evolution and intelligent design are the only two possible models, which is false. Problems with one model do not imply that the remaining model is true. Another unknown explanation could be correct.

… why are evolutionists afraid of having the arguments for intelligent design and creation science presented alongside their proofs for evolution?

Scientists are not afraid of intelligent design. Intelligent design does not even qualify as a scientific theory because all of its claims of evidence have been shown to be invalid.

The threat is not to science, the threat is to education and the separation of church and state in this nation.

I am afraid of having the arguments for intelligent design presented alongside evolution in science class because I am concerned with children learning about the actual scientific method and learning critical thought. Intelligent design is simply a wedge used to get religion into schools. They only attack evolution because they see it as a threat to their Biblical explanations of the world. When intelligent design is given equal standing in science classes with the theory of evolution, it will mean that the nation’s children are not learning what actual science is, and they are not being taught to use their critical faculties.

Intelligent design relies on supernatural explanations. But science is about finding natural, reproducible, testable explanations. Teaching our students otherwise is harmful to their development of critical thinking. It is also harmful to our nation’s scientific and technological development.

The truth is, real science confirms Genesis, not Darwin. But real science does not get a hearing in our schools these days. That was my point: For nearly 50 years, our schools have been teaching that evolution accounts for the universe, that anti-Christian worldviews are intellectually sound, and that tolerance is the highest virtue. Our courts have in fact outlawed any mention of Christianity in our schools. So who’s closed-minded?

Please explain to me what your notion of “real science” is?

Distinguishing science from pseudoscience requires a definition of its methodology:

Science is a method of acquiring knowledge that uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena. It must be testable and reproducible.

Intelligent design is not based on any of these things, but simply on the desire for the Biblical explanation to be true. But wanting does not make it so.

…Our schools have been teaching…anti-Christian worldviews…

This may come as a surprise, but there are many different worldviews that differ from your own. A person who can’t see the value in learning to view the world from a different perspective is being closed-minded and ignorant. The Christian worldview has as much validity as any other worldview out there, and to claim that it is superior merely because it is dominant in the western world, would be arrogant.

In science, worldview is irrelevant. Worldview should not be taught in science class because science is fact regardless of one’s worldview. The vast majority of scientists from all over the world with many different worldviews all come together in agreement on the fact of evolution, as well as on many other scientific facts.

As I mentioned before, just because science does not fit your worldview or because you don’t like its implications is not enough reason to disqualify it. You must provide other valid alternatives that are based on more than religious beliefs and emotions.

…our schools have been teaching that…tolerance is the highest virtue…

Are you advocating the teaching of intolerance to our children in schools? Would it be better to teach our children to hate and disregard those that are different? We have seen the kind of hatred and violence that results from intolerance too often during our recent history and I honestly cannot believe that you would suggest that the teaching of tolerance is a bad thing.

Do you consider it a good thing that some Muslim children are being taught religious intolerance? Is racial intolerance a good thing? I honestly don’t understand where you are coming from on this one. Is it your idea that Jesus promoted intolerance?

Our courts have in fact outlawed any mention of Christianity in our schools.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

That was the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which prohibits the government from establishing a religion, from showing preference to one religion over another, or from showing preference to religion over non-religion.

Any mention of Christianity is not outlawed in our schools, but the promotion of Christianity above other beliefs is. This is the right that our founding fathers fought for, and this is a right that also protects Christians, so I honestly cannot understand why they would want to get rid of it. If ever in the future Christianity is not the majority religion in the United States, Christians would surely lament the loss of this freedom in the event that someone else’s religious beliefs were being imposed on them.

These rights were set out from the beginning, so to imply that they are something that has been imposed on you and other Christians or that religion has been “taken out” of schools or the public sphere, is blatantly false. These are rights that protect us all and rights that we should try very hard to preserve for future generations.

For more information about the First Amendment and the freedoms it provides us, look here.

In conclusion, I would like to remind the reader that I am not an expert, but I was able to find all of these answers online and you can do the same yourself. All of the typical arguments of antievolutionists have been refuted. Unfortunately this fact does not prevent them from being continually used.

The best source by far, and which I relied heavily upon for this response, is Talk Origins where you can find a long index to creationist claims and responses and tons of other helpful information about evolution.

It's in the Water!

Here's a book review I stumbled upon. The book is Heaven Without Her by Kitty Foth-Regner, the story of an atheist turned believer after her mother's death. This is a clear illustration of the fact that people do not turn to religion out of rational thought, but out of pure emotion. Because there is nothing rational about it.

But what particularly struck me is the opening line of the review:

We've all heard the charges: Secular colleges and universities negate the need for a Creator by teaching that evolution accounts for the universe, expose students to anti-Christian worldviews, and then teach tolerance as the highest virtue.

Could these charges possibly be true?

Say it isn't so! Our children are learning science, differing viewpoints, and tolerance in school? The horror!

It really is a shame that a lot of Christian families fear even the prospect of their children being exposed to other ideas. Simply the closed-mindedness and ignorance of that is enough for me to have a basic disgust for their type of belief.

Are they that insecure in their faith? Deep down do they realize that their beliefs can't hold a candle to science and rational thought?

My family also has this fear of education. It reminds me of the tree of knowledge in the Bible. I always wondered, why on Earth is it such a bad thing to have knowledge?

Because knowledge is power and religion thrives on the powerless.

I remember times when I would learn something new in school. Excited, I would share it with my parents when I got home, only to be disappointed by their response.

"That's ridiculous. Your teacher doesn't know anything."

At first I was a little hurt and confused by their response. Why didn't my parents appreciate the new information I had to tell them? I began to realize that my parents did not value science or rational thought. They did not value new ideas or anything that opposed their way of thinking. They were more content to keep believing whatever it was their parents had tought them, regardless of the evidence.

As an adult I am still shocked and dismayed by their reactions.

When I discussed with my brother a little while before I became an atheist how amazing it was to watch orangutans and to see the similarities we have with these relatives, my mother overheard and said, "But what about what the Bible says? That can't be true."

I replied, "But you can't take the Bible literally, Mom."

"Of course you can."

This was the first time I realized to what extent she was willing to ignore reality.

I was upset that so many people that I trusted as a child actually taught me ridiculous stories out of the Bible as literal truth. Did they really believe it themselves? How could these seemingly intelligent adults that I trusted actually believe such nonsense?

Even more recently I informed my grandparents that I had been in Berlin and had heard Obama's speech. They were disappointed when they realized I had made a trip there especially to hear Obama, and wasn't just in Berlin "by coincidence".

My grandfather warned me not to believe everything I had heard to which I replied,

"Don't worry, I don't believe everything I'm told."

But they only want me to believe certain things I'm told, they just wish they could censor the rest. Just as amusing (and/or depressing) was when they were saddened to discover that no, I unfortunately do not get the Fox News Channel in Germany. Apparently it's too risky watching other news channels because I might be brainwashed by the liberals that "run the media"! Terrifying thought, I know.

This is a fundamental problem I see with religion. It is so closed-minded that the potential of differing viewpoints even being overheard causes them genuine distress.

Of course there are people on every side of every issue who want to censor opposing viewpoints. I am in opposition to this idea no matter what viewpoint they support. But I feel that religion is especially eager for this type of censorship.

I do not oppose intelligent design in school because I fear my children will be converted to creationists. I oppose it in science class because it does not meet the requirements of a science. I oppose it because I am afraid it will lead to the total removal of critical thought and real science from the classroom and that my children will never hear about evolution. I have absolutely no problem with my children hearing about intelligent design and about religion in the appropriate venue. But that appropriate venue is not science class.

There is no fear of their children not hearing about their god and their creation story. They hear it at church. I wish they would be content to leave it at that. But the fear that their children might actually hear another side to the story is what leads them to try to censor and condemn differing viewpoints.

Awe Inspiring

Since I have had the awesome opportunity to live in Europe, I have seen several beautiful cathedrals.

I can easily see how these massive structures inspired awe.

These buildings could be seen from far away and people traveled great distances to visit them.



It is mind-boggling to consider how difficult it must have been to build these cathedrals without modern machinery and it is easy to imagine how the sight of one of these beautiful buildings would be enough to convince a person back then that their god truly did exist.

But today these impressive structures seem to me to be a testament to the enormous waste. How many people went hungry or had no place to live while these great monuments were built to glorify their gods?

True, these buildings are gorgeous and a wonder to see today. But sometimes I cannot fathom the amount of energy and money spent, and in my opinion, wasted on creating these giant monuments to non-existent deities.

It is true when people say that religion has given us very beautiful music, art, and architecture. But would the same beauty have resulted in the absence of religion? Some say it wouldn't, but it can only be conjecture.


Perhaps a secular country would waste their money glorifying other things.

An ideal society, however, would not have wasted so much money creating a building that served no real purpose when its citizens were homeless, sick, or hungry. Whether religious or secular shouldn't the goals be the same?

But I am quite convinced that one does not need god to inspire such beauty.

First photo: Milan Cathedral, Italy
Second and third: Meissen Cathedral, Germany

Spore and Atheists

Here's an interesting interview with the creator of the game Spore, Will Wright.

In the interview Wright talks about being an atheist, his initial fears about offending religious people with the representation of religion in the game, and the surprising fact that most criticism of the religious aspects of the game are from what he calls "militant atheists".

"I'd probably be best described as an atheist. I'm open to the idea that there is some creator somewhere. I can almost envision humans one day being able to create a micro-universe."

"I think our bigger fear was that we didn't want to offend any religious people; but looking at the discussion that unfolded from this thing, what we had was a good, sizeable group of players that we might call militant atheists, and the rest of the players seemed very tolerant, including all of the religious players."

"I didn't expect to hit hot buttons on the atheist side as much; I expected it on the religious side," Wright revealed. "But so far I've had no critical feedback at all from anybody who is religious feeling that we were misrepresenting religion or it was bad to represent religion in the game. It was really the atheists."



I'm not going to get into my dislike of the ridiculous term "militant atheism" in this post. We'll save that for another day. But what do you think about what he says? Do you think it is offensive that a video game would have a religious aspect to it?

To me, it seems like that is the entire premise of the game and one should obviously know that going in. You are playing a "god-like role" by creating life, or something. I haven't played it, but would like to give it a try sometime. Tell me what you think.

Protecting the Church

State judges determined that harm done to a 17 year old girl during an exorcism performed by her church are protected by the First Ammendment.

And while this might mean "certain harms may go unaddressed...the larger protection of the church and religious freedom is the overriding concern."

The protection of the church overrides our children's safety?


"The government can't get involved in overseeing religious practices. The best way to say it is it's not American.

"If she did prevail that would erase about 150 years of law in this country from the Supreme Court saying the government does not get involved in the internal affairs and operations of the church. It would effectively be the end of church independence and religious freedom in our country."

In other words, these judges refuse to hold religion responsible for its crimes. Once again, religion is escaping criticism. When are we going to remove religion from its pedestal of un-earned respect and hold it up to the same standards of decency we require of ourselves?

At what point would these judges consider the abuse to be severe enough to warrant interference?

Luckily, three of the judges did not agree with the ruling:

[the ruling] was "inconsistent with US Supreme Court precedent and extends far beyond the protections our Constitution affords religious conduct."

Laura Schubert Pearson, now 29 and mother of two, says she plans to take her case to the US Supreme Court. Let's hope they show a little more sense.

(Thanks to RichardDawkins.net)

Every Sperm is Sacred

A 44 year old woman in Canada just gave birth to her 18th child.

"We never planned how many children to have. We just let God guide our lives, you know, because we strongly believe life comes from God and that's the reason we did not stop the life," said Mr Ionce, who works in construction.

None of the couple's children were multiple births and all were born naturally apart from their four-year-old son Filip, who was born by Caesarean-section.

"[W]e strongly believe life comes from God"

Someone needs to explain to these people where babies actually come from! They seem to have some confusion on the subject if they think it is only because God wills it. I just hope they have the finances and patience to raise all 18 of these children properly.

Surfing for God at Work

A city council in the UK has blocked its staff from looking at websites about atheism.

The Birmingham City Council has established rules that prevent its staff from visiting websites promoting atheism, witchcraft, Satanism, the occult, sexual deviancy, and criminal activity.

Under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, it is unlawful to discriminate against workers because of their religion or belief, which includes atheism.

The National Secular Society is currently seeking to get the rule changed, otherwise they will pursue legal action.

Why atheism is lumped in with sexual deviancy and criminal activity, I don't understand. Assuming that atheists are immoral, criminal, sexual deviants, is ridiculous, but nothing new.

And while these people should probably be working instead of surfing the net, this is clearly a violation of atheists' (and Wiccans') rights as staff are still allowed to visit sites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions. They either need to limit access to all religious sites, or stop including atheism and wicca in their definition of criminal and deviant activities.

Worshipping Mother Earth

'Environmentalism' is the new worldwide faith, writes J.D. Longstreet.

At the center of this new faith is a single deity. Mother Earth!

If I try to keep my house clean and orderly or wash and style my hair, does that mean I worship my house and my hair?

Environmentalism is a 'feel-good' religion based on a myth!

As opposed to your 'feel-bad' religion based on a myth?

It is a Pagan religion and Christian churches, and Christian men and women, should have nothing to do with it.

Christians everywhere, you heard him! Please stop recycling, car pooling, and turning off your lights when you leave the room.

It stands against the tenets of Christianity and is, at it's very base, blasphemous!

It is against our teachings to conserve the planet! We want to destroy it as quickly as possible so we can move on to the next life!

You know, a fact is a fact. It makes absolutely no difference whether you, or I accept that fact. It remains a fact, a truth. No matter how much we try to ignore it, or work around it, like the elephant in the room' it is always a looming presence. Facts are like that...

There is rarely anything as dangerous as 'the arrogance of ignorance'.

Now I'm really confused, what's he talking about?

A favorite quote of mine is brought to mind...

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts

J.D. Longstreet is definitely an atheist when it comes to the 'religion of environmentalism'.

The Muslim Dilemma

Obama says Muslim issue is 'no-win situation'

Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday that responding to incorrect assertions that he’s a Muslim has put him in a “no-win situation."

If he allows the Internet rumors and other misleading information to go unchallenged, it’s an affront to his Christianity and could cost him support from voters who don’t want a Muslim in the White House. But if he aggressively confronts the rumors, it could suggest to some that there’s something wrong with being a Muslim.

“This is a classic example of a no-win situation,” Mr. Obama told hundreds of journalists gathered in Chicago for the UNITY convention for journalists of color.

“I have repeatedly said I’m not a Muslim, but this whole strategy of suggesting that I am is indicative of anti-Muslim strategy that we have to fight against,” he said.

Mr. Obama said he also didn’t want his religion to be falsely identified as a matter of respect for his own faith.

“If you were a Muslim and somebody consistently said you were a Christian, I suspect that you would want to have that corrected,” he said.

Later, Mr. Obama was asked whether he would be a strong contender for president if he were a Muslim.

He didn’t directly answer the question, but said the “American people are more tolerant and open minded than a lot of the pundits give them credit for.”

Constantly accusing Obama of being a Muslim is almost like using the Hitler card. By saying that Obama is a Muslim, these people are also expressing their dislike for the religion, and basically saying that they don't think a Muslim should be president.

This is why I don't agree with Obama's statement that American people are more tolerant than pundits give them credit for. You are practically un-electable if you are anything but Christian, and this hardly shows tolerance for other beliefs.

The Hitler Card

In almost every heated debate somebody inevitably plays the Hitler Card.

What is the Hitler Card? This is associating your opponent's position with either Hitler or the Nazis, and basically claiming guilt by association.

This is basically seen as a last resort or a dirty trick to use in an argument, as associations made to Hitler are often factually incorrect, or are insufficient to discredit an idea.

Frequent uses of the Hitler Card appear during debates on topics such as atheism, evolution, abortion, and eugenics.

The association with atheism, as I have said in previous blogs, is a false one because Hitler was clearly not an atheist. He believed in a higher power. It may not have been your higher power, but it is enough for him to be defined as a theist.



Other uses may be ineffective because mere association is not enough to discredit an idea.

Examples:

Hitler is responsible for the Volkswagen.
Therefore, Volkswagens are evil.

Hitler liked to paint.
Therefore, painting is evil.

Hitler had a mustache.
Therefore, mustaches are evil.

The Hitler card is often employed as a dirty trick used to incite emotions about a terrible time in the past. It is often over- or mis- used, specifically when an opponent wants to distract or anger their opponent.

Some of the most recent uses of the Hitler Card that I have noticed:

Ben Stein associating scientists and evolution with the Nazis in the film Expelled and claiming that science leads you to killing people. Hitler used science, science must be evil!



Fox News and many other media outlets repeatedly trying to associate Obama with Hitler. One example has been by claiming the Victory Column in Berlin is associated with Hitler and was a bad choice for Obama's Berlin speech. I challenge them to find a place in Berlin that is not associated with Hitler!



Or associating Obama with Hitler because his speeches draw large crowds (200,000 in Berlin last Thursday). Yeah, being a good orator must be bad, because Hitler was a good orator!



Another dirty trick employed by Ann Coulter is associating Obama with Saddam Hussein by repeatedly using his middle name. Same idea, different evil dictator.







So let's all lay off the Hitler Card, folks. It's ridiculous and over-used. Don't always fall for it, and let's stop abusing it and come up with some better arguments.

Go to Hell?

Bishop John Shelby Spong:

Religion is always in the control business. That's something people don't really understand, it's in the guilt producing control business.

The church doesn't like for people to grow up because you can't control grown-ups.

People don't need to be born again, they need to grow up.

Every church I know claims that we are the true church...the idea that the truth of god can be bound in any human system...is almost beyond imagination.

God is not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems, which human beings have created.


This is almost an idea I could subscribe to. You know, if it weren't for the lack of evidence of a god's existence and all that stuff.






Thanks to Atheist Media

Mystical Mischief

Excerpts from an article I read in Time magazine by Aravind Adiga while riding the train to Berlin yesterday:

Technology may be vibrantly alive in the U.S. — cell phones and laptops are everywhere — but faith in the science that produces this technology has weakened in the past decade. Evidence ranges from the proliferation of street-side palmists all the way to the White House: in 2005, the religious fundamentalists who oppose Darwin's theory of evolution got a boost when President Bush suggested that American schools should have the freedom to choose instead to teach intelligent design — a slick, pseudoscientific version of Biblical creationism. To a visitor from the supposedly mystical East, all this is disturbing — even repulsive.

In my family, as in most middle-class Indian families I knew when I was growing up, science and mathematics were held in awe.

Reason has replaced God for many Indians of my generation. Nothing gives us greater pride than the importance of India's scientific and engineering colleges, or the army of Indian scientists at organizations such as Microsoft and NASA. Our temples are not the god-encrusted shrines of Varanasi, but Western scientific institutions like Caltech and MIT, and magazines like Nature and Scientific American.

How disturbing, then, to come to the U.S. in 2008, and find that faith in science has diminished..

Why blow the whistle as the West declines into mumbo jumbo? Let them take our dozen-armed deities and magic incense sticks; we'll transfer their busts of Galileo and Descartes to our engineering colleges and outsourcing companies. One day soon, their mystical children will wear turbans and serve our rational children at restaurants in Mumbai.

The author addresses a very real possibility in America's future. We are used to thinking that we are the "best and brightest". But in a country where scientific evidence is denied in favor of religious belief, and where pseudoscience is accepted without discernment, we are at risk of falling far behind. Technology and science are progressing in leaps and bounds. If we don't shake ourselves out of our stupor we will wake up to find that the rest of the world has left us far behind.

For a country that relies so heavily on technology, scientific advancements, and the freedom to speak and think as we choose, we show practically no gratitude to the ideals that brought these things to us.

Red Hot Enlightenment

I don't give a stuff what people believe in, but it won't stop me poking at it or prodding it. Why should religion be any exemption? Telling me I'm going to hell won't bother me because I have the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Bertrand Russell's Teapot in my heart. Google them if you are in the market for some red hot enlightenment.

I spent every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life sitting in a medieval torture chamber listening to a bloke bang on about his imaginary friend who did magic tricks. Then the next 20 years massaging, editing and pruning the brainwashing into something that fit until suddenly I woke up one day and realised I was an atheist.

I wasn't searching for anything. I wasn't dabbling or questioning. I wasn't having any kind of spiritual breakdown. I just opened my eyes one day, looked around and realised that I had once been standing in a house and one by one the walls had collapsed and there was no longer a house there. I was standing out in the open. It was very liberating.

Wearing certain things, eating certain things, mumbling certain things at certain times so some imaginary friend will let you into a club in the sky when you die. I want to do my living now, thanks. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of never having lived.

I don't care what people believe in, but I do care that religion impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question. And that it kills people and causes suffering. But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don't even know they're there.

by Catherine Deveny, thanks to Richard Dawkins.net

One of the most troubling things about religious belief is the anticipation of the after life and the thought that this life is just a waiting room.

"Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one." -Richard Dawkins

To spend your life worrying about eternal rewards or punishments seems like such a gross waste to an atheist. This is your chance! Despite the odds, you came into being and you have the ability to think and feel. Don't throw this chance away.

Live, love, and stop worrying so much about what will happen when it's over!

Can Sex Wait?

A Time article discusses the recent trend of purity events across the U.S.

For the most part these are ceremonies where daughters promise to remain pure until they are married and fathers promise to help them protect their purity.

[They]came up with a ceremony; they wrote a vow for fathers to recite, a promise "before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the areas of purity," to practice fidelity, shun pornography and walk with honor through a "culture of chaos" and by so doing guide their daughters as well.

Personally I find this a little creepy and strange. I would never feel comfortable promising my purity to my father, let alone discussing it with him. We just don't have that kind of relationship.

A section where a girl talked about a bracelet with a locket that her parents gave her, and only her father has the key. When she is married he will give the key to her husband. I know this is all symbolic, but I couldn't help think of some women in the world who have no rights and are basically chattle. They are their father's property until they are married and then ownership is passed to the husband.

And do these girls really need all of these extravagant parties and symbolism to remain abstinent?

I know first hand how ineffective these kind of abstinence programs are. When I was in the 6th grade a woman came into our classroom and told us about the "Sex Can Wait" program. She had us all take a survey talking about how far we had gone, and then she asked us all to sign a contract promising to remain abstinent until marriage.

How effective was this? Despite the fact that most of my high school class is now already married with kids, I'm fairly certain that all of them did not wait for sex.

I know the contract had little effect on me. I viewed sex as something important and special, so I treated it as such. I waited until I was a legal adult (18). But I can honestly say that I am so grateful I did not wait until marriage.

Why? Because if I had I probably would have married the sleeze I was dating back then sooner, because how long can you date someone before temptations arrise? And now I would be stuck married to an illiterate redneck who doesn't know how email works and who takes better care of his truck than me.

If you want to wait until marriage, that's up to you. But I think the most important thing parents can do is to teach their daughters to respect themselves. And please, teach them to be safe and give them the tools to do so. If temptation arises, and you have made sex completely forbidden, your child is more likely to engage in unsafe sex than someone who has been educated about it and can discuss it openly with their parents.

One of the biggest mistakes I think my parents made was to make discussion of sex kind of off-limits and embarassing. It was very unhealthy and led me to think that everything sex-related was dirty and wrong. I hope that when I have kids they can talk openly to me without fear of being judged.

Citizenship

I was reading about this woman in France who applied for citizenship, but was denied because she wears a burqa.

In 2005 her application for French nationality was rejected for “lack of assimilation”. Now the Conseil d’Etat has rejected her appeal on the ground that she “adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with the essential values of the French community, and particularly with the principle of sexual equality.” This is the first time the court has refused nationality on the grounds of religious expression. The court heard that the couple followed salafism, a radical form of Islam. The woman adopted the burqa at her husband’s request in France, where she “lives in total submission to the men in her family”.

Good for France, I say.

Certain countries have stricter rules for nationality than others. In Germany you have to learn the language and live here for eight years.

I consider this the right of the country to choose what is required for citizenship.

It is not as if they are disallowing her to wear her burqa. They just (rightly) say that wearing a burqa is counter to the values and equality of women in France, so she does not pass the requirements for citizenship.

What do you think? Is it right for France to deny this woman citizenship because of her burqa?