This is posted without comment, because both Cenk and Craig Scarberry are pretty eloquent in their views:
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Make No Law Respecting The Establishment of Religion and Free Exercise Thereof
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Marching in the Moral Vanguard
I know, I'm an atheist. I'm supposed to be immoral, evil, wretched, etc. I suppose I should be on board for whenever people lie or say completely horrible things, or are utter hypocrites. I feel like that's the expectation for my "moral station."
Well, sorry to disappoint. I mean, granted, my evil-o-meter is a little different from many of my religious friends', in that I don't see anything inherently wrong with "blasphemy," nor eatting shellfish, nor disobeying some pretty strict commandments to stone people for various offenses. I mean, sorry. I don't like stoning people, and I don't think it should be done.
So, here are three examples of things that I find morally reprehensible, in all my atheistic-baseness, below the fold. Take it for what you will.
First, a recently re-instated, un-excommunicated priest:
Yes. Indeed. Some Jews may have died, but none were gassed, no, never. There was no Holocaust. Just stories that got exaggerated. Funny, no? Especially since the Catholic Church would never have anything to do with that, or refuse to excommunicate any Nazi leaders. This is one of the same strategies that we see across all denialism - admit to the reasonableness of some part of a position, and then declare the rest as mere exaggeration and fantasy. We'll call it the "strength and weaknesses" approach.
"Well, microevolution, sure. We can observe that. No one in their right mind would doubt it. But macroevolution? Speciation? Clearly just exaggeration. Plus Darwinism leads to the Holocaust." (sorry, also a reductio ad Hitlerum there).
"Well, sure, some Jews died during the war, sure. Maybe a lot. But not millions! That's ridiculous! And gassing them? No, the Nazis never gassed anyone. Why would they?"
"Well, vaccines may have reduced some occurences of disease, but they contain mercury, which casues autism!....Oh, wait, you mean thimeresol isn't the same kind of mercury...like, it breaks down in the body? Oh, and it hasn't been in most vaccines for years? ...Huh. Well, it must be the vaccine itself that causes autism!" (never mind that we're beginning to have serious outbreaks of otherwise preventable diseases...and, you know...children dying, for the sake of Jenny McCarthy's "mommy-instincts.")
"Well, sure the temperature has showed a steady increase, but it can't have anything to do with humans!"
It's all the same. The trends in denialism run rampant and obvious.
Via PZ at Pharyngula.
Second, it's apparently alright for 10-year old girls to be married. Yeah, funny story, it's actually those of us who think that marriage should be reserved for consenting adults that have been acting immorally all this time and going against the will of God. Well, damn. Look at that turn-around. It's sort of like saying "You know, murder is probably wrong," and having someone come back with "Well, maybe those who don't murder are the ones who are wrong. God tells us to murder all the time!"
As much as you expect it, you still never see it coming.
Tip o' the blogging pen to Tiny Frog.
Lastly, Mr. Ted Haggard. He's...well...just watch:
Ah...your sexuality is complicated. It's not in a box. Well. If only you had realized that, you know, before you starting decrying the evils of homosexual behavior and demanding that everyone fit neatly into the heterosexual, wait-until-marriage, monogomous, marry-your-high-school-sweetheart box...See, that's why we call hypocrite. I'd say it's nice to see that you've had a breakthrough, but you really haven't. You're just giving yourself more slack. And it disgusts me.
So, there you have it. Three things that caught my eye that, as an atheist, I am morally upset about. And the day started off so well.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Preparing for Atheist Martyrdom
I'm regularly stunned into silence by things I come across, though often for very different reasons. I'll let you guess my reasons for this one:
Video embedding disabled, follow the link.
Ahem *cough*. Well, that sounds pretty bad. You were just sitting there, worshiping your little hearts out. And some mean, nasty gays came along and ruined the party. Threw coffee on you, even? Man...that must have burned. So badly it didn't leave a discernible mark. Oh, sorry, that's a bit of snark coming through. Wait...wait, what? You were preparing for martyrdom? MARTYRDOM?! Okay, we've hit crazy land. I'm sorry.
Full story below the fold:
Apparently what went down was something along these lines: a group of christians regularly goes into the Castro district of San Francisco, for about the past 3 years. They sit down on a corner and sing their songs and praise the Jesus. Also, they try to convert people and tell them about their sinful and hell-oriented ways. Nice folks, those. "Hey, Jesus is great, you're going to die in a fire! Kthxbye!" Sort of a hate the sin, love the sinner type thing...which really just turns into hate the sin, restrict and oppress and (oops!) hate the sinner.
Oh, and of course, Bill O'Reilly picks up the story and talks to the woman who was "beaten with a Bible." Notice the inconsistencies in the two stories. In the first, the Bible was ripped out of her hands. In this one, she was just sitting there and someone picked it up. And the police saw it. But they didn't see it. And they didn't arrest him, because she didn't want to press charges, even though they're legally required to if they witness an assault. And Bill, to his small credit, actually mentions this, but then just lets it go. Ah, hard hitting journalism.
Oh, and you notice the few clips that Bill shows there. They're from this video, which at the moment is the only footage I know of the whole event:
Oh...riot gear? You mean the one dude with a helmet and kevlar? ...FUCK!
Alright, let me break this down as best I can, though I feel that Abbie over at ERV has already done a better job.
If you want to be a jackass and go to a district of a people that you have just stripped of one of their legal rights, set up shop in front of a monument of a man who had just died the week before and was well known for his fight in the gay-rights movement, and sing your happy songs about the Jeebus and how Prop 8 passed (you know...in California...), and tell anyone who asks that they need to come to Jesus and be cured of their homosexuality...that's fine. It's within your free speech rights.
If people in that district are horribly offended by you and your actions and your continued holier-than-thou gloating and want you to leave them alone, that's fine too. If they want to have a peaceful protest and march you out peacefully, well, public demonstration.
Violence should not be condoned in these situations, and according to the police, there was no violence. One guy apparently throw an iced coffee at some of the christian group, but he was hauled off by other gay men to the police.
Ugh! The self-righteous and pompousness gets to me, especially this early in the morning.
Oh, and what's that you say? Our economy is failing because we don't say Merry Christmas?! Well! Okay! That does it! I'm out, I'm done with the human community. I'm packing it up. I'm moving to the Satellite of Love and am just going to build some friggen robots and watch movies. Movies like Mad Max, which, apparently, we're going to be emulating soon if we don't say MERRY EFFING CHRISTMAS to one another and smile!
AGGGGH!
Nevermind the fact that religiosity in a 1st world democracy correlates with absolutely offensive behavior. Nevermind that it wasn't the atheists in charge of government, or the banks, or regulatory agencies, or the significant block of people buying up sub-prime mortgages...but no, no, no. It's the atheists' fault. Of course it is! We don't celebrate Christmas! Well...wait, actually, most of us do. We just celebrate it secularly. We still say Merry Christmas...oh, oh, I'm sorry. I just let facts get in the way of your ideology.
Sorry for the rant. But. For Christ's cracker-sake, people. Are we getting that stupid and gullible?
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Hi-larious
Ohmygoodness!
Ohmygoodness! I love how Demille totally predates the Goth look. Man. Totally ahead of his time.
Now my only question is whether this is ironic or not. If it is ironic, then...tip-top awesome! If not, then just plain hilarious. "Does this mean I miss out on my Christmas holiday?" HAH! Jeez. The ONLY good reason not to be an atheist: presents!
Tip o' the hat to Skepchick for the link.
______________
So, I'm in school in the midwest. I'm a grad student, to be more precise, in religious studies. Yes, I know. An atheist, in religious studies. What was I thinking? I ask myself this sometimes, but I think skeptics and atheists do need to learn ABOUT religions. We might be some of the best people in the field, in fact, and there's been a large upsurge of at-least-agnostics studying religion recently, which is nice to see.
And please don't laugh at the grad students. We're just people who made terrible life choices. *sigh*
And what am I reading right now, you might ask? I know, thrilling!
For one, I'm reading Bonhoeffer for a class, his "Ethics." I just can't get into this book in the slightest. I find some parts of it, like his discussion of speech, quite interesting, and I feel like I could draw out useful bits of it. However, the vast majority is drawn up in the fact that the only possible basis for ethics is the Jesus. Seriously?
More on this later. Too much work tonight. Really just wanted to post the atheist video for giggles.
If anyone has extra tickets to TAM 6...um...please?
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