Richard Dawkins on CNN, finally giving them a real atheist's perspective.

The Atheist, P-Funk, is Accosted by Christian Evangelists

This video footage shows exactly what atheists and others have to put up with all too often, especially in the southern states. We're walking along, minding our own business and then they come along and try to force us to listen to their baloney. When is the last time anyone has ever seen an atheist chasing after people to tell them the "good news" that they don't have to be enslaved to an imaginary friend? I am amazed that this guy remained so civil through this onslaught of badgering and idiotic questioning. I would have told them to get the fuck away from me after the first few seconds. Why can't they just leave us in peace?!!!

Via: VideoSift

Final embrace

This is such a beautiful find of two Stone-Age lovers in one final, eternal embrace. "A pair of human skeletons lie entwined at an Neolithic archaeological dig site near Mantova, Italy, in a photo released February 6, 2007. In a Valentines Day gift to the country, scientists said they are determined to jointly remove and preserve the remains of the couple buried 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, their arms still wrapped around each other in an enduring embrace." (Enrico Pajello/Handout/Reuters)

The well-preserved skeletons were discovered facing each other, their arms entwined, during excavation work in an industrial zone of the northern city of Mantua.

"We found these two individuals entwined in a neolithic burial chamber," the lead archeologist Elena Menotti told AFP.

"We believe them to be a man and a woman, DNA tests should be able to clear that up in a few months. From first observations, they were young because their dentition is complete and shows little signs of wear," she said.

"Everybody obviously wants to know why they were buried in an embrace like that. I think that it's a sign of a great love which has transcended time.

"They obviously had strong feelings for each other," she said.

Menotti said the find was unlikely to be an example of widow sacrifice, a practice whereby women were sometimes buried along with the remains of their naturally-deceased husband.

"In such 'widow sacrifices' the women is buried alongside her husband and not in his arms."

LINK TO MORE INFO

Abraham Lincoln

From the Freedom From Religion Foundation

On this date in 1809, the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, was born in Hardin County, Kentucky. Largely self-educated, he worked on farms, splitting those famous rails, and clerking at a store. Lincoln spent eight years in the Illinois legislature and also rode the circuit of courts for many years. He married Mary Todd; only one of their four sons lived to adulthood. While seeking the nomination for Congress, Lincoln ruefully wrote Martin M. Morris, of Petersburg, Illinois, that "There was the strangest combination of church influence against me . . . everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, [and] was suspected of being a Deist." (March 26, 1843, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay & Hay edition.)

“Mr. Lincoln was never a member of any Church, nor did he believe in the divinity of Christ, or the inspiration of the Scriptures in the sense understood by evangelical Christians.

When a boy, he showed no sign of that piety which his many biographers ascribe to his manhood. When he went to church at all, he went to mock, and came away to mimic.

When he came to New Salem, he consorted with Freethinkers, joined with them in deriding the gospel story of Jesus, read Volney and Paine, and then wrote a deliberate and labored essay, wherein he reached conclusions similar to theirs.”

-- Colonel Ward H. Lamon (a religionist and Lincoln's longtime friend), Life of Abraham Lincoln, pp. 486, 487, 157 (1872), cited by Franklin Steiner in The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents

Darwin on a Frying Pan

Another Culinary Iconography feature to add to my collection, and just in time for Darwin Day. It's an old story from late 2005 and you can read about it over at Panda'sThumb.

Stirring up some controversy - Is recycling really Bullshit?

I am one of the recycling “sheeple” who hasn’t really thought much about this subject until seeing this video today.

Via: VideoSift

198th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin

Can Religion and Science Co-Exist?

From The Clergy Letter Project:

On 11 February 2007 hundreds of congregations from all portions of the country and a host of denominations will come together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. Now, on the 198th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders will bring this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic.

The Clergy Letter states:

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

While I would like to be optimistic about the attempts of these “rational” thinking xians in their endeavor to embrace both religion and science, I looked up just how many congregations there are total in this country and found this:

There is no official directory for all the congregations in the county, so sociologists of religion have to rely on statistical estimates extrapolated from surveys. These are often disputed, and to complicate matters, thousands of new churches open each other, while thousands of others close. Hartford Institute estimates there are roughly 335,000 religious congregations in the United States. Of those, about 300,000 are Protestant and other Christian churches, and 22,000 are Catholic and Orthodox churches. Non-Christian religious congregations are estimated at about 12,000.

These figures indicate that 10,000 signatures is a mere drop in the bucket — not even ten percent of the total congregations in this country have signed this letter thus far. There is such a long way to go yet. It's hard to believe in the year 2007, despite the fact that Darwin's theory of evolution is so highly regarded at our best institutions of higher learning around the world, that superstition still precedes rational thought and scientific evidence.

Non Sequitur

Click on image to enlarge

Faith Healer at Home

I hate television news

Click on images to enlarge

Digitalfreethought's Atheism 101

Part 1 of 6


Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Sun Storm: A Coronal Mass Ejection

Click on image to enlargeCredit: SOHO Consortium, ESA, NASA

Explanation: What's happening to our Sun? Another Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)! The Sun-orbiting SOHO spacecraft has imaged many erupting filaments lifting off the active solar surface and blasting enormous bubbles of magnetic plasma into space. Direct light from the sun is blocked in the inner part of the above image, taken in 2002, and replaced by a simultaneous image of the Sun in ultraviolet light. The field of view extends over two million kilometers from the solar surface. While hints of these explosive events, called coronal mass ejections or CMEs, were discovered by spacecraft in the early 70s, this dramatic image is part of a detailed record of this CME's development from the presently operating SOHO spacecraft. Near the minimum of the solar activity cycle CMEs occur about once a week, but near solar maximum rates of two or more per day are typical. Strong CMEs may profoundly influence space weather. Those directed toward our planet can have serious effects.

Perfect "creation"?

Many god believers try to say their god is perfect and things he does are for a reason. What possible purpose could there be for this? This video link shows how nature malfunctions sometimes, and to say a loving, all-powerful god would create people this way on purpose is absurd.


Conjoined Twins and Parasitic twins (click previous and next to scroll through to see numerous photos and stories about these special people)

80-year-old children

Conjoined Twins - Todd Battis on the Twins' Birth

Amazing Conjoined Twins

Why won't god heal amputees?

I know this has been talked about on numerous discussion boards already, but it is a question that is still a relevant one, and one that has been answered a million different ways according what each god believer chooses to believe. There are so many mind-boggling excuses given as to why their all-knowing, all powerful god has not performed this kind of miracle anywhere or at any time. I am not talking about how humans can help the amputee, like providing artificial limbs, providing robotic arms and legs, or if it were possible, attaching the limbs of donors. I am talking about making a brand new limb grow back, just as many claim to have regained eyesights and hearing, and whose cancer or other ailment has disappeared because of "divine intervention".

Key Point from Why Won't God Heal Amputees

No matter how many people pray, no matter how often they pray, no matter how sincere they are, no matter how much they believe, no matter how deserving the amputee, what we know is that prayers do not inspire God to regenerate amputated legs. This happens despite what Jesus promises us in Matthew 21:21, John 14:14, Mark 11:24, etc.

We could get even more in-depth and ask why a loving god allowed his creations to become amputees in the first place, and why he allows little children to be born without arms or legs. Of course, we know that things happen in life due to human error, errors of doctors, disease and oftentimes freaky things of nature. To believe that there is a loving god who has the power to prevent these things in the first place, but chooses to allow this kind of thing to happen anyway, is absurd.

Superbowl

Mr. Deity Episode 1: Mr. Deity and the Evil

For all the episodes of Mr. Deity, click this link. (Also on YouTube)

Alborz Mountains in Moonlight

click on image to enlarge
Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi

Explanation: On January 25th, light from a first quarter Moon illuminated this dreamlike landscape looking across the rugged, snow-covered peaks of the Alborz Mountain Range in northern Iran. The stunning sky is filled with stars, including the yellow-tinged Betelgeuse at the shoulder of Orion. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major and the brightest star in planet Earth's night, stands above and left of picture center. The eerie glow along the Haraz valley in the foreground is light from cars traveling a highway leading from Tehran to the Caspian Sea.

The only monument needed

Click on cartoon to enlarge

Five Tunes to Die For

I have been tagged by Beep! Beep! It's Me! for the" Five Songs To Be Played at My Funeral" meme. I have it in my will that I will have no funeral, but if my family would choose to have a memorial service, here are the tunes I would like to have played.

Mozart's Requiem

Believe (Also known as, "I Believe in Love") - Elton John

The Galaxy Song from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life."

I'll Be Seeing You sung by Rosemary Clooney

Stardust - my FAVORITE SONG!

I now tag Andrea, Tommy, Uma, wflooter480, and Naomi !

If you had 15 seconds

If you had 15 seconds to tell the world whatever you want to, what would you say?

Groundhog Day

Money Worship - Eric Idle

Money makes the world go round. For the most part, Christians worship money more than their god. Christians fight to keep "In God We Trust" on all of our paper and coins. Why do religious people want their god's name on "dirty" MONEY? It's because they LOVE money...and church leaders LOVE those offerings and know that their big beautiful church buildings and all of their "fellowship" costs depend on it. God won't feed or clothe anyone or give one shelter from the storm, but the money a father or mother earns by going out to work each day will buy a sack of food and clothes for their children. When human beings do not work to get these things for themselves, nothing happens. This god does not even provide for the sick and disabled. People who cannot do for themselves are hungry, cold and even die without human intervention.

Christians always quote their bible for justification for things...well, let's turn it around. Jesus tossed the moneychangers out of the temple, then on the other hand Christians demand money, money money for themselves and their little individual church clubs and "fellowship" activities instead of the money going to help the poor, feed the hungry and other forms of charity . This was one of my problems with churches when I was a Christian. Most of the money goes to maintaining the club and having fun in their own little (or huge) cliques, and a fraction went to community outreach for things that god just doesn't seem to be able to provide without money and human effort. Churches depend on those tithes and pledges, because they know the Lawd wont provide anything without it!

Thor's Helmet in H-Alpha

Credit & Copyright: Don Goldman

Explanation: Near picture center, the helmet-shaped structure with wing-like appendages is popularly called Thor's Helmet. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the striking nebula is located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. The helmet is actually more like a cosmic bubble, blown as the wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center sweeps through the surrounding molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the energetic star is a blue giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. The remarkable color composite combines broad and narrow band images - including a deep exposure recorded with an H-alpha filter. The H-alpha image traces the light from the region's glowing atomic hydrogen gas. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, this Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across.

Thors Helmet from CFHT

It's a Sin

Dr Lee E. Warren writes :

"Guilt is one of the most powerful emotions within a man’s consciousness that shapes human personality and society. Guilt governs our behavior, colors the way we perceive ourselves, and slants our outlook of the world.

We can understand guilt if we view it as a self-policing feeling and an emotion of self-punishment that all societies must encourage and maintain to influence individual actions. A person that is guiltless is a detriment to himself and society for there is nothing to prevent him from doing harm to another human. Psychologists call individuals that are guiltless psychopaths. This is the positive and healthy side of guilt."

However, as with any principle, it has a negative side, which often stems from religious guilt which instills feelings of remorse, self-doubt, or personal responsibility that results when a religious person engages in what according to one's religion is believed to be, sinful acts.

Wikipedia states : "even though there is proper guilt from doing 'wrong' instead of doing 'right,' people endure all sorts of guilty feelings that don't stem from violating universal moral principles." Many people go through life torturing themselves with unnecessary and undeserved guilt because of some ancient, irrelevant and unnecessary moral codes laid down by ancient men in eras long past.

This video by the Pet Shop Boys depicts these feelings of guilt and unnecessary psychological self-torment people put themselves through because they were taught to believe the are bad when they are not bad. The singer is gay, therefore often hears how "evil" he is according to god believers. Most religions are all about making people feel bad about who they are....for merely being human.

God has retired and moved to south Florida!

GROWING IN GRACE WHACKADOO WEBSITE

At first I thought it was a parody, but it’s a true story about another whackadoo who claims to be the man “Christ Jesus” who came back to earth to live in the lap of luxury in Doral, Florida… and sheeple flock to him! His followers lavish him with gifts, houses, cars and money and they really believe he is Jesus in the flesh returned to earth as a pimp daddy!

“This self-proclaimed Son of God is a 60 year old former heroin addict and convict.”

Jesus no longer has any hang-ups with material wealth, and has no problem taking advantage of stupid people. He has brought news that sin no longer exists! He is on his second earthling wife. The has clarified that there is no devil, and no hell…and prayer is a waste of time! Glory Halleluia!

This is from the Today Show on 8/22/06.

Newslink: The Man Who Claims To Be Jesus

CNN INTERVIEWS GOD ON EARTH

Comet McNaught

This is really cool! Vidar Martinsen took successive photos of Comet McNaught on January 9th, 2007, and animated it into this video. Comet McNaught is the brightest comet since 1975, and will reach perihelion on January 12th, 2007.

Starbirth

From University of Illinois: As little as 30 years ago astronomers discovered that space isn't empty; a significant amount of mostly gaseous material lies between the stars, coalesced into Giant Molecular Clouds. Deep within these massive clouds, also called GMC's, stars are born. A prominent star forming region within the Orion Nebula, called Orion KL, is pictured in the [Uof I link above].

Optical studies of star-forming regions have been much enhanced by the success of NASA efforts to correct the Hubble Space Telescope's optics in 1993.

click on image to enlarge
Orion's Cradle
Credit & Copyright Tony Hallas

Explanation: Cradled in glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. This breath-taking view spans about 13 degrees across the center of the well-known constellation with the Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, just right of center. The deep mosaic also includes (left of center), the Horsehead Nebula, the Flame Nebula, and Orion's belt stars. Image data acquired with a hydrogen alpha filter adds other remarkable features to this wide angle cosmic vista -- pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and portions of the surrounding Barnard's Loop. While the Orion Nebula and belt stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, emission from the extensive interstellar gas is faint and much harder to record, even in telescopic views of the nebula-rich complex.