Saturday, August 29, 2009
Fundie quote of the week . . .
This is a new feature I am going to be posting. "Fundie quote of the week".
Mike says:
“Contrary to popular misconception, biblical Christian faith is not blind. It is reasonable, evidence-based, and testable”
Then Mike goes on to quote his “evidence” from the Babble:
“(2 Thes. 3:2, Heb 11:1, Isa 1:18, etc.)”
2 Thes. 3:2 — And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.
Heb 11:1 — Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Isa 1:18 — Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
These passages were so obviously written by superstitious (yet very creative and imaginative) delusional humans. The “reasoning” provided in the last passage you provided is simply a bunch of pretty adjectives and analogies of basically, nothing.
Sorry Mike, but Bible passages are NOT “reasonable, evidence-based, and testable”. Your beliefs are based on faith and your contradictory and inconsistent mythology book that was written by many human beings in ancient times. Nothing “evidence-based” and nothing “testable” concerning the existence of your god and resurrected zombie Jesus has been found to date. Your Bible provides no more evidence for the existence of your god any more than the Book of the Dead proves Ra exists, or the Hindu ancient texts prove that their multiple gods exist. It's all mythology that people choose to believe is real.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Americans United warns Illinois state officials
Illinois May Not Fund Religion
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Illinois should move carefully when awarding $40 million or more in state funds to religious organizations, two national activist groups warned Wednesday.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Anti-Defamation League told state officials that they’ve identified at least 97 religious organizations [my emphasis] that would get the money from the capital construction bill signed into law last month.
They pointed out in a letter to the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity that the constitutional separation of church and state forbids using tax dollars for religious purposes and that the grants carry no restrictions.
“When grants are made to religious groups with no safeguards whatsoever, the rights of taxpayers are clearly being infringed,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United. “No American should ever be forced to contribute money in support of religion.”
Without watchdog groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State, this news would never come to light and most of us would not know about it.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed a $31 billion infrastructure improvement plan last month aimed at improving roads and bridges, but also included millions in grants to local organizations. There could be more groups with religious affiliations than the 97 that the Americans United and the Chicago-based Anti-Defamation League counted because their names don’t immediately identify them as such.
Among grants that the groups want reviewed are $75,000 for capital improvements to the library at the Chicago Baptist Institute; $100,000 each for renovations at Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, St. Ann Catholic School and St. Paul Parish; and $50,000 for a housing project by the Lawndale Christian Development Project.
Citing numerous court cases, the two groups asked the department to review all the grants it releases to ensure that none support religious activities. They want the state to require recipients to sign statements that they won’t use the money for religious purposes.
The groups want the agency to ban grants to sectarian organizations or those that, according to court rulings, cannot separate their religious missions from secular ones.
According to Americans United,
The Chicago-Tribune reported that the bill earmarks $250,000 for renovations to the Friendship House of Christian Service in Peoria, awards $150,000 for “facility improvements” at the Salaam Conference Center of Muhammad’s Holy Temple of Islam in Chicago and assigns $700,000 for capital improvements at St. Malachy School, a Catholic elementary on Chicago’s West Side, among many others.
Sneaky religious bastards!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Today's religion is tomorrow's mythology . . .
The difference between religion and mythology according to Lewis Black:
"If you believe it, it's religion. If you don't, it's mythology. "
I am God, I listen to myself, figure things out and do.
"How do you know you're God?"
"When I pray to him I find that I am talking to myself."
From The Ruling Class by Peter Barnes
Friday, August 21, 2009
Rob Bostons of Americans United debates Mike Huckabee on religion in schools
“Rob Boston of Americans United is on FOX and Friends discussing, with Mike Huckabee, Florida’s Pace High School administrators who prayed in school after court injunction not to.” The religious people, including Huckabee just don’t get separation of church and state. And they do not respect the legal system. They will do what they want to do no matter what in order to promote their own agenda, then cry persecution when there are consequences for going against a court order.
Definition of prayer
Prayer is attempted coercion
It is a form of violence against one’s chosen god
Telling the immortal what to do.
If you do not do this I will not do that
Ex: I do not get a new bike, I will not follow you.
Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Parking for prayer
So much controversy going on in the small town of Falmouth, MA which lies on the southwestern tip of Cape Cod: First, a former town employee accused the town manager of sexual harassment. Then the local constable accused town officials of illegally disseminating sealed records containing his criminal history.
Now we learn that the selectmen recently voted 4-0 to allow four local churches to set up “a prayer station” in the public parking lot at Old Silver Beach in North Falmouth.
The “prayer station” occupies a parking spot and is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day. Volunteers from Heritage Christian Church in East Falmouth, First Baptist Church of Pocasset, Falmouth Church of the Nazarene and Bay Community Alliance Church in Buzzards Bay staff the station. No preaching or solicitation is allowed. The volunteers can only talk to those who approach them.
Is the board’s decision unconstitutional? Does it violate the separation of church and state?
Legally, no.
But what the selectmen have unwittingly done is create a public forum in a parking lot.
“The issue is whether or not the town has created a public forum,” said Joe Conn, director of communications for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C. “If you let this group use this space, you have to let all groups — religious or nonreligious — use this space. It could come back to bite them if they are turning a public parking lot into a free-speech zone.”
Gasp! What where they thinking? They might have to allow evil atheists and other godless groups to use the space!
PZ Myers at the Secular Student Alliance Conference
In case you haven’t seen this yet, PZ Myers’ keynote speech at the Secular Student Alliance conference last week:
Counting Coup - PZ Myers - Secular Student Alliance Conference 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Stars, moving Moonbow and rainbow over Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile, by Stéphane Guisard
Night timelapse movie showing successively a Moonbow (='rainbow' from Moon light) and a classical rainbow and their motion with time as Moon and Sun change their position in the sky. Video made in Torres del Paine national park, Patagonia, Chile. Time lapse by Stéphane Guisard(www.astrosurf.com/sguisard).
Adler Planetarium - Cosmic Collisions
For those of you who live in the Chicagoland area, or within easy driving distance to Chicago, or if you are planning to visit Chicago soon, I highly recommend a visit to the Alder Planetarium and while you are there make sure to get tickets to see Cosmic Collisions. It was a beautiful twenty-minute presentation on how just chaotic our solar system, galaxy and the universe actually is. A good one for those who believe the universe is "organized" and perfectly made.Narrated by award-winning actor, director, and producer Robert Redford, Cosmic Collisions launches visitors on an awe-inspiring trip through space and time-well beyond the calm face of the night sky-to explore the hypersonic impacts that drive the continuing evolution of the Universe. This new space show focuses on the full range of collisions, from catastrophic planetary impacts and the merging of massive galaxies to the continual explosions occurring in the center of the Sun and the incessant barrage of small ionized particles in the solar wind ricocheting off Earth's magnetic field creating other-worldly conditions called "space weather."
Thursday, August 06, 2009
An Antarctic Total Solar Eclipse
Explanation: The Sun, the Moon, Antarctica, and two photographers all lined up in 2003 Antarctica during an unusual total eclipse of the Sun. Even given the extreme location, a group of enthusiastic eclipse chasers ventured near the bottom of the world to experience the surreal momentary disappearance of the Sun behind the Moon. One of the treasures collected was the above picture -- a composite of four separate images digitally combined to realistically simulate how the adaptive human eye saw the eclipse. As the image was taken, both the Moon and the Sun peaked together over an Antarctic ridge. In the sudden darkness, the magnificent corona of the Sun became visible around the Moon. Quite by accident, another photographer was caught in one of the images checking his video camera. Visible to his left are an equipment bag and a collapsible chair.
Stars at the Galactic Center
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Susan Stolovy (SSC/Caltech) et al.Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Speeding Stars Confirm Bizarre Nature of Faraway Galaxies
This image provided by NASA this July 23, 2009 is a photo made by the Spitzer Space Telescope of the galaxy, called NGC-1097, is located 50 million light-years away. It is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. The 'eye' at the center of the galaxy is actually a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. In this color-coded infrared view from Spitzer, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white. The black hole is huge, about 100 million times the mass of our sun, and is feeding off gas and dust along with the occasional unlucky star. The galaxy's red spiral arms and the swirling spokes seen between the arms show dust heated by newborn stars. Older populations of stars scattered through the galaxy are blue. The fuzzy blue dot to the left, which appears to fit snuggly between the arms, is a companion galaxy. This image was taken during Spitzer's cold mission, before it ran out of liquid coolant. (AP Photo/NASA)Speeding Stars Confirm Bizarre Nature of Faraway Galaxies
Stars in a distant galaxy move at stunning speeds — greater than 1 million mph, astronomers have revealed.
These hyperactive stars move at about twice the speed of our sun through the Milky Way, because their host galaxy is very massive, yet strangely compact. The scene, which has theorists baffled, is 11 billion light-years away. It is the first time motions of individual stars have been measured in a galaxy so distant.
While the stars' swiftness is notable, stars in other galaxies have been observed to travel at similarly high speeds. In those situations, it was usually because they were interlopers from outside, or circling close to a black hole.
But in this case, the stars' high velocities help astronomers confirm that the galaxy they belong to really is as massive as earlier data suggested.
When insanity and God beliefs meet
By now most of you probably have read about the horrible story of yet another mass shooting: Pa. man kills 3, himself; Web page describes plans Was he an “evil atheist”? No, he was clearly mentally ill, and was influenced by fundamentalist Christian teachings that no matter what people do, no matter how awful, this God is going to forgive them and take them to that “better place”. Of course, Christians will say he was not a “True Christian” and will not want to claim him, disregarding that is exactly what their religion teaches. You don’t get into heaven via good works, but just by saying the magic words.
In his online journal, the killer wrote:
Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter. I was reading the Bible and The Integrity of God beginning yesterday, because soon I will see them.
It’s so sad that lives turn out like this. He was clearly mentally ill and suffering tremendously and extremely lonely. What he needed was psychiatric help. Again, like the woman who killed her little baby “at the devil’s request”, this man’s actions is an example of how religion affects some who are mentally ill. In this case, he thinks there will be no consequences. But yet he was so wrong. He gave up his life, he is dead and sadly so are three of his victims…and life goes on.
PZ Myers at Pharyngula also posted on this story.
Monday, August 03, 2009
The Lagoon Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars
Credit & Copyright: Florencio Rodil Explanation: Stars are battling gas and dust in the Lagoon Nebula but the photographers are winning. Also known as M8, this photogenic nebula is visible even without binoculars towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The energetic processes of star formation create not only the colors but the chaos. The red-glowing gas, shown on the above left in re-assigned colors, results from high-energy starlight striking interstellar hydrogen gas. The Trifid nebula is visible on the far right. The dark dust filaments that lace M8 were created in the atmospheres of cool giant stars and in the debris from supernovae explosions. The light from M8 we see today left about 5,000 years ago. Light takes about 50 years to cross this section of M8.
SN 1006 Supernova Remnant
Explanation: A new star, likely the brightest supernova in recorded human history, lit up planet Earth's sky in the year 1006 AD. The expanding debris cloud from the stellar explosion, found in the southerly constellation of Lupus, still puts on a cosmic light show across the electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, this composite view includes X-ray data in blue from the Chandra Observatory, optical data in yellowish hues, and radio image data in red. Now known as the SN 1006 supernova remnant, the debris cloud appears to be about 60 light-years across and is understood to represent the remains of a white dwarf star. Part of a binary star system, the compact white dwarf gradually captured material from its companion star. The buildup in mass finally triggered a thermonuclear explosion that destroyed the dwarf star. Because the distance to the supernova remnant is about 7,000 light-years, that explosion actually happened 7,000 years before the light reached Earth in 1006. Shockwaves in the remnant accelerate particles to extreme energies and are thought to be a source of the mysterious cosmic rays.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Xians "testing their faith"
What is it with Christians having to “test their faith” repeatedly? Could it possibly have something to do with their fantasy god belief being difficult for even themselves to believe? They must force themselves to believe things that they know deep down is absurd and illogical, blind “faith.” Of course, some Christians of the fundamentalist variety will say that it’s the “devil” testing them, while God stands by and watches as a voyeur to see the outcome (when he supposedly already knows how things will turn out).
Tom Brown of Tom Brown Ministries writes:
Trials come to test your faith. This means that trials BATTLE your faith. And if your faith is not fighting back, you are not winning.
If your not winning, you’re not becoming stronger. God wants us to become stronger by resisting the devil who sent the trial.
Now why would a loving God want to put his special creations through such ordeals? This is a weird and sadistic god to force his beloved followers to keep in line and follow the straight and narrow.
I do not need to test my husband’s, children’s, parents’, grandparent’s and friends’ love for me, nor do I need to test my love for them. I don’t need to put them through terrible trials and tribulations in order that they believe that I exist, and vice-versa. I would not want to cause them any sort of suffering, and they would not want me to have to endure suffering just to prove that I love and care about them. I do not need to be made more faithful to my husband or loyal to my friends via resisting temptations and “battling my faith” in them.
We do become stronger because of the experiences we have gone through, the difficulties and hard times that living brings to most people at one time or another. But it’s not some sort of “trial”, no sort of “test” that intentionally is some sort of “battle” to win. It’s just life, it’s how things are. Good things happen, bad things happen and how we deal with these things shows our character, our will, our determination, our desire to survive sometimes against all odds.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
C Street religious cult
Something really important to read here at Buzzflash.com Kudos to Rachel Maddow for latching on to the captivating and chilling story about not just the lascivious and potentially illegal activities of some of the “C Street” Family, but — more importantly — focusing on their belief that they are chosen by God to lead and infiltrate our government.
And she hasn’t stopped pursuing this startling story, defying the normal news cycle of a nano-second of coverage unless it’s Michael Jackson’s death or a blonde white girl disappearing in Aruba.
What gets lost in the disgusting details of Ensign’s adulterous affair, Mark Sanford’s (an associate member of the Family) lust for an Argentine, and former Congressman Chip Pickering’s adulterous bonking on-site at the C Street “Christian fellowship house” is something that Maddow has repeatedly come back to: these men don’t believe they are responsible to moral or governmental laws. If they deviate from the “righteous path,” God is only testing their strength, because they are the ones divinely chosen to lead — and it is weakness to succumb to remorse about one’s “misbehavior.” That is why Mark Sanford said he won’t resign and compared himself to King David, who slept adulterously with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed.
Jeff Sharlet, of “The Family:The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” writes:
Family leaders consider their political network to be Christ’s avant garde, an elite that transcends not just conventional morality but also earthly laws regulating lobbying. In the Family’s early days, they debated registering as “a lobby for God’s Kingdom.” Instead, founder Abraham Vereide decided that the group could be more effective by working personally with politicians. “The more invisible you can make your organization,” Vereide’s successor, current leader Doug Coe preaches, “the more influence you can have.” That’s true — which is why we have laws requiring lobbyists to identify themselves as such.
But David Coe, Doug Coe’s son and heir apparent, calls himself simply a friend to men such as John Ensign, whom he guided through the coverup of his affair. I met the younger Coe when I lived for several weeks as a member of the Family. He’s a surprising source of counsel, spiritual or otherwise. Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was — or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate — he asked a young man who’d put himself, body and soul, under the Family’s authority, “Let’s say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?” The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. “No,” answered Coe, “I wouldn’t.” Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he’s among what Family leaders refer to as the “new chosen.” If you’re chosen, the normal rules don’t apply.
I have not heard much about this Christian dominionist organization in the Washington D.C. area until now. These monsters are a very serious threat to our Democracy. Vjack at Atheist Revolution posted some information about the Family that he found at Religion Dispatches:
* The Family is the oldest conservative Christian organization in Washington D.C.
* The Family runs (but does not own) the notorious “C Street House” as a church to provide assorted politicians with inexpensive living space, Christian bible study, and “spiritual counseling.”
* “C Street House” is owned by an organization, Youth With a Mission D.C., headed by Loren Cunningham, a man with a vision for worldwide Christian dominion. Cunningham links to Campus Crusade for Christ and Christian Embassy, a D.C.-based ministry that tries to convert Pentagon officials.
* The Family is responsible for the annual National Prayer Breakfasts and runs assorted prayer groups in which both Republican and Democratic members of Congress participate.
* According to Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (added to my to-read list), the Family is “committed to a political theology that views democracy as a form of secular humanism, to which they’re deeply opposed.”
I thought this was something that is extremely important to bring to everyone’s immediate attention.
Evolution is a process, not an imaginary supernatural entity
The Atheist Jew sent me the link to this via email -- Cody’s Black Box.
Cody writes, “If any of my atheist friends have any responses, I would love to hear them,” which is an invitation that I am sure he will be sorry he has made. Cody is a 22-year-old theology student and one of his favorite things to do is to discuss “evidences for God” (though he fails to provide any of those evidences, of course). In his post titled “Where does reason come from?” Cody writes:
I have been thinking about the “Argument from Reason,” which is similar to TAG (Transcendental Argument for God). I posted a sort of overview of this argument on a previous blog.
This argument seeks to show that if there is no God, there can be no rationality. If only the material world exists, we would not be able to trust our own thoughts, which are simply chemical reactions much like how our livers secrete bile. Why would we not, after all, trust the bile instead of the “thoughts” which our brains seem to secrete? However, if there were a Being which was pure reason and outside of the physical world, a mind above it all, He could choose to place some form of rationality in His creation.
The atheist might respond to this argument (as Richard Dawkins did in a recent discussion with John Lennox) by saying that reason would be the perfect thing for evolution to create in animals because it would help them to respond to their surroundings and thus live long and reproduce. Of course, this is beside the point because evolution cannot think to give any creature anything!
Dawkins does not answer how reason could come to be in an atheistic worldview, but gives natural selection its own rational abilities whereby it could purposefully give reason to animals. This isn’t too far off from how theists argue God possessed reason from the beginning and bestowed it to us! Dawkins cannot help but assume that reason exists before rational creatures (because it does), which is the very viewpoint that Christians hold, but which no atheist can hold and be consistent with his/her worldview.
Now to back up to this question that Cody asks, “Why would we not, after all, trust the bile instead of the “thoughts” which our brains seem to secrete?” Stop and THINK about that question for a minute, Cody. Trusting bile is the same thing as trusting gods, golden idols, lucky rabbits’ feet, etc. You can make up your own mind and invent your own ideas about where you want to put your trust. You simply use your reasoning powers to choose to trust an imaginary friend of human invention. You are exhibiting just how irrational and flawed that reasoning can be in many humans. If a perfect god was the provider of human reasoning, there wouldn’t be so many dumbasses in the world.
Then please think about this statement you made, Cody…
Of course, this is beside the point because evolution cannot think to give any creature anything!
I am embarrassed for you, Cody. You are exhibiting your total lack of knowledge about evolution and how it works. Evolution is a process, not an imaginary supernatural entity lke your god, Cody.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Shuttle Crew Inspects Heat Shield, Prepares for Station Docking
This stuff barely gets a mention in the news. People just seem to take space missions for granted nowadays. "The STS-127 crew will spend their second day in space inspecting space shuttle Endeavour’s heat shield and preparing for Friday’s docking with the International Space Station. The astronauts also will check out their spacesuits and tools for the mission’s five spacewalks."
From NASA Space Shuttle site
Arkansas evangelist being tried on charges of sex crimes against young girls
Some of you may remember televangelist Tony Alamo. He was responsible for some extremely intense anti-Catholic, anti-Pope hate mail that was circulating in the 1980’s (probably accompanied by some request for donations of some sort.) Snippet from Wiki:
Alamo’s followers sometimes distribute tracts of his writings publicly. The tracts predict impending doom and Armageddon and invite the reader to accept Jesus as his or her savior while condemning Catholicism, the Pope and the American government as a Satanic conspiracy behind events such as 9/11, the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the John F. Kennedy assassination. Tracts currently being distributed include a picture of Alamo circa 1986. In a tract distributed shortly before the siege of the Branch Davidian establishment in Waco, Texas, Alamo protested the media’s use of the word “compound” to describe the campus of his seminary and the word “cult” to describe his ministry.
Recently, as reported in the news, Alamo is being accused of taking underage girls across state lines for sex. Investigators say that one of the girls was only 9 years-old.
Ark. evangelist’s accusers expected in court
Here is a message from the Tony Alamo Ministries cult website boo-hooing that Alamo is being persecuted:
Pastor Alamo has been criticizing the government for forty-five years with the truth and they’ve been slinging false accusations for forty-five years. You have to decide who you’re going to believe–this government which has already been proven to be socialistic and communistic, or Pastor Alamo who is teaching you the truth. Either you believe Pastor Alamo or the homosexual Pope.
Ironic that Alamo is accusing the Pope of being homosexual when Alamo himself is being investigated for polygamy, child abuse, child pornography, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and is formally charged with taking children across state lines to have sex with them after his alleged victims came forward to testify against him.
Alamo’s attorneys state “the girls traveled across the country to further his ministry’s outreach.”
Alamo’s sheeple write:
The judges, the backsliders, prosecuting attorneys, and government agencies are all in a conspiracy to destroy Pastor Alamo, but God is on the throne and He will destroy.
There's that bad god tactic they use...god is gonna get you!
H/T once again to ChuckA
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Harmful religious practices
Thanks to my friend ChuckA for bringing this to our attention. Chuck writes:
"Yet another reason pointing out WHY, in particular, the insanity of Islam is so ULTRA dangerous to the world! "
Muslim Women, Vitamin D and Osteomalacia
Here is part of what the article says:
In her classic work Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit (140), Davis also states:
“Sir Robert McCarrison, the great English physician, wrote of osteomalacia in India among the Mohammedan women observing the custom of purdah. These women veil their faces at adolescence and rarely go outside their homes.”
In this same regard, in Deficient Sunlight in the Aetiology of Osteomalacia in Muslim Women, Dr. OP Kapoor states:
“…in most of the Sunni Muslim women (who form majority of the Muslims), in spite of high intake of calcium, osteomalacia is often seen. There are two reasons for this:
“1. Use of burkha which prevents sunlight reaching the skin.
“2. Living indoors - most of the Muslim women specially those staying in the Muslim localities, do not move out of the house and thus are not exposed to the sun and often develop osteomalacia.” [my emphasis]
As we now know, vitamin D is necessary for a variety of other metabolic processes in a healthy individual. Moreover, sunlight has other positive effects besides vitamin-D production. For one, it is necessary for the production of the hormone melatonin through the eyes. Thus, Muslim women who wear the full burkha* are deprived of this health-bestowing chemical as well, which is necessary for proper sleep and, consequently, mental health. Also, merely taking vitamin D or melatonin supplements would not make up for other potential health benefits associated with adequate exposure to sunlight, and supplements are not the best choice for optimal health in any event.In addition to developing bone and other problems from a lack of vitamin D and melatonin, covered women are deprived of fresh air on their skin, which is the body’s largest organ. Hence, the skin is not given the opportunity to breathe adequately. Furthermore, the color of choice in covering up women because of “religious” purposes is often black and sometimes blue, undoubtedly creating much sweltering and heat stroke in the very hot regions in which this clothing is traditionally worn.
While the emotional, mental and spiritual problems with forcing a woman to veil herself may be increasingly clear, the grossly under-explored factor in the burkha/niqab debate is the toll on women’s physical health. The bottom line is that veiling women and depriving them of life-giving sunlight and air represents physical torture - especially in heat-absorbing dark colors - on a mass scale. How many women are suffering horrendous health problems, exacerbated by being forced to give birth repeatedly, because of this oppressive custom? In the veiling of women, then, we are looking at a serious and appalling health crisis affecting millions worldwide.
Read the full story at Acharya S’s blog HERE.
Erupting Volcano Anak Krakatau
Explanation: A volcano on Krakatoa is still erupting. Perhaps most famous for the powerfully explosive eruption in 1883 that killed tens of thousands of people, ash from a violent eruption might also have temporarily altered Earth's climate as long as 1500 years ago. In 1927, eruptions caused smaller Anak Krakatau to rise from the sea, and the emerging volcanic island continues to grow at an average rate of 2 cm per day. The latest eruption of Anak Krakatau started in 2008 April and continues today. In this picture, Anak Krakatau is seen erupting from Rakata, the main island of the Krakatoai group. High above, stars including the Big Dipper are clearly apparent.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Screwing with Job
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Time to play, convert the atheist!
A Turkish television station is launching a game show where a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk all try to convert a group of ten atheists.Game show looks to convert atheists
“Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programs,” High Board of Religious Affairs Chairman Hamza Aktan told state news agency Anatolian after news of the planned program emerged.
Whoever said we need to respect religions? While we may respect a person's right to his or her religion, we do not have to show respect to the various delusions themselves.
I would also like to point out to these folks that religious services in themselves are often basically “spiritual entertainment extravaganzas” especially for the Christian fundamentalist megachurches. Ritual, music, singing are all forms of entertainment in disguise as “worship”.
If you are a “true atheist”, going on a goofy program isn’t going to change your mind. Unless you want to lie just to get a free trip to a religious site out of it. But, they think they have that covered:
A team of theologians will ensure that the atheists are truly non-believers and are not just seeking fame or a free holiday.
A team of delusional folks who can’t tell reality from fantasy are going to be able to identify “true non-believers” . . . yeah, ok.
“We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God,” Kanal T chief executive Seyhan Soylu told Reuters.
“We don’t approve of anyone being an atheist. God is great and it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe,” Soylu said.
Ok, I believe in the religion of myself and I am God. Can I have a trip to my sacred site in the Hawaiian Islands now?
Using 10-year-old to promote delusional agenda
This is so wrong. Instead of explaining this dream rationally to this child, the parent is using the child’s own nightmare to reinforce delusional religious beliefs. The father in this video is saying that Jesus Christ showed a vision of hell to his 10-year old son. Kids are very impressionable and I have to wonder how much this child was told about Hell before having nightmares about it. Rationally, the son’s nightmare is a manifestation of some sort and used the imagery he was previously taught for added details of the “dream”. The father is using his own son to promote his own agenda. Pathetic.
