Are Atheists Better People

Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.
~ Jeff Burroughs

I predict the continued growth of atheism in America is going to make for some very interesting times. The putative leaders of the Christian Right in America have spent years trying to cast themselves as the victims in a secular society, the facts behind this assertion are kinda slim though. It’s been my experience and observation that the only way that secularism/atheism bothers religion is when it has to fight them (metaphorically) to keep religion where it belongs…out of people’s faces and out of our government.

Atheists are well-behaved and we seem to play well with others overall.

Atheists are not in the news, like the Christian right, for getting caught doing things they tell others not to do.  You know…those nasty little sexual things.   🙂

Atheists almost always co-exist peacefully with religious believing family and friends.

Atheists pay taxes just like the religious believers do.

Atheists are waaay under represented in jails and prisons…we’re actually pretty moral people.

Atheists don’t start wars on behalf of atheism…unlike religion

They do join the military however, and contrary to clichéd belief, they are found in foxholes.

Atheists believe strongly in America and the whole American Constitution, but particularly the First Amendment that separates church and state.

Atheists are secularists who support a government free from influence by any religion. We are not anti-religious, we are Non-Religious.

Atheists don’t take up a lot of space. The non-religious/atheist/agnostic members of American society only add up to a little less than 18% of the whole population…but we are growing.   🙂

Atheists make good neighbors. Chances are, if you live next door, or work with an atheist, you will  never know it.

Atheists in general, are much more supportive of women’s rights and for their right to control their own bodies and lives without church or state interference.

Unlike the religious right people, atheists don’t like to get into other peoples business and dictate how they should live….what they should do or not do.  You know…like who you should marry.

Atheists are not known for going door-to-door to convert people to our way of thinking. We are however, known to help our friends and neighbors with no thought of there being a heavenly reward in it for us.

Unlike many of the present Republican presidential candidates and the religious right in general Atheists do not advocate or align themselves with groups who want to take over our government and reshape America into a religiously ruled theocracy…you know, kinda’ like the Middle Eastern Islamic states.

Atheists, unlike the Republican Right, the Tea-Party, and the religious right, do not go around with guns in meetings and say the President will never take their guns away, or wishing the president would fail and generally disrespecting the President and the office.  Or call him ni_ger behind his back

Atheists mostly do know a lot about religion, as many were raised in a religious family, and they tend to research and know their positions really well.  In recent national polling about religious knowledge, atheists knew more than any religious sub-group.

Hmmm…could it be…could the atheists actually be better citizens and better people to know than theists???  I know I never disrespect, with malice, someone for believing the ‘wrong thing’…I just like to get into friendly arguments/debates with them.

And remember…Atheism cures religious terrorism

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Religion Takes Over House of Reps.

Well congratulations to the evangelical fundamentalist Christians, they have apparently taken over the House of Representatives…I can see lots of religiously inspired legislation heading our way again.  Maybe the Democrat controlled Senate will be able to tone them down some.

The Republican party needs to change their name to the “Fundamentalist Religion Party”.

At least Christine O’Donnell lost in Delaware, so those folks inclined to masturbate can breath a sigh of relief…federal SS troops won’t be going after them anytime soon.

I can see federal funding for “abstinence only” training starting up again.
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Half the Wars of Europe

Quote of the day

Of all the differences between the Old World and the New, this is perhaps the most salient. Half the wars of Europe, half the internal troubles that have vexed European States…. have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of Church and State. This whole vast chapter of debate and strife has remained virtually unopened in the United States. There is no Established Church. All religious bodies are equal before the law, and unrecognized by the law, except as voluntary associations of private citizens.– James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (1888)

Lets hope we can keep this way forever.

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Should Religions be Allowed to Kill?

Warning: one cussword

A few weeks ago I was surfing the web and came across a blog from India. The subject, the murder of a young _______ boy, caught my attention so I read the whole thing.

Seems a young man who’s family was _______, which is fairly uncommon in India, was flirting with a ******* girl. The town this happened in was predominately ****** and they watch their young women quite closely.  There were lots of murmurings and whispers from those who watched the young man and his demeanor with the girl. This went on for a few days and apparently his parents, and others, warned him to stay away from the girl.  One evening he met up with the girl on the road and started talking with her, unaware that a group of men were watching nearby.

They men rushed up to the couple and grabbed the boy and started beating him, as the girl ran away.  Later that evening the boy’s dead body was found lying beside the road…he had been beaten to death.

The police were called and they investigated for a few days, but ultimately said they had no evidence against anybody, and there was nothing they could do.  This was despite there being several eyewitnesses to the beating.  They said they couldn’t see who had done it. The blog writer managed to convey an impression that the police weren’t really doing their job.

The person writing this blog was related, and heartbroken by the death, and was pouring out her sorrow in the blog. I was stricken by the story and thought about the waste that happened here, not only for the loss of an apparently honorable and upright young man, but the loss of an opportunity for two cultures, in however small a way, to approach each other in peace and show humanity to each other. A small rapprochement if you will, that could lead to more friendships and peace between rivals.

Feeling as I do about religious arrogance and the stupidity they show in many matters, I was moved to write a reply to the woman, where I kind of got carried away and called the people involved in the killing some pretty bad names.  Now I did sink my teeth into the *******’s, because its known that ******’s think it’s OK to kill ________ if they cross a very fine line…try to convert a ******* to _______ and its open season on your hide…literally.  ****** in this case really condones murder.  Pretty much the same outlook applies to a _______ man trying to get too friendly with a young ******* woman.

I don’t care what kind of logic or reason you try to apply in making this OK in the light of your religion…it is totally wrong.  There is no real God anywhere who would allow this to be the norm.

Anyway, it took about three days for the woman who wrote the blog to answer back.  I forget the actual words (I deleted her reply), but the gist of it was, I was talking ‘hate speech’ and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put my reply on her blog. For a split second I was mad, but then I got to thinking that the rules for public speech and writing were not the same in India, and my bad reply could/would put her in harms way if she published it.  So I tried to dismiss the matter from my mind.  But it wouldn’t go away.  I didn’t dwell on it, but my subconscious chewed on it for days and days.

Finally a few days ago the thoughts burst forth, fully formed in my mind.

Yes, I had written some bad things about a religious group and called it and the men who hid murder behind it some bad things, and yes by today’s standard of PC’ness, I was wrong…totally wrong.

I ask you though, who was more hateful and did more to upset the public order and well being of the citizenry?  Was it me, who called the men and their religion out for what they are…a murderous bunch of half-wits and imbeciles, and the religious mandate they think they were working under barbaric and hideous in its teachings?

Or, were the men who ganged up on, and murdered a young innocent boy in cold blood… the more hateful.  If I see or hear someone doing a totally wrong thing to a fellow human being, I will not say nice things about them. And I will not stand silently by knowing a particular religion seems to give some men the moral authority to kill the innocent. This is not right no matter what you say.  If the men and religion they practice that empowers them is not lashed out against, they will keep doing it…over and over.

In a “civilized” 🙂 world, one does not allow the citizenry, or a religious representative, to go around and kill people by their whim for religious reasons. Any Religion that allows this should be banned.  There is no room in today’s world for such a thing.

Do you think we should stand idly by and let such things happen without speaking out against them?  We know that the ******* religion allows murder of innocents.  Should we not speak against this?  Should we speak nicely about matters such as this…or should we rip them a new asshole?

Continuously give in and be nice to that kind of behavior and we all know who wins the game of life.

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Intelligent Design Pushers LIE

“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

Immediately below is excerpted from Discovery institute website, retrieved on 01.05.08. Their address is:
http://www.discovery.org/

” Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design (Annotated)
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
July 1, 2007

Editor’s Note: Critics of intelligent design often claim that design advocates don’t publish their work in appropriate scientific literature. For example, Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, was quoted in USA Today (March 25, 2005) that design theorists “aren’t published because they don’t have scientific data.”
Other critics have made the more specific claim that design advocates do not publish their works in peer-reviewed scientific journals-as if such journals represented the only avenue of legitimate scientific publication.” end excerpt

Then they go on to list some ‘religious science’ that got peer review in the scientific arena. Among them is this jewel:

Begin excerpt again. “Stephen Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117 (2004): 213-239.

Meyer argues that competing materialistic models (Neo-Darwinism, Self -Organization Models, Punctuated Equilibrium and Structuralism) are not sufficient to account for origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms present in the Cambrian Explosion. He proposes intelligent design as an alternative explanation for the origin of biological information and the higher taxa.” End of excerpt

Well this is great for the ID movement that the Discovery Institute not only backs, but actively pushes on schools and people. They finally got an article published in a scientific journal….but….
….Not long after the article was published, an embarrassed Council of the ‘Biological Society of Washington’ comes out with this statement

excerpt follows from Biological Society of Washingtom
“The paper by Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories,” in vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239 of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, was published at the discretion of the former editor, Richard v. Sternberg. Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history. For the same reason, the journal will not publish a rebuttal to the thesis of the paper, the superiority of intelligent design (ID) over evolution as an explanation of the emergence of Cambrian body-plan diversity. The Council endorses a resolution on ID published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml),** see below, which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity. Accordingly, the Meyer paper does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings.” End of excerpt Their address is: http://www.biolsocwash.org/

excerpt from American Association for the Advancement of Science
** “Over the past several years proponents of so-called “intelligent design theory,” also known as ID, have challenged the accepted scientific theory of biological evolution. As part of this effort they have sought to introduce the teaching of “intelligent design theory” into the science curricula of the public schools. The movement presents “intelligent design theory” to the public as a theoretical innovation, supported by scientific evidence, that offers a more adequate explanation for the origin of the diversity of living organisms than the current scientifically accepted theory of evolution. In response to this effort, individual scientists and philosophers of science have provided substantive critiques of “intelligent design,” demonstrating significant conceptual flaws in its formulation, a lack of credible scientific evidence, and misrepresentations of scientific facts. Approved by the AAAS Board of Directors on 10/18/02″

Recognizing that the “intelligent design theory” represents a challenge to the quality of science education, the Board of Directors of the AAAS unanimously adopts the following resolution: ” excerpt ends. It goes on to basically say that ID is not science, never will be, keep it out of our public schools.
The full statement can be read here: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml

What this little exercise in ‘investigative blogging’ is showing me, is that the Discovery Institute, as of 01.05.08, is knowingly passing off what they know to be rebutted, as mainstream science. In other words-they lie.

Gives me an all warm and fuzzy feeling when the pastor lies to me.

Peace to all

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