Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

Goodbye Christopher Hitchens

Friday, December 16th, 2011

Christopher Hitchens died of pneumonia last night.  While I struggle to understand exactly how I feel about his passing, many on the religious side are celebrating, often with very cruel response.  I can’t blame them, really, a harsh critic of their belief system has passed away and that is one less voice of reason to be forced to contend with.  It’s not as if I can claim to be blameless in any sense, as I certainly had a very real sense of relief when Jerry Falwell and others of similar ilk have met their end.  I took a certain sense of glee in those passings.

The difference between these religious moguls and Mr. Hitchens might be seen as one of debate, but from my perspective, I can’t see a true relation.  Hitchens certainly pontificated endlessly on the base, vile nature of religion, as Falwell might have preached against the dangers of secular humanism.  But Hitchens never uttered a word to swindle others out of their money with the looming fear of some horrible afterlife in burning Hell, or promise of some unsupported notion of post terminus reward for following bronze age fables.  The evidence Hitchens presented for his viewpoint was demonstrable and empirical, rather than tenuous and mythological.  In short, he spoke of fact as he knew it, not of fantasy preserved for the interest in power and wealth.

He will be missed.  I know I’ll miss his rants and witty acrimony on religious nonsense.  Gone, but most certainly not forgotten.

What does it mean to be atheist?

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

QualiaSoup does it again.

 

Catholic Insanity

Monday, March 7th, 2011

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, that no other statement of religious “devotion” could floor you – the religious loons surprise you once again.

Daylight Atheism has an article titled, The Catholic Church Answers Your Sex Questions.  It’s brief, but worth the time to gain a further insight into the unbelievable insanity of Catholic Christianity in action.

The author’s conclusion is spot on.  “The Pascal’s Wager logic, which so often assumes that joining a religion is cost-free, hides the fine print: you will end up paying a price, and it may be a lot higher than you think. How can anyone be truly happy in the mental slavery of a religion that layers on the guilt and threats for breaking such absurd laws? And wouldn’t people like this be much happier if they abandoned these superstitious beliefs and instead adopted a rational, humanist alternative sexual ethics?”

Creationist Stupidity

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010

Though it is often difficult to decide who wins the Moron of the Year Award, this year we have a strong contender in Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis – a creationist Web site. The exact Web page in question is here.

The question asked of Mr. Ham is simple enough.  “If God created the world 6,000 years ago or so, why are stars millions of light years away?”

The answer, according to Mr. Ham: “Brendon, what a question! Yes, we know from the dates God gives us in the Bible that He did create the whole universe about 6,000 years ago. When we hear the term light-year, we need to realize it is not a measure of time but a measure of distance, telling us how far away something is. Distant stars and galaxies might be millions of light-years away, but that doesn’t mean that it took millions of years for the light to get here, it just means it is really far away!”

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of answer you get from people who have never taken a class in physics, but instead base their view of reality on an anonymous book, written by a bunch of Bronze Age sheep herders.  In short, you get profound idiocy.

Mr. Ham is correct, in that a  light year is a measure of distance.  It is the measure of how far light travels in one year!  Hence the name.  So, if a star is say, 20 million lights years away, it will take 20 million years for the light from that star to reach us.

A special nod of thanks to irReligion.org for finding this gem!

No mosque at Ground Zero

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

The Barbaric Nightmare of Sharia Law

Monday, May 24th, 2010

We are posting the following video so that every American who continues to believe that Sharia law is not a threat to the West, and that the adherents to fundamentalist Islam are peaceful. The following video evidence will illustrate otherwise.

This simple description does not do the video justice. The scene shown, where three supposed spies are savagely butchered by the Taliban in Pakistan in early April of this year, show the utter, despicable horror which is Islamic Sharia law in practice. The brutality is nearly immeasurable and almost impossible to watch.  Like the video of the vile murder of Danial Pearl, it will stay with you forever.  It is the stuff of nightmares!

I view all religion as dangerous to rational, humane thought, but fundamentalist Islamic tradition rivals the Inquisition and witch hunts of the mediaeval Christian church in its poisonous attack against decency itself.  The major difference is not in the brutality it conjures, for all middle eastern  religions have their fair share of horrid behavior in the past. The difference is that fundamentalist Islamic Sharia law is alive and well in the otherwise enlightened 21st century and there are many who push the Islamic goal of world conquest under its barbaric rule!

Not as a Westerner, nor as a citizen of the United States, but as a human who believes in true justice, liberty and peaceful coexistence as the ultimate goal of the human species; this cannot be allowed to continue, or to grow.   We have to stop avoiding the issue and see it for what it is.

There is a concerted effort on the part of the European Union and to a lesser extent in the United States, to side-step facing the issue.  Islamic groups in Europe, especially Britain and Denmark, have been making great strides in receiving special status in the law.  Britain, in a move of inexplicable insanity, has already embraced official Sharia courts,  and there are some areas in Europe which are quite literally becoming Islamic sub-states, where the local authorities do not tread. The United Nations even had such gall as to allow Islamic nations to attempt to pressure for a world law against blasphemy!

It would seem there are those in western governments who are willing to concede parts of their law and custom, in order to appease the Islamic curate, as if such action will remove or lesson the chance of terrorist activity or other civic violence.

Such thinking is stupid.  It allows fear to rule over us.

The West practiced the same kind of horrific violence and torture through its embrace of Christianity and there is no excuse for it.  Similarly, there is no excuse not to recognize the dangers of a religion which has not transcended these blatantly evil practices.  We have been there and we should know better.

We can no more allow the vile workings of Sharia law to pollute the cultural progress of the enlightenment, than we can allow the Catholic Church to reinstate the witch hunts and the Inquisition.

There is no place in a free world for Sharia law. It is the modern epitome of religious evil and cannot be allowed to gain any further footing in the world. In fact, if the goal of the human race is to achieve true peace and liberty, Sharia law must be completely eliminated from the face of the planet.

To handle Sharia law with kid gloves, only enables its foul grip on the world to grow.