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| Saturday, July 18th, 2009 | 9:59 pm
[bill_sheehan]
 |
Courtesy of ABC News, here’s the latest example of the human propensity to see patterns in random stimuli and interpret them as somehow significant. (There’s a thirty-second ad for weed killer before the news clip starts.) It seems a bird in Bryan, Texas left a little gift on the side mirror of the Pachuca family’s pickup truck. The family are apparently devoutly Catholic. Having a special affinity for Our Lady of Guadalupe, they immediately interpreted the bird crap as an image of the Virgin. As you can see, the similarity is uncanny.  Besides, the miraculous bird bespattering happened on July the 12th. The feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12th. What more evidence of divine intervention do you need? Since last Sunday, a steady stream of the faithful have been stopping by to pray at the holy crap. The Pachucas plan to remove the mirror from the truck and mount it in a shrine. ”We just all feel protected,“ Cristal Pachuca said. ”It’s a blessing to our family and everyone that comes to see it.“ Let us join together in the hymn ” There Shall Be Showers of Blessing“. | | Monday, July 13th, 2009 | 9:27 pm
[bill_sheehan]
|
A Priest-Ridden People
“History, I believe,” wrote Thomas Jefferson, “furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” No country in the West has been so thoroughly priest-ridden as Ireland. The priests have taken not only Ireland’s past, but her future. For the past sixty years, priests and nuns have inflicted physical, mental, and sexual abuse on children in Catholic schools and orphanages. A nine-year effort culminating in a 2,600 page report published last May by Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, found “a climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment... Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.” As we saw in the Archdiocese of Boston, and in other Roman Catholic dioceses in America and Canada, when confronted with charges of sexual abuse of children, religious superiors simply moved the offenders to another location where they were free to abuse again. “There was evidence that such men took up teaching positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse.” Last week, Ireland outlawed blasphemy. From the new law: Section 36 (1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offense and shall be liable upon on conviction to a fine not exceeding €25,000. (2) For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if (a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion, and (b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage. Section 37 (1) Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 36, the court may issue a warrant (a) authorizing any member of the Garda Siochana to enter (if necessary by the use of reasonable force) at all reasonable times any premises (including a dwelling) at which he or she has reasonable grounds for believing that copies of the statement to which the offence related are to be found, and to search those premises and seize and remove all copies of the statement found therein, (b) directing the seizure and removal by any member of the Garda Siochana of all copies of the statement to which the offence related that are in the possession of any person, specifying the manner in which copies so seized and removed shall be detained and stored by the Garda Siochana. (Note: “Garda Siochana” is Irish for “police”.) The first offending document must surely be the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse’s report. What a terrible shame it must be to worship a god powerful enough to terrorize children into submitting to torture and rape, but so pitiably weak his reputation must be defended by threat of a fine.
| | Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | 10:36 pm
[genocide242]
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| | Monday, July 6th, 2009 | 10:26 pm
[skull_bearer]
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Turin Shroud
A recent theory on the Holy Shroud of Turin, a faked relic proposed to show the figure of Christ, is that it was faked by non other that Leonardo De Vinci, and is the first photograph. Leonardo De Vinci: Ultimate in Awesomeness Y/Y? | | Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | 3:05 pm
[wheresmybulldog]
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Atheist "Float" Booed at my 4th of July Parade
I play in a community band in a suburb of Chicago. This morning our group played in a parade. After we finished, I watched the rest of the parade and I spotted an atheist "float". It got booed. I don't know who this "Rob Sherman" is. At first I thought maybe he was a d-bag and that's why people were booing but then I overheard a guy say "Ugh, atheists" as he shook his head. Here's my footage: Current Mood:  annoyed | 12:49 pm
[iopha]
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Turkish Reality Show about Converting Atheists
Faiths compete on Turkish Game Show
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tv/story/2009/07/03/turkey-gameshow-religion-atheists.html
A new game show on Turkish television will pit a Greek Orthodox priest, a rabbi, an imam and a Buddhist monk against one another in attempt to convert atheists to their respective religions. In each episode of Penitents Compete, to be broadcast by Turkey's Kanal T television station in September, the four faith guides will try to persuade 10 atheists of the merits and truth of their creeds. The show's producers say there is a good chance none of the atheists will be converted, Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review reports. But those who are will be sent on a pilgrimage. New Muslims will head to Mecca, Buddhists to Tibet and Jews and Christians to Jerusalem – with television cameras following them. [Click on link for more.] Well, I might come down with a temporary case of Buddhism for a free trip to Tibet--although the TV cameras would be a tad disconcerting. How long until some American network picks up the idea though? Can't you just imagine it now? "Next on Fox: Real live atheists fight for their beliefs with the America's most pious!" Ugh! iopha Current Music: fleet foxes | 8:57 am
[idragosani]
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| | Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | 4:12 pm
[idragosani]
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| | Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | 9:01 pm
[phyxius]
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I went to the Pride Parade last weekend, and I think this was the most interesting booth of them all (and that's saying something):  The sign says: No God No Evolution Let's welcome our creators from space! Their website is raeliangay.org - I honestly couldn’t tell if they were in the Scientology camp or the Flying Spaghetti Monster camp. | | Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | 2:32 pm
[escabatum_rip3]
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Ghosts
I'm in a bit of a discussion with one of my former professors about whether Atheists can believe in ghosts or not, and I am of the opinion that they can (though I personally do not) so I was wondering if there is anyone here who is atheist and believes in ghosts, and if they could explain their reasoning for believing so? Thank you for any comments! | | Friday, June 26th, 2009 | 10:35 am
[frostythesuperv]
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SMBC
This doesn't really add anything to the discussion, but I love Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and I thought this morning's comic was brilliant. Friday funnies!  | | Thursday, June 25th, 2009 | 1:22 pm
[holocalacolypse]
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scary stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TME6X9LQ4y8That embed didn't seem to work for some reason. This is a video from Al Jazeera about evangelizing in the military. Its about 17 minutes long. When I was in boot camp I went to a few of the Jewish services to get out of cleaning because it was the most interesting even though a good half of it was in Hebrew. A good portion of this report is sensational and exaggerated from my perspective but the level of religion in the Navy was completely over the top. Daily prayers, forced adherence to religious holidays. We didn't have to go to church on Easter but we had to remain on board the ship for the duration of the services so that the 'faithful' wouldn't feel pressured to skip it. The counseling and mental health treatment was performed by these chaplains which I felt was very inappropriate. I grew up in Seattle and I had never met an evangelical before I joined, it was quite a shock to see first hand that the rumors I had heard were true. | 1:49 am
[razora]
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Children Need Morals
So yesterday (Tuesday) my uncle passed away for he was very sick, and as I was at my grandparents house his best friend of 40 years (let’s call him S for now) came to the house to give him condolences. While talking about religion and “the Great Beyond” my mom informed me that my other uncle (may aunt's husband) is an atheist too (oh cool). So we started talking about why we became atheists, or as he likes to call himself a “heathen.” He told me that when he was like 7 was when he realized religion was BS and there might not be a man upstairs, because he was raised at a catholic school and saw their manipulative ways to “teach” children the word of god, and being smacked around by the nuns didn’t help either. Somehow we said something about children and religion and S (who was also in the room) said, “Children need to grow up with religion, so they can learn morals.” I was kind of shocked to hear something like that, because this was the first time someone kind of challenged me about being an atheist (sort of). At the same time I wasn’t offended entirely because well we were talking about religion in mixed company (considered to be a party faux pas). Anyways I kept my cool (at least I think I did, no one has said anything to me yet) and I said, “You see, that is a big misconception that a lot of people have about atheists. Just because I don’t believe in an upper power doesn’t mean that I have no morals. I personally think that this is the one life I have and that it is so precious that I want to live it to the fullest and be good to people and so on.” He didn’t say much after that he nodded his head so I guess he understood where I was coming from but I’m guessing he didn’t want to get into it, that’s cool. This kind of scenario really makes me wish I had that pamphlet I made for my print production class because I totally put the whole moral thing in there too lol! I’m seriously going to pitch this idea to American Atheist or Think Atheist, I don’t care if they change what I said a little as long as it puts out the same message I was shooting for which was “this is what we believe in (or don’t believe in), but we’re not asking you to change.” I’m really happy that I found a relative who shares the same views as me. Most of my family is Jewish, (for those of you who don’t know), and I do have another question about that but I’ll save that for another post. Any way now I really want to hang out with my uncle because he has gone up like 50 points in my cool book (and there aren’t too many people in my cool book, lol).
x-posted Current Mood:  contemplative | | Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | 3:00 pm
[gnomeyhead]
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| 8:58 am
[loveberry]
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How do you deal with the common presupposition that you are religious? Do you out yourself every time religion comes up, no matter what, or save it for when you are on the spot, or not out yourself at all? Do you awkwardly change the subject? Do you feel like you have a responsibility to be out and proud? We are part of a Christian homeschooling group, and these people are my friends. When I first joined the group only a couple of them knew that we weren't religious and it was very awkward sometimes. Dads who had never met me before would rant about Dawkins or someone I hadn't outed myself to would say something about how sad it is that atheists don't have the comfort of god in hard times. Eventually I got more confident and told everyone, or it at least got around, and, much to my surprise, no one gives me any crap about it. I prejudged this group to be judgmental because of their religion, but I was the judgmental one. So I a pretty big on being out. But I struggle with how to do that gracefully and politely. I try to throw out a "we aren't religious" in a conversation that touches on religion so people know where they stand with me. I hope that by doing this I make it easier for the next generation to not have to feel like they need to hide their atheistic perspective. I am also trying not to assume so much about religious people. No single group has a monopoly on assholes. Crossposted. :P | | Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | 12:32 pm
[holocalacolypse]
|
Someone vandalized the church sign next door. It once read 'God is the greatest problem solver.' They corrected it the next day. I think its pretty funny. | | Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | 12:16 pm
[phyxius]
 |
 I suggest going through the archives, too... some pretty good stuff in there. | 10:39 am
[bobquasit]
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Where do we come from? results
My thanks to everyone who answered this. I've put the data together in a spreadsheet, and published it as a Google document here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rsWUM6j96gO6ptafoYh73iA&output=htmlResults:- Of the 59 people who answered, 19 were raised as atheists and 40 were raised in a faith tradition. - 45 respondents were raised in the USA, and 14 were not. - Of the 19 raised without religion, 10 were from the USA and 9 were not. - Of the 40 raised in a faith tradition, 35 were from the USA and 5 were not. 17 were raised Catholic; the next highest total was generic/unspecified, of which there were seven. There were five former Lutherans, four former Methodists, three former Baptists and four raised in faiths which they did not have in common with any other respondent. There was only one non-Christian. Notes:I assigned regions within the US generally according to their Wikipedia definitions, with some exceptions. I counted Maryland as the "East Coast", as well as New York and New Jersey. In any case, I didn't derive anything meaningful from the region/state data. No one outside of the USA gave regional information. If I do this again (unlikely) I will probably make it a multiple-choice poll. Atheists seem to prefer to give nuanced answers. :D If anyone wants to add a response, please do! I'll do my best to track it. Thanks again, everyone! I'm not sure what we've learned, but I think we learned something. Current Mood:  accomplished | | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | 9:01 pm
[carbongirl6]
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It sucks being atheist
It sucks. Really it does. Because everybody needs to know why. Someone wanted to know the other day and I gave my cop out answer of not caring. I do that pretty much everytime people asks, so at least they think I'm agnostic or something. Apparently that's not so bad (WTF). I believe religion is kind of a wishful thinking sort of thing. Like people just can't stand to think that there is nothing beyond this, so they made religion up to make themselves feel better. I take comfort in this and I feel firmly planted in my views, ready to explain them. But then I get caught up in that sick sinking feeling of shame because I can't believe I'm so arrogant as to think that I know something. The feeling fades to laziness and that is when I say I don't really care. It's a vicious circle. I'd really love to believe in God. I really would. But I don't. "One can't believe in impossible things" -- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Current Mood: cranky | | Friday, June 5th, 2009 | 11:10 am
[marymusylisdead]
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my boss about made me puke.
my boss is an evangelical christian. we became friends for a while, despite our differences of opinion on a wealth of things. all that came to a screeching hault when he had a conversation in confidence with me. he told me how up until the day he moved out of his home after his divorce from his wife his sex life was "healthy." healthy. that's the word he used to describe it. well, then he said that a wife has to fulfill her duties, sexual and otherwise, regardless of whether she is in the mood or not. so, in essence, he probably raped his wife a few times. she said no, and he told her it was his god-given right to have sex with her. he said that a wife doesn't have the right to refuse a husband sex, and justified it (in his own mind, at least) with religion.
is this a common line of thinking among people, christian and otherwise? i am well aware that sex is pretty damn important in a relationship; but if it got to the point where your partner didn't want to have sex with you, wouldn't it be wiser to leave them than to rape them? or if it was just a day of the week when they weren't in the mood, couldn't you just go rub one out rather than raping them? this makes me all kind of sick and i am worried for his new girlfriend. just needed to vent. thanks. |
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