DangerousTalk

Traditionally Political Correctness has been viewed as a liberal thing but quite frankly, I don’t see it. While it is true that Democrats usually try to play nice and look down on those who use racial and sexual slurs, Democrats don’t usually push for laws restricting free speech and when they do whine about “hurtful words” I tend to denounce that point of view in favor of free speech.

If you remember Janet Jackson’s now infamous “wardrobe malfunction,” it was the Republicans leading the censorship charge on that day. Religious fundamentalists whined about moral standards with righteous indignation. I will grant you that Democrats went along with that, but the effort was lead by Republicans.

When Congress wanted to raise FCC fines against broadcasters for “indecency” it was again Religious Right Republicans whined and cried about dirty words and sexually explicit language who lead the effort to increase those fines astronomically. At a time of war, they even tacked this resolution on a defense spending bill to insure 100% support from the Senate.

Now, Governor Sarah Palin is leading the latest anti-free speech campaign against jokes she considers in “poor taste.” After late night talk show comedian and host David Letterman told a few jokes about Palin, her daughter, and Democrat Eliot Spitzer, Governor Palin went on the warpath. Aside from her blatant mischaracterization of Letterman’s joke, Palin then insinuated that Letterman was a pedophile.

Here are the jokes that Sarah Palin found “offensive”:
Joke 1: “[Sarah Palin] Bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her ’slutty flight attendant’ look.”
Joke 2: “An awkward moment during the seventh inning, her [Palin] daughter [Bristol] was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
Joke 3: Palin having problems keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter [Bristol].

Palin claims that the jokes were focused on her 14-year-old daughter Willow, but Willow wasn’t the one who has been in the news for being “knocked up” out of wedlock. That would be Bristol. So while Willow was the daughter at the game, the joke was clearly in reference to the older daughter. The joke just wouldn’t make sense if it were about Willow Palin. Governor Palin (who didn’t even understand the joke by her own admission) claims that it was aimed at Willow so that she can use the joke to claim that Letterman was joking about rape (presumably she meant statutory rape) and then insinuating that he could be a pedophile. When questioned about that insinuation, Palin attempted to back off that statement with the claim that her daughter Willow might use violence toward the talk show host. It was a pretty weak back track since her original meaning was very clear and obvious and even the new spin could be considered “over the line.”

While we could just laugh this off as that wacky Sarah Palin trying to get back in the news, she has gotten other Republicans to speak out against Letterman and his jokes. The head of the Republican Party is even calling for a boycott of Letterman’s show and I won’t be surprised if some sort of legislation is introduced because of Letterman’s jokes.

While Letterman tried to explain himself and defuse the controversy by inviting Palin on his show, Palin won’t have it. Instead, she and her religious fundamentalist base have stepped up the rhetoric and have taken the rest of the Republican establishment with them. It seems that the Alaskan Governor sees this as an issue she can capitalize on to elevate her status within the GOP.

As a free speech activist, I support David Letterman and his jokes. If Letterman had made jokes about the President’s daughters, I wouldn’t have a problem with that either if they were in the news. When Bush’s daughters were in the news for binge drinking, there were plenty of jokes being thrown around. Bristol Palin has become a public figure because of her mother’s abstinence only policies. Bristol of course got “knocked up” and paraded around during her mother’s failed VP campaign. Willow on the other hand has not made the news and had Letterman’s joke attacked her, I might be more inclined to take to her defense.

Now however, Sarah Palin has moved Willow into the spotlight so she is now fair game. What did the Alaskan Governor say to the mob of homosexuals when her witchdoctor pastor was visiting? “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as [is] good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.” -Genesis 19:8

Filed under: Uncategorized | 31 Comments »

Earlier this week, James von Brunn went into the National Holocaust Museum and shot and killed Security Officer Steven T. Johns. This was news all over the country and if you want to find out more details on this story, just step outside cave you must be living in. The point of today’s blog isn’t to tell people about the story, but to analysis the reason for it.

James von Brunn is a well known white supremacist and while Officer Steven Johns was black, that was not the reason for the shooting. Von Brunn hated Jews and last I looked in the mirror, Jews are white… at least this Jew is (pale would be a more accurate term). So the real question is why would Von Brunn hate Jews?

I want to separate two things here because the term “Jew” describes two different things which in most cases are lumped together. There is the religion and there is the ethnicity. While I am ethnically Jewish, I am no longer religiously Jewish. In that respect, I am an ex-Jew. I have no problem attacking the Jewish religion and have done so many times. I consider the Jewish religion on par with the Nazi ideology in that both believe that they are the chosen people of God and I find that type of righteous superiority to be immoral.

Religious beliefs can change but ethnicity cannot. The fact is that the Nazis did not care whether someone was ethnically Jewish or religiously Jewish; they wanted to throw all Jews into the ovens. James von Brunn didn’t care either. He had a hate for all Jews based mainly on his view of God and of his Christianity. The fact is that Von Brunn’s hate for Jews stemmed from the same source as the Nazi hate for Jews and Mel Gibson’s hate for Jews.

In the Bible, the Jews killed Jesus. While mainstream Christians obviously don’t hold that view, many fundamentalist Christians (although not all) disagree. Von Brunn was one of those who disagreed. He believed that the Jews killed God in the Flesh. He strongly believed based on his interpretation of the Bible that God’s chosen people have fallen from grace in the eyes of God and are now doing the Devil’s work. While his website (HolyWesternEmpire.org) has now been taken down, the site did contain conspiracy theories about how the Jews now control the government and the media. Clearly I would not classify this guy as a sane individual despite the fact that many sane people hold similar grand conspiracy theories.

The point here is that anti-Semitism is a direct result of an understandable interpretation of the Bible. I say “understandable” because it isn’t an interpretation that is unrecognizable from reading the text. In other words, someone doesn’t have to perform a series of mental gymnastics or change word meanings in order to get that interpretation. That interpretation wouldn’t be an irrational stretch from a reading of the text. Without the Bible, these people still might hate Jews, but they would have far less grounding for such hate. In fact, without the Bible, such hate for Jews would be baseless.

While no one has ever made such comments to me, I know Jews who have told me that Christians have asked them about their horns or their tails. Even in this day and age, a surprising number of Christians still think that Jews have horns and tails. Why would someone think that a Jewish person would have horns and a tail? Clearly the reasoning for this lies in the view that Jews are agents of the Devil and are Christ killers.

Filed under: Current Events, Religion | 36 Comments »

While I have talked about this topic before in my column turned blog post titled “Will the Real Christians Please Stand Up,” It seems that I have to go into a little bit more detail here. Every Christian (I can’t think of one exception) that I talk to seems to claim to have the monopoly on how to interpret God’s divine message. That in and of itself is not the problem, I claim to have the monopoly of understanding on many issues. The difference here is that so many Christians have so many different and even opposing interpretations of the God’s divine message.

Obviously it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that all these Christians can’t be correct in their understanding. So how do we figure out whose interpretation is correct and whose interpretation is inaccurate? Well that is the problem. There is good reason to support almost all of the claims that various Christians make. The Bible is so open-ended and contradictory that it has become a spiritual Rorschach Test.

The Bible has become a mirror in a sense. If someone is a good person who believes in people and in compassion than they focus on the parts of the Bible in which Jesus talks about turning the other cheek and are completely oblivious to the parts of the Bible where Jesus talks about cutting out an eye or chopping of a hand if those parts of your body “cause you to sin.” If someone is a hateful person, they focus on homosexuality being an abomination, but ignore the parts where God talks about other more positive aspects of the Bible.

The fact is that there is far more cruelty and bad morality in the Bible than there is positive moral values. But most people aren’t evil enough to really treat women as property in today’s modern society. No one today focuses on the parts of the Bible which advocate stoning non-believers, adulterers, non-virgins on their wedding night, and divorcees. No one in today’s modern materialistic society is willing to give away all of their money and possessions the way Jesus commands.

Christians all pick and choose which Bible verses they already agree with and then use those Bible verses to justify their actions whether those actions are positive or negative. That’s fine though. I have no problem with picking and choosing. I pick and choose which moral lessons I choose to follow from many different philosophy books. The problem is that the philosophy books that I pick and choose from weren’t alleged to have been written by the perfect Creator of the Universe.

Now that I have pointed out some of the parts of the Bible that no one follows, I am bond to get comments claiming that I don’t understand the “True” meaning of those parts of the Bible or that I am not taking those verses in their “True” context. Again, every Christian claims to have the monopoly on what the “Truth” is in regards to the Bible and its “True” meaning. You see, when the Bible says slavery is okay, it doesn’t really mean that slavery is okay. If you change the meaning of the word slavery to mean something else or if you change okay to mean morally wrong, than it all makes perfect sense.

Filed under: Real Christians, Religion | 12 Comments »

One particular aspect of Religious Right Christianity which sometimes trickles into the mainstream of Christianity is the idea that all sins (or wrongs) are equal. I remember when I was younger, a Christian explained it to me with the following analogy:

God is pure and can’t tolerate anything other than purity. Sin is like an ink spot on purity. Even the littlest sin in intolerable to God. And once the black ink of sin is on the pure whiteness of the soul, nothing can get it out… except of course Jesus.

With this analogy, Jesus is the ultimate laundry man and sin is God’s Kryptonite. I always found that part a little strange. If God is supposed to be so all powerful, why can’t he tolerate sin? But that is another issue for another blog. The issue of today’s blog is that within the Christian mythology, the littlest sin stains the soul just as much as a large sin. Both are equally as intolerable to God and both will land you in ETERNAL HELL; in for a pinch, in for a pound. Whether one lusts in his or her heart or murders someone, it makes no difference to the Biblical God. Homosexuality is just as much of an abomination to God as stealing or working on Saturday.

Now of course for those who embrace this mythology, there is the up side that Jesus is the ultimate stain remover/laundry man. That means that Christians don’t have to worry about committing those little sins and since those little sins are equal to those big sins, Biblical Christians don’t have to worry about those either. Catholics learned that a long time ago and that is why the idea of weekly and even daily confession started.

All sins are the same in Christianity. All sins are equally offensive to God. So next a woman asks you if she looks fat in something or a man asks you if you think he is sexy, before you tell that little white lie, think about it. Lying is a sin and just as bad as murdering someone. So if you have already sinned, why not just murder someone anyway? If you are a Christian who has accepted Jesus into your “heart of hearts” (whatever that means), you are forgiven in advance anyway.

Don’t give me that crap about Christians not supposed to sin either, because we all know that everyone sins. We are all evil sinners according to the Biblical God, right? And just in case you do some how manage to follow all the rules, God gets you with the Original Sin. God’s got that shit covered. So if a sin is a sin is a sin, than why not murder and steal like crazy.

Filed under: Religion, sin | 45 Comments »

If you were to take a poll of Christians from 1700 years ago, I bet that about 95-98 percent of those polled probably couldn’t have a problem with slavery. If that same poll were taken 1000 years ago, the results probably wouldn’t change all that much. 200 years ago, that number would probably be closer to 70 percent however. And during the Civil War, it would have probably been about 50 percent. Of course today that number would probably be close to zero. I think someone would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to admit that they think slavery is morally okay in today’s society.

If we asked all those Christians we have imaginarily polled why they supported slavery, they would no doubt tell us that it was in the Bible. And if we polled those who opposed slavery, they too would tell us that their beliefs were biblical in nature. But the purpose of today’s blog isn’t to debate slavery and it certainly isn’t to debate whether or not slavery is supported in the Bible or not. My point here is that Christians once believed that it was supported by the Bible and so Christian opinion about slavery has in fact shifted. Many Christians today will claim that those Christians in the past who supported slavery either weren’t real Christians or didn’t properly understand what God was saying.

If we polled Christians 1700 years ago about homosexuality, most people wouldn’t even know what we were even talking about. But those that did would almost certainly be against it. In fact, we wouldn’t even see a shift in the percentage of Christians who are against homosexuality until sometime toward the end of the last century. Now, it is probably about 60-40 against homosexuality among modern Christians and I am being generous to the pro-homosexuality Christians in that number.

The thing is that that number is changing. More and more Christians are accepting of homosexuality, homosexuals, and even homosexual marriage. In fact, following that trend, we can look into the future and see that the Christians of the future might look back at those Christians today who stand against gay marriage and consider homosexuality a sin and claim that those Christians weren’t real Christians or didn’t properly understand what God was saying.

Filed under: Gay Issues, Religion | 20 Comments »

In modern society, the idea of the right to privacy is something that most Americans value. Liberals fight to keep government laws out of the bedroom and right wing groups are strongly support the idea of government non-interference. Whether someone is right or left, privacy seems to be a value that we all hold.

So why is it that there are both liberal and conservative Christians who on one hand value the right to privacy, but on the other hand value the right of their God to watch everything you do 24/7? This seems like another example in which the God of old doesn’t quite fit with our modern day values.

Whenever I think about the idea that God watches people all the time, I mind always goes right to the gutter so to speak. Does God watch people in the shower? Does he watch them masturbate? Does God watch people having sex? Does he care if they are two very attractive people having sex or if they are two unattractive people? I mean if I were God, I might watch Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have sex, but that ugly couple a few blocks over, would not be a pretty sight. But yet I guess God would have to watch that too right?

Can God choose not to watch people have sex? I mean he is supposed to be all seeing, so if he chose to not watch for a moment, can he still claim to be all seeing? The idea that God is this all-powerful pervert is a little disturbing to me. And knowing that God can’t not watch is just perverse. It would be like creating a rock so heavy that God can’t move it.

But back to the point, if we as Americans value privacy how is it that 80% of us can also value an all-powerful peeping Tom? It just seems like the traits that God possesses are traits valued in a different time and are not traits that we as Americans value today. So just remember Jesus knows your sexual fantasies and every time you even think an unclear thought, God kills a baby.

Filed under: Religion, sex | 31 Comments »

In the winter of 2002, I met with my Republican Congressman to discuss several issues that concerned me and my listeners at WCUR. My Congressman at the time was a member of the Armed Forces Committee and bragged about his foreign policy knowledge. I asked him if America should be involved in trying to create peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people. He told me that it wasn’t America’s concern and that they can handle their own problems. Two weeks later, the Israeli and Palestinian conflict exploded to front page news on almost every newspaper in the world and it continued to grab the headlines for the months that followed. This conflict is still the central conflict in the so called “war on terror.”

There is no doubt that Al Qaeda gets a large amount of recruiting mileage out of claims of hardship and struggle suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of “evil Israeli oppressors.” And so the stage was set for Barack Obama’s big Cairo speech on Thursday. After listening to his hour long speech, I understood what he was doing. Obama’s speech was an attack on Osama bin Laden and sought to seriously limit the ability of Al Qaeda to recruit more foot soldiers. In fact, Obama’s speech may even cause some of the current members of Al Qaeda to loose faith in the Al Qaeda mission and to defect (possibly providing us with valuable intelligence).

In that context, it was a good speech. I however had wished that he had mentioned other religious aside from the Abrahamic faiths when talking about diversity. It would have also been nice if he had talked about those who don’t hold faith-based beliefs. And while I am glad that our President quoted from the Treaty of Tripoli, I wish he would have reiterated what he said in Turkey about how America is not a Christian nation.  Instead, it seemed from Obama’s speech that America is a Christian nation, Israel is Jewish nation, and the people of the Middle East are Muslims. This perception only reinforces the Crusade mentality which we are trying hard to dismiss.

But my biggest issue with Obama’s speech was this continued insistence to “stay the course” with the “two state solution.” When I first heard about the two-state solution plan, it seemed reasonable enough, but after much conversation with those in and out of the military and a great deal of though on the topic, it became clear that such a solution would only escalate the problem after a short respite. Instead of a conflict, we would be setting the stage for a war between two nation-states.

When two groups of people have such hate and distrust for each other, separating them out for anything less than a brief cease-fire only serves to foster distrust and hate. Only with a one state solution in which the Israeli and Palestinian people are forced to live side by side as neighbors will they be able to get to know each other as people who have the same hopes and needs as they do. Such a bold plan would certainly be more difficult, but it would also have a more long lasting effect which would create stability in the region and in the world.

Another aspect of this conflict that Obama failed to approach is that there are lots of people in the world that don’t want there to be peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people. There are religious fanatics in the world who believe that war between these two parties is a sign of the End of Days. And while most reasonable people might see the end of the world as a bad thing, these religious extremists on both sides see it as a glorious day in which their savior (Jesus or Mohammad) will return to take all the “real” Muslims or “real” Christians to Heaven. Osama bin Laden is one of those extremists and so he does not want peace. Al Qaeda does not want peace and neither did the Bush Administration.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics, Religion | 8 Comments »

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” – Genesis 11:4

I was recently reminded of the story of the Tower of Babel and more particularly this verse. There is of course the central issue of this story which to me is an attempt by bronze-aged people to understand why it is that people speak different languages. Today, sociology makes it pretty clear that since people live in different areas of the world, they develop their own languages and when communities interact, languages between them share different aspects, words, and root words. Most of the western languages are off shoots of Latin for example and so English tends to share common root words with French, Spanish, etc.

But back in the day, those bronze-aged people had not studied sociology or language and had to account for the fact that different nations and tribes had different languages. And so the story of the Tower of Babel came about. Obviously it would be pretty ridiculous for Christians to take this story literally today. Most of the mainstream Christians recognize that it is simply a story with no basis in historical fact. However, there are still a surprisingly large number of people especially in America who hold that this is an actual historical account of how different languages developed.

Those who do believe that this was an actual historical account also have to address the issue that has come up in this particular verse. That issue being that the writers of this verse clearly thought that God lives in Heaven and that Heaven is not in some sort of different dimension or plain of existence, but rather is up there is the sky. The Tower was to be built as high as possible so that the top should reach into Heaven.

According to this account, Heaven is in space. It is a physical place which can be reached by building a high enough tower. The problem is that since that time, we have build ships that can reach as high as Heaven and yet no God was to be found.

To deal with this problem, the apologists might try to turn to word games. These apologists might quickly claim that the Hebrew word used in this passage is Shamayim, which literally means “sky” or “The Heavens” referring to the physical universe and not to the Kingdom of God. However, this argument really doesn’t work out for the apologist since there are passages in the Bible which are clearly referring to the place where God dwells as Shamayim. The fact is that the Hebrew word Shamayim means both “The Heavens” and “Heaven” because the ancient Hebrews thought they were the same thing.

Even Paul thought that when we die, it wasn’t just our souls that were going up to Heaven, but our entire body. Heaven was thought to be a physical place up there in the sky. Now of course, we have been there up in the sky and so Christian apologists who take this passage literally need to change what the Bible meant.

Another point to consider is that God was angry because humans of different tribes all got together to build this tower out of pride. They wanted to reach God. God punished them by giving them different languages so that they could not work together. Today, we have Google. Google allows us to translate languages from one to another so that we are no longer “babbling” to each other. Now humans can work together. And we have done so in the form of the International Space Station currently in the Heavens. We have done this out of the pride of humanity just like in the story. Where is God now? Why hasn’t he taken Google away and stopped us from building our modern day Tower of Babel?

If you ask me, the International Space Station is a giant fuck you to the Christian God. Our pride in science and human achievement is much greater than that of those in the story of Babel. The fact that people can read this blog from China in Chinese using the Google Translator is evidence that the story of Babel is fiction.

Of course as I stated in the beginning of this blog, mainstream Christians already know that it is fiction and yet those same mainstream Christians still often claim that other aspects of the Bible (which are ridiculously more unbelievable than this story) are real historical facts. That is like saying that while we all know that planet Kypton doesn’t exist, Superman is still real.

Filed under: Religion, the bible | 17 Comments »

While most Christians believe that he Bible was divinely written by God, some Christians that I talk to, reject the idea that the Creator of the Universe actually sat down and wrote a book. It seems that I am not the only one who thinks this is utterly ridiculous. If the Creator of the Universe did write the Bible, then it would contain far fewer errors and atrocities and hopefully far more wisdom and morality and would certainly be far more scientifically and historically accurate. So if these Christians agree with me that the Bible was definitely not written by the Creator of the Universe, then how can they be Christians who hold the Bible as a sacred book?

The claim is that the Creator of the Universe “inspired” it’s writing. What does that mean exactly? Gene Roddenberry inspires me, but I don’t think I am using the word “inspires” in quite the same way as some of my Christian friends. For me, inspiration is something that I think about which moves my intellect and emotion causing me to act in a creative fashion such as a poet being inspired by a sunset.

When some of these Christians use the term in relation to the Bible, they seem to mean more than that. They seem to be suggesting that a divine influence has been at work in the form of a metaphysical Holy Spirit which has qualified him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation. In other words the Bible wasn’t just inspired by the idea of God, but was actually influenced through the Holy Spirit’s interactions with men by God literally.

It isn’t that my moderate and liberal Christian friends think that some guys thousands of years ago were thinking about some vague higher power concept and then became inspired and wrote the Bible all on their own. These Christians seem to believe that the Creator of the Universe literally put the thoughts into the heads of these writers and so the Bible while physically written by men, was spiritually written by God… in part.

If the Bible were merely inspired by the idea of God the same way that Star Trek was inspired by the adventures of Horatio Hornblower, than the Bible should be considered wholly fictional except in places where the historical accounts are collaborated by non-biblical writers. People are then free to pick and choose (i.e. without contradiction) parts of the Bible they feel give them wisdom and reject the parts of the Bible which are immoral and silly. We would treat the Bible the same way we treat any great work of fiction.

On the other hand, if the Bible was inspired in a more metaphysical manner through some sort of literal divine influence, than we should expect nothing less than absolute perfection in every detail. This book should be the most brilliant book ever written and should not only be clearly written, but should transcend space and time the way it’s author God is alleged to transcend space and time. Either the book’s content should be the stuff which stands up to the test of time, or God should have added a “To be continued” clause at the end of it so that when we get to a certain level of wisdom, morality, or scientific advancement, God could guide us further.

The problem is that the content of the Bible does not stand the test of time and the Bible states that no additions will be made. This book is the end all and be all of God’s collective wisdom to humanity. So how do we deal with this obvious contradiction? Christians have figured it out. God despite creating humans in his own image doesn’t seem to have hands. So God send this Holy Spirit to indeed metaphysically inspire the writing of the Bible. The problem was that he had to inspire flawed humans and while God is by definition supposed to be perfect, it seems that he couldn’t communicate his divine thoughts to these men perfectly at all. So man’s interpretation somehow got mixed into God’s spiritually inspired magnum opus. To make a long story short, God wrote the Bible perfectly in the minds of men and those men fucked it up.

So what we are reading as the Bible isn’t fully accurate according to these Christians. The ideas are the ideas of the Creator of the Universe, but the details are a little fuzzy. Oh, and most importantly, anything that we as a society might consider to be morally repulsive that was written in the Bible was not God’s infallible morality, but was rather the parts that men screwed up. Slavery, stoning, mass rape, genocide, holy wars, etc. were not God’s ideas. In fact, if you read the Bible and find that you disagree with something, then you can rest easy knowing that God probably didn’t write that part. That part was written by some evil, greedy, self-centered, sinner. But if you find a part of the Bible that you do agree with… that was God… apparently.

Filed under: Religion, the bible | 28 Comments »

Many people today seem to be concerned about discrimination based on religion. Some how religion has become a protected class and I have to wonder why that is. Personally, I don’t support discrimination based on religion because that makes it seem like someone is being discriminated against based on some natural quality of that person.

I discriminate against people based on their beliefs. I don’t care if those beliefs are religious beliefs, political beliefs, mythological beliefs, grand conspiracy related beliefs, etc. Beliefs can change. People aren’t born with beliefs. If someone applied for a job at a bookstore and told the interviewer that he or she believes in burning books, I think the bookstore should discriminate against that person and not hire him or her.

Discriminating against someone based on some aspect that they cannot alter more times than not is immoral. Mainly, the reason for that is because they can’t alter that trait. This is why discriminating against someone’s gender, ethnic background, skin color, or sexual orientation is generally considered wrong. But religious beliefs are not based on gender or ethnic background or skin color or sexual orientation. So why is religious belief a protected class?

People are generally brainwashed from birth into religion. Which religion is largely depends on someone’s ethnic background. Since ethnic background is a protected class, the assumption is that religion should be a protected class. The thing is that today, more and more people are breaking free from their religions while still holding to their individual ethnic backgrounds. Since ethnic backgrounds are rightfully a protected class, there is no valid reason why religious beliefs or any beliefs for that matter should be a protected class.

People are entitled to believe whatever they want in this country, but they are not entitled to act on those beliefs nor are there beliefs entitled to protection from the consequences of those beliefs. Someone is free to believe that black people should still be slaves, but if they act on that belief, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Also, if they voice that belief in certain settings, they should be discriminated against based on that belief.

I would never support discriminating against Christians, but I do support discriminating against Christian belief. I’m sorry, but if someone is going to believe in the infallibility of an obviously flawed ancient text and that there is some all-powerful dictator who raped a young lady in a way so that she could still remain a virgin in order to give birth to himself so he could kill himself to some how redeem the wrongdoings of everyone who believes this crazy tale, than I am going to discriminate against you because that is ridiculous.

But not all Christians today hold this belief as fundamental to their lives. Many Christians can still live mostly secular lives and then go to Church on Sunday and believe. If I owned a retail business, I would have no problem hiring such a person. But if someone told me in an interview that they believe all unsaved people are going to be tortured for all eternity and since he or she was a loving person, he or she would attempt to save every customer who walked in the door, I would and should discriminate against them and give the job to someone else. That’s not bigoted, that’s just common sense.

Filed under: Religion | 20 Comments »

Without getting into the abortion debate, I want to talk about the terrorist attack on American soil that happened yesterday in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed inside a church of all places. Tiller is an abortion doctor who runs a clinic which performs the controversial late-term abortion.

I do find it interesting that a medical doctor was killed inside a church by a fellow believer. Christians can’t seem to be non-violent with other Christians and yet many people expect them to be non-violent to those who the Bible states are doomed to eternal torture.

Police have detained an anti-abortion activist named Scott Roeder in connection with this latest shooting. Roeder was attested in 1996 for having a car loaded with explosives components, but was released on a technicality. My question to all the anti-abortionists who also are supportive of the former Vice-President’s “enhanced interrogation” is should we use those methods on Mr. Roeder? Should we water board this “homegrown terrorist” to find out if he was working with anyone else? If there are other doctors being targeted? Is there a connection between him and Iraq?

Seriously though, this is yet another example of someone acting violently because they believed that the all-powerful Creator of the Universe needed their help. The Bible says that every sperm is sacred and warns against “spilling the seed.” There are multiple places in the Bible where believers are called upon to stone others to death. In today’s society, the argument could be made that guns are the new stoning. So will Christians stand with this terrorist or will they stand against him? Personally, I think many will try to blame the victim here and talk about the evils of abortion instead of addressing the real issue. Scott Roeder allegedly murdered Dr. George Tiller directly because of his religious belief.

Filed under: Current Events, Religion | 46 Comments »

Christians are always telling me that I need to worship their deity of choice. When I ask why, they warn me of eternal punishment and damnation in the fires of Hell. Sometimes, they will entice me into worshipping their deity with promises of eternal bliss in Heaven. But all threats and bribes aside, they still haven’t really answered my question. Why should I worship their god?

Then Christians will often inform me that God created me. That’s great and all, but how does that answer my question? Am I expected to worship my creator or something? My parents created me and while I respect them most of the time, I certainly don’t worship them. Many people have parents who are not even worthy of respect let alone worship. If I someone creates a robot, should he or she demand that the robot worship him or her? That seems awfully vain. In my mind, such a trait would make the person less praiseworthy, not more praiseworthy. Clearly a creation should not be the slave of the created. So even if I were to accept the premise that God existed and created me (which I don’t) that still wouldn’t compel me to worship such a being. We are still left with the question, why should I worship the Christian God?

Next, many Christians I talk to appeal to power. They tell me that their God is all powerful and that is why he should be worshipped. This to me goes back to the threat of Hell and the bribe of Heaven. “God can do anything and is all powerful, you better get in line.” I don’t accept the appeal to power as a reason to worship. Taking this argument to the extreme, if Hitler were all powerful, would that make him praise worthy and more worship worthy? I really don’t think it does and I doubt that anyone would if they really thought about it. This appeal to power is quite honestly insulting.

In fact, the only reason to worship anyone that I could even remotely understand would be based on morality. At this point my Christian friends tend to smile and tell me that their god has that too. He is the very definition of moral goodness they claim. But as someone who has read the Bible, I just don’t see it. One cannot just claim to be moral, one must demonstrate that morality. If God wrote or spiritually inspired the writing of the Bible and if that book is an accurate picture of who God is, than I can’t see myself worshipping that being at all. This is where the excuses and justifications come in. “God doesn’t need to explain his morality to a mere human like me,” “God’s ways are mysterious,” “God is good because he says he is good,” “Without God there is no moral grounding,” etc.

The truth is that I really don’t believe in worshipping anyone, God or otherwise. I worship ideas not personalities. While I might say that I would follow an Aristotelian “person of practical wisdom.” I would stop following such a person the moment they proposed something which I considered to be immoral. I might start following them again when they proposed something more reasonable. Take our current President Barack Obama for example. I respect him and admire him. I think he is a smart person who is trying to do what he can to help people. I’ll follow him on most things, but I will also be critical of him when he refuses to stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians. I am critical of him for reaching out to religious fanatics and hoping that they will support hi even when he doesn’t need their support and will not get their support. So while I admire the President and will follow his lead on many things, I most certainly don’t worship him or follow him blindly.

I can’t think o a single reason why I would possibly worship any god let alone the Christian God. I certainly am not a coward who is afraid of eternal torture in Hell, nor am I a greedy person who would accept the bribe of Heaven. I don’t think the Christian God created me and even if I did, I still don’t see that as any reason to worship such a deity. The awesome all-powerfulness of God doesn’t really concern me since I don’t consider power to be a reason for worship. And the Christian God of the Bible doesn’t seem very moral to me either. So my question still stands, why should I worship the Christian God?

Filed under: Religion | 8 Comments »

President Barack Obama has announced his nomination for the Supreme Court. Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a mixed bag. She is a well known political moderate and as the first Latina nominee, she puts the Republican is a tough place since they would like to gain support within the Latin American community. She has been described as an intellectual and a bit of a bully on the bench like Supreme Court Judge Scalia. Those last two traits are in my opinion positive traits. I am bothered that she is more moderate than I would like. Let’s look at some of her case history.

On the plus side, in Pappas v. Giuliani she sided with Free Speech even though that speech was bigoted and racist. I have always held that popular speech doesn’t need protection, but unpopular speech does. In this case, Judge Sotomayor and I are in agreement. Since speaking out against religion is generally considered to be unpopular, Judge Sotomayor seems to be the type of Judge who will protect our Free Speech to be critical of religion.

In Rosario v. Does, substitute teacher Sonia Rosario spoke for several minutes about her religious views in the classroom. She told her students that according to the Bible, “Jesus was the son of God” and that “one must come through Jesus to get to God.” Rosario also approached each student, placing her hand on their foreheads, and asked God to protect them and their families. In this case, Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the school that fired her. This too is a ruling which I support and agree with. It shows that Judge Sotomayor understands that schools are not to be a forum for religious proselytizing by those in authority.

Friedman v. Clarkstown Central School District dealt with science and medicine. In this case, Judge Sotomayor ruled that the plaintive did not meet the requirements for religious exception for vaccine immunization. Here she pulled off a classic Supreme Court maneuver of not really dealing with the issue, but still managing on ruling in the case. If this case is any indication, she will certainly fit in on the High Court, but at least she supported science somewhat.

Now I will discuss the cases in which I had issue with her rulings like in Hankins v. Lyght. In this case the Methodist Church wanted to force the retirement of John Paul Hankins. While Hankins had reached the retirement age of 70, he did not wish to retire. Judge Sotomayor ruled against Hankins and stated that the Court should “not [to] apply to employment suits brought against religious institutions by their spiritual leaders.” In other words, she was basically stating that because of the Separation of Church and State that the Church does not have to comply with the law and can pretty much do whatever it wants. In my opinion, that sets up a dangerous precedent for the future and I hope that she does not keep that reasoning if she makes it to the High Court.

In Flamer v. City of White Plains, the city of White Plains denied permission to display a menorah in a city park in light of a city council resolution barring fixed outdoor displays of religious or political symbols in parks. Rabbi Flamer’s suit challenged the resolution as unconstitutional. Judge Sotomayor agreed and struck down the resolution as a content-based regulation of speech that discriminated against religious speech. Here the soon to be Supreme Court Justice and I disagree. Because the resolution barred all religions it does not show a bias or favoritism of any religion. The City was not prohibiting free speech on private property based on content. As the park is public owned land, such a restriction aims to keep the wall of separation rather than turn the public property into a battleground for religious proselytizing. This sends the dangerous precedent, which could give religion a blanket invitation to use all public property as a de facto Church. It also stands in contradiction to her position in Rosario v. Does.

The Republicans are already calling her an “Activist Judge” which I define as any Judge who they don’t agree with. I do not think Judge Sotomayor is an activist at all and to date, her two cases, which slightly dealt with the Abortion issue, she sided more on the anti-choice side than the pro-choice side. The Republicans aren’t looking for a “Non-activist Judge” as they claim, but rather I think that the Republicans are looking for Agenda Judges like Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Scalia.

Filed under: Politics, Religion | 27 Comments »

While yesterday was Memorial Day, it was also Star Wars Day. It was May 25th 1977 that Star Wars first premiered on the Big Screen and the world took its first steps into a much larger world. I take my Star Wars very seriously. I have often said that while I am an agnostic atheist, my religion is Star Wars.

There is a Holy Book in the form of films. That book has 6 episodes, which I have often referred to as the Holy Saga. It has am Old Testament (Episodes IV through VI) and a New Testament (Episodes I through III). Some people like my wife only follow the Old Testament, but I see value in both.

I believe in Star Wars and while no one can disprove that these events did not in fact occur a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, that is not what I mean by belief in this case (although I dare any Christian to try to disprove it). What I mean by belief here is not that these event and character actually happened and existed, but rather that the stories that are told here are metaphors for life. If only Christians realized that their stories were fictional and yet still could find meaning in them, the world would be a much better place.

Star Wars deals with so many issues. For a six-volume set of two and a half hour films, it is incredibly dense in content. From politics to religion, the Star Wars Saga covers it all. George Lucas took the best of mythology and created a new religion for a new generation.  For those who never really put much thought into just how great the Holy Saga is, I want to proselytize and tell you to take the time to watch these films again, but this time really think about what is being said. Watch the deeper meaning and learn the ways of the Force.

Filed under: Religion | 4 Comments »

Memorial Day is here and that means only one thing, the official start of Hollywood’s movie season! Oh wait, that has already started a few weeks ago. Never mind, I guess it means something else.

Over America’s 200 plus years, we as a nation have been called to service to defend our home and our freedoms. Many Americans have answered that call in various different ways. While more often than not, people think of our soldiers who have put themselves in harms way. Even soldiers who have fought in unjust wars deserve to be respected. But we should also realize that sometimes Americans don’t join up out of bravery, but instead out of am immoral desire to legally kill others. These are hopefully a minority of people and for those individuals; I have little to no respect. I am sure that most of our soldiers have joined the Armed Forces out of a sense of honor and a duty to protect freedom. Those are the soldiers who I choose to pay tribute to on this Memorial Day.

We should also remember on this Memorial Day that soldiers must continually question questionable orders. Those who have tortured or who have committed immoral acts should be held accountable as well as those who gave those orders. Soldiers are not and should not be unthinking killing machines. Those soldiers who stand up and fight against the injustices that they see on the battlefield should be honored even more because it takes more courage to fight the injustice of ones peers than the injustices of the enemy.

Americans today should also honor those who fight off the battlefield for the freedom and security of our way of life. There are many military analyses, translators, office personnel, Red Cross workers, doctors, etc. that are also fighting for freedom in less visible ways. These support personnel often get forgotten on Memorial Day and this year I think we should all remember them and honor them.

There are also those social activists who fight to keep our policymakers honest and who continually push for freedom and transparency in our government and military. While they are not dodging bullets, they do take a lot of heat for their efforts to protect the integrity of our nation and the rights of all Americans. But keeping America honest, they are also keeping America safe. This nations greatest weapon is not our large nuclear arsenal, nor is it our brave and well-trained soldiers. Our greatest weapon is our moral high-ground and the respect we hold within the community of nations. Our citizen soldiers are there for us fighting to maintain that weapon.

From soldier, to support personnel, to activist, all of these Americans fight in their own ways to keep America safe, free, and true to our values. In my view, we should honor our citizen soldiers as well as our brave military soldiers on this Memorial Day. Eternal vigilance is the price we must continually pay to remain free.

Filed under: Politics | 4 Comments »

America has to decide whether we are a nation of laws or a nation of men. If we are a nation of laws, than no body is above the law. If we are a nation of laws, than the United States Government must respect and comply with the rule of law. Now that the Bush Administration is over, we are finding more and more that many involved in that administration have broken the law. Many Americans knew this before and were calling for impeachment then, but at that time the Bush Administration seemed too powerful and the Democrats were too afraid.

The latest issue of immoral and unlawful Bush Administration policies to make it to the mainstream media has been the issue of torture. The Bush Administration ordered it our men and women in uniform carried it out. First the Dick Cheney claimed that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not torture. But that clearly didn’t fly. Once the photos of what went on surfaced, it was very clear that those techniques were so “enhanced” that they are considered torture. Pulling out the Orwellian dictionary didn’t work. While a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, torture by any other name is just as immoral and just as illegal.

The next trick up Dick Cheney’s ass was to claim that it worked. “Who cares if it was illegal or immoral, it got the job done.” Well, that is the same thing that the terrorists say every time they kill innocent people in order to advance their goals. And for the record, according to many in the CIA and FBI, these torture techniques didn’t work. In fact, they got bad information from torturing. They got the information that they needed when they used honey so to speak. But that aside, even if torture did work, should we as a nation of laws use it? Our elected officials have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and clearly torture violates that oath. The Constitution protects people against the use of torture.

Some hold to the opinion that since many of those in Guantanamo were not Americans, they should not be protected under the Constitution. This is a very Nazi-like statement in my opinion. It expresses the view that Americans are fundamentally better than everyone else and so we deserve “special” rights that other people should not have. Here again, America has a decision to make; either we are superior people deserving of better laws or our laws are better deserving of all people. If our laws are better, as I believe they are, than they protect everyone who we have jurisdiction over whether they are American citizens or not.

As a nation of laws, we have to be the example of those laws and we must not torture. Torture is immoral and illegal. Those who did it should be held accountable and those who ordered it should be held accountable. No one should be above the law.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Cheney next decided to drag Democrat Nancy Pelosi into this. I think he thought that Democrats would back off if they thought that one of their leaders would probably be caught up in this if they went forward with an investigation. Now, every time someone says we should investigate Dick Cheney, some right wing hack says, “What about Pelosi? What did she know and when did she know it?” Sure let’s investigate her too. I think we will find that she didn’t understand what was going on and just nodded her head. That isn’t because she is stupid or anything, just that the Bush Administration probably went out of their way to make the issue as complicated as possible so that no one would understand it.

Now President Obama has caved to pressure not to release the photos of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” out of fear that it might insight more violence. Well shit, cartoons of Mohammad will insight more violence, that doesn’t mean we should pass laws prohibiting the freedom of speech. The photos aren’t what would insight the violence, the acts of torture that were photographed are what would insight the violence.

Maybe covering up for the Bush Administration isn’t the best thing to do here. We are a nation of laws and no one is above the law, not even Dick Cheney!

Filed under: Politics | 37 Comments »

I heard on the news yesterday that the Republicans were planning on introducing a resolution to rename the Democratic Party the “Socialist-Democratic Party.” At first I thought they were actually planning on introducing this resolution in the House where it would almost certainly fail since there are more Democrats in the House than there are Republicans. But then I realized that this resolution was only going to be made to the Republican National Committee. As it turns out, the Republicans decided not to go this route and to instead just make their resolution to ask the Democrats to “stop pushing our country toward socialism.”

I think it is to bad that the Republicans didn’t go with their first idea. Because if the Republicans had pushed to rename the Democratic Party the “Socialist-Democratic Party” it would be meaningless anyway. The thing that I kept thinking as I read the story on the various news sites was how incredibly stupid such a resolution would be. For one thing, it again brands the Republican Party as the party of obstruction, hate, and mean spirited partisanship. Second, it shows just how irrelevant the Republican Party is that even if they pass such a resolution, it changes nothing. And third, if the Democrats decided to go tit-for-tat on this, the Republicans would be in real trouble.

Let me address that last point a little bit more. Let’s say that the Democrats decided that we think the Republican Party should be renamed the “Bush Party” or perhaps the “Republican-Nazi Party.” The Democrats wouldn’t make such a resolution within the Democratic National Committee. Let’s say that the Democrats instead made this resolution in the United States Congress. Chances are such a resolution would actually pass. It would be legally binding. In the 2012 Presidential Election there would be the Democratic Party candidate and the Republican-Nazi Party candidate. It would be on the ballots and people would be registered as members of the Republican-Nazi Party or maybe just the Nazi Party. In short, the Democrats could pass this! But they won’t because the Democrats are wussies who can’t even close Guantanamo Bay or end “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Filed under: Politics | 14 Comments »

Often times when I am discussing religion with a fundamentalist Christian, they will change the subject on me and say things like, “well, you believe that the Universe came from nothing,” or “well, you believe that people came from monkeys.” I wish I was making that up, but it is true that fundamentalist Christians have repeatedly attempted to change the subject with those answers. The scary part is that they also claim to understand the theories of the “Big Bang” and “Evolution.” But that is another topic.

Aside from their grossly inaccurate view of these two theories, their argument amounts to, “don’t criticize my answers to the big questions because your answers are also ridiculous.” The problem is that those aren’t my answers. Before we get into my answers, we need to know what the questions are.

What was before the Universe? And how did we get here? These are the two basic questions that every child asks. For religion, the answers are the same, “God did it.” For science, the answer to the first question is, “We don’t know… yet.” While the Big Bang is a great theory and the scientific community is reasonably sure that is how the Universe started, it does not address what came before the singularity. We don’t know what came before the Big Bang. All we can measure is what came after the Big Bang and what the effect of the Big Bang is on our universe. While there are many ideas about where the singularity came from, we just don’t have enough data to determine any real “first cause” or “prime mover.” Before the Big Bang, the laws of physics and cause and effect may not have even existed. So we just don’t know… yet. Science is always learning new things and is continually searching for more evidence and new information so that some day we may have an answer.

As for the question of how we got here, we have a much better idea. The theory of evolution does give us a pretty accurate idea of how human life started on Earth, but we still don’t know the nitty-gritty of it completely. On this question however, science has made steady progress and the theory of evolution continues to evolve to fit the latest discoveries and evidence. As it is with all science however, we cannot say with the absolute certainty that fundamentalist Christians demand that we have all the answers. The fact is that while science is reasonably certain of how life began on this planet we could be wrong on some of the details. New evidence can come to light, which will cause science to adapt its theory. But as time goes by and more and more evidence continues to confirm the theory, we become more and more certain of it. Yet we can never really claim to “know with absolute certainty.”

The point here is that while fundamentalist Christians try to change the subject by butchering the scientific theories, all they are really doing is acknowledging their own ignorance. First by dodging the actual issues at hand and second by showing their ignorance about science and the scientific theories they hope to demonize.  The fact is that while Christians can change the subject and attempt to criticize theories they don’t understand, that still doesn’t make their ridiculous beliefs any less ridiculous. God still doesn’t answer any of the questions that Christians claim it does. We still don’t know what came before the universe or how we got here from the Christian perspective. “God did it,” is simply not a sufficient answer to the questions.

Filed under: Religion | 21 Comments »

Yesterday, I took my 3-month-old son Orion to the doctor. While we were there, the doctor asked us the standard questions about his medical history and then she asked if there were any religious beliefs, which would prevent him from taking certain medicines or treatments. My wife just laughed.

Personally, I can’t imagine anyone letting their worship of their divine imaginary friend get in the way of helping their child medically. Yet, obviously enough people must put their children’s life in the faithful hands of ancient mythologies instead of in the skilled hands of modern medical science. While it is certainly true that doctors aren’t perfect and modern medicine has many gaps in their knowledge, I still think it is trustworthier than a perfect deity. And whether most Americans are willing to admit it or not, they think so too.

Now what if someone did refuse medical treatment for their infant child based on religion and the child died? Is religion responsible for that death? The parents are probably good people who have just put their faith in a perfect God over their trust imperfect human doctors. From a theological standpoint that is a no-brainer. How could society hold them responsible simply because they believe ridiculous mythologies which compelled them to reject science in order to secure their child’s eternal future? We can’t ask those parents to present evidence for their beliefs, because then we would have to ask all religious people to present evidence. And as we all know if there was evidence, than there would be no need for faith. God is testing us, lol.

Filed under: Religion | 40 Comments »

Over the weekend, I was on the ReasonProject.org website and someone suggested that a good public relations move might be to put a more person face on atheism. Even though more and more people are starting to come out of the closet and let those around them know that they question the existence of God and other superstitions, it still seems that a lot of people don’t really know atheists in their families or in their communities.

One thing that has helped to put a more personally and more public face of atheism is that several big named Hollywood celebrities have made their atheism public. Among them are Bill Maher (of course), Joss Whedon (creator/writer/producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and The Dollhouse), and Seth MacFarlane, (creator/writer/voice actor of the Family Guy).

But those big names aside, we still need to let more of the mainstream public know that atheists are real people who don’t eat babies and/or worship the Devil. The more the mainstream people get to know their friendly neighborhood atheist, the less likely they will demonize our lack of belief in deities and other superstitions. Once the emotional component is taken out of the picture, we can have a reasonable discussion of the facts.

Someone else on the ReasonProject.org forum suggested we run a campaign similar to the “25 Random Things” note which frequents FaceBook and MySpace. With that in mind, I created the very self-serving “15 Questions for atheist” so that we can pass them around and let theists know more about us. Before I will present my list, I want to be sure to mention that I want everyone to feel free to pass it around to other atheists that you know and to pass your answers on to theists that you may know. Feel free to maybe even suggest more questions an share with us your experiences and reactions from theists after you have distributed your answers to them. So without further ado:

“15 Questions for Atheist”
1. What is your Name?
2. Where do you live?
3. Would you consider yourself to be a charitable person?
4. How moral would you consider yourself to be on average?
5. List five values that you feel are important.
6. What did you want to be when you were young?
7. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
8. At what age did you realize that there was no God?
9. How did your family take your realization?
10. What led you to doubt the existence of God?
11. Are you happier now that you no longer believe in a God, or do you wish you still believed?
12. On average, how many babies would you say you ate since you began doubting God’s existence?
13. Do you worship the Devil?
14. Have you ever read the Bible?
15. Have often do you visit DangerousTalk.net?

Filed under: Religion | 10 Comments »

Why is it that the Christian God is supposed to be all-powerful and yet it took him a full 6 days to create the world? Shouldn’t he have been able to do it with a snap of his metaphysical fingers? A real god should be able to think it and it happens. And while we are at it, if God is so all-powerful, why does he have to rest on the seventh day? Humans need rest, not gods.

However, the people who created god could have simply personified nature and if that were the case, than since people do rest, a personified deity might need to rest too. In the ancient world, deities like Zeus lived on Mount Olympus and deities like Odin lived Valhalla. So where does Yahweh live? Heaven. But God’s don’t really need to live anywhere, right? I mean isn’t an all-powerful deity supposed to be everywhere?

As you can see, Yahweh like all the other gods that have come before him are all personifications. Ancient people who couldn’t understand the world used these deities as an attempt to explain the world. They created elaborate stories and gave their deity of choice personalities based on human stories and personalities. That is why God is a jealous God, a vengeful God, a wrathful God, a Just God, etc. These are all human traits. The war in Heaven is based off wars on Earth. God has a son? Humans have sons. God’s live forever and always were and always will be, so how can they give birth to a divine child?

These are ancient stories told to explain what was unexplainable. Now science can explain much of what was unexplainable and so now God is forced to fill the gaps. However, even though science can’t explain everything we should be mature enough as a race to simply say that we don’t know the answers to all the questions without the need to make up answers with stories of divine intrigue. God is no longer even needed to fill the gaps as long as we are mature enough to accept the gaps and curious enough to attempt to fill those gaps through the continued exploration of science and philosophy.

Filed under: god, god the father, Religion | 14 Comments »

For a long time now, the Democratic Party Leadership has held the dogmatic view that they believe that “marriage should be between a man and a woman.” During the 2008 Presidential campaign every Democratic candidate echoed those words with the exception of the two long shot candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel.

While most people realize that the two frontrunners, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton probably didn’t believe the rhetoric, they nevertheless dogmatically echoed those words. Now Obama is President and Clinton is Secretary of State. When asked about this issue, both still dogmatically echo the opinion that “marriage should be between a man and a woman.” Whether they believe the words they are saying or not I don’t care. The problem is that it provides cover for those who really do hold to the opinion that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

On Tuesday, the still Miss California, Carrie Prejean, restated her view that only “opposite marriage” should be considered marriage and to support this claim, she stated that her belief on this matter was no different than that of the President of the United States and the Secretary of State. Now if we want to criticize the position of Carrie Prejean and her new best friends at the National Organization for Marriage, we have to also criticize the President. The National Organization for Marriage is betting on the President’s popularity and so they don’t think civil liberty supporters will touch that.

Well, I will touch that. The President is WRONG! And his statements, which he almost certainly doesn’t actually even believe are now being used to fuel hate. Just as the beliefs of liberal Christians provide the cover for the hate spewed by the Religious Right. In the case of the liberal Christians however, they do believe some of their brand of bullshit, but still by claiming that the Bible is some how a holy book inspired by the Creator of the Universe, they are providing legitimacy to the Religious Right’s claim of doing God’s work by demonizing same-gender relations, sex education, contraception, and the sciences of evolution, stem cell research, and global climate change.

I’m sorry, but the Bible is not a holy book, homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and good meaning people who believe that the Bible is a holy book or who play lip service to the Religious Right on the issue of gay marriage even when they don’t really believe those things are just as much to blame as those who really do believe those things. If someone claims that the Bible is a holy book, than they are against same-gender marriage. This is the case whether they realize it or not. I know there are a lot of Christians out there who claim to support same-gender marriage, but if they put the Bible up on a pedestal, than they are actively working against that view.

I think the President should be ashamed for not speaking his real opinion on these matters. And those liberal Christian believers also be ashamed for holding up the Bible as a holy book when most of it is filled with hate. By claiming that it is holy, they are also claiming that homosexuality is an abomination.

Filed under: Gay Issues, Politics, Religion, sex | 28 Comments »

For some reason, this argument has cropped up again in a conversation that I recently had with a Christian. Let me paraphrase the argument:

The definition of God is a being in which no greater being can be conceived. It is greater to actually exist than it is to not actually exist. Therefore, God must actually exist.

This argument is of course ridiculous. First and foremost, it doesn’t attempt to prove or disprove any particular gods like the God of the Bible. Christians often use this argument as if it is some how going to prove their particular religion to be true. Yet this argument has nothing to do with the Christian god at all.

I think Christians seem to think that the god of the Bible is the greatest conceivable being. But after reading the Bible, I can definitely conceive of a being greater that the one found in the “Good Book.” My greatest conceivable being for example wouldn’t be so vein that his first commandment would be thou shall have no other gods before the Lord your God. My greatest conceivable being would be more secure in himself and not be such a jealous god. But I digress. My point here is that the argument doesn’t attempt to prove what Christians seem to think it attempts to prove.

If the definition of God is a being in which no greater being can be conceived and that it is greater to actually exist than it is to not actually exist, than it is also greater to actually show oneself than to hide. Therefore, God must actually show himself… I’m still waiting.

The argument basically amounts to semantics. Wittgenstein once said that all philosophy amounts to is an attempt to untangle our words and to let the fly out of the bottle so to speak. His view was that we are trapped by out language and Anselm’s Ontological Argument is a prime example of exactly that. Anselm has simply tripped over his own words and definitions. It simply is an exercise in imagination, which has no baring on reality.

Filed under: Ontological Argument, Religion | 4 Comments »

The popular Christian argument is that in order for atheists to reject the claim that a god exists, we must first know everything. What they are claiming is that atheists must know the entire set of facts about the universe before we can look and that set and see that their God is not included in that set of facts. Of course this argument is pretty absurd.

First it claims that atheists are claiming to know with faith-based, dogmatic, absolute certainty that the Christian God does not exist. While some atheists might claim that, this is really just a false caricature or “straw man” of what most atheists think. Most atheists simply see no evidence and thus no valid reason to believe.

Second, this argument assumes that we have to know what is in order to know what isn’t. I’m not a computer expert and so if someone asked me how computers work, I really couldn’t tell them. But if someone told me that there is a gerbil inside which powers the computer, I would be a bit more than skeptical. Even though I don’t personally know how computers work, I am reasonably certain that gerbils are not involved. I don’t need to know everything about computers to know that gerbils are not in that set of facts. Common sense informs me that gerbils do not power the computer.

Third, this argument focuses on the Christian God, but we could really switch that focus to anything. As with the popular atheist example of the unicorn, Christians would have to admit that if their argument is true and that in order to reject belief in something, we would need to know everything, than they would have to admit that they should also believe in the unicorn because to not believe would mean that they know everything about the universe and see that unicorns are not in that set of knowledge. It is just such an absurdly ridiculous argument and yet Christians seem to use it all the time.

Filed under: faith, Religion | 14 Comments »

Not to long ago, I had a pretty lengthy conversation with a Christian that I had met. The conversation was going pretty well and we were both enjoying the discussion. I had thought that I had finally gotten him to understand that he really shouldn’t be trying to convert everyone he meets. It is intolerant and rude. So here we were at the end of this conversation and as he was walking away, he turned to me and said, “I’ll pray for you.”

With those four words, he just reversed all the progress that I though he had made. While I understand that he meant that was a good bye greeting, it actually is a pretty intolerant and rude statement. Did it “offend” me?  No, it disappointed me. Even though he could not convince me of his supernatural world using the tools of reason and logic, he wishes to take an “action” that he believes will force me to agree with him. While I don’t think God exists and I don’t think his prayer will do anything at all, he desire is still there.

To him, prayer is an action even though in reality the action doesn’t actually do anything except convince the person praying that they are doing something. Nevertheless, he believed that he was taking an action to force me to believe.

At the beginning of our discussion, he expressed the opinion that beliefs can and will be forced upon the unbeliever. He quoted Romans 14:11 “For it is written, [As] I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” I had thought that our discussion had made him more tolerant, but I was wrong. I still don’t know what to say as a response to the “I’ll pray for you,” attack. A simple “no thanks,” doesn’t quite work and “I’ll reason for you,” only conveys what is and not what ought to be. So I am open to suggestions.

Filed under: prayer, Religion | 25 Comments »

Way back on June 6th of 2008 I mentioned in a MySpace blog that one of the atheist organizations that I am a member of hosted a lecture by Jan Meshon from an organization called FreethoughtAction.org. In that lecture, Meshon talked about how we (the secular community) are actually winning in the marketplace of ideas. While religion still controls over 80 percent of America and it seems like we are fighting a hopeless battle, it isn’t as hopeless as it seems. Meshon talked about the “Tipping Point” at which religion starts to make a rapid decline. He thought that we were making progress toward that tipping point.

Since that lecture and that June 6th blog, I have posted a number of blogs talking about new polls, surveys, and studies, which show religion on the decline and atheism on the raise. But still the long fight seemed so hopeless. Religion is still everywhere and if you told people that in 20 years religion would be a thing of the past, they would laugh at you.

The bad news is that it may take more than 20 years, but the good news is that it may not take that much longer than 20 years. We are actually approaching that tipping point. The other day, I wrote a blog on the Examiner about another recent survey. This survey showed that 20 years ago less than 5 to 10 percent of young people did not attend church and now roughly 30 to 40 percent of young people don’t attend church. Not only that, but the trend is continuing. In the next 20 years, that number could more than double. Professor Robert Putnam of Harvard, the person conducting this survey, was however quick to point out that those young people who don’t attend church are not necessarily atheists. Still these numbers are very encouraging. This trend combined with the polls, surveys, and studies that have been talked about all year show that the end is quickly approaching for religion.

If young people start to reject religion, then religion only has a few generations left before it is phased out. Putnam also attributed young people’s decline in church attendance to the fundamentalist beliefs of the Religious Right. He claimed that young people associate church with the “source of intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views.” Other surveys and polls have shown that while belief in religion, as a whole is on the decline, fundamentalist belief is actually slightly on the rise. It seems that belief is becoming polarized with a small rise in fundamentalists belief and a large rise in non-belief. Since fundamentalism seems to lead to non-belief in the long run, this seems like good news to me.

I also think that more and more people are rejecting ancient superstitions because they are seeing more reasonable alternatives. Within the last decade or so, atheism has been much more vocal and people like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett have really opened people’s eyes. More and more celebrities like Jon Stewart from the Daily Show and Bill Maher from Real Time are coming out of the atheist closet. As more and more atheists become visible, people will see that non-believers are not evil agents of Satan or hedonistic communists who eat babies. You laugh, but I actually had a Christian tell me just yesterday that atheists are hedonists and implied that we have no morality.

Sometimes when talking to a very sweet elderly person they will say something religious with the belief that everyone believes in God. And sometimes I get the feeling that if I pointed out to them that I don’t actually believe in God, that they wouldn’t even comprehend that idea and may actually get highly offended, so I just let the comment go. I think most atheists have had that experience where we just don’t want to offend the sweet elderly person who has never even thought that someone could lack belief in a deity. The thing is that the next generation of elderly people won’t be like that. They will live in a world in which atheism has been vocal and on the rise. The generation after that might even see atheism as a valid alternative to belief and the generation of elderly people after that might even live in a world where there are more atheists than theists.

As more and more young people begin to question belief and reject church and organized religion, that tipping point will begin to get much closer. The more vocal and visible atheists are and the more we are able to criticize religious beliefs and place those ancient superstitions next to modern science, reason, and common sense, the closer religion will be to the end. The End of Days for religion won’t be a final battle between God and the Devil, but will instead be the fading away of antiquated myth in favor of the more practical science and modernity.

Filed under: Decline of Religion, Religion | 12 Comments »

While much of this country is focused on conversations with their imaginary friend, the secular would have decided to celebrate today as the National Day of Reason. It is a day for people of reason everywhere to step up and celebrate and to raise awareness of the attacks upon reason, freethought, and the wall of separation between Church and State.

But there are critics of this day of celebration and not all of them are from the religious. Many atheists think that a National Day of Reason makes us look more like a religion in our own right. Others think that we should make every day a Day of Reason. And still others just see this as a reactionary tactic. These are all valid concerns and we should take them seriously.

First, just because atheists are organizing doesn’t make that organization necessarily religious. When people organize in order to perform rituals, worship a deity, and claim divine Truth (with a capital T) that is religion. When people organize is support of education, awareness, and to fight back against discrimination that is not religion. So the claim that such celebrations put us on the level of religion is ridiculous.

Second, we should make every day a Day of Reason. I couldn’t agree with this criticism more, but I don’t think these are mutually exclusive views. I see this more as a publicity stunt for those who elevate faith above reason to realize that is what they are doing. There is a large segment of the population who want to support both faith and reason without realizing that these two positions are actually mutually exclusive. By making a very public Day of Reason, we are calling attention to the dramatic differences between these two diametrically opposed positions. So I support a 365.25 day a year celebration of reason but also think we need to market our ideas to the people who are on the fence.

Third, Is this a reaction to the National Day of Prayer? Of course it is. The National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. But a National Day of Reason is not. While atheism need not be reactionary, organized atheist is almost by definition reactionary. There is no need to organize around the lack of belief in Astrology. Astrologists aren’t pushing their irrational beliefs into legislation. Astrologists aren’t trying to push their views into science classes. Nor are people discriminated against for not believing is Astrology. But since a large number of religious people do push their views into society by these means and more, we need to organize and fight back (in an non-violent way of course). Let me use this example, if black people weren’t discriminated against there would be no need for organizations like the NAACP. Such organizations are reactionary to the problems that black people face in society. Organized atheism is likewise a reaction to the efforts of organized religion. It is that simple.

To celebrate the National Day of Reason, people of reason are asked to be visible and active on this day to set the right example for how to effect positive change. Some organizations are asking for atheists to donate blood, do acts of community service, and other activities. I would hope that we do those things and make it known that we are doing them out of reason and not religion. You should be your friendly neighborhood atheist. It is also a good time to open a dialog with those who pray and to have constructive conversations about religion and reason.

Please check out the official National Day of Reason website: NationalDayOfReason.org

Filed under: Religion | 10 Comments »

For some reason, Christians often claim that atheism is a religion just like Christianity. I see this as their attempt to bring people of reason into the mud with them. Clearly religion is starting to get a bad reputation and being reasonable, skeptical, and doubtful or ridiculous claims are all traits, which are starting to be viewed more and more as positive. People are starting to wake up from the nightmare of religion and society is starting to question what was once thought to be unquestionable.

As a result, many Christians feel the need to lower disbelief to the level of belief. This tactic alone shows that even Christians see religion as a bad thing. They are unintentionally attacking themselves by claiming that atheism is just as religious as they are. What kind of insult is that? If someone tries to insult you by claiming that you are just like they are, is that an insult to them?

As for the claim itself, it is just as ridiculous as most other Christian claims. For starters, atheism is a lack of belief, not a belief in and of itself. So their argument seems to be that a lack of belief is a belief in and of itself. In that sense, atheism is a religion. The most common atheist rebuttal is that while collecting stamps is a hobby, would not collecting stamps also be considered a hubby by the Christian reasoning? Of course it wouldn’t. If believing in Jesus were a religion, would not believing in Jesus also be a religion? I don’t really think so. Taken to the logical conclusion, the Christian who makes this assertion would have to admit to having an infinite number of religions. Not only would we all have a religion for every God we don’t believe in, but we would also have a religion for every idea we don’t believe in.

At this point these particular Christians will assert that atheism is a religion because we hold meetings and fight for causes. This too is a ridiculous claim. There are many organizations in the world that hold meetings and fight for causes. Are they religions too? The National Rifle Association holds meetings and they fight for a cause, are they are religion? The NAACP is an organization too. They fight against discrimination. So is being black a religion? The fact is that Freethought/atheist organizations are similar to the NAACP in that we fight against discrimination. We meet and organize mainly around that issue. We also talk about education, science, and equal rights because those are issues under attack by Christians and Christian groups. But they are also under attack by other theistic religions and so we talk about those religions too.

Atheists don’t have any religious beliefs. What does it mean to have a religious belief? For starters, the origin of the world “Religious” comes from the Latin word “religare” meaning to restrain or tie back. It was later modified to mean a supernatural restraint. As it turns out, religion has as a matter of historical fact “restrained” human progress. What it has come to mean today is the service and worship of a God, Gods, or the supernatural and a commitment or devotion to faith or observance. Basically, to be a religious, one must believe stuff and worship something supernatural. Having rituals and devotion to that belief is also somewhat of a prerequisite. Prayer is a ritual and a show of devotion. People don’t pray to change God’s mind (because he has a divine plan). They pray to show devotion and to let God know that they are thinking about him (even though God is supposed to know everything). The point here is that lack of worship and devotion to a supernatural is not a religion.

A few Christians even told me that atheist groups file for tax-exemption under the 501c3 tax code for religious groups. This is half true, which is at least better than most Christian claims, which tend to be not true at all. The 501c3 provision is a big tent provision. Here is the legalize:

501(c)3 – Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals Organizations

So according to these Christians, international amateur sports competitions must also be a religion. Who would have thought? Atheist groups tend to be educational groups putting on lectures, speakers, and educating the public about the discrimination of non-theists and about the facts concerning the claims made by theist religions. We are charitable, scientific, and even literary. Some like Richard Dawkins may even argue that we are trying to prevent cruelty to Children who are indoctrinated at birth into one religion or another and taught to guilt and fear.

Clearly, there is no valid reason to classify atheism as a religion and in attempting to do so, all Christians accomplish is to prove just how dirty a word religion actually is. Their attack seems to be more of an attack on themselves than it is an attack on atheists. But far be it for reason and rational thought to get in the way of a make-believe story. It has never stopped Christians from believing the ridiculous before, so I don’t expect it with stop them now. 

Filed under: Atheism NOT Religion, Religion, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

I posted this story on my Examiner page yesterday, but I think it is a pretty important story (or two) that needs to be talked about in more detail. This story is really two stories in one and both seem equally shocking to me. The first is that the United States Military seems to be doing religious proselytizing in Afghanistan. Apparently, the Religious Right are on military bases telling our soldiers that they need to convert the people of Afghanistan to Christians in the name of Jesus. Fundamentalist churches have even been funding the printing of Bibles translated into the local Afghani languages native to the region. Not only are those Bibles are being distributed by American soldiers, but the Bibles themselves are in a small way being translated and printed using our money. Churches are tax-exempt and so church money, which would normally go to taxes is going to translate and print these Bibles. Then American soldiers on the taxpayer’s dime are going hut-to-hut handing them out. We are actually paying the chaplains to preach this message of “hunting for Jesus.”

The second shocking story is that this story wasn’t even reported on CNN, Fox News, or even MSNBC. No, it wasn’t on ABC, NBC, or CBS either. It wasn’t even on NPR. Instead, Al-Jazirah News reported this story. Where is the American journalistic spirit, which should be investigating these accusations, which make all of America look like lunatic fundamentalist Christians to the very people who hate us because they think we are all lunatic fundamentalist Christians. Not long ago, President Obama went before the people of Turkey and told them that America is not a Christian Nation and yet here we are, American military personnel giving out Bibles in an Arab land. This not only is a violation of the Military Code of Conduct but also makes America less safe.

Personally, I would advocate distributing pamphlets, which might encourage Muslims to think critically about their religion, because I think critical thinking is useful no matter what someone believes. I also think that critical thinking might make Muslims less of a threat to America and the world. Legally, I am not sure if US soldiers would be allowed to do that, but at this point I am starting to think that maybe I had the wrong target for my critical thinking pamphlet idea. Maybe we should be giving critical thinking pamphlets and lessons to our soldiers.

Flipping through the major news networks today I saw story after story about the pig flu, which has killed less people so far than the actual flu has in the same amount of time. I keep hearing how Republican Arlen Specter is now a Democrat and how Obama has to pick someone to replace Justice Souter. While I have talked about all these stories on the Examiner site, the major news networks are still reporting these stories over and over again. There is nothing new with any of these stories and yet not one of these news networks is talking about US Soldiers handing out specially translated Bibles to the Arab people while we are trying to gain their support in hunting down terrorist camps. Here is the video from Al-Jazirah News:

Filed under: Preaching, Religion, Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

I have always been fascinated by prophecies. I read a lot of Nostradamus, Eager Casey, and of course the Bible. I even think I might have had a prophetic dream myself once (I’ll let you know in about 10 to 15 years if it comes to pass). I have gone to psychics and had my horoscope done, etc. I even remember an Astronomy Lab class that we spent on horoscopes. As we all walked into the class, our professor would comment to us how he thinks we must be this sign or that because we had this trait or that trait. Many of the students were amazed he guessed their sign so accurately. Of course most forgot that he also had the class list which listed everyone’s birthdays next to their names. A fact he mentioned to us at the end of the class.

Then there was a girl I dated who did my full 30-page horoscope, I was surprised about how accurate it was. Many of the traits that it predicted that I had were true. It is hard to believe that the time of my birth and the stars and planets in the sky at that time could know so much about what kind of person I was. Of course, while many of the traits it predicted were accurate, many were not. But I wasn’t focused on those things, because I wanted to know what the stars said about me personally, not what the stars got wrong.

And Nostradamus did say Hister, which clearly meant Hitler. They both start with the letter “H” and end in the letter “R,” and even have a “T” in the middle somewhere. But then who is “Mabus” the third anti-Christ?

Have you ever heard of Harold Camping? You know, the guy who owned the Family Channel Radio Network all over the country. You might not have heard of him, but he did a radio show on his station in the early 90s (still might). Using the Bible, he was able to predict the week, (but not the Time or the Day because Jesus said you couldn’t) of the return of Jesus, The Rapture, Armageddon, The End of Days, etc. I listened to his show back then and was amazed. Using the Bible and modern events, Camping predicted that we were living in The End Times. He was able to narrow down Jesus’s triumphant return to be around (but not necessarily exactly) September 24th 1994. Holy shit, you missed Jesus by 15 years! Who knew that Armageddon would happen and no one would notice. So if you haven’t been bodily raised up to Heaven, then you’re damned with the rest of us.

And who could forget the prophesies of Doe from Heaven’s Gate. All you had to do was become a eunuch and wear a jumpsuit with white sneakers, wait for God’s Chariot behind the Hale-Bopp Comet and kill your body. Then your soul can catch a ride to Heaven.

But the fact is that for the last 2500 years or more people have been predicting that the End Times were almost here. According to the Bible, Jesus claimed that the end was near too.

Matthew 24:33-36 “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, [even] at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

Most of the Early Christians were completely convinced that they were the last generation. Aside from the claim that Jesus said it, they believed it, end of story. They also frequently claimed two other pieces of evidence. The first was that nature was turning against man and the second, the moral decay of society. Wow, how little has changed.

Many Christians tell me that Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament and therefore he must really be the Messiah. This is really actually comical for two reasons. The first is that there are no real prophecies in the Old Testament. If people actually read the Bible, they would see that those things that they call prophecies were actually attempts at activism. They weren’t dealing with the distant future, but rather they were an attempt to scare people to action in the immediate future. Second, how fucking hard is it to create a character that fits a narrative. I don’t know if you know this or not, but my friend Immanuel is also a descendant of King David, born of a virgin. Basically, what Christians did was they took what they thought were prophecies and created a character to try to fit those prophecies. Then they went around telling everyone that Jesus fulfilled ALL the prophecies. Oh yeah? How many people called Jesus Immanuel? That was allegedly one of the prophecies of Daniel (even though it was talking about someone completely different and more current with the time it was written). And that genealogy that is supposed to prove that Jesus was descended from King David also proved that he wasn’t born of a virgin after all. Even the prophecy that the Messiah would be born of a virgin was actually mistranslated. In other words, the main reason why Jesus was born of a virgin was because some one mistranslated the word and thought that the Messiah had to be a virgin and so when it came time to write the story of Jesus, they through in that he was a virgin and fulfilled the prophecy that didn’t actually exist.

Here is the bottom line, prophecies are for entertainment purposes only and are not to be taken seriously. The End of Days will always be soon and it will never come. So stop being frightened of tomorrow and live for today.

Filed under: prophecies, Religion | 11 Comments »