Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Seriously Barack? Just when I was bragging to people about your State of the Union address, you gotta go and slight me!

Quote from Barack Obama:
Our troops come from every corner of this country; they're black, white, latino, asian, native american. They are Christian and Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. And yes we know that some of them are gay. Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love.

I was just sitting there saying... please say Atheist... maybe slide a little Secular in there... or how about even just some Agnostic? No? No?? :(

*Note: When he finished this portion of the speech, he got a thirty second standing ovation. The camera pans to three heavily medal-adorned army officers who were notably less excited than the rest of the audience.

...




'Nuff said.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Thank God I'm an Atheist!

Ricky Gervais, a famous British comedian, hosted the Golden Globes this year, and delivered some too-close-to-the-bone humour to the Hollywood audience and has since taken some flack for it. He went on CNN for what seemed like a somewhat staged and not-too-confrontational discourse with host Piers Morgan. Here is what ensued.



How refreshing to see stuff like this getting in to mainstream media. I mean, how can anyone sensible disagree with what he is saying?

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Discrimination and Irony

Alanis Morisette could take a lesson in irony from this couple who has spent their Christmas season fighting in court for the right to turn people away from their inn... The couple was openly homosexual, and the inn owners would not give them a room together, citing religious beliefs. They were subsequently successfully sued, and are now claiming religious discrimination. So, it really just comes down to which is more important? The freedom of religion or human rights?

There there is this man, kicked off of a bus for reading, "God is Not Great" by Hitchens, and telling a preacher to, "move away from me as I cannot understand what you are preaching because I am not a believer." At the next stop, the authorities were called, and it was decided after about 90mins of debate that he should not rejoin the bus. His name is George Thindwa, and he is the chair of Malawian Association of Secular Humanism. I can't help but think that he was doing this on purpose. And I can't help but LOVE IT! What can we call this? Passive Agressive Atheism? Niceeeeeeeeeee.....

Let's all have a drink tonight in this man's honour!

CHEERS!

Friday, January 14, 2011

General belief

I find it difficult to disagree with older people who believe in God. My grandma, "God" bless her, is 70+ years, prays the rosary every night with her sister (who is a Sister), and it must bring her such comfort to "know" that she is going to have a secure and safe place in heaven with my grandpa when she passes. Who am I to say her fantasy is wrong? While I'm sure it's comforting to think that, imagine how greater this world would be if instead of being on your knees nightly, begging for a spot in heaven, you perhaps, went out and did something nice for someone in your community? Shoveled your injured neighbour's walkway, cleaned up your neighbourhood, donated time at a food shelter. Imagine what a world we'd have if EVERYONE did that instead of praying?



I digress, the purpose of this blog today was just to say that I don't blame noted historians for claiming they believed in God. Some who didn't (Galileo, Copernicus) had very bad things happen to them when they said they did not believe. Yet, where would be today without them? Even up until a hundred years ago, it was very bad socially to outwardly be a non-believer. Many towns entire social life revolved around the church.



The point of all this?



My point is that, we DO NOT LIVE IN THAT SOCIETY TODAY! Non-belief is becoming much more mainstream. You are not alone in your skepticism. You will not be shot, hung, condemned, imprisoned, or excommunicated when you tell people what you believe.



So yeah, I don't blame older people for their beliefs. If you believe a fantasy for a long time, it becomes very difficult and scary to abandon that fantasy. You don't know what life would be like without it. You could lose some life-long friends or loved ones. But young people? Come on, really. You're trained quite well in your science classes that you must PROVE everything... why should the creation of our planet be any different?

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Facebook comments

So, here is one of my family members' Facebook statuses...

the power of prayer never ceases to amaze me ... Dads at home, bed rest, and they are going to move up his heart surgery date to ASAP. Grams seems to be doing a bit better too ... finally, breathe ...

5 people like this. (what the hell?)

Yet another reason why I dislike religion. Similar to a priest at a wedding ceremony thanking God for bringing two people together (giving no credit to the PEOPLE for their dedication and passion in the relationship), where is the credit for the DOCTORS and NURSES, or SCIENCE and MEDICINE, the people/studies who truly saved these people's lives?

How can believers be so happy to accept and like medicine when it helps them, and slam science down when it contradicts their beliefs? I can't even think of a word to describe my anger right now, so I will (in the voice of Vizzini from the Princess Bride) use the word INCONCEIVABLE!

Would it be rude to comment "Power of prayer? What about power of doctors, nurses, science, and medicine?" Or would that make me an "Agressive Atheist"? haha

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

You can find morals anywhere

The Golden Rule

So, there I am at Home Depot. Sitting on the toilet, while beside me I hear a big voice and a little voice. Clearly, a father is in there with his son engaging in some thrilling conversation about how it is okay to think you have to go, and then not have to go. Better to be safe than sorry, he told his little guy.

As they were leaving, the child asked his father, “Daddy, can I turn off the light?” his Dad said, “No, there’s somebody in there. How would you like it if someone turned the light off on you? Probably not very much right?” The child agreed. Neither God nor Jesus invented the Golden rule, I am happy to say.

That’s basically how I live my life, the Golden Rule, and how I plan to morally educate my children. The moral of this story? You can find morals anywhere! Even in a public restroom. Just don’t read the walls...... LOL

Thursday, January 6, 2011

The sky is falling!

Rejuvenated after a conversation with a fellow atheist blogger (if you like my site, you'll like her's slightly less, but still a lot), I am going to make entries a little more frequently perhaps, and try to keep them more concise. And I'm going to use headings like those professional bloggers do!

Looking for a late Winter Equinox Present?

Or perhaps one for early Spring Equinox? You can get this beautiful picture in a T-shirt for you or someone you love. Though I would imagine it's slightly higher than 9/10 scientists... Perhaps the correct way to say it would be to say "9/10 with a margin of error of 1." I don't normally promote consumerism, but if it's atheistic consumerism, it's also advertising our beliefs. It's concerning sometimes though, when atheists want to be witty and charming, we buy things like this T-shirt (or get sent "God Trumps" cards from New Humanist), and people end up thinking not that we're witty and charming, but that we're arrogant, insulting, unaccepting, flippant, rude, passive agressive, or worse, agressive agressive (haha). It does bother the Humanist in me when I am hurting someone else's feelings, but how do you draw the line? Most Christians I know would have no problem slighting me for my non-beliefs...


Scientific Tweets (Oh what a witty title)


So, birds are falling from the sky and crabs washing up on shore dead (BP anyone?) And when you Google something akin to "birds falling from sky", here are some of the "Tweets" (get it?) that come up:

1) (This was a comment on a news article) The birds' deaths I guarantee will not be explained. There will be no poison, no sign of trauma and no sign of anything else. They may say it was "pressure" or "disorientation" but 5000 birds within a one mile radius all collapsing during THE NIGHT cannot be explained by those excuses. I personally believe it's some-what of a sign, think i'm crazy or not i don't mind, but scientists are not going to be able to figure it out. Just like they don't understand how the Grand Canyon was made....people can banter around their explinations all they want but some things just can't be understood in human terms, but we don't have to understand everything. The only thing that even remotely can be mulled over is that it was a sign from the big man upstairs himself. Miracles happen everyday but how we choose to explain them is entirely up to us and i think we can all agree that not everything can be explained.....

2) Why dead birds fell from sky: confirmed: dead birds can't fly

3) Regarding the bird die-offs: have we ruled out "viral promotion for an apocalyptic movie" yet?

4) Birds falling from sky? Better dust off your religious texts.

5) Ask Yahoo: "Birds falling from sky in Arkansas was also in the bible?"

6) God is warming up for 2012 by killing thousands of birds.

*sigh* If you want to read a REAL news article about strange animal deaths, please do so here! Thanks for reading. I appreciate all comments. Please feel free to critique any/all of 1 through 6 (particularly 1, 4, 5, 6 as 2 and 3 were hilariouuuuuuuuuuuus *said in a Jon Stewart-ish higher pitch*)

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

So, when there's no scientific evidence for medical claims, anecdotal evidence will do?! When has that ever flown in the past? Ohhhhhh... right.

I will summarize the video for you, but you should really watch it also. Homeopathic medicine relies on taking an extremely extreeeemely small dose of some disease (like Malaria, Typhoid, etc...) and then tells you that you will be immune to that disease. Or rather, tells you that other people have said that when they did this, the felt immune and did not get sick. Hmm... come to think of it, those two statements are COMPLETELY different! What the hell passes for medicine these days? The video mentions that you are not allowed to give homeopathic medicine to animals unless you first prove scientifically that the medical claims are substantiated. But you can give it to humans without doing so. Is this some sort of glorified placebo? Like how placing an elastic band around your wrist has the same affect as a Q-ray bracelet? What a rip off.

So, how does this relate to Secular Humanism? If you haven't drawn the comparison yet, I'd be quite shocked. But as my title suggests, when there's no scientific proof of God's existence, anecdotal evidence will suffice! What a topsy turvy world we live in. It's my life's mission to ensure that before I die, there is a paradigm shift in this regard.