Sunday, May 24, 2015

Quotation

Keira Knightley: If only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.
David Cronenberg: Yeah, but you could always lie about being an atheist. I don't think an atheist could get elected in America right now.
Keira Knightley: No, I don't think they could either."

Interview Magazine, April 2012
Keira Knightley in an interview with David Cronenberg in
 

Your deceit isn't their hypocrisy

America is not the only country where a subset of theist find the need to lie and whine in defense of their beliefs. After fact checking a piece I found on the Christian Concern website it was blatantly obvious how incredibly unethical and vicious the assholes who work there really are. Virtually nothing in "Humanists' hypocrisy after sending atheist manuals to every Scottish secondary following Christian book ban" turned out to be true.The Humanist Society of Scotland did not seek to "ban" the so-called "guide book" entitled It's Your Move.

What did the Humanist Society of Scotland actually have an interest in accomplishing? They sought to remove from public school curriculums a clearly Christian centric book and bar those public schools from paying for the books out of school funds. Got that? They did not ask that children be prevented from receiving the books. They just found it inappropriate for public schools to pay for and actively push a sectarian book on children. Christian Concern and the Free Church of Scotland both routinely misrepresented the facts and sought to demonize a group of individuals who actually applied basic civil rights and human decency to an incredibly bigoted set of circumstances.

This gang of assholes also left out a number of details along the way. They didn't bother to mention how well connected the Free Church of Scotland already is with various public schools around the country. They certainly didn't mention that the book the Humanist Society of Scotland has offered for distribution would be a small token in an attempt to deal with centuries of bias towards theism or that they have donated all the books. It definitely slipped their minds that these books from the beginning are only being offered as an option. They are not being forced on kids like the Christian guide book had been. The publisher, Scripture Union, of the It's Your Move book even brags about directly connecting churches to schools through it's books and curriculum in it's introduction video.

Anyone who even skims through the "Resource Booklet" that accompanies the Christian guide book can't help but realize that this really is a set of Sunday School lessons being passed off as public school curriculum.

The very notion that the humanists are the ones being hypocritical is absurd to the point of being laughable. Christian Concern, The Free Church of Scotland, and other supporters of this guide book being force fed to other people's children are being deceitful tyrannical assholes. Their whining about responsible adults opposing them is hypocritical not to mention despicable.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Quotation

"The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty." 
Stephen Hawking
A Brief History of Time

Ignorance may not be bliss but....

Even if ignorance really isn't bliss it certainly provides comfort and cover for many individuals, especially theists. I came across a letter to the editor last week that I found somewhat interesting. The first read through of Miss Fogg's "Defense of Christians doesn’t mean ‘special rights’(Letter)" seems relatively naive and harmless but if you reread it you may notice it is an example of an attitude that is highly corrosive. She finds the need to defend an individual who quite frankly doesn't need defending. He isn't actually being attacked. i couldn't even find any examples of people who are supposedly attacking "the April 23 opinion of columnist, Don Roberts." 

Miss Fogg seems to have drank the cool-aid that willfully ignorant self-righteous assholes like Roberts have been doling out for years. Yes, that would be an attack on Roberts opinions and his character. Unlike Roberts I can point out why he deserves both criticism and derision. He represents a variety of mean spirited myths and stereotypes. He also is a very dishonest self centered individual who does wish to see the right of others stripped away. Despite lying to herself about Roberts not claiming "special rights" for Christians, Fogg fails to see all the propagandist bullshit Roberts' "In defense of Christianity - Maine legislators should take note: Christians have rights, too" contains. Just start with the title. Who is challenging the actual rights of Christians? Why would Maine's legislators, who are predominantly Christian, fail to protect their own rights?

Roberts sets the tone of his opinion piece very clearly in the first paragraph:
"The world is experiencing a war against Christianity. Our nation, founded on Judeo-Christian principles, faces the greatest challenge to our existence in modern times. Amazingly, our enemy, the radical Islamic terrorist movement, is underestimated at the highest levels of American government."
The religious right loves to use the symbols and language of warfare. I'd also point out that he is pushing the conservative, and false, notion that the US was founded to be a "Christian Nation." I have previously commented on this bogus premise.* Roberts is the one being belligerent and is most certainly trying to claim "special" status for Christianity. The sad truth is that any group you can identify has been, and in many instance are still being, abused, persecuted, and even killed somewhere in the world. It isn't right. It should be stopped. That is not what he's trying to bring attention to. He doesn't give a shit about all the other groups. I seriously doubt he is all that concerned about all Christians either. I don't get the impression from his writings that he has any problem persecuting "Christians" who don't conform to his favored version of the faith.

Sorry, Miss Fogg but you are blinded by your own biases. Roberts is not the champion you seem to think he is.

*Conflation Nation (4-12-15)
http://www.atheismith.blogspot.com/2015/04/conflation-nation.html


Thursday, May 7, 2015

Funny but still misleading


This appeared on Facebook not too long ago. Though it is rather amusing it is also very misleading and inaccurate. In most instances people don't object to a "concept." I certainly don't object to the concept of God. It's actually a rather fascinating one. I do object to how the concept is often used. I also object to the notion that it is a concept that has any basis in reality. You can see how significant this difference is if you simply insert something that is more commonly accepted as fiction in place of "a deity." For example, I find Puff-The-Magic-Dragon to be a pretty cool fictional character. I would even be fine if people wanted to emulate some of this characters accepted values. I would strongly object to anyone tryiong to tell me to do or not do something because it's what Puff wants, or rather what they claim Puff wants.

No, the concept in and of itself is not something that needs to be opposed. You can, of course, argue whether it has any merits. It is far more important to pay attention to what beliefs people accept, reject, or project based on a given concept.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Quotation

"William James used to preach the 'will to believe.' For my part, I should wish to preach the 'will to doubt.' ... What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite." 
Bertrand Russell
Skeptical Essays

....And Jesus wept

....Or did he? Chris Boeskool's HuffPo piece "Saving a Murderer's Life: Who Would Jesus Execute?" is pretty ridiculous. It meanders in and out of all sorts of logical fallacies and disjointed trains of thought that if it weren't for the title it would be easy to lose the main point he seems to be trying to emphasize. Even though I actually agree with a few of the point he makes when he wanders into "non-religious reasons to be against the death penalty" even those are poorly represented and expressed. The whole piece is based entirely on his own narrow interpretation and understanding both theology and the social issues/public policies related to capitol punishment.

Ultimately he comes back to his main objection: his views on what Jesus would do. Of course, he has no clue that what he has expressed is not only an opinion loosely based on other opinions but that it actually has no solid foundation in the scriptures as he assumes it does. I have pointed out over and over that there is no single narrative for the Christ figure and therefore not a single version of Jesus. There are plenty of instances where it is easy to see the Jesus figure not just being okay with executing Tsarnaev but outright demanding it. Anyone care to reread Luke 19:27 and then try claiming Jesus would forgo putting this asshole to death.

Here are just a handful of previous posts I have written about such interpretations of the various claims about Jesus as a single "historical" figure.

A not so cute WWJD story (10-26-14)
http://www.atheismith.blogspot.com/2014/10/a-not-so-cute-wwjd-story.html

How many assumptions can be squeezed into one title? (9-14-14)
http://www.atheismith.blogspot.com/2014/09/how-many-assumptions-can-be-squeezed.html

What makes it a "taunt"? (4-20-14)
http://www.atheismith.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-makes-it-taunt.html

Which Jesus is More Absurd (2-24-13)
http://www.atheismith.blogspot.com/2013/02/which-jesus-is-more-absurd.html

Jesus is.... amorphous (9-15-12)
http://www.atheismith.blogspot.com/2012/09/jesus-is-amorphous.html