“Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list.” – Denis Leary

This is a treatise by virtue of it’s length. It’s a long piece, even for me. Roughly 4000 words. I will start by asking you a question. Do young black males wearing hoodies scare you? The topic of how one dresses, their motives for doing so, how the public perceives them and how any one individual might react has been the subject of debate for a very, very long time.

With all the conversation that has been generated lately regarding the Martin/Zimmerman case, the issue of what we wear has been more in the mainstream than usual. The fact is that young, unemployed black males wearing hoodies commit crime.

Hoodied Black criminals…

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist” – Stephen Hawking

Dr. Stephen Hawking, arguably one of the smartest  human beings, alive or dead, declared that god did not create the universe and the “Big Bang” was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics.  In his book, ”The Grand Design” (co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow), Hawking stated that there exists a new series of theories that make a creator god redundant.  By combining Albert Einstein’s Relativity Theory and Quantum Theory, Dr. Hawking states that the laws of physics mean it is simply not necessary to believe that God had intervened in the Big Bang.

The Peanut Gallery Strikes Back…

“There are few among us who have not suffered from too early familiarity with the Bible and the conceptions of religion.” -Havelock Ellis 1859-1939

I was having a conversation the other day with an individual regarding the bible, and he believed that even if the Bible is errant, not the inspired word of his God nor even has absolute authority that it is still an excellent source of moral guidance. I disagreed with him, and what ensued was a rather short-lived conversation from that point on. My attempt to congenially explain that his belief about morality and the bible stems from a lack of knowledge about what the Bible actually says was not well-received.

His lack of understanding regarding the morlity that is within the pages was obvious because, as do most people, he immediately referred to the parts about loving your neighbor, honoring your parents and helping the needy. Yes, these are exemplary ideals, but they do not comprise the whole of what the bible teaches, particularly when it comes to the role of women, the handicapped, slavery, acts of war, human sacrifice, racism and “family values.”

Women…

“Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!” – Marc Antony 

Should you or shouldn’t you? Those are the choices when considering “coming out” as an unbeliever. Yes or no. Seems simple, right? In fact, there are many in our movement/cause that reason if you are an atheist, you should always be willing to shout it from the mountaintops, and damn the torpedoes.

In most cases, I would agree with this, and have been actively supporting and promoting the “Out Campaign” that has been at the forefront for quite a while now. However, there are times when you should just…

Shut up… 

“Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, its Superman!”

Today is Easter Sunday. It is the Christian high holy day that has been set aside to celebrate the resurrection of their god-born savior, a tenet which is central to their faith. If there were no resurrection, the human sacrifice known as the crucifixion would be the end of a failed mission. The cycle of the death and rebirth of a messianic figure has been an extremely important cog in the machinery of many religions for eons.

Death is a great unknown and there exists no”‘explorer’s guide” on an afterlife, complete with maps, charts and landmarks on how to return safely to the land of the living.  It is the final frontier. And it had become one of the most feared aspects of human existence because, as they say, nobody gets out alive.

It’s Just A Fantasy…

“Though the colourful story of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt is known to everyone the legend itself is a complete fantasy.” – Ken Humphreys

The Passover Holidays are upon us, so what better time than now to explain how the entire tale of the Exodus was logistically impossible.  Of course, modern archaeology provides enough evidence that almost the entirety of the Jewish biblical history was fabricated, so let’s go with what the bible says.  Even if a “miracle of god” is used as an explanation, there are some problems that should be addressed. Since this story is a major part of the faith, and a source for cheesy movies the world over, let’s give it some special attention. I would start a little earlier on in Jewish history, but there seems to be a problem with the timekeeping in the bible, as it states that the Jews were enslaved for 430 years.  When you examine the length of the “generations” from Jacob to Moses, it only adds up to about 350 years, and yes, that is using the Jewish calendar and making extreme allowances for length of life.  So, we’ll get straight to the actual trip across the desert.

A little discrepancy…

I wrote this about fifteen years ago. Has nothing to do with religion, but with Easter Weekend coming up and my inevitable commentaries, I thought you’d all get a kick out of a little light reading today… Enjoy!

It all started out innocently enough. I was in a thrift store when I came upon a nice blue sofa that I though would compliment the lobby chairs I bought from a hotel. Price tag? $35.00. Not bad, I thought.

Figured all I would need to do was pull the old sleeper sofa out of the living room, dump it in the van and then go pick up the “new” sofa and put it in its place.

This is where everything went wrong… Drastically 

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” – Thomas Jefferson

I’ve written and re-written this post four times already this morning. With each edit came the revelation that it had morphed into another version of a rant against those who are under the notion that we are a Christian nation because of majority rule. Well, I’ve written about that many times and with each word that appears before me on my word processor, it becomes inevitable that I find myself writing about it yet again. Regardless of how many times I hit the “back space” 0r “delete” key, my mind stubbornly returns to the concept of tyranny.

Through the cobwebs and scattered papers that litter the floor of my mind and amongst the remnant memories of thousands of books that I have read which sit on the dusty shelves of my recollective, there emerges the single, unadulterated and clear thought of why the religious right continues to hawk their snake oil salve that consists of the single mandate that we should all acquiesce to their dictates and doctrines.

Under A Mythological Thumb…

“A house divided will not stand.”

We’ve all heard those words before. Yeah, they are in the bible but they didn’t start out there. In fact, the concept has been around for eons. It’s actually plain old common sense, the precept being that without unity there will inevitably be failure. Now, sometimes that is a good thing. Personally, I consider it a plus when hate groups break up, or when factions that support discrimination end up a splintered mess. I shed not a single tear when I read about how the Nazi party imploded on itself, or when other regimes came to a demise due to in-fighting. Can you imagine, though, what the state of affairs would be if the abolitionist movement failed and we were still a nation of people owning people? What would life in these United States be like if the women’s movement crashed and females were still not allowed to vote or own land?

We Need To Get It Together…