.

“Fuck” is an English, or Anglo-Saxon, word that, according to the O.E.D., has been around since 1503. Wikipedia says since 1475. Either, or both, may be wrong. As Ken Ham, regarding his mission of substituting Creationism, a religion, for Evolution, a science, would say: “Where you there?”

It is generally considered vulgar, and certainly not okay, to use fuck in any of its forms in most situations, like when attending afternoon tea parties at the church ice cream social on the green. It is considered vulgar because it means, in its original usage, the act of copulation.

At certain times and places, use of the word, as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or in any of its compounds, like “motherfucker,” could, and still can, get you thrown in jail. Even where not unlawful, it is still almost universally considered unacceptable and vulgar and its use is not permitted in most mainstream press and media. It is the most awful, bad, evil, unthinkable, denounced, and used, forbidden word that exists in the English language.

Here is my attempt to conjugate fuck for grammatical purists. I fuck; You fank; They fonk. Perhaps the usage will catch on and give a greater purity to the often illiterate and largely incoherent syntax of some who visit or write blogs.

There is a nice little town in Austria named Fucking, Austria. The use of the word is not illegal there.

Fuck, in all of its potential usages, seems to be the most popular word for current blog usage, thus demonstrating the apparent inability of the writer to use anything approaching a full range of vocabulary. Its use, of course, by intelligent, well educated people could be an attempt to demonstrate how free they believe themselves to be of social norms. And the word has morphed into many far ranging meanings.

The following story, doubtless meant to be humorous, is reproduced here from anonymous sources and augmented by your narrator:

It was a fucking dark and stormy fucking night. I was fucking depressed in my fucking hotel room in the fucking city where I had to spend the fucking night after my fucking car broke the fuck down. So I went the fuck outside and walked up the fucking street in the fucking rain to this fucking bar. I said to myself “What the fuck,” and went the fuck in. And at the fucking bar I saw this fucking woman sitting all the fuck by her fucking self. I asked her what the fuck she was doing there and she said she had been fucked over by some fucking guy. “Fuck him,” I said. I told her I had been fucked over too and that the fucking world is fucking filled with fucked up people. So, after a few fucking drinks, we walked down the fucking street to my fucking hotel room. I shut and locked the fucking door. We both took off our fucking clothes and got into the fucking bed. And then we made love.

And that’s that, said the grammarian.

Edwin
© by Edwin Kagin, 2012.

Regardless of whatever else may be said of him, Paul Kurtz was, in my opinion, the most significant Humanist philosopher of the 20th Century.

His obituary can be found here:

http://centerforinquiry.net/paul_kurtz_obituary

Edwin Kagin

(May be sung to sorta a combination of “Davy Crockett” & “the Beverly Hillbillies”)

Hear the story of Joseph Smith
Snake oil salesman who wrote a myth
About a book on sheets of gold
Very sacred—very old.

Written in an ancient tongue
A tale of Jesus yet unsung
The angel Moroni helped him translate
Those sacred words of racial hate.

So now we have our latter saints
And men can now have several mates
In the holy words of Brigham Young
“Just bring ‘em now and bring ‘em young.”

Brigham found a lake of salt
Where the Mormons’ march could halt
His people built a temple there
So their message they could share.

See them go out two by two
Bringing Joseph’s truth to you
Join up now and you can save
All your people in the grave.

CHORUS:

Drink no coffee, drink no tea
Mormon truth can set you free
You too can Mormonism find
If you disconnect your mind.

by Edwin Kagin

This was published a while back Seems appropriate to publish it again now.

TWO LINES

The future waits in one of two great lines, two endless human queues
And each of us is in one line—there is no other line to choose.
Our journey as human creatures has fashioned these two lines
With very different features following very different signs.
Through kingdoms and through ages these lines unbroken run
One line snaking into darkness; one line straining for the sun.
One line holds shining visions of what humankind can be
When at last we make decisions free of myth and tyranny.
Our race, our creeds, our sex, and the religions we proclaim
In this line yield to human needs we cannot always name.
Some careless few within this line may hurt you and make you cry
But villains in the other line will kill you to watch you die.
Those marching in that other line seek to control not to achieve
By trying to deceive our minds with lies that they believe.
Prizing money over friendship, and power over human need
They do not work for kinship but only for their greed.
Anyone can leave their line, whenever they see fit
If perhaps they change their mind, from facts, or acts or wit.
No one must stay within a line where rules are learned by rote
That dictate how we all must live, and breed, and love, and vote.
In the coming great election, one line will finally decide
If our future takes direction from the bright or evil side.
Set aside all pious passion of who you are and where you have been
What now must be in fashion is “Which line are you in?”
How will you answer to the future when a new world starts to dawn
How will you tell your children which side of history you were on?
There are but two great questions to be raised when life must end,
“How did you use your roads and days?” And “Which line were you in?”

By Edwin Kagin

(c) by Edwin Kagin
Permission is granted for non-profit reproduction.
If you make money on it, I want some of it. ek

Media Advisory: Godless Convention in Lexington

October 4, 2012

This weekend atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, humanists and others of like mind will gather at the inaugural Kentucky Freethought Convention, organized with the aid of the Bluegrass Coalition of Reason in Lexington and the Louisville Coalition of Reason of Louisville–with major funding provided by the United Coalition of Reason in Washington DC.

This convention follows in the wake of the Bluegrass Coalition of Reason’s “Don’t believe in God? Join the club” billboard campaign. Members of the press are invited to attend the conference and will be given opportunities to interview speakers.

WHO: Seth Andrews, Annalise Fonza, Edwin Kagin, Jim Krupa, Will Gervais, Gretchen Mann, and Jen McCreight will speak at the conference.

— Seth Andrews was a Christian radio broadcaster for a decade and now hosts the “Thinking Atheist” podcast.

— annalise Fonza, Ph.D, served six congregations in three states as a United Methodist clergywoman before changing her beliefs and turning in her credential. She is now a professional writer and researcher.

— Edwin Kagin, J.D., is the national legal director for American Atheists.

— Jim Krupa, Ph.D., is a professor of environmental and evolutionary biology at the University of Kentucky.

— Will Gervais, Ph.D., is an associate professor of social psychology at the University of Kentucky.

— Gretchen Mann, M.D., the chief medical officer, Military Entrance Processing Station, Louisville, worked to end worldwide Gideon proselytizing on military bases.

— Jen McCreight is a member of the Secular Student Alliance board of directors, an atheist blogger, and a Ph.D. candidate in genome sciences at the University of Washington.

WHERE: University of Kentucky
Grand Ballroom
UK Student Center
404 S. Limestone
Lexington, KY 40526

WHEN: Saturday, October 6th, 2012, from 9:00 AM to 6:40 PM.

WHY: Nontheists–atheists, agnostics and others who subscribe to no religion–may feel they have no voice in a time when traditional religions dominate public discourse.

They may also feel alone–that they aren’t respected in their communities and are vilified simply because they don’t believe in a god. But now they have a place to turn and like-minded people to know.

Come learn more about those who don’t believe in a god and why such a public conference is needed to change common perceptions of secular Americans.

The Kentucky Freethought Convention website has further information ( http://www.kyfreethoughtconvention.com/ ).

The University of Kentucky Secular Student Alliance ( http://www.facebook.com/groups/ukyssa/ ) is the campus freethought group hosting the event.

The United Coalition of Reason ( UnitedCoR.org ) is a national umbrella organization that has provided major funding for the conference and financed the associated billboard campaign in Lexington.

# # #

Contact:
Clay Maney
Coordinator
Bluegrass Coalition of Reason
859-338-8807

CManey@gmail.com
www.BluegrassCoR.org

Edwin Hensley
Coordinator, Louisville CoR
502-939-9275
edwin.hensley@insightbb.com
www.LouisvilleCoR.org

Why blog anyway? Surely, there are other things to do. This cannot happen without the consent of the victim.

Possible reasons: expressions of narcissistic attention getting; to make money; to educate and inform; for fun; for diversion. There are probably a lot more. Ask a shrink.

I haven’t blogged for a while because I have not wanted to.

There are too many things to say to say anything. There are plenty of blogs to report news and religious scandals.

And the most thoughtful of blogs, I have learned, can be trashed by morons who do not seem to even understand that which they are attempting to condemn. These commenters, with their limited vocabularies. who haunt blogs they do not appear to even vaguely comprehend, can be unconsciously funny.

This phenomenon has resulted in some exchanges with more rational blog readers that are high comedy to readers who understand what is being said.

It was in this context that I learned about “Poe’s Law.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law . Poe’s Law relates to our conversation in that it can, I think, be understood to mean that no blog can possibly be so satiric, so obviously metaphoric, and other things English professors talk about, that some fools won’t actually believe that the information thereon is correct or the author serious.

The law appears to cover those readers who believed that my “Should Males Be Eliminated from the Human Genome?” was a serious proposal. https://freethoughtblogs.com/kagin/2012/09/14/should-males-be-eliminated-from-the-human-genome . That is hard to beat for high comedy.

These comments, and these posters, do not “hurt” me or anything like that. I have been subjected to the scorn of experts and lived. And these commentators, these Masters of One Word, ain’t them.

Readers who saw the absurdity, and took the commenters to task, were, and are, greatly appreciated. They give hope in the uncaring word of the blog. It is for such people that I will keep on blogging.

When I want to.

Poe was a genius.

Edwin
© Edwin Kagin, 2012.

The following is reproduced from www.beliefnet.com.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2001/08/Heretic-Humor.aspx

If you have not read or heard this wonderful tale, enjoy. If you have encountered it before, here it is again. Enjoy.

 

The Heretic

Emo Philips

2 0 0 0

I was in San Francisco once, walking along the Golden Gate Bridge, and I saw this guy on the bridge
about to jump. So I thought I’d try to stall and detain him, long enough for me to put the film in. I said,

“Don’t jump!” and he turns…

He said, “Nobody loves me.”

I said, “God loves you, you silly ninny.”…

He said, “I do believe in God.”

I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?”

He said, “A Christian.”

I said, “Me too. Protestant or Catholic?”

He said, “Protestant.”

I said, “Me too! What franchise?”

He says, “Baptist.”

I said, “Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”

He says, “Northern Baptist.”

I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He says, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”

I say, “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reform Baptist?”

He says, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”

I say, “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”

He says, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”

I say, “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”

He says, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”

I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

 

It is a literary Rorschach test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test

Edwin.

Female humans are superior to male humans. Get used to it. They live longer, endure most unpleasant things better, and, with notable exceptions, do not start wars. They do better than males in law and medical schools. If women ran things, things would run better. So, to create a better world and a brighter future, human males should be eliminated from the human genome.

The trick is to master and practice parthenogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis) . This generates pregnancy without the necessity for male participation.

In the human species, the un-fertilized embryo is a clone of its mother and always produces females. Interesting take on the Baby Jesus story.

So, once this sexless skill of females only producing female children is mastered and practiced universally by women, the matter of the future of humankind will be settled. The only living humans will be female, and things will run as they should.

Males now living can be cut and tied. They should have this done immediately. The government must pay for the procedures.

It matters little if the person being neutered identifies as a male or as something else. If the human has testicles, that human must be cut and tied. Better safe than sorry.

While waiting for living males, who should be treated humanely, to grow old and die out, women can use them for heavier work and for any pleasure purposes they see fit.

In one generation, the human race can be rid of them.

Then there will be no further worry about male humans deflowering female humans, and the great goal of religion, reproduction without sex, can be achieved.

Edwin.
(c) 1212 by Edwin Kagin.

There have been ads hawking buying or selling “new gold” or “old gold.” There is no such thing as new gold or old gold. All gold has been here since it was first formed on our planet.

Similarly, there is no such thing as “new atheism.” Atheism means the lack of a belief in a god. That is all it means. There is nothing “new” about it. It has been around as long as there has been a belief in gods.

It is certainly true that language goes through changes. Often, big changes. But that has not yet happened to the English work “atheism,” which means, at present, nothing more than not having a belief in a god or gods. Sorry if you don’t like that—I didn’t make the rules.

We are now experiencing a most divisive phenomenon where some atheists are viciously excoriating other atheists for not embracing loudly enough certain of a list of worthy causes to which they are joined. Different inclinations champion differed lists.

One can be an atheist and like chocolate chip ice cream. This does not mean that it is a good idea to form a club that excludes, and sees as enemies, anyone who does not like chocolate chip ice cream, or who actually prefer some other flavors.

How many bloggers, laid end to end, would it take to bridge the gap between science and religion?

Lord dog, the Religious Right certainly need have no worry over us. We will self-destruct without their help.

A population that eats its own young will probably not long survive.

Maybe years from now your grandchildren will ask “What did you do in the great American Religious Civil War?” Do you suppose the answer, “Well, I got some atheists to condemn other atheists for not thinking the way they should” will be an entirely satisfactorily answer?

Edwin
© Edwin Kagin, 2012.