It’s this weekend! And look, more women are attending!
I am so looking forward to Women in Secularism: not only is it a sign of progress that atheism can broaden its reach, but it’s a meeting where I don’t have to give a talk, and so nothing is hanging over my head and I can just kick back and enjoy the entire event.
This really is a constant problem. I don’t think most theists are stupid, just as I don’t think being an atheist makes you smart, but theists are led to say the most astonishingly stupid things by their abysmally stupid mythology. Ken Ham is probably a smart guy — he’s at least got cunning and business acumen — but when he announces that the world can’t be millions of years old because that would make the Bible wrong, you just have to gawp speechlessly and wonder how someone who can say something that idiotic manages to tie his own shoelaces.
Jesus & Mo demonstrate the problem.
I’ve decided that everyone has brains like swiss cheese, full of holes, but some people have giant, Jesus- (or Mo-) shaped holes in their brains that create huge dysfunctional zones. If you can avoid tripping into their religious cavities, they’re fine…but if you do, hellooooo stupid.
I was on another show with this odd New Covenant group — these are people very deeply steeped in Christianity, and it shows in their modes of thinking. Not all of them call themselves atheists, but they’re definitely freethinkers, and so I chattered with them for two hours. The topic for this one was on the crucifixion, and I argued that it was more than just false, this myth of sacrifice by proxy is abhorrent poison.
The other thing that makes them different from scientists and atheists is they’re just too nice — I’m really put on edge by compliments.
The great news: Governor Dayton signed the same-sex marriage bill into law this afternoon. You may now cheer wildly.
The silly it-is-to-laugh news: the religious right is indignant. I got this email this afternoon:
I have been reading your blog entries regarding The Minnesota Legislature’s legalizing of gay marriage. In these entries, you seem to put the blame for the hold up on the passing of this legislation on Christians and organized religion, who oppose gay marriage as a tenet of their faith. That is fine on your part and does not bother me one iota. What I would like to do is to send you 77 NON-RELIGIOUS Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage. If you are open minded enough and don’t mind sending me your “snail mail” address, I will send you a copy of this pamphlet for your information. Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely Yours,
David W. Zeile
I told him to go ahead, but I took a wild guess at what these ‘reasons’ would be — I predict lots of repetition of the same few arguments with a few words twisted around, and much circling around the purpose of marriage being procreation and children needing a mommy and a daddy and how it’s so unfair for the law to force people to tolerate wicked gays. I figured I’d have fun ripping into it.
But I don’t have to! I searched on the title of the pamphlet and found that the Rational Wiki has already done the job, and done it well. Also, the content is exactly what I predicted.
Entirely on logical and rational reasons, the anti-gay bigots lose.
Al Bedrosian is the Republican (of course) candidate for the Roanoke County supervisor, and he certainly makes his position clear in a 2007 op-ed to the local paper.
As a Christian, I think it’s time to rid ourselves of this notion of freedom of religion in America.
Now that I have your attention, let me take a moment to make my case. Freedom of religion has become the biggest hoax placed upon the Christian people and on our Christian nation.
When reading the writings of our Founding Founders, there was never any reference to freedom of religion referring to a choice between Islam, Hindu, Satanism, Wicca and whatever other religions or cults you would like to dream up. It was very clear that freedom to worship meant the freedom to worship the God of the Bible in the way you wanted, and not to have a government church denomination dictate how you would worship.
Christianity, by its own definition, does not allow freedom of religion. A Christian is defined as a follower of Jesus Christ.
He is forthright, I’ll give him that — he comes right out and says exactly what a lot of American fundagelicals think: they are intolerant radicals. They’re also guilty of magical thinking.
Beware, Christians, we are being fed lies that a Christian nation needs to be open to other religions. America is a great nation — not because of its freedom, great economic system, or even its military power. It is a great nation because the God of the Bible has blessed us in our freedom, our wealth and our military power.
Once we remove ourselves from worshiping the one true God, all the wonderful qualities of America will vanish.
If Al Bedrosian is an example of the wonderful qualities of America, please do vanish.
What’s going on, gang?
Stephanie discusses a common fallacy about harassment.
Avicenna finds an MRA woman making excuses for pedophilia. I need to shower now.
Aron debated a creationist rapper. I’m hoping it was a rap battle.
Ashley is getting all miscellaneous up in her place.
Brianne is in Belize. I am envious.
Black Skeptics announce that Sikivu Hutchinson has a new book, Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels
Miri explains privilege. C’mon, people, it’s really not so difficult!
The Digital Cuttlefish cheers as we hit a new record—the highest CO2 in 3 million years!
Ed says a rude word to the goons who arrested atheist bloggers in Bangladesh.
Jason expresses his exasperation that Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as…Khan Noonien Singh? WTF?
Taslima features an ex-Muslim who is proud to be an atheist.
Stephen looks at Iceland, and notices that they spurned the austerity option…a wise choice.
Religion is “a great body of knowledge”? Ophelia doesn’t think so.
Science does make gods look ridiculous, as the illustration below illustrates. (I’m putting it below the fold because it’s a big image.)
Wow. Jolie is a beautiful woman who makes a living as an actress, where looks can be important, and she discovered that she carried an allele of BRCA1 that puts her at a very high risk of coming down with breast cancer sometime in her life. She looked at her situation rationally — she is an atheist after all — and made the decision to get a preventive double mastectomy. She chose to maximize her chances of living a long life over preserving a secondary sexual characteristics.
That’s strong and smart. She hasn’t lost anything of any importance.
Jolie also took an important next step and came forward with the news to encourage other women to make good choices.
I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.
Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.
The only glitch in this story is that this is America: if you’re not a mega-millionaire movie star, you’re not likely to be able to afford the expensive genetic testing, or the extensive surgeries. But maybe Jolie’s openness will encourage politicians to correct that, too.
But that membrane hanging off of it is just plain weird.
Maybe the video will help make sense of it all.
(via ZooBorns)
The Minnesota Senate has approved gay marriage. It now goes to Governor Dayton, who has already said he’ll sign it, and then we’re at last edging our way into the 21st century.
Not everyone is happy about it.
"In my heart, I grieve on both sides. Because I know what it’s like to be alone and I know what it is like to have somebody close to you and love you. But I grieve inside because I feel we are opening the doors to Sodom and Gomorra. And in the end, God is going to be the judge," said Nelson, of Blaine, tears running down her cheeks.
I would bottle your tears and perhaps dot a little on my wrists every morning — Eau de Schadenfreude. Or perhaps I would drink them like a rich bitter wine, and laugh. Those aren’t tears of sorrow, but of nasty cruel bigotry — you didn’t get your way, you weren’t allowed to demean other citizens of this state in the way you wanted, and now you get to weep in frustration, while I have no sympathy.
And to compare the happy men and women who can now aspire to share equally in love and marriage with evil, wicked horrible people from your book of lies, to tell yourself they are damned and will be destroyed…well, I’ll dance an especially happy spiteful dance on your broken dreams of oppression, lady.
