I remember discovering Laci Green on YouTube several years ago — she was a great advocate for unabashed atheism. She still is, but she’s discovered a very effective way to piss off the Christians: by speaking frankly and truthfully about sex. Here’s her latest example, which just cheerfully explains the clitoris…and managed to throw a few prudes into censorious hysterics.
(via Camels With Hammers.)
Palumbo is a Rhode Island representative; he just called one of his constituents, Jessica Ahlquist, an “evil little thing” who was “being coerced by evil people”. I think he needs to apologize. No, scratch that; he needs to lose his next election. Contact him! Palumbo’s email address is rep-palumbo@rilin.state.ri.us. His office phone number is (401) 785-2882.
Char Margolis is one of those ditzy book-peddling Newagers who claims to have psychic powers and can see spirits and auras and crap like that. She appeared on WGN, and tried to “read” one of the news hosts. Watch as she pulls the boring John Edward bullshit (“I see an ‘M’ or a ‘J'”…jeebus, do ghosts all wander around in the afterlife wearing monogrammed smoking jackets or something?) and belly-flops ignominiously.
But the title of this post promised amazing powers, you say. I didn’t say whose, and they sure aren’t Char’s. I was really impressed with the news host Larry, though, who demonstrated the amazing powers of skepticism, coming right out and telling Char, “you failed!” I was less impressed with the woman who tried to make excuses for her.
That’s what I’d like to see more of, though: interviewers who can come right out and do a Johnny Carson and call the fakes fakes.
I grew up very active in a conservative Southern Baptist church. I
served in music ministry, set up Vacation Bible School, went on
domestic and international mission trips, took Bible courses at a
Baptist college, and chaperoned youth trips. I truly believed in God
with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my soul.
I always thought that Christians became atheists because they were mad
a God; that it is an act of rebellion against giving God total control
of their life. The complete opposite happened to me.
I drifted away from the faith for several years because I became
disillusioned with the mingling of right wing politics with the
pulpit, but then I discovered several progressive Christian writers
such as Shane Claiborne and Donald Miller, and I felt a renewed zeal
to study the Bible and pursue my personal relationship with God. It’s
funny that this pursuit of God led to my atheism.
Several years ago I traveled to Japan and China and visited Shinto
shrines and Buddhist temples and it occurred to me that these people
that I was meeting and getting to know have morals and ethics often as
great as or greater than most Christians I know. I read Confucius
Lives Next Door by T.R. Reid and pondered how can so many Asians have
such high moral standards, lower crime rates, strong communities and
families, all without Jesus?
Around this same time, over the span of several years, I began to
learn more about the world around me. When I was little, God was
bigger than I could imagine and there was no truth, no morality
outside God. One day I came across this thought exercise: “If God told
you to kill someone, would you do it?” Of course the answer would be
that God would never ask me to do that. “But if he did tell you, that
it was for the greater good, part of his plan?” I would have to answer
no. My morals would never allow me to take another life. I’m a firm
believer in non-violence and pacifism. At this moment I was almost
shocked to realize what this means: my values go beyond God – go
deeper than God. It is as if God got a little smaller, or the universe
as I know it got a little bigger.
As I studied the Bible more in my quest to grow closer to God, the
more issues with theology I discovered. Perhaps the greatest issue I
had was with salvation, or put simply, “who goes to heaven and who
goes to hell.” If salvation is though faith in Jesus alone, then it is
unjust to condemn those who have never heard the Gospel, and equally
unfair if these people get a “free pass” to heaven while those who, to
varying degrees, have heard the Gospel are judged.
The more and more I learned about the world, the more I disagreed with
the exclusivity of faith in Christ. Somebody who earnestly says a
prayer accepting Jesus, then goes about life as usual, is more
deserving of heaven than a Buddhist monk who dedicates his entire life
to feeding the poor and clothing the needy, and caring for the sick?
After all, Matthew 25 pretty plainly states that those who do “unto
the least of these” are rewarded with heaven and those who selfishly
do not are condemned. How do you reconcile “faith alone” with this
teaching? How does simply saying a prayer supersede this? Maybe just
praying the “Sinner’s prayer” and repenting of sins is not enough.
I thought that perhaps I am a Universalist – that there are many paths
in life and all people will eventually be reconciled to God. But if
this is true, then why is there a need to believe in God anyway?
What’s the difference, as long as I seek to live out the message of
Matthew 25 and seek to “love my neighbor as myself?”
Still, I tried fervently to seek God in spite of growing doubts. I
wanted to believe that he existed. I prayed that he would show me the
way. Lying in bed at night I prayed until I cried, begging that he
would restore my faith. I read more Christian books and studied the
Bible more fervently.
Eventually I accepted what my heart and mind was telling me – there is
not God. It’s not that I didn’t believe in Jesus’ teaching, but that
his divinity and the existence of a God seemed increasingly unlikely
in light of what I was learning about the world around me. I never
stopped believing in the Bible in the sense that it is the greatest
source of moral truth in my life. Jesus’ teachings such as the Sermon
on the Mount and Matthew 25 form the basis of my ethics. I will always
follow my conscience and seek peace, justice, equality for all people
through love.
I guess some Christians will say it is okay – people take many paths
and all people will be reconciled to God eventually. Some will say
that I’ll eventually “come back around.” Some will say that I was
never a Christian to begin with, or that I was not predestined, or
elected, by God. My faith was completely real to me for the better
part of two decades. I was certain that God heard and answered my
prayers. I felt his supernatural presence in still quiet moments of
worship.
But now I realize that it was just a creation of my own mind. I want
to be honest with myself and use reason and logic, not blind faith, to
explore the world. Life as a human being is very precious, and it is
something to be cherished. I want to spend my life creating “heaven”
on earth for the “least of these.”
James Willamor
United States
A mighty battle to settle the question once and for all was fought on the playing fields of America today, and a mere mortal, Tom Brady, kicked Jesus’ champion’s ass all over the field 45-10. I think the matter is finally over.
This is what happens when you vaingloriously give your deity responsibility for carrying a stupid little football game: his impotence might be exposed.
Think this is silly? 54% of Republicans believe god is helping Tebow on the field. Jamie Kilstein sets ’em straight.
Melody Hensley and Stephanie Zvan are going to be talking about the Women in Secularism conference on Atheists Talk radio. That’s at 9am Central, on AM950 KTNF, if you’re close enough to tune in. Otherwise, use the internet!.
I grew up in the typical uber-conservative christian home, but always had doubts. The answers given to my questions were never quit satisfying, and always had the air of “If you pray/read the Bible hard enough, long enough, sincerely enough, you will understand!” I distinctly remember hysterically sobbing, clutching at my bedsheets, literally begging “God” to make me “feel” him like those around me claimed they could, or to understand. When nothing ever happened, I was told that God was testing me. I accepted that, begrudgingly.
Sadly, I still tried to conform– going to church, youth groups, attending a conservative Christian college, even serving as a missionary overseas. During that last experience, I had a few days where I might have actually “felt” God in my life (or what I was told was what God was like). . . . but the powers that be heard of my newfound joy and happiness and immediately called meetings about me, and emotionally and professionally ruined me. Years of church-abuse followed
I came back to the States, PISSED. I tried a non-denominational church, and while the people were nicer, I still felt that nagging sense that I just didn’t belong. I would never fit, I wasn’t good enough, I asked too many questions, I was a woman, I was a thinking woman, I was pretty– all reasons that I would never be heard, acknowledged, or taken seriously. Ever.
Finally, I realized that if my church was a boyfriend, he would be an abusive SOB, and anyone that knew and loved me would be BEGGING me to run away, run hard, just get away from that bipolar, controlling, abusive asshole. It was a eureka moment: I was in an abusive relationship!
I gave up religion, but didn’t know what else was out there. I thought I still believed in a god, something anyway. . . until I heard a woman interviewing a Catholic-turned-Atheist on the radio. And he was describing this new personal responsibility he had– no more asking God to do everything for him, now it was all on him. And while that sounded scary at first, I found the idea very attractive– you mean, I could control my own life? Sadly, it was a revolutionary thought. The interviewee also described how every day, every moment was now precious, because this life was all he had– there was no cheery there-after to lean upon. He talked about being a nicer, more generous, more loving person, because he wasn’t functioning under that huge Judgment Umbrella that Christians love so much. He sounded FREE. And while it sounded like an initially scary journey to begin, it sounded like one that would prove more than well worth the effort.
And he was right. It was interesting too, because it was only after I became an atheist that I felt all those things the Christians told me that God would bring me– happiness, confidence, a loving nature, a generous heart, the ability to see everything as beautiful, bright, colorful and breath-taking, money, respect, love from others, freedom from cruelty and abuse– the list goes on.
Suffice it to say, I am one ridiculously happy atheist!
MonZni
United States
I think you should print out this handy guide to quack medicine and give copies to your gullible relatives — you know, the ones who are fending off colds with homeopathy and worry about vaccines and go to chiropractors for their headaches.
If you really loved them you’d do it now.
A godless band of unrepentant heathens has released a new album — and is donating a portion of the proceeds to the SSA. You can listen to samples and order the album on Amazon. Get more music for your iPod and help atheists at the same time!
The Missouri is considering HB1227, a bill that would require public schools to teach intelligent design creationism. It’s a descendant of a similar bill that was previously allowed to die, and it shares some of the same properties as the previous version: an amazing opacity and astonishingly pompous attempt by a few blithering lawyers to redefine science.
Read this crap. It begins with a long, long list of eleven bogus definitions, as if making the law into a dictionary will make it irrefutable.
2. As used in this section, the following terms mean:
(1) “Analogous naturalistic process”, a verifiable process which is either a present-day naturally occurring process similar to a past naturalistic process or the human-directed duplication of a process similar to a past naturalistic process. The verifiable process uses similar natural materials, mechanisms, and conditions as the past naturalistic process and produces an equivalent end result;
(2) “Biological evolution”, a theory of the origin of life and its ascent by naturalistic means. The first simple life was developed from basic elements and simple molecules through the mechanisms of random combinations, naturally occurring molecular structures, other naturalistic means, and millions of years. From the first simple life, all subsequent species developed through the mechanisms of random variation, mutation, natural selection, adaptation, segregation, other naturalistic means, and millions of years. The theory is illustrated by the evolutionary phylogenic tree. Theory philosophically demands only naturalistic causes and denies the operation of any intelligence, supernatural event, God or theistic figure in the initial or subsequent development of life;
(3) “Biological intelligent design”, a hypothesis that the complex form and function observed in biological structures are the result of intelligence and, by inference, that the origin of biological life and the diversity of all original species on earth are the result of intelligence. Since the inception of each original species, genetic material has been lost, inherited, exchanged, mutated, and recombined to result in limited variation. Naturalistic mechanisms do not provide a means for making life from simple molecules or making sufficient new genetic material to cause ascent from microscopic organisms to large life forms. The hypothesis does not address the time or sequence of life’s appearance on earth, time or formation of the fossil record, and time or method of species extinction. The hypothesis does not require the identity of intelligence responsible for earth’s biology but requires any proposed identity of that intelligence to be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation. Concepts inherent within the hypothesis include:
(a) The origin of life on earth is inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no plausible mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic origin of the first independent living organism;
(b) All original species on earth are inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no significant mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic development of earth’s species from microscopic organisms;
(c) Complex forms in proteins, enzymes, DNA, and other biological structures demonstrated by their constituent molecules in regard to size, shape, quantity, orientation, sequence, chirality, and integration imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth. Intelligence is capable of designing complex form;
(d) Complex functions demonstrated by growth, reproduction, repair, food metabolization, waste disposal, stimuli response, and autonomous mobility in microscopic organisms imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth. Intelligence is capable of designing complex function;
(e) Within the history of human experience, all exhibits of recurring discrete symbols from a set of symbols arranged in a specific sequence which store information and can be read by human intelligence, is itself the result of intelligence. DNA contains stored information for the assembling of proteins and enzymes which can be read by humans and is the result of intelligence. The recurring discrete symbols sequenced within DNA which store information are the molecules adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine;
(f) Intelligence-directed design and construction of all original species at inception without an accompanying genetic burden is inferred rather than random mutational genetic change as a constructive mechanism. Random mutational genetic change results in an increasing genetic burden and species degradation rather than species ascent;
(g) Intelligence-directed action is necessary to exceed the limits of natural species change, which is a combination of autogenous species change and environmental effected species change. Multi-generation breeding experiments illustrate the limits of natural species change and its inadequacy for developing required genetic information found in dissimilar species;
(h) The irreducible complexity of certain biological systems implies a completed design and construction at inception rather than step-by-step development, as indicated by the structures observed for sight, hearing, smell, balance, blood coagulation, digestion, and hormone control;
(i) The lack of significant transitional forms between diverse species existing today and in the fossil record implies all original species were completed at inception rather than by a step-by-step development from other species. A lack of transitional forms is illustrated by the appearance of large complex life forms in the Cambrian fossil record without any significant previous fossils;
(j) Common designs and features evident in different species imply the intelligent reuse of proven designs analogous to the reuse of proven designs by human designers;
(k) The lack of significant present-day observable changes in species due to random variation, mutation, natural selection, adaptation, segregation, or other naturalistic mechanisms implies intelligence as the cause for all original species;
I would not want to debate the author of this mess; just reading it, I felt my eyes glazing over and eyelids drooping. It’s an argumentum ad snooze-a-rooni.
I’ll say one positive thing about it, it does have a useful clause further down.
(6) If a scientific theory or hypothesis proven to be false is taught for historical, illustrative, or other reasons, the theory or hypothesis shall be identified as false when taught orally or in writing.
OK. (a) through (k) of section (3) above are all false. Can we dismiss the kids and go home now?
With any luck, the other legislators in Missouri will be able to recognize that this noise blows chunks, and it will once again languish and die.
(Also on Sb)
