Atheist op-ed

Found this on a local South African news site. It’s an op-ed on the user-generated section titled A study of Atheism – Untwisting the knickers. I’ve seen worse. Long excerpt below:

Link — Are atheists then Satanists? After all, they reject the notion of the God of Abraham, therefore they must be Satanists, right? Wrong – you were not paying attention. Atheists reject the notion of ALL gods/God – this includes Satan/Lucifer/Baal and whoever else you might care to throw in the mix.

Right, so what about babies? They do not believe in any gods/God, do they? No, they do not, or at least not until they are taught to believe in gods/God. Does this mean they are atheists? No, it does not – to be an atheist one must reject the notion of gods/Gods, and the only thing I have seen a baby reject is a feed – usually all over one’s shoulder. I am not permitted to say that babies are irreligious – I got well and truly chastised last time I said that – so I will try for “babies are non-religious”, and hope I am not soundly rebuked for using that term.

OK, so God/gods are out – but they must believe in something, surely? It must be Science! No – wrong again. For starters, one does not “believe” in Science. One understands it, (or in my case, tries to understand it), accepts it – but never does one BELIEVE in Science. In any event, neither Science, nor any of the great Scientists, are or were gods. Nothing whatsoever to do with atheism. It is simply Science. Some atheists are into Science, some are not. Then again, some religious folk are into Science too, so it cannot be the exclusive property of the atheists, can it now?

Gallup tries to own up to giant f*&# up

There can be great profit in giving powerful people the wrong answer, as long as it’s the answer they want to hear. But there’s also times when a wrong answer really is wrong. Polling giant Gallup has issued intent to do that, and I think we can all tell them exactly how to accomplish it — assuming they really want to:

TPM — Gallup’s editor-in-chief Frank Newport wrote in an email published Monday by Politico that “a blue ribbon group of outside experts” is conducting a review of the firm’s “methodological issues” during the 2012 election. The findings will be unveiled during an event on June 4 at Gallup’s Washington, D.C. office.

The move comes after an embarrassing stretch for Gallup in which the firm was widely panned for its 2012 election polls. Soon after the election, Fordham University put the firm near the bottom of its rankings for pollster accuracy. And more recently, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough launched a blistering on-air attack last week against the firm.

Here’s how Gallup the polling operation fixes massive polling failures: you fire the highest level, best paid people who were assuring you everything was fine as the failure unfolded. I don’t know if that includes Frank Newport or not.

But I predict Gallup the for-profit company won’t do that. After being jaded by the new corporate reality, where failure at the top is crammed directly down below as far as it will go with no consequences at all to the culprits, I predict Gallup will let go a few mid level people, nerf payouts and career ladders for the least infuential and most vulnerable foot soldiers in their workforce, and keep most of the high level fuck-ups in place free to refuck-up. Then in a few years maybe we’ll all be treated to Gallup failing again and wondering quietly or aloud why they can’t get it right when so many others did.

Money doesn’t kill people, Austerity kills people

In most any civilized space-time that headline would be unassailable. Remove or reduce food, shelter, and medical care, and more people die. Some get so depressed by facing all of that, they choose the only way out they see. But we live in interesting times, where facts don’t count for a huge chunk of the purportedly most prosperous and best educated nation on earth. Expect the usual hand waving and cold-blooded denial from them.

For the rest of us, data linking depression and suicide with the sudden onset of homelessness, medical bankruptcy, or hopeless grinding poverty comes as no surprise at all. Austerity kills, it really is that simple and everyone knows it. In Greece, where Austerians have rammed through ledge penalizing the least affluent and most vulnerable for the greedy sins of the super rich, the healthcare system is collapsing along with what’s left of the economy. But in other places equally hard hit or worse, where the Austerians have been held at bay, the data shows exactly what you’d expect: [Read more…]