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Trevor Blake on Books: The Boy-Man by Tim Jeal [LINK-ZUM]

A biography of Lord Baden-Powell (22 February 1857 - 8 January 1941) and a history of his greatest achievement, the Boy Scouts.

In most of the world you can be a girl Boy Scout (see FAQ at Scouting for All). You can be in prison for robbery, rape, or murder and still be a Boy Scout. But heaven help you if you try to be an atheist Boy Scout. The Boy Scouts of America aren't vague about this ban either - they expressly state that no atheist can be a Boy Scout. The Boy Scouts is a private organization, and I think it is reasonable to allow them to exclude whoever they want. I think it is a private affair that the Boy Scouts - the British original - allows atheists to join while the Boy Scouts of America does not. But in doing so, the BSA should not have access to tax-funded schools or tax-funded public lands, as our taxes are not supposed to support private organizations that discriminate.

But is the Boy Scouts of America is a private organization or is it a recruiting arm of the Mormons? Nearly 10% of the members of the Boy Scouts Advisory Council live in Salt Lake City; Mormons are less than 2% of the U.S. population but make up 21% of the Boy Scouts. The Salt Lake Tribune reports: "If the Boy Scouts of America is forced to accept gays as scoutmasters, the LDS Church will withdraw from the organization and take more than 400,000 Scouts with it." As late as 1974, Mormon BSA troops reserved leadership positions for white men only.

All of this nonsense is at a distance from what Lord Baden-Powell set out to do with his Boy Scouts. Read The Boy-Man and find out for yourself.

Labels: atheist, books, mormon, religion, sex, theocracy

Trevor Blake: Sentenced to Death [LINK-ZUM]

According to the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, the Islamic Republic of Iran is considering a revision of their laws to sentence anyone promoting apostasy, heresy or witchcraft on the Internet to lashes, life in prison or death.

Article 225-1: Any Muslim who clearly announces that he/she has left Islam and declares blasphemy is an Apostate.
Article 225-2: Serious and earnest intention is the condition for certainty in apostasy. Therefore, if the accused claims that his/her statement had been made with reluctance or ignorance, or in error, or while drunk, or through a slip of the tongue or without understanding the meaning of the words, or repeating words of others; or his/her real intentions had been something else, he/she is not considered an apostate and his/her claim could be heard and justified.
Article 225-3: There are two kinds of apostates: innate (Fetri) and parental (Melli).
Article 225-4: Innate Apostate is someone whose parent (at least one) was a Muslim at the time of conception, and who declares him/herself a Muslim after the age of maturity, and leaves Islam afterwards.
Article 225-5: Parental Apostate is one whose parents (both) had been non-Muslims at the time of conception, and who has become a Muslim after the age of maturity, and later leaves Islam and returns to blasphemy.
Article 225-6: If someone has at least one Muslim parent at the time of conception but after the age of maturity, without pretending to be a Muslim, chooses blasphemy is considered a Parental Apostate.
Article 225-7: Punishment for an Innate Apostate is death.
Article 225-8: Punishment for a Parental Apostate is death, but after the final sentencing for three days he/she would be guided to the right path and encouraged to recant his/her belief and if he/she refused, the death penalty would be carried out.
Article 225-9: In the case of a Parental Apostate, whenever there appears to be a possibility of recanting, sufficient time would be provided.
Article 225-10: Punishment for women, whether Innate or Parental, is life imprisonment and during the sentence, under the guidance of the court, hardship will be exercised on her, and she will be guided to the right path and encouraged to recant, and if she recants she will be freed immediately.
Note: The condition of hardship will be determined according to the religious laws.
Article 225-11: Whoever claims to be a Prophet is sentenced to death, and any Muslim who invents a heresy in the religion and creates a sect based on that which is contrary to the obligations and necessities of Islam, is considered an apostate.
Article 225-12: Any Muslim who deals with witchcraft and promotes it as a profession or sect in the community is sentenced to death.
Article 225-13: Assistance to the crimes in this chapter, in case there is no other punishment assigned to it by law, is punishable by up to 74 lashes in proportion with the crime and the criminal.

Are these laws in agreement with or in disagreement with the Holy Quran? Why not read it yourself and see. Do you live in a country where you are free to encourage people to question and abandon their religion? I do. If these laws are in agreement with the most basic beliefs of Islam, what does it mean to encourage tolerance?

Labels: atheist, islam

Trevor Blake: The Reign of Terror [LINK-ZUM]

Wikipedia: "On 14 July [1789], the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which also served as a symbol of tyranny by the monarchy. After several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon." So began the French Revolution, which included The Reign of Terror.

Wikipedia: "The victims of the Reign of Terror totaled approximately 40,000. Among people who were condemned by the revolutionary tribunals, about [...] 6 percent [were] clergy [...] the clergy of the Roman Catholic church suffered proportionately the greatest loss. Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Revolutionary Calendar on 24 October. Against Robespierre's concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hebert's (and Chaumette's) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign in order to dechristianize society. The program of dechristianisation waged against Catholicism, and eventually against all forms of Christianity, included the deportation of clergy and the condemnation of many of them to death, the closing of churches, the institution of revolutionary and civic cults, the large scale destruction of religious monuments, the outlawing of public and private worship and religious education, forced marriages of the clergy and forced abjurement of their priesthood. The enactment of a law on 21 October 1793 made all suspected priests and all persons who harbored them liable to death on sight."

Critics of atheism will often claim Hitler was an atheist and thus atheism is wicked. Hitler was a Christian [1] [2] and so it is not atheism that must answer for what he did. Sometimes they will claim Stalin was an atheist and thus atheism is wicked. Stalin was an atheist but he committed his wickedness for socialism, not atheism. Strangely, I have never read a critic of atheism claim that the Reign of Terror was an atheist occurrence. It's true, and proof that atheism be used to wicked ends. What can be done to lessen the chance of that happening?

Labels: atheist, christianity, socialism

Economist's View: Women's Rights, What's in it for Men? [LINK-ZUM]

Our theory suggests that the historical advance of women's rights in the West wasn't due to a sudden enlightenment of mankind after millennia of patriarchy. Rather, it was driven by old-fashioned self-interest deriving from men's concern about their daughters' welfare and their descendants' education. [...] If our theory is correct, it implies that men in today's developing countries can be given a stake in women's rights. Ultimately, inducing developing countries to improve women's rights on their own accord may be a more promising strategy than trying to impose gender equality from the outside.

[Those wicked values of the West - pluralism, secularism and capitalism - are what the world needs much more than the religion of peace or any other superstition. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, islam, money, sex

Trevor Blake: Souls and Minds [LINK-ZUM]

Some people claim that souls exist. Souls are said to be something like the pilot for the ship of our bodies, the true animating agent in what would otherwise be base physical matter. Many earlier cultures claimed that the soul was located inside our bodies. Perhaps it was in our chest, because when we were inflamed with passion or danger something moved in our chest. Thus the word 'heart' has come to mean central (the heart of an argument) even though our hearts are not physically in the center of our bodies. As time passed it was learned the moving organ inside us was the heart but that it functioned to circulate blood, not as an animating agent. The more we learned about our bodies, the more our souls changed from a physical object inside us to a wispy ghost-organ that wasn't really in us, just... around. The evidence suggests that our consciousness, our animating agent, occurs mostly in our brains and entirely as a physical process. There is no soul, and there never has been. But belief in souls continues.

A few questions about souls may convince the reader what some have claimed about souls breaks down in the face of real-life evidence. Look at any two people. How many souls do they have? How many souls, then, did Joseph and Luka Banda have at birth, and how many souls do they have now? How many souls do Abigail and Brittany Hensel have? Lori and George Schappell? And Manar Majed? Lydia Fairchild is a chimera. While she still in the womb, her body and the body of a twin merged into one. How many souls does Lydia have? Did the species we evolved from have souls? What about the species before that one?

How a believer in souls answers these questions usually reveals that they actually hold the soul to be the mind - the functioning of the human brain. The mind is a more secularized version of the soul, one that places its seat in the physical organ of the brain but is still exempt from any responsibility to show evidence of itself. The mind is a small step toward accuracy but doesn't go far enough. We can delight in our consciousness as a physical process just as we delight in any other physical process. We become 'one with nature' when we abandon the supernatural.

Labels: atheist, science

Rationalist International: The Great Tantra Challenge [LINK-ZUM]

On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India's most "powerful" tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. [...] India TV, one of India's major Hindi channels with national outreach, invited Sanal Edamaruku for a discussion on "Tantrik power versus Science". Pandit Surinder Sharma, who claims to be the tantrik of top politicians and is well known from his TV shows, represented the other side. During the discussion, the tantrik showed a small human shape of wheat flour dough, laid a thread around it like a noose and tightened it. He claimed that he was able to kill any person he wanted within three minutes by using black magic. Sanal challenged him to try and kill him.

[Article continues at link. Oh, this is a good one. Thanks to technoccult for the link. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, magick, television

Jonathan Petre: Atheists behind the greatest cruelty, says Pope [LINK-ZUM]

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a powerful attack on atheism, saying that it was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.

[Article continues at link. Image above depicts a devoted and life-long Roman Catholic, never once censored by the Pope, leaving a house of worship. Socialism, the true target of the Pope's missive, has indeed killed so many people that it is almost showing up on the charts as a distant number two compared to the body count of those killed by religion. Give it a few thousand more years and maybe it will be an honest contender. For now, nothing competes with religion in the murder department. What is it about religion that makes people so sure it is morally right to kill? Faith. Faith is not to believe where there is a lack of evidence. Faith is to go on believing when there is counter-evidence. That is where socialism and religion meet. Religion has an invisible monster that lives in the sky on its side, which justifies everything it does. Socialism has the Material Concept of History on its side, which justifies everything it does. I'm not a fan of faith, religion or socialism. I'm a fan of acknowledging that humanity will inevitably err, and the best we can do is limit the scope of our errors before we make them and learn from our errors after we make them. That is how democracy and science are linked; they grow on a mountain of errors, not from a soil of Absolute Truth. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, fascism, science, socialism

Trevor Blake: Ulam's Spiral [LINK-ZUM]

Wikipedia: "Stanislaw Marcin Ulam (April 13, 1909 - May 13, 1984) was a Polish mathematician who participated in the Manhattan Project and proposed the Teller-Ulam design of thermonuclear weapons. He also invented nuclear pulse propulsion and developed a number of mathematical tools in number theory, set theory, ergodic theory, and algebraic topology."

For our purposes, we will concentrate on a single day of Ulam's life in 1963. To distract himself from a tedious meeting, Ulam began writing numbers on a piece of paper. He started with 1, then wrote 2 to the right of 1, then 3 above 2, then 4 to the left of 3 and above 1, then 5 to the left of one, then 6 below 5 and to the left of 1, and so on in a counter-clockwise spiral. He then idly circled the prime numbers. Ulam knew that primes are natural numbers which have exactly two distinct natural number divisors (1 and itself), and that an equation that explains the distribution of primes has evaded mathematicians for thousands of years. To his surprise, Ulam saw that the circled prime numbers formed diagonal lines. Where no pattern had been seen before, Ulam saw a pattern. This pattern of primes became known as The Ulam Spiral, or the Ulam Rose.

17 16 15 14 13 18 05 04 03 12 19 06 01 02 11 20 07 08 09 10 21 22 23 24 25

Ulam Spirals appear with as few as three coils of the Spiral and the apparent pattern holds even when the Spiral has hundreds of coils. But there is no 'proof' for Ulam Spirals. They may or may not be scientific. This story brings two thoughts to mind. The first thought is that it was an act of idleness, not labor, that brought this curiosity forth. I place this discovery in the realm of dreams and not wakefulness. The second thought is a renewed sense of wonder for a topic that is presented as the very model of what is without wonder: mathematics. Mathematics is far, far from resolved. The distribution of prime numbers is one example of a discovery yet to be made in mathematics. The Four-Color Theorem is another.

I will likely never be as skilled as mathematics as Ulam was. I'm too old. But I can avoid work as he did, and I have open challenges before me. Chasing these mathematical non-physical mysteries seems so much more appealing than chasing any phantom of superstition. Atheists are said to be without wonder, and mathematicians doubly so. There's a lovely spiral in front of me now that says otherwise.

Labels: atheist, math

Associated Press: court hands jail term, doubles lashes for woman victim of gang rape [LINK-ZUM]

A Saudi court sentenced a 19-year-old woman victim of gang rape to six months in jail and 200 lashes - more than double than in her initial sentence for being in the car of a man who was not her relative, a newspaper reported Thursday. [...] According to Arab News, the court informed the rape victim that her sentence was made harsher because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media." Three judges from the Qatif court had initially sentenced the woman to 90 lashes, convicting her of violating Saudi's rigid laws on segregation of the sexes. [...] Women are not allowed in public in the company of men other than their male relatives. Also, women in Saudi Arabia are often sentenced to flogging for adultery and other crimes. [...] The court also banned the woman's lawyer from defending her, confiscated his license to practice law and summoned him to a disciplinary hearing later this month.

[Article continues at link. What -ism is it in the West that is addressing atrocities like this? At present, it isn't feminism. Feminism in the West currently devotes a great deal of effort critiquing body image in the mass media. This is a topic well worth addressing, but it is utterly insignificant in the face of what is happening to women (and men, particularly homosexual men) in Muslim nations. The -ism in the West that is addressing atrocities like this is atheism. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, islam, sex, theocracy

Tom Breen: Pagan Holidays Added to Excused Absences [LINK-ZUM]

When George Fain visits a grave to mark a pagan holiday, she won't have to worry about the work she's missing in her classes at Marshall University. That's because her absence Thursday on the Samhain holiday has been approved by the Huntington school, which for the first time is recognizing pagan students' desire to be excused from class for religious holidays and festivals. [...] "I think we may have opened a door," she said. "Now that we know we can be protected, that the government will stand behind us and we feel safe, it's going to be more prevalent."

[Article continues at link. A door has indeed been opened. There's no way to shut that door if Fain later switches to another superstition, such as Christianity. Fain gets Samhain off as a pagan and would have every right to expect Christmas off as a Christian. Or Ramadan off as a Muslim, or Passover off as a Jew. Huntington school must soon initiate a policy of not allowing people to change superstitions if it wants to keep students in class at all. Between all the superstitions I'm sure that most if not every day is some sort of Holy Day. That door just opens more and more wide once it gets started. Except there doesn't seem to be a provision for atheists. Could I get a day off from Huntington school because I sincerely don't believe in God? That door doesn't open much, if at all. A more reasonable policy might be for schools and employers to offer a set number of 'no questions asked' days off. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, education, islam, magick

Trevor Blake: Two Links via God is for Suckers [LINK-ZUM]

Robyn Blumner reports for the St. Petersburg Times: "Thanks to President Bush and his plan to Christianize the nation's provision of social services, one's relationship with Jesus Christ has become a real resume booster. As author Michelle Goldberg reports in her new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Bush has ushered in affirmative action for the born- again. In 2005 alone, more than $2-billion in federal tax money went to faith-based programs for such services as job placement programs, addiction treatment and child mentoring. Overwhelmingly, this money went to groups affiliated with Christian religions.

"This reallocation of social service money from secular agencies to religiously affiliated programs has also resulted in shifting employment opportunities. But some of these new employers have a shocking job requirement - only Christians need apply. Goldberg cited the publicly funded Firm Foundation of Bradford, Pa., as a blatant example. The group provides prison inmates with job training, something one would think any trained professional could do. Well, think again. According to Goldberg, the group posted an ad for a site manager. It said that the applicant must be 'a believer in Christ and Christian Life today, sharing these ideals when the opportunity arises.' Apparently, experience and qualifications are secondary."

Rachel Zoll reports for St. Louis Today: "Billions of dollars has been stolen in religion-related fraud in recent years, says the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state officials who work to protect investors. Between 1984 and 1989, about $450 million was stolen in religion-related scams, the association says. In its latest count - from 1998 to 2001 - the toll had risen to $2 billion. And since then, rip-offs have only become more common."

[All money spent on religion is money wasted, wasted more thoroughly than money spent on weapons or torture. At least when someone is killed or tortured, something happened. Religions does nothing for anyone, it never has and it never will. All those good deeds done in the name of religion are just religion jumping the claim of secular goods. Medicine, shelters, education, not a one of these comes about by "prayer" but every one of them comes about through science, reason and effort. Whatever a person wants to do with their private property is their business, or there is no such thing as private property. If a person wants to dig a big hole and burn a billion dollars of their own money in it to please the nostrils of an invisible monster that lives in the sky, have fun. But when tax dollars are spent on religion - and religion has no oversight - it is time and past time to bring up that uncomfortable United States Constitution thing and its legal presumption of atheism. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, theocracy

Trevor Blake: The Latter-Day Saints and the Boy Scouts of America [LINK-ZUM]

Time magazine wrote in 2000 that Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) comprise less than 2% of the U.S. population but make up 21% of the boys in the Boy Scouts of America. This suggests that while most BSA Scouts are not Mormon, most Mormon boys are BSA Scouts. Mormon sponsorship of the BSA goes back nearly eighty years. The Mormons like Scouting so much that it is an official Church program. Brigham Young University offers a major in Scouting [article] [description]. In some areas the only BSA Troop available for boys to join are Mormon BSA Troops. Mormon BSA Troops, with BSA approval, have their own requirements for membership, advancement, and activities. Until 1974, one of those requirements was that no leadership position could be held by anyone who was Black. No Black man could hold a leadership position in the Mormon Church, therefore they reasoned no Black man or boy could hold a leadership position in the BSA. Because of this discrimination a secular lawsuit against the LDS arose in that year. By magical coincidence the invisible monster that lives in the sky and talks to the LDS Elders chose exactly that time to tell them their policy had changed and Blacks could now lead Mormon BSA Troops. Currently the Mormons are developing their own Scouting program in case the BSA joins every other Scouting program in the world and allows openly homosexual people to be Scouts.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a terrible thing if the Mormons got out of the Scouting business.

Labels: atheist, mormon, race, sex

Trevor Blake: Islam is Peace [LINK-ZUM]

The above is a photograph recently taken in London. The bus has a banner advertisement on the side that reads "Proud to be a British Muslim / islamispeace.org.uk." According to the photographer, this very bus was one on which a Muslim detonated a bomb in 2005. More than fifty people were killed that day. The Web site islamispeace.org.uk "invites you to challenge your ideas of Islam and Muslims." It claims there are misconceptions about Islam, and seeks to correct them. The Web site makes the following claim: "Misconception 1: Jihad means holy war. In Arabic, the word jihad means to strive, struggle and exert effort. [...] The word 'Jihad' is generally misunderstood and consequently evokes strong reactions. It is a word frequently used in the press, directly or subtly, to mean holy war. In fact the term "holy war" was coined in Europe during the period of the Crusades. It is an alien concept to the Islamic framework. War is not 'holy.'" If this is a misconception, then the organization does well to try and correct it.

They might want to focus their energies on fellow Muslims rather than the generally non-Muslim British public, though. Because it seems there is a widespread misunderstanding among Muslims about their religion of peace. Today, on 1 October 2007, Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov was shot by attackers in a car while walking from his home to his mosque in the Dagestani settlement of Gudben. He had spoken out against Islamic extremists the day before. Also occurring today was the bombing by Muslims of several Buddhist monks in Narathiwat, Thailand. Also occurring today was the bombing by a Muslim of people going to market in Bannu, Pakistan. Yesterday eight police were killed by Muslims in Ghazni, Afghanistan; a 15-year-old boy was hanged by the Taliban for having US dollars in his pocket (which they then stuffed into his mouth) in Helmand, Afghanistan; and two police officers were killed trying to defuse a bomb planted by Muslims in Kandahar, Afghanistan. That's what happened today and yesterday. Two days ago, seventy-four killed by Muslims in Afganistan, Dagestan, India, Iraq, Maldives, Nigeria and Thailand. Three days ago, eighteen killed by Muslims in seven countries. Four days ago, twenty-two killed by Muslims in four countries. And it goes on and on and on. Someone should indeed let these people know they misunderstand the words of the Prophet. Someone should let them know that when Allah said to kill non-Muslims wherever you find them, what that really meant was to improve yourself through quiet contemplation and good deeds.

Alternately we could recognize that Islam, like Christianity and all religions, is a collection of mean-spirited superstitions invented by illiterate pre-scientific nobodies that we have no reason to heed. Letting go of religion is like letting go of a snake that has been biting your hand. You don't replace it with a nicer snake that bites less. The problem isn't a set of misconceptions about Islam. The problem is Islam.

Labels: atheist, christianity, islam, theocracy

Catholic Information Service for Africa: Catholic Church Fights Against Witchcraft Menace [LINK-ZUM]

Witchcraft is one of the biggest challenges facing the Catholic Church in Central African Republic, a bishop said. Many people find "no natural explanation for death, sickness or natural disasters", and instead look for a scapegoat, who must have caused the misfortune through witchcraft, said Bishop Peter Marzinkowski of Alindao Diocese.

Suspected witches are punished and may even be killed, a German missionary recently told the German-based international Catholic pastoral charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Bishop Marzinkowski said belief in witchcraft existed even among Christians because the faith is not yet sufficiently deeply rooted. The result is that "at the least difficulty they relapse back into their traditional way of thinking".

[Article continues at link. I would have thought that the problems of AIDS, war and poverty might be more pressing in Africa. It is probably easier for Christians to fight against imaginary problems than real problems. Easier still that the solution to ending superstition is to replace it with a different superstition. If people have no natural explanation for death, sickness or natural disasters then they don't need to be given a supernatural explanation. They need to be given and accept the natural explanation. The natural explanation is secular science, atheism and reason. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, magick

ACLU of Oregon: Boy Scout Decision 'Shameful' [LINK-ZUM]

The court held that it is not illegal for discriminatory organizations to recruit students in public school settings during school hours as long as the organization sanitizes its message, removing any mention that not all students can join.

That's the culmination of a decade-long struggle by Nancy Powell and her son Remington. Ten years ago, in first grade, Remington Powell was invited during school hours at Harvey Scott Elementary in Portland to join the Boy Scouts; a hospital-style bracelet was even attached to Remington's wrist, including the message, "Every boy can join." Only later was Remington told that, as an atheist, he was not allowed to join because all Boy Scouts must swear an oath to God.

[Article continues at link. The Scout Oath requires Boy Scouts to be "morally straight." The Scout Law begins with being Trustworthy: "A Scout tells the truth. He keeps his promises. Honesty is part of his code of conduct. People can depend on him." Apparently keeping atheists out of Scouting is more important than being honest. To save Scouting, Scouting had to be destroyed. The Boy Scouts of America is a private organization and it is at liberty to discriminate against whoever it wishes to discriminate against. But to recruit at schools during school hours is an abridgement of liberty. Schools are funded by tax dollars, and the Constitution of the United States of America states that the government may not establish a state religion. If the discriminatory Boy Scouts of America are allowed to recruit during school hours on school property, then no other discriminatory private organization or religious organization can be forbidden from doing the same. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, theocracy

Shockwave: Jeremy Hall threatened with "fragging" in Iraq [LINK-ZUM]

Atheist whistle blower Army Specialist Jeremy Hall has become the target of despicable threats by Dominionist Christians in his own unit. An Army specialist stationed in Iraq said he has been repeatedly threatened by other US soldiers after word spread that he sued the secretary of defense and an Army major this week for allegedly retaliating against the soldier when he convened a meeting of atheists.

[Article continues at link. I hope that Specialist Hall received the full support of the governmnt founded on a secular Constitution which he has sworn to defend. I suggest it is important to not feed the 'good Christian / bad Christian' meme. By specifying these were 'Dominionist Christians,' Shockwave leaves an out for the 'good Christians' who would never do such a thing. Here are my problems with that claim. First, it takes a majority of 'good Christians' to tolerate the Dominionists. If the majority made it clear that the Dominionists were not welcome to keep using the Xtian brand name then they would disappear overnight. The 'good Christians' don't clean house, and I refuse to do their work for them. Second, the Christians threatening Specialist Hall are failing their Christian duty only by not killing him. Romans 13:1 claims the powers that be (Specialist Hall's superior officers, for instance) are ordained by God and to rebel against them is as sinful as rebelling against God. Psalms 14:1 claims atheists are fools and can do no good deed. Leviticus 24:16 claims anyone who blasphemes should be put to death. Matthew 5:18 quotes Jesus Christ claiming that 'the commandments' (the Old Testament) is eternal law. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. Mark 16:16 just claims atheists are damned, and Malachi 2:3 claims that atheists should have dung spread on our faces. So unless Specialist Hall's fellow soldiers are at least damning him and spreading dung on his face, they are slackers in the eyes of the Lord. Don't criticize the 'bad Christians.' Criticize Christianity. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, fight, theocracy

Happy Secular Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday Anne Gaylor [LINK-ZUM]

On this date in 1926, Freedom From Religion Foundation founder Anne Gaylor, nee Nicol, was born on a farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. Her mother, Lucie Sowle Nicol, who died when Anne was 2, was descended from George Sowle, a passenger on the Mayflower (an apprentice, not a Pilgrim). On her father's side of the family she is a second-generation freethinker. Reading by 4, and soon out-reading her one-room schoolhouse's small library, Anne was grateful to freethinker Andrew Carnegie (who shares her birthday) for endowing the Tomah Public Library. She graduated from high school at 16, worked for room and board and as a waitress to pay for college, and graduated with an English degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1949. She married Paul Gaylor in 1949, and continued to work through four pregnancies. She sold her successful business in 1966, the first private employment agency in Madison, Wis., and became editor of the Middleton Times Tribune, turning it into an award-winning weekly. After writing the first editorial in the state calling for legalized abortion in 1967, she began receiving calls from desperate women, and turned to volunteer activism. Among her feminist activities, Anne founded the ZPG Abortion Referral Service in 1970 and over the next 5 years, made more than 20,000 referrals for birth control, abortion and sterilization. In 1972, she co-founded the Women's Medical Fund charity to help low-income women pay for abortions. She has run that charity as a volunteer for 32 years and helped more than 14,000 women. (Who says atheists don't run charities?) Her book Abortion is a Blessing was published in 1975. "There were many groups working for women's rights," she realized, "but none of them dealt with the root cause of women's oppression - religion." In 1976, she founded the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with her daughter Annie Laurie and a Milwaukee gentleman, to promote freethought and the separation of state and church. After a string of successful legal and media actions, she was asked to go national with the Foundation in 1978, and served as its elected president for 28 years. She took the Foundation from a 3-member, dining-room cause operation to a group with more than 5,000 members, a national office, newspaper, other publications, and many successful state/church lawsuits. Since November, as president emerita, she is working as a consultant for the Foundation. One of her mostly widely-quoted aphorisms: "Nothing fails like prayer."

[The above, with links added, is from Freethought of the Day. This resource also notes the antipathy of Andrew Carnegie towards religion, and the fact that President Thomas Jefferson refused to issue prayer proclamations for Thanksgiving during his eight years in office. American Samizdat, November 25 2004. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, theocracy

Trevor Blake: Evolution and Those Who Prefer Not to Evolve [LINK-ZUM]

From Gallup: "Only about a third of Americans believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific theory that has been well supported by the evidence, while just as many say that it is just one of many theories and has not been supported by the evidence. The rest say they don't know enough to say. Forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago. A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word."

If you are inspired to change these sad statistics, here's a tool box for you: Talk Origins, Skeptics Annotated Bible, Raving Atheist, Religious News Blog, American Samizdat, Internet Infidels, God is for Suckers, James Randi Educational Foundation, Free Inquiry, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. This atheist hopes to see you down here in the foxholes soon, tovarish.

[American Samizdat, November 27 2004. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, creationism, science

Associated Press: Atheist, Muslim candidates worry voters [LINK-ZUM]

One in four people in the U.S. said in a recent poll that they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who is Mormon, an ominous sign for Republican contender Mitt Romney. Yet the survey found two groups, atheists and Muslims, were even less likely to win votes. Sixty-one percent of those questioned said they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who did not believe in God. Forty-five percent said the same for a Muslim contender. [...] Republicans were likelier than Democrats to express concerns about voting for an atheist, Muslim or a woman, while more Democrats than Republicans said they would be less likely to support an evangelical Christian. The party breakdown for the other traits was about even.

[Article continues at link. So who is it that voted Ernie Chambers and Culbert Olsen and Pete Stark into office? Why did we let Elizabeth Cady Stanton influence the Constitution? Where do all those atheists in the military get off? What were the Demoracts thinking when they let Ron Reagan give their opening address? How did 'not a person of faith' Karl Rove get to where he was? America, go ahead and vote for the best candidate. Superstition is no guarantee for virtue, atheism no guarantee for villany. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, islam, mormon, theocracy