The Story of Creation

January 2011 desktop wall paper

If Heaven Really Existed

When WAS Jesus Born?

Give to the poor

Let us not be delusional. We, who live in the affluent world, do not go hungry NOT because we work harder than those in area of famine. We are born into countries where living standards are higher, food are plentiful, education is available and affordable and most important of all, children and women do not need to be care in order not to step on land mines. They do not need to walk miles just to bring water back to home.

Yes, unavoidably, there are people, in the rich countries, who abuse our good will and empathy. However, this is not an excuse for those who made millions for asking the government to reduce the tax rate. There is no inherent special ability of these million-dollar earners that makes them worthy of that high income. It is only a combination of good fortune and circumstances. Take a look at the USA tax rate history [source].

In 1950's and 1960's, the tax rate over US$400,000 was at 91%. For those wealthy Americans, your country needs more tax to reduce its debts. You have made your money because you are lucky to be in USA and there is an obligation for you to help your fellow citizens who are not as lucky as you are.

In the season of gathering, while we are in the company of our loved ones, please help those in need. I help by loaning via Kiva.org. So can you. So far, I have made 20 loans, and you?

Modern witchcraft

There was a closed door conference attended by 56 bishops and 66 priests in Baltimore, Maryland [source]. Whatever they tried to call it, it is modern witchcraft.

Crop Circles

Psychic surgery

Subjective meaning, purpose; moral

AndrewFinden left a comment at Revenge of the Godless Geeks which I happened to be tracking. I would like to address two points in the comment:

I’m no fan of Pell, but I think he is simply echoing the sentiments of Dawkins – without God, there is no objective purpose. Now that is not to say that most Atheists don’t have any purpose or lead lives without it; Cardinal Pell’s point is that if there is no objective purpose, such purpose is a subjective construct.

Do you think meaning and purpose is objective or subjective?

Putting Pell aside, it is a common claim by the religious that atheists' meaning and purpose of life is subjective. I do not see any reason why a conscientious, carefully thought-through, rational and subjective meaning and purpose is not a good thing. Human are social animals. Our meaning and purpose of life is modified by both the evolution forces as well as the forces from the society in which we live, participate and contribute. In this diverse society, each and everyone will have different motivation, priority, values, ability and circumstances. It does not take a genius to figure out that each of us will have formulated different subjective meaning and purpose. A straight-jacket, one-size fit all divine meaning and purpose simply cannot match individual aspiration and ability.

Is there any good if there exists an objective meaning and purpose of life but such meaning and purpose is immoral and destructive? Christians are quick to jump onto the love bandwagon and conveniently forget that their god is the best example of human behaving badly. One of their religious doctrine is to wait for the return of Jesus, which follows only after the complete destruction of this world. This apocalyptic mentality is not a positive outlook for a constructive, co-operative lifestyle.

Pell, like many other Catholic priests put the church before moral [example]. He has helped those who committed crime against young children escape from natural justice [example]. He is far from a moral figure. It is ironic for someone to think this liar in funny clothes' should worth a mention.

AndrewFinden also wrote:

The question is not whether atheists can be moral but from where the moral codes come to which we seek to adhere.

Andrew, my own moral code comes from empathy and compassion. I adhere to a simple moral golden rule which appears in almost every culture independent of whether that culture is religious or not. Mine came from Confucius who was at least 300 years elder to your Jesus. Andrew, if you seek to adhere to moral values from the bible, I hope they came mainly from the New Testament. Still, you are picking and choosing those which you like and rejecting those which you do not like. The bible is a fixed bag, it has something good in it, but there are many things inside too. It is you, yourself, who pick and choose. The bible is NOT a moral guide and it cannot be.

Question: Which country in Europe has the highest crime rate?

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Richard Dawkins: If Science Worked Like Religion

The last sentence was cut off from the video. Here it is:

The President of the National Academy of Science has issued a fatwa against all who deny that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

Father Morris: It's Not Healthy to Have an Imaginary Friend

First they provide no reference to the study so I cannot follow up. The value, according to the paper is the need of an outlet and an imaginary friend can help too. Father Morris, with no evidential support dismissed the one of the study's conclusion. "It's Not Healthy to Have an Imaginary Friend" Well god is worse than imaginary friend. There is no evidence of its existence. father morris is just plain delusional.

Let me counter-balance with these two videos:

Christmas scene

Season Greeting

Religious tolerance?

from Austin's Atheism Blog

Should a person be denied employment simply because [s/he passes] along an emailed joke about the pope? That hardly seems like a firing offense, unless you work for the Catholic church, but Peter Kearney, Director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, seems to disagree. He worked to get Hugh Dallas, head of referee development for the Scottish Football Association, fired for just such an "offense."

Obviously, I do not agree that head of referee should be set on such matters. It might be a poor judgment and/or taste. It has nothing to do with the job and it is not illegal. Of course, the church, as a power centre, is happy to exert its power when it deems fit. We, as people, can exert our own power as it deems fit to condemn such stupidity.

BBC - "Clash of Civilisations?"

True "Christian", true "Muslum". Sound very familiar to me. The problem is not Islam, it is the people. Sound very familiar to me.

Liberal Christians, please role play a character of Muslim and think though the issues. Is it religion or is it people?

The Greek Gods

They are just as "real" as your god to their believers.

Pastor among 30 charged with child porn

Why is it still news?

Does god exist? Jonathan Morris Vs Michael Shermer

Islam is a religion of peace - debate

Click here to view the debate.

Magnificent FSMas Lights

Topless Striptease Acrobats Perform for Pope

I don't get it. Why topless? Why strip in front of the Pope? Can't the performance be done with clothes on? If it is better without clothes, why come out and strip? Anyone see any reason why it is performed in this way?

The bible story of the birth of Jesus

Stupidity illustrated

Drug and Religion

Rufus Christmas for Atheists

Killing of Non-Muslims is Legitimate

11 women accused of witchcraft burnt dead alive

When will we do something?

Woman Whipped In Public For Wearing Trousers

This is Sharia law in action.



And here is another example: a five year old boy caught stealing bread. link

That's what religion can do to human when blind obedience to old books are demanded.

Isn't blasphemy law the admission that god does not exit? Why an almighty god cannot stand a few criticism from the rational minds it created?

What to do when your religion forbids you mixing with unrelated different gender human?

As it stands, Islam forbids unrelated men and women to mingle. But in a workplace, that's unavoidable. Here is a "clever" way out.

Sheik Abdel Mohsen Obeikan, a scholar and a consultant at Saudi Arabia's royal court, has called for women to give men breast milk to establish maternal relations and get around the ultra-conservative kingdom's ban on mixing between men and women who are unrelated.

"The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman," UAE-based Gulf News quoted Obeikan as saying in local media reports. "He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing."

Some Islamic scholars frown on the mixing of unmarried men and women. Islamic tradition, or hadith, stipulates that breastfeeding establishes a degree of maternal bond, even if a woman breast feeds a child who is not her own. [source]

But how can a women has milk without first having a baby? Does this mean that only women who have given birth to babies and have saved some breast milk can work in a mixed gender environment?

Moral basis

At 1:39 Pastor Alan Morris said, "What do we live for? We have no explanation of how we got here, We have no explanation for where we are going, or even no explanation why we should live morally today."

WHAT! This man does not understand the golden rule of moral!

The "news" focuses on the billboards, but the critical issue is how we have moral. The anchor of the news is biased. The interviewee has not have opportunity to explain the source of human moral - based on the fact that we are social animal and need mutual co-operation to survive.

You know it is a myth

How Christian...

Fringe US religious group to picket Edwards funeral

In their announcement, the Westboro Baptist Church called John Edwards a "whorish" and "faithless" husband, and accused Elizabeth Edwards of "spewing blasphemy" because she said she was not praying to God to save her from cancer. [source]

Picketing someone's funeral just because she did not pray to the missing god for her cancer? What a bunch of idiots.

Praise the lord

Tim Hawkins

On Church

My favorite Bible verse

Corporate Worship Songs

Would you lie?

If Hitler comes to your house and asks if there is a Jew inside your house. And you have a Jew inside. Would you lie?

Christianity Is An Immoral System

Christian Bashing

Atheists are not yet organised enough to form tax-exempted churches have full time liars bashing Christians every Sunday.



You have the right to believe in anything, I have the right to point out your stupid belief. That's fair play.

Inspiring speech

USA politics should be none of my business. Unfortunately, USA is still the largest economy, with most weapons of mass destruction. Hence, her policies have worldwide implications. What would happen when the USA working people go hungry? What if there is a civil war within USA - the middle class and the poor unite to fight for their survival?

Bishop Eddie Long Sex Case In Mediation

Revenge of the godless geeks - The Amazing Meeting 2010

The title linked to a piece by Chrys Stevenson about the Amazing Meeting 2010 just held in Sydney last week. The meeting has three main objectives:

the first, to save lives; the second, to inform the public about the dangers of untested or discredited medical treatments; the third, to prevent the poor, poorly educated and vulnerable from being defrauded.

The important message is of course we should base our decisions on evidence. Evidence-based nursing is an important topic in *any* modern nursing school today. I was wondering why. Will it be important to stress evidence because many student nurses came into the school already indoctrinated with religious belief which promote superstition and false hope without evidence?

Interfaith action in progress

A follow up to a previous post

From BBC world news:


This is the Pope's call for release...

But if your god is real and all powerful, why can it save the poor woman? If it cannot, it is not all powerful. If it would not, it is not loving.

This happens every year

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas
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The brain basis of god

From "Through the wormhole"

Religion

Obama Speech on Religion

Religion and politics

Many USA citizens are quick to comment on other countries' lack of rule of law. But hold a blind eye towards their government's own breaking of the constitution. Lucky that the court has upheld the constitution.

The head of Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church has been acquitted of a disorderly conduct charge stemming from his arrest while objecting a prayer being said at the beginning of a state Senate session in April.

When Senate President Colleen Hanabusa introduced a reverend to say the invocation, Mitch Kahle stood from his seat in the gallery of the Senate chambers and said, "I object. My name is Mitch Kahle and I object to this prayer on the grounds that it's a violation of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. I object."

Kahle's protest lasted about seven seconds. Then he stopped talking and sat down. The Senate's Sergeant at Arms was determined to remove Kahle. When Kahle resisted he was forcefully removed and roughed up. The incident was caught by several video cameras including a camera belonging to Hawaii News Now.

"Then what they did to add insult to injury was, they arrested him for disorderly conduct," said William Harrison, Kahle's attorney. [source]

From the comment of the youTube above:

if this had been the other way around, and a religious activist was beaten and had their constitutional rights violated, people would have been up in arms. it would have been plastered all over the news. atheists are the most discriminated-against group of people in the world today.

The Ten Commandments

Morality Without God

Then why call him god? - Epicurus

Can we trust Science?

Hospitable families in far-flung places would come to regret opening their homes to Father Brian Spillan

As Judge Michael Finnane, QC, pondered what lay ahead for Brian Spillane he remarked: "It is almost unheard of for one person to be involved in so many trials." The former priest was convicted yesterday by a District Court jury on nine counts of indecent assault and the bail hearing that followed heard the former chaplain of St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, faces a further 135 charges to be heard in four more trials that could last until late next year.

Spillane, 67, sat impassive, only occasionally shaking his head, as the jury found him guilty on count after count.

Spillane's victims were three young girls assaulted while he was based in Sydney during a break in his long career at St Stanislaus. The charges Spillane will face in trials next year relate to boys at the school where he taught in the 1970s and again in the late 1980s. [source]

Cardinal Pell

What a bunch of rubbish coming out from this man in funny dress:

THE lives of people without faith have 'nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss', Cardinal George Pell said yesterday [28 Nov 2010] at a Mass to install the former Defence Force chief General Peter Cosgrove as chancellor of the Australian Catholic University.

'A minority of people, usually people without religion, are frightened by the future,' Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, said during his homily at the St Mary's Cathedral Mass.

'It's almost as though they've … nothing but fear to distract themselves from the fact that without God the universe has no objective purpose or meaning. Nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss.'

Life without God was ''life without purpose, without constraints'', he said. [http://www.smh.com.au/national/faithless-are-coarse-uncaring-and-without-purpose-says-cardinal-pell-20101128-18cg3.html#]

He may have a bit of moral authority only if he has not been hiding those child-raping abusive priests. If a petty stupid mind cannot comprehensive the grandeur of the universe without invoking the unsupported god, just shut up and no one will be blogging about it.

Are we at the center of all things?

Xmas songs - by Larry the cable guy

Straight No Chaser - The Christmas Can-Can

The 12 Pains of Christmas

Chris must pee

Gayla Peevey..........I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas

"Christmas Is Pain" by Roy Zimmerman

The Colbert Report - God Drops Steve Johnson's Football Pass

Bart D. Ehrman on Christianity

Colin McGinn on The Ontological Argument for God

Steven Weinberg on Religion

Ayn Rand on Religion

Chomsky on Religion

First Freedom First

The follow quote is from the Preface of First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State

Antisemitism had been an integral part of the fabric of Hungarian society long before I was born. In her youth my mother had been an aspiring concert pianist but was refused admission to the State Academy of Music. The rejection was delivered with an off-hand comment that “this is not a place for Jewish girls.”

What happened to 500,000 Hungarian Jews is well known. Their fate constituted some of the bloodier chapters of Adolph Eichmann’s Final Solution. Less well known is how common and hurtful anti-semitism was among ordinary Hungarians. During the Nazi occupation, some of our neighbors reported one of their own for bringing us food after we were evicted from our apartment house. They exposed him, knowing that his act of kindness was potentially punishable by death, both his and ours. The neighbors in question were people with whom we had lived in peace in the same apartment house for decades, who had always said friendly hellos when we passed on the staircase.

How could they act this way? What made them do it? Economic benefit may have been what caused them to pick our apartment clean of our belongings while we were gone. I could understand that, even though I could not forgive it. But hostile—even lethal—action taken toward people with whom they had never had an unpleasant encounter, for no evident gain, was hard for me to understand. Decades after Eichmann was executed, my resentment about being the object of such antisemitism remains unabated.

We lived in the same house, we shopped at the same stores, and we hid together in the cellar when English and American airplanes dropped bombs on us, yet there was a lethal divide. What separated us? It was religion. They were Christians, Catholics, Lutherans. We were Jews. Not religious Jews, but that made no difference.

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