Jesus alive

Walking on water, not a problem. Really?

Do we need god to be fair?

Is there a monkey god watching these monkeys? If monkeys can be fair, why we human needs a god to make us moral?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life

Australian Catholic Church finally admits to child sexual abuse

It takes a parliamentary inquiry to force the Catholic church to face the fact...

Child Abuse: Are All Catholics Complicit?

True News: Catholic Child Abuse

The failure to report child abuse cases is systemic, worldwide. This is NOT a careless neglect of responsibility.

Catholic Child Abuse Inquiry

This is not news - Catholic church goes to the extreme to protect their priests rather than the victims. The church is claiming naivety - oh yeah, under the guidance of the all knowing god, they are still naive. What a lame excuse.

The Victoria Inquiry (in Australia) officially started today. Here is the ABC's news report on the deputy police commissioner Graham Ashton's submission. Channel nine's report is here. Out of the almost 400 reported crimes by the victims, the church has referred NONE to the police. If it is NOT the evidence that the Church is protecting the abusive priests, I do not know what is.

It is about time...

My friends in USA,

It is about time for you to start questioning the ability of making evidence-based decisions from your Presidential candidates. If they cannot see the logical fallacy in believing in a god, what chance do you have for them to make sensible decisions on your behalf?

Please someone ask the candidates the following question:

"What is the logical fallacy in believing that there is a god?"

OK, I know political election is not about finding the best candidate, but the above question should start appearing in the media... Don't you think?

Christian Marriage Standards

[source]

When superstition triumphs over reason...

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a physician, with an M.D. and a B.S. in chemistry, is either very poor scientist/physician or a great liar. Young Earth is NOT supported by any evidence except from the old book.

All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,” Broun said. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth,” he said. “I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. [source]

The coming demise of USA is not caused by China or any other developing countries. The leaders of USA are rotting as her crisis continues to deepen. Paul Broun is but one of the more extreme. The full video is here. The above extract is at about 34 minutes.

Islam is a crime against humanity

Innocence of Muslims

The full movie itself is here:


The trailer (14 mins) is here:


Poor production value, tricked the actors to perform for the film and then changed the script in editing,....

But

Many definitions of art have been proposed by philosophers and others who have characterized art in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, or other values. - source

Some arts are meant to provoke. For example Leon Golub's 'Interrogation III'

Bad as the movie may be, as an art, it has succeeded in provoking reactions. It has successfully revealed the violence nature of Islam. Those who murdered the USA Ambassador should be brought to justice. There is simply no excuse to murder an innocent person just because your belief has been ridiculed.

Muslims insecurity

Recently riots by the Muslims in the light of the USA film is an indication of how insecure they are with their religion. They know deep in their hearts that the whole Islam thingy is indefensible in reason. So they resort to violence.

What does Christianity teach us in modern days?

First a quote

A 1994/95 survey of nearly 10,000 abortion patients showed 18% of women having abortions are born-again or Evangelical Christians. Many of these women are likely anti-choice. The survey also showed that Catholic women have an abortion rate 29% higher than Protestant women. A Planned Parenthood handbook on abortion notes that nearly half of all abortions are for women who describe themselves as born-again Christian, Evangelical Christian, or Catholic. - Joyce Arthur

If you like to get more into the pro-life/pro-choice debate, read what some medical doctors have to say here. Now an excerpt from Genesis

Then God said: Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you. Genesis 22:2

When believers were asked if the same event would happen to their neighbour, what would they do? Many correctly pointed out that their neighbour would need help because of the psychological illusion of god talking to them and trying to kill his child. My question is how Christian can cope with such cognitive dissonance. When probed a little deeper, they argued that Abraham did not actually kill Issac. It was only god's temptation of Abraham's faith only. Christians ignored that trauma of Issac going through almost being killed by his father. There are also a lot of deeds that modern civilized person would not do. For example we don't stone a disobedient child.

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. Deuteronomy 21:18-21

When confronted with this, many believers argue either one of the following two; (1) it only applies to the Jews, not them; or (2) it is in the old testament. Since Jesus, these laws are not abandoned. On the notion of human sacrifice, does Christianity condone human sacrifice? Many Christians would argue that Christianity does not. How how they deal with the following bible verse?

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break." "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry." "You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. Judges 11:29-40

Many argued that the burnt offering of this unnamed girl is metaphorical. The girl actually ended up serving the lord in the temple. So there was no human sacrifice. Of course, we never knew if the first to meet Jephthah was not his daughter, but a lowly servant, what would have happened. But Christianity has a big human sacrifice all along - that is Jesus. In order to forgive, the Christian god demanded the sacrifice of the prefect. So the god became man - that's Jesus and offered himself killed. Of course, at the end, the story goes that Jesus was resurrected. Does that count as a human sacrifice noting that Jesus was also fully human and resurrected as god? The human part of Jesus was killed. All these come back to the first quote in this post. The biggest moral Christianity has taught modern believers is hypocrisy. What do you think?

Moral Guide

Yes, as social animals, we have evolved to know what is good and what is bad. We are the higher source of moral authority than those old books.

Slavery and Islam

Whether the claim in the video is true or not, I do not know. However, the part that religion enslaves minds is undeniable.

Why I left Islam

1. There is no infallible book... 2. Muslim murdered her professor in front of class Substituting one type of drug with another... 3. Conscience won... and dancing to be a reborn Christian

Modern slavery

Why there is still slavery in this modern world? Why an all good all mighty god would allow this to happen? In the clip below, "Kevin Bales explains the business of modern slavery, a multibillion-dollar economy that underpins some of the worst industries on earth. He shares stats and personal stories from his on-the-ground research"... and sex slaves are also here... [source: TED]

The Math of the Great Flood

Here is a "theory" of how the flood occurred - it sounds logical, ... except that there is no evidence to support such a theory.

Christian Justics - a question

Dog's god

First God made heaven & earth....Then God said, "Let us make dog in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created dog in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Atheists More Motivated by Compassion

"Overall, this research suggests that although less religious people tend to be less trusted in the U.S., when feeling compassionate, they may actually be more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people," Willer said. source

I have shown the same conclusion from the statistics of Kiva.org. As the time of this writing this post, Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious team has loaned slightly over 7 million while the runner-up, the Kiva Christians has loaned about 4 million. Compassion and empathy, a result of evolution for social animals, are the primary driving forces for charitable deeds. This holds true for both religious and irreligious people. However, when religion started to divide people based on a belief, the result is limiting charitable deeds to a "closer" group and overlooks the bigger picture.

Abraham The Delusional Schizophrenic

A nun arrives at the gates of hell...

So, God, How Is Earth Doing?

Craig_s Calamitous Cock-Up -- Bayes_ Theorem and the resurre

There was a debate between William Lane Craig vs Bart Ehrman on the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection. About 40 minutes into the debate, Craig pulled out a probability proof that it would be more probable for the resurrection of Jesus.


Was Craig's mathematics correct?
Here is someone who really knows mathematics - probability in fact!

Moroccan girl, 16, kills herself because judge forced her to marry her RAPIST

When superstition trumps reasons,...

Religion and Cigarrette

Religion	Cigarrette
Apply to gullible persons	Apply to the addicts
personal choice	personal choice
bad for society	bad for personal health
There are lots of invested interests by some organisations with self interests	There are lots of invested interests by some organisations with self interests
Society still needs to see the damage of religion	smoking is now banned in many public places in modern society

EricJames Borges

The Daily Mail reports 19-year-old Eric James Borges killed himself on January 14 following his family issues, as well as the typical years of torment at school.

He revealed the exorcism story in an "It's Get Better" video that he put on YouTube in the weeks before his suicide, saying "'I was raised in an extremist Christian household... My mother knew I was gay and performed an exorcism on me in an attempt to cure me. My anxiety, depression, self-loathing and suicidal thoughts spiked."

At a memorial service last week in the San Joaquin Valley, California, one friend read from his suicide note:

My pain is not caused because I am gay. My pain was caused by how I was treated because I am gay. To my friends you gave me life and love, never think this was your fault...To Lady Gaga, you have been a fearless relentless proud LGBT advocate.

Ironically, Borges interned at the Trevor Project, which is a group designed to intervene and help gay kids who are thinking about suicide.[source]

Warren Buffett is anti-catholic because he....

Warren Buffett is anti-catholic because he

1. has spent a fortune funding radical abortion organizations like NARAL and Planned Parenthood
2. comment that the rich should pay higher taxes
3. has given hundreds of millions over the years to anti-Catholic front groups
[according to source]

No wonder catholics keep their treasure in the Vatican and refuse to share with the needy.

Is this billboard offensive?

No, I do not think so.

Yes, human exists is the combination of a lot of chances and it is better we understand this.

If there is one thing needs to be changed, it would be the word 'believes". Atheist does not believe. The position of atheism is because there is not sufficient evidence to support the other position (that god exists). The evidences of we being here by an accident are abundant, just take a course in cosmology and evolution biology - a proper course, I mean.

Senseless murder

Click on the title which will lead you to a graphic burning of witches. How can anyone do this to another human being?

Maddness

The blackman was insane, but the Catholic Priest was no better. Where is all the science, where is our understanding of our position in the Solar System and the Universe?

"According to biblical record...." the worse evidence for believing in such nonsense.

Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus

Please watch till the end of the video!

There is finally a relgion I can whole-hearted support - Kopimi

Swedish authorities have granted official religious status to the Church of Kopimism, which claims it considers CTRL+C and CTRL+V to be sacred symbols, and that information is holy and copying is a sacrament.

According to the Church of Kopimism website, church services consist of "kopyactings," whereby the "kopimists" share information with each other through copying and remixing.

Bertil Kallner of Sweden's Financial and Administrative Services told the Swedish newspaper Gagens Nyheter that a religious community could "basically be anything."

"What's important is that it is a community for religious activities," he said.

Still, it took the Church of Kopimism three tries over the course of a year before members were able to formalize their way of praying or meditation so that they could be recognized as an official religion. [source]

Hypocritic double standard - William Lane Craig

Abstinence FAIL

[source]

Holy Smoke

Believe in me - send no money
I died on the cross, that ain't funny
But my so-called friends they're making me a joke
They missed out what I said like I never spoke
They choose what they want to hear - don't tell a lie
They just leave out the truth as they're watching you die
Saving your souls by taking your money
Flies around s**t, bees around honey

Holy smoke, holy smoke
Plenty bad preachers for the Devil to stoke
Feed them in feet first this is no joke
This is thirsty work making holy smoke yeah
Making holy smoke

Jimmy Reptile and all his friends
Say they going to be with you at the end
Burning records, burning books
Holy soldiers, Nazi looks
Crocodile smiles just wait a while
Till the TV Queen gets her make-up clean
I've lived in filth, I've lived in sin
And I still smell cleaner than the s**t you're in

Holy smoke, holy smoke
There's plenty bad preachers for the Devil to stoke
Feed them in feet first this is no joke
This is thirsty work making holy smoke yeah

Holy smoke - smells good

They ain't religious but they ain't no fools
When Noah built his Cadillac it was cool
Two by two they're still going down
And the satellite circus just left town
I think they're strange and when they're dead
They can have a Lincoln for their bed
Friend of the President trick of the tail
Now they ain't got a prayer 100 years in jail

Holy smoke, holy smoke
Plenty bad preachers for the Devil to stoke
Feed them in feet first this is no joke
This is thirsty work making holy smoke

Holy smoke

The 6 Moral Dealbreakers of Christianity

Book Review: Interview with Gods

If you read this book as a novel, the plot is too simple - a group of friends (members of a non-political, non-violence ecologically focused group called One Planet) were contacted by "External Consciousness". In order to protect the information these people got, the USA secret service killed them all.

The "meat" of the book is the five chapters presented as the interviews with External Consciousness by these members of One Planet. If read as fiction, it is dry. Basically, it is External Consciousness explaining how a higher intelligence has designed the "biomatrix" - the biological system on Earth, the developments and so on. If read as science, well it is non science! The first interview is about the creation. Poised as a description of how Universe has evolved and how life on earth has evolved, the chapter is full of voodoo promoted by people such as Deepak Chopra.

I would not recommend reading this as fact or science. I would not recommend reading as novel too.

Also published on Random Walk in Learning

Any act done by an atheist is superior to an act done in the name of god

Christians, don't watch this!

Hitchens Has Risen

News has been spreading that Christopher Hitchens has risen from death after reportedly died three days ago. Here is the evidence.

If you do not believe what I have said, why you would believe in the old books claiming Jesus has risen from the death?

22 Comments From Christopher Hitchens

22 COMMENTS FROM CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS from Twelve Books on Vimeo.

Humanity has just lost one of her most honest critic

Christopher Hitchens words live on.

Saudi Woman Beheaded for 'Sorcery'

Hyprocritic double standard

Video: Crucified Santa skeleton is decapitated
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

To XMAS And Beyond!

The Autobiography of a Secular Humanist

by V.N.K. Kumar

Some quotes below:

I became more and more convinced that god must have many psychological problems, even if we asssume that he exists. For one thing, he seems so insecure. He demands worship from everyone — praising him, pleading for money, requesting relief from illness. Why should an omnipotent, omniscient & omnibenevolent being need this flattery if he is omnipotent and solicitation for help if he is omniscient & omnibenevolent (He should know who needs what kind of help at which time, shouldn’t he?). Perhaps, I reasoned to myself, this makes him feel powerful, which shows his inferiority complex and insecurity. Secondly, he goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. So even if hypothetically we assume that he exists, I felt that he doesn’t deserve my respect and adoration.

I found out through Comparative Religion that every religion thinks it is true. But I concluded that all 10,000 + currently alive religions cannot be true simultaneously, though they can all be false simultaneously. I discovered the difference between science and religion. When knowledge is inadequate, science poses a question, but religion proposes a belief.

So it seemed to me that God was rapidly losing his job as an explanation for things we don’t understand.

However, the biggest advantage to believing in god(s) — apart from the comforts of believing in everyday protection in this life, and immortality for self & Ultimate Justice for people who have deliberately hurt us, in the afterlife – is that you don’t have to unnecessarily tax your brain cells to learn & understand anything worthwhile about the origins of the Universe, life & humans — no physics, no biology, no geology, no paleontology, no anthropology, no evolutionary psychology, no neurotheology, no comparative religion, no nothing. Most of the religious people do not have any in-depth knowledge of these subjects and also have not cultivated the art of logical & critical reasoning and hence lull themselves into a sense of self-complacency thinking that their puerile religiosity is unquestionable.

I confess I wanted to learn & understand and didn’t mind the effort required . And so I ended up as an atheist cum secular humanist.

Science and religion

Genesis 22 as told by Louis CK

Another USA republican ad

Will USA survive till 2025?

While I disagree with Pat Buchanan's notion that America is founded on a Christian value and it will be the Christian value to hold America together, the signs of the collapse of USA are too obvious to anyone. It is strange that those within USA cannot see it coming. You may buy the 4-hour audio book via the Amazon link or download here.

Financially, there are two problems:
(1) 15 Trillion government debts which is about 100% GDP of USA, and with about another 55 Trillion (present discounted value) of committed medicare and social securities in the pipeline.
(2) The trade deficit has been increasing and there is no sign of reversal. We all know that a household cannot get out of trouble by more borrowing, ditto for a country.


However there are some good news. Of the 8 Trillion, only 8% are in foreign ownership. That means if USA government defaults, if won't be a foreign power forcing her to do so. Of the 55 Trillion debts for the future, a large trunk is related to healthcare. At present, USA is spending, per capital, twice as much as the average of developed countries (the next 4 highest spenders average USD4000 per capital verses USA's UDS8000) [source], adapting any other country's healthcare system will save the government at least half of the CBO debts.

Socially, there are
(1) large inequalities of income
(2) overblown healthcare expenses
(3) declining performances of the educational system [some sample data]
(4) delusional public wishful thinking that a god may save you

Politically, the current system is completely corrupted.

It is dominated by warmongers. USA is currently engaged in two wars (that we know of) and maintaining a huge number of military bases oversea . The defense spending (should be called the aggression budget) is larger than seven of the next highest spenders combined. How could a population of 5% (globally) spend 46% of global total military expenses? How could it be sustainable?

In China, just an example, if a government official is found corrupted, s/he may be executed. While I do not condone corruption and capital punishment, at least symbolically, the government is against corruption. The USA political system has now corrupted to the point that such bribery has been legalized to be called "lobbying". Occupy Wall Street movements has been calling out loud and clear than citizens demand cleaning up the corruption and put Wall Street in check. Has any political leader acknowledged the cry and at least commence a dialog?

This brings me to the reason I am writing this post. Here is a potential occupant of the White House. What are the issues he focused on? People going to church? Gay marriages?


Here is a response I approve.


and this is a most appropriate one to the stupidity of USA's possible future "leader".


To remain strong, the first step is to acknowledge that USA is weak now. Do some evidence-based researching and come up with some good policies to help USA citizens to get back up on their feet, make a decent living and rebuild from the ground up. There is no god and hence there will be no divine help anytime soon. To fund the rebuild, get the tax rates back to the 1950's to the 1960's. I want to see USA back on her feet not only because I have three sisters and mothers in USA (as legal citizens), I hate to see those desperately clinging to power use the horrible weapons of mass destruction to her own people or to some other countries. USA has a lot WMDs and still refuses to be scrutinized by neutral international bodies! The collapse of an economy and/or a country is going to be bloody and painful - for everyone.

Liz Heywood and her story

A guest contributor posted the following story at Friendly Atheist

The last day of my childhood was Saturday, November 22nd, 1975. I was thirteen years old.

I galloped my horse through the woods, then I rode my bike to a friend’s house and we ran together all afternoon. I’d had no injury, but that night my left knee swelled like a melon; by bedtime I could barely walk. In a matter of weeks, so much pus was draining from my knee and running down my leg that my parents put a cookie sheet underneath to catch it. Within a month I was bedridden — and stayed that way for almost a year. Another six months in a wheelchair left me a teenager with a fused, hideously deformed leg and emotionally crippled by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yet I never saw a doctor. I never received any medical treatment. I was a third-generation Christian Scientist living in Lexington, Massachusetts, within twenty miles of the Mother Church in Boston. My parents treated the sudden infection in my knee the same way they treated every illness: by having a Christian Science practitioner pray. Christian Scientists believe that mortal life is unreal: they believe that understanding the spiritual universe created by God results in physical healing. All injuries and illnesses are treated this way — from paper cuts to cancer.

The year before, in 1974, federal regulations were enacted by the Nixon Administration that protected the rights of parents to choose religious treatment for their children even if it meant denying them urgently needed medical care. In 39 states and the District of Columbia, these exemptions are still in place even though in 1984 the Reagan Administration stopped mandating that states exempt parents from charges of religion-based medical neglect.

Years later, my bone disease was identified as osteomyelitis, a strep infection that can settle in a joint. While serious complications can develop, immediate treatment with antibiotics can result in a good outcome. But my family saw my swollen, stiff knee as a mortal illusion to be corrected through prayer. About five weeks from the onset, my leg began to drain an alarming amount of pus. My mother called a Christian Science practical nurse to help care for me — a nurse trained by the church in strictly non-medical methods and forbidden to diagnose disease or dispense medicine.

And I believed only prayer could help me: I never expected or even wanted medical treatment. I was bedridden for ten months in 1976. I lost weight. I couldn’t bear to have my mother hug me — the slightest motion was agony. I sensed I might die. Some nights, I was afraid I wouldn’t die. I was fourteen years old.

My school, friends and neighbors were aware I was seriously ill and being treated with prayer. At times I screamed in pain, but none of the neighbors investigated. Only the mother of my best friend was concerned enough to call a lawyer but was told it was unlikely that I could legally hospitalized. As a last-ditch effort, my friend’s mother sent an ambulance to our house. My mother told me afterward the driver said someone [was] having a baby.

This faith-based medical neglect hid me in plain sight behind the respectability of Christian Science, under the radar of politically correct religious tolerance. Even when they feared for my life, my parents seemed incapable of choosing medical help. By Christian Science policy, a practitioner may refuse to pray for clients who receive medical care, and my parents were terrified that hospitalizing me would lead to my death. Though I had a phone by my bed on those nights I cried, it never occurred to me to call anyone except the practitioner.

I outlasted the disease. My leg was scarred to the bone and my knee fused at an angle of about eighty degrees. But my school never asked for details when I finally lurched back to class on crutches after eighteen months, wrestling with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, claustrophobia, and panic attacks. Eventually I dropped out of high school.

Orthopedic specialists were unable to replace my fused knee. By the time I reached my forties, my foot and ankle had deteriorated until I could barely walk. Three years ago today, February 26th, 2007, I chose an above-knee amputation.

I remember clearly the agony and anguish I felt as a child. I remember that no adult stepped forward to end it. The law authorized my parents’ decision to leave me untreated, and the sanction of the law discouraged others from doing what is right. But refusing to act on the pain a child feels is criminal.

It is my sincere hope that my story will inspire the Obama Administration to realize that federal regulations must be amended. States that wish to receive federal funds must be required to remove these religious exemptions in their child abuse laws. My case is not unique: children today are in danger. Despite the abuse inflicted upon these children, most states are unable to pursue civil or criminal proceedings. The need to protect innocent children who are being hurt by these laws is urgent and immediate. When states aren’t required to document or classify cases of religion-based neglect — much less remove children from homes where this kind of abuse occurs — the consequences are completely unethical and morally unacceptable.

War on Christmas Daily show with Jon Stewart

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

A new record of insanity

Islamic cleric bans women from touching bananas, cucumbers for sexual resemblance

The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.

And since men are not supposed to serve women, these food items are not likely to be available... sigh!

Australian sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia.

Sharia law is in action again. Blasphemy is a no victim "crime" and it is only in barbaric countries that free speech is suppressed like this.

re: Apologies and Forgiveness

Please read the original post before reading my comment below.





OK, you have read the post, go ahead continue reading...

My position of moral is that one should avoid making mistakes. When mistakes are made, one has to live with the consequences of the mistake. The right to forgive and move on is not with the wrong-doer even in face of a sincere apology. Whether the victim agrees to forgive is completely moral independent. That's the point I beg to differ with Alonzo Fyfe:

I believe all of the elements of a sincere apology have been met. From this, the only legitimate option is to accept that apology. Refusing to do so is unjust. Refusing to do so because one holds GelatoGuy personally responsible for a culture over which he has no control compounds the injustice.

PZ has the absolute right to refuse to accept an apology even if the apology was given sincerely. PZ was hurt and if PZ decided to live with the memory of such a hurt and refused to forgive, it is nothing immoral. Hurt was done - although the pain might have subsided.

Is culture to blame? May be and may be not. Culture is a co-creation by all the participants of the culture. The GelatoGuy may be gullible and may have fallen victim to the culture in which he was brought up. He could blame the culture AND then learnt to change the culture. But he did make a mistake and I commend him with the courage to apologize.

Forgiveness is the path for the victim to move on. The wrong-doer did the damage and has to face up with consequences - including consequences that some will not accept the apology.

While I encourage victims to forgive, but the assertion that not accepting a sincere apology is immoral is itself immoral.

Questions for the Catholics...

Pedophilia Priesthood

Faith Healing is evil

ABC Nightline: The Atheist and Her Brain - Margaret Downey

Was Linda Katechi sincere?

As the Chancellor of a University, was she naive enough to believe that police would not use inappropriate force? If yes, she did not deserve to be the Chancellor. If no, she did not deserve to be the Chancellor.

Hindsight is always prefect. But the moral call, which is the critical attribute of a leader, is not to commit wrong so that hindsight would be unnecessary. That's the leadership. Has Lida Katechi demonstrated sufficient leadership to remain as the chancellor of any university?



As the police retreat, was it clear who were on the moral high ground? The cowardice of the police was in plain sight. When it was a few students, they used excessive brutality. When they were out-numbered, they just retreated and could not stand up for what they were supposed to do in the first place.



cross posted to Random Walk in Learning

What can USA citizens do?

I left Hong Kong after witnessing what had happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989

Now this is happening to USA citizens [source]:

Has the government overstepped the rights of citizens? Is the brutality towards peaceful demonstrators justifiable? Are there government officials condemning the police violence [read this to understand what the pray really is.]? What has a free society become?

What we should be thankful for?

Compare this

with this very limited view


This distorted christian view is damaging the world.

GelatoGate

I have been following the saga of the bigoted gelato guy story unfolded remotely in the comfort of my home in Melbourne Australia.

Now that the flame has died down a little, let me throw in my observation.

Andy, the gelato's owner took down the sign only after putting it up for a short time (according to the apology issued by Andy) at the meantime the above photo went viral and his store's online rating crumpled. There are basically two camps on the atheist blogosphere - those did not accept the apology (PZ and JT) and those did (Jen and Hemant) as noted by Adam Lee

To me, an apology should be accompanied by a behavioral change to rectify the wrong. So my question is "Has the store owner demonstrated an understanding of what was the wrong and made an effort to rectify the wrong?" Another question is what is the motivation of the apology?

If the atheist community did not have the leverage of lowering his store online rating, would he issue the apology?

Of course, we can only guess at what actually was in his mind and we are not thought police. From his latest apology, Andy was also offering a 10% to customers in this week - oh, that said a lot of what was going on in his mind. To me, apology not accepted. His motivation is whitewashing and damage control. As JT Eberhard put it, he should have said something along the following lines.

Bigotry is unacceptable. Offense is not the same as breathing life into prejudice. Punishing somebody for disagreeing with you or thinking your beliefs are silly is immoral. Making a donation that will actually help make the world a better place rather than inviting us to patronize your business for an insignificant discount.

Another point I would like to raise is the immoral concept of the Christian forgiveness. The immoral teaching that one can forgive oneself and move on is absolutely wrong. The offended has the right to forgive and move on, but the offender doesn't have any right to forgive himself/herself. When a wrong is done, it is done. There is nothing that can be done to undo the wrong. Remorse is the first step to recovery and to become a better self. Understand what was wrong and make positive steps not to offend again. We can learn from mistakes only when we are still in school (an artificial environment created to tolerate mistake to happen without serious consequences). In life, mistake is mistake. One has to live with the consequences of any mistake. In this case, I cannot see any sign Andy would be doing to become better. He has not started the first step.

Atheist Fundamentists

If there is a form of atheism which could be labelled as fundamental, I would be a card carrying member of such a group. The fact is that there is no such thing as fundamental atheists which some like to claim there is. By definition, atheism is the position that there is no sufficient evidence to support a belief that there is a god. Atheism does not have canonical texts which every atheist must study and adhere to. No, such text does not exist and there is no fundamentalist in this aspect.

As for assuming the position of the opposition in a debate, many do take the initial assumption that the opposition is a fundamentalist. If the opposition found such position is absurd and/or not his/her position, many are happy to adjust the assumption accordingly. Obviously arguing against a fundamentalist position is much easier - the level of absurdity are just low hanging fruits. The position of "sophisticated" liberal theist may be trickier. They typically use convoluted word trickery to avoid facing the absurdity head-on and most would have been practicing such mental gymnastic for sometime already.

In many of the debates I have watched, almost no theist managed to define god. That makes a fuzzy target to aim the argument. One way to nail them down is to make them acknowledge the god in question is the god described in the old testament.

The difficulty is those new-age theists who believe in a really fuzzy imagination and acknowledge that the bible may be wrong. Many of them are actually logic-illiterate - unable to reason with sound logic. Hitchens treatment to these are really entertaining.

As for the accusation of "evangelistic" nature of some more out-spoken atheists, I would say this. I, as an example, felt the pain of the failure of education to educate modern citizens and enable them to get rid of the shackle of religious bondage. I am applaud to the continuous abuse parents subject their children by indoctrinating young minds with myths (myths are OK, but it is NOT OK to say myths are true.), superstition and threaten them with hell. That is unacceptable. A child is NOT a property of the parent. A child is a human being - may still be dependent at the moment, but nevertheless is a human being with the right to make up his/her mind about what kind of stupid ideas s/he wants to believe in WHEN s/he is OLD ENOUGH to decide. Baptizing a child or allowing children into church should be crimes punishable by law.

Here is the response of Daniel Dennett on William Lane Craig (a typical apologetic liberal theist, I suppose). Mine is here.

Religion is not only a crutch for many people, it's also what crippled them in the first place.

[source]

Q&A - Holding the Pope to Account for Catholic Child Abuse

Torture and American Mind-set

I am an Australian and I do not follow American election news closely. So I will take the following quote from Atheist Ethicist as accurate:

Two Republican candidates for President - Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann - said in a recent debate that they do not consider waterboarding to be torture and would return to the practice of waterboarding prisoners if they were President.

Two Republican candidates said that they opposed waterboarding - Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman.

A number of people raised objections to waterboarding and torture following the debate, almost all of which can be put into two categories:

Category 1 - It makes America look bad.

Category 2 - It doesn't work. [Alonzo Fyfe]

Fyfe correctly pointed out that these were "stupid reasons to oppose torture." As he explained adeptly, a simple application of moral golden rule (do not do what you would not want other to yourself) would have come to the conclusion that torture of prisoners are not acceptable. These political "leaders" would be happy to send other's children to battlefield but not theirs. When other's were tortured, they do not care. The lack moral stance of the leadership of USA is an indication of the inevitable fall of this nation. Mere military strength can only get a nation this far. Roman Empire collapsed because it ran out of captives to enslave. For USA to be relevant in the future, a quick turn-around is needed, but I cannot see any coming anytime soon. This is not good.

Get rich scheme

If you want to get rich, starting a church in USA is easy and quick.

The New Tithe from Justin Wilson on Vimeo.

A message from god

Catholics are very TOLERATE.

Compared with the response from Muslims, it is so much more civilized.

Honestly, "I fail to see the problem with ants on some magic action figure." [quote from DoctorE]

Morgan Freeman's faith

The voice of moral justice and reason

To Hitch

To a great man with courage and conviction, reason and logic. Cheers, Mr. Hitchens.

Life and not-life

A FUNERAL FOR DEAD GODS

Obedient Wives Club

A typical corruption of moral values by religious stupidity

This probably explains why clergyman remain hopelessly confused over the proper use of condoms

Moral

They're Very Smart, These Scientists

God bless America!

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Typical religious mentality

1.

2.

Amazing Christian Muslim debate

Dave Hunt Vs Shabir Ally

Whose version of fairtale is truer?

Cosmological argument

William Lane Craig argues that we have good reason to believe that the universe had a temporal beginning, and that the Big Bang theory shows this. What that means is that the Big Bang theory, which in popular culture is presumed to be an atheistic theory, is actually embarrassing for atheism, since it agrees with the Bible that there WAS a beginning. [source]

Let's put aside whether Craig would agree to the above (I think he would), the problems with the argument are:

1. Layman's understanding of Big Bang Theory should be that at the Big Bang, it was a singularity. That is we have no physical means to know what was before the Big Bang. Stephen Hawkings have recently established that Big Bang will spontaneous appear under the law of Quantum Physics. Universe is not caused. Ignoring the latest understanding and cherry picking of Science to support a view is a logical fallacy.

2. The bible may be right at one thing - the universe has a beginning. That does not imply the rest of the bible is also correct. Take the sequence of creation as an example. The bible is complete wrong. To judge a claim to be right or wrong, we depend on evidence to support that claim. A lucky guess is just a lucky guess. Nothing special.

Craig maintains what whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence, and since the universe began to exist, the universe has to have something other than itself cause it to exist. On the other hand, God, according to the definition, never began to exist, so he needs no cause of his existence.

1. The claim that "what whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence" needs evidence and proof. To prove this statement is wrong, I only need ONE counter example. Here it is. From Quantum mechanics, we know that radioactive exists. The instance at which a radioactive nuclei decays cannot be predicted. We can only have statistical laws about radioactive decay. This is an example of event without a cause. If this event has a cause, we would understand precisely the moment when the cause is satisfied and would trigger the decay. Heisenberg uncertainty principle implies that it is impossible to know the cause and hence the event is strictly uncaused. Of course, the second counter example would be the appearance of our universe.

2. By definition god does not need a cause is another example which I could use to disprove the claim that "whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence". God, if exists, has existed. There is no obvious reason, except by the trickery of words, to define it as needing no cause. The fact is that we do not know whether god exists because of a cause. This would need to the recursive situation of a god' creator and ad infinite. This is an obvious logical impossibility. Either god exists without a cause OR god does not exist. This argument does not exclude the possibility that the god in our definition does not exist.

"You Atheists Have No Hope. What Keeps You Alive?"

My question to the Christians. Since god is waiting for you, why don't you kill yourself and meet it earlier?

Thought crime

The following is from the Banana man - dumb as usual

In a hate crime, one is punished not just for committing a specific crime against someone, but for his supposed thoughts toward that person. If a man beat up a heterosexual, for example, he would deserve one sentence. But beating up a homosexual, if it could be proved that he once expressed a negative attitude toward homosexuals, would get him a substantially increased sentence. Also, students who mention wishing for the death of a teacher or fellow student are taken seriously and punished. They could merely mention it on Facebook or in texting, for instance, and immediately be in trouble—because it shows the intent of the heart, even if they are not actively planning it.

What have been listed in the above are actions. No one knows anything about anyone's private thoughts. Once that thought has gone out, it is no longer just a thought and one has to be responsible for what has gone out of his/her head. The issue is not only "thought crime" which are not detectable, it is also about "crime without victims". Pointing out the stupidity of someone's is not a crime as long as that stupidity can be demonstrated. For example, it is really stupid to believe that a loving god would need to sacrifice itself to itself to forgive itself from creating human eating a forbidden fruit before that human knew what is good and what is bad. I hold that thought for a long time. No one would know. As I put it down, I have to face the consequence of the above words - which I am prepared to defend why I really think that is a stupid belief.

Islam is a TOLERATE religion

Deepak Chopra - follow up

Deepak Chopra and Bill O'Reilly

What a combination!

A Priest mocks creationism

Famous Atheist

I went to a church concert

I knew what was going to happen last Saturday, but I went along to support one of our friends who was singing. The most impressive point to me is the amount of immoral messages that were mixed into the lyric, the whole shit about Jesus dying for our sin etc. One of the song is about eternal life and of course it must be via blind faith in Jesus that anyone can have eternal life. Not that I want to live forever, but if there is any chance of extending our healthy life span, it won't come from religion, it will come from Science.

The cells in our body divide time and again. During such division, the copies may be corrupted by radiation or the chemicals that are in our bodies. Cells have several strategies: repair the damage, give up the ghost (the new cell) or stop dividing. Those cells which stopped dividing are called senescence. Recently, scientists have discovered by removing senescence cells in mice, these mice have an extended healthy life span - not longer life span! [source]

I don't have faith in science. I trust only evidence. This is early work and its application to human are tens of years away. But as human knowledge progress, the use of religion is getting less and less. Seriously, has religion passed its used-by date? I certainly think so.

Extraordinary things require extraordinary evidence

If you are to learn only one thing today, learn this: Extraordinary things require extraordinary evidence



Please ask yourself this. If you meet someone today who claimed that he has just risen from death, what kind of evidence would you require to believe in his claim?

Miracles for Sale

Faith-healing couple sentenced to more than six years in prison

While I have full sympathy to children whose parents needed to go to jail, the message should be clear to all parents. Voodoos, or prayers, do not cure diseases. Letting imaginary guy in the sky into one's life is delusional and have bad consequences. It is a shame that the Public Prosecutor did not think he should also target the church - which is the real culprit in cases like this.

Just war theory

Victor Reppert suggests that the "just war theory" was invented by Christian,

Has anybody noticed that, before Christianity, nobody ever dreamed that there were some things you couldn't do to noncombatants and defeated nations. If you conquered in battle, then the people belonged to you to kill, rape, or enslave as you saw fit. What the ban on, say, the Amalekites does is remove the last two options.

As I pointed out in one of the discussions, the just war theory was invented by Christians. Not secular humanists.

This may be true in his corner of the world, the Chinese has been promoting winning without war. When an inevitable war was fight and won, the winning side should not kill or hurt the people conquered. [The Art of War, Sun Zi, 2nd century BC] This idea originated from Confucius and Lao Zi 4th century BC.

Advocating genocide, in any measure at any time and place, is barbaric and the bible has plenty such examples. No wonder when the Christian discovered new world, the indigenous were mass murdered. The few remaining indigenous people Australia and America are examples. In Africa, they capture the black as slaves.

Bible morality

I know using bible to be the foundation of moral is immoral, but just in case you are not sure, have a look:

God so loved the world that he sent Darwin to explain it

[source]