What are you for?
| Stephen Fry: | The Church is very loose on moral evils, because, although they try to accuse people like me, who believe in empiricism and the Enlightenment, of what they call 'moral relativism,' as if it's some appalling sin, where what it actually means is 'thought.' They, for example, thought that slavery was perfectly fine. Absolutely OK. |
| Anne Widdecombe: | As did all societies of the time! |
| Stephen Fry: | And then they didn't. And what is the point of the Catholic Church, if it says, 'Well, we couldn't know better, because nobody else did'? Then what are you for! |
In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least.
I get the idea that the wrong idea of agnosticism is lodged into people’s minds. Allow me to unlodge it, and replace it with a more accurate understanding of it.
I see a lot of people answering they are an agnostic when asked their opinion on the existence of gods. In their mind, agnosticism is in the middle of the range between atheism and theism.
It is not! Agnosticism is a position on knowledge, not on the existence of god(s). It does not fit on the range between atheism and theism, though it can supplement it. You can be an agnostic theist, or an agnostic atheist. In either cases, you believe something about the existence of gods, but you do not claim to know it. Similarly, the opposite is possible. You can be a gnostic theist, claiming you know god(s) exist.
I hope this clarifies.
(CNN) — As many as 10,000 albinos are in hiding in east Africa over fears that they will be dismembered and their body parts sold to witchdoctors, the Red Cross said in a recent report.
-Religion, myth and superstition. A drag on humanity.
Swiss vote on referendum to ban new minarets Right-wing parties regard mosques’ spires as symbols of militant Islam
(via Switzerland votes on minaret ban - Europe- msnbc.com)
Good idea? Bad idea? Is in-migratory control the solution? When was the last time a church or a free-thought center was allowed to be built in a Islamic country? Should freedom of expression have limits? Reciprocity? If current demographics predict an Islamic Europe, what would that mean for the rest of the world?
Some Mormons knock on Martin’s door.
How do you teach homosexuality? Like French? I was born of heterosexual parents, taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. So why then, am I homosexual? And, no offence meant, but if it were true that children mimic their teachers then we’d have a hell of a lot more nuns running around.
Simply brilliant.…and other lies told to children.
Dear Christian friend,
you keep telling me God and Jesus are the same person. I really don’t care — let’s pretend they’re one. It just makes it easier for me, ridiculing one imaginary moron instead of two.
But doesn’t that mean Jesus’ sacrifice is utter bullshit? God put himself on Earth to have himself murdered to save the humans he created from an evil he invented, all because he told himself to. Hell of a moral deed.
What was the sacrifice? A goddamn deity — an eternal being — took 30 years out of his endless lifetime to act like a human, die, and come back to life. Big fuckin’ deal! Yeah, he got whipped a bit, and I’m sure that’s not comfortable, but he’s God. He chose to let it hurt — it didn’t have to, nobody asked for it to. And if he is a god, a perfect, omniscient, holy being, how can he even suffer? Doesn’t that suggest that suffering is perfection? If it’s not perfection, then he didn’t suffer, because if he did, he’s not perfect and therefore, he’s not God.
(And remember: he’s doing this so rapists can go, “Look, God, about that little slip where I raped that four-year-old in the confessional… sorry about that,” and get into Heaven. Yeah. Great guy, God.)
Christian friend, you also tell me that God cannot contradict himself, which is why he had to suffer for our sins: he couldn’t just change his own laws and let us go free. He did what he had to do to save us from his own laws.
In that case, how can miracles ever occur? A miracle is a single event which defies the laws of nature. And if God can’t just do whatever and decide it’s the new moral law, he can’t just do anything and say it’s the new law of nature, right? Therefore, either there are no miracles (and your prayers really are worthless, bullshit whispers), or God actually is able contradict his own laws. If he can alter and contradict his own laws, then Jesus’ sacrifice and suffering was totally unnecessary. God could’ve snapped his fingers and saved every human being without offering himself a blood sacrifice.
Christian friend, you tell me that, as an atheist, I have no basis for the claim that suffering is a negative thing, or that suffering is not a perfect act. Of course, this has nothing to do with my argument that God’s a lying, deceitful, cowardly piece of shit. Let’s pretend suffering is awesome — your God says suffering is great, it’s perfect. Then God still hasn’t sacrificed a damn thing. As a perfect being, he did exactly what was in his nature. He suffered, and he loved it. Good for him.
Bravo, bravo….
A majority of the world is casually religious, not deeply or profoundly. I’d go further: most of the people in this world are stupidly religious, with ingrained beliefs that they did not acquire through thought or study, but through regular indoctrination from childhood on.via scienceblogs.comI know PZ Myers is a controversial chap, and I’m aware he angers and stirs-dissent amongst fellow critical-thinking non-believers… I gotta say, though, I keep finding ways I just outright agree with his opinions on oh-so-many things.
This is one of them.
Posted via web from liamcassidy | Comment »
I get asked by Christians, what made me an atheist. I always reply “Nothing.” Of course, they don’t understand just how broad of a response that is.
A group of rabbis and Jewish mystics have taken to the skies over Israel, praying and blowing ceremonial trumpets to ward off swine flu.
About 50 religious leaders circled over the country on Monday, chanting prayers and blowing the horns called “shofars”.
The flight’s aim was “to stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it,” Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri was quoted as saying in Yedioth Aharanot newspaper.
(gigacool)
-HA HA HA HA. This is so dumb.
Submitted by emistom
