This is where atheists go one way and Christians go another. I am very willing to acknowledge and honor theists when they do the right thing, but not these guys.
In their recent article about the God Blocker, the Christian Coalition deliberately misquotes me in order to make me look bad. They take my opposition and clearly imply that I support it, in order to spread hate, raise fears and beg for money. They lied. Check it out.
Update this show has been postponed at the last minute until next week.
I will be on ABC News NOW , Monday from 12:30-1pm. Watch on digital cable or on-line.
Criminales (How to handle sex abuse cases)
Ratzinger obstructed justice)
Should he be arrested?
Then there’s this:
Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.
I just got back from my yearly week as a counselor at Camp Quest Michigan, and as always I’m back with a story to tell. This year, I was tried for heresy.
You see, the Camp Quest Cannon states clearly (or so I am told) that there are two invisible undetectable unicorns at Camp Quest. They leave no traces and cannot be seen, heard, or felt. Any kid who proves this to be untrue gets a pre-1954 “godless” $100 bill. This leads to many discussions, but alas, so far no child has been able to prove the unicorns aren’t there.
But I had a vision. In my vision, there was a “holy duality.” Two unicorns that are really one. Two that are one, but neither two nor one. Both male and female, but neither male nor female. Both invisible and pink, but neither invisible nor pink. Got that? If not, pray more or just take it on faith.
Unfortunately, the powers-that-be didn’t like dissent, and I was tried for heresy. Elder campers acted as defense attorneys, prosecution attorneys, and judges. There were eye-witnesses to my corruption of children — and my association with Satan.
I was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, I was allowed to live on condition of my recanting of my heresy, which I did in earnest, since one the campers had been assigned to be my exectutioner.
My big secret: I didn’t mean it when I recanted. I just went underground. Next year, I will resurface, stronger than ever, and launch a full scale reformation. Bwoo hah hah hah….
Regardless of one’s political affiliation, the Shirley Sherrod incident has shown us a very important point: critical thinking skills seem absent inside the beltway for sure, but more importantly, absent from the “mainstream” media. Everyone latched onto Sherrod like police dog clamping down on a criminal’s arm. Of course no one bothered to check and make sure they were actually biting a criminal.
Critical thinking skills and the ability to use rational thought are vital to the survival of the species. We saw that break down this week as every politician (right, left, and center) and every news outlet (right, left, and center) took the word of a single person and ran with it. There was no verification of facts, no burden of proof, no skepticism, no questioning of the source, etc. The accumulation of logical fallacies was like watching an algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico: spreading its devastating effects the bigger it gets.
I have no vested interest in Sherrod. I could care less if she works at the USDA or not. And that is because to me this is not about the politics: it is about the lack of critical thinking skills and skepticism on the part of so many. That is a scary thought when you start to think about the bigger issues that could be coming our way in the future.
Blair Scott
Here’s a link to an article in Slate magazine that discusses Mel Gibson’s appalling behavior and how his relationship with a particular Catholic sect influences this behavior and the attitudes that spawned it.
http://www.slate.com/id/2260937/
Kathleen
At the annual American Atheists Convention, one of atheism’s premier provocateurs, Edwin Kagin, faced the crowd and raised high a hairdryer labeled “Reason and Truth.”
Said one woman who travelled from Cincinnati to undergo the de-baptism, “I was baptized Catholic. I don’t remember any of it at all.” The woman, Cambridge Boxterman, 24, added, “According to my mother I screamed like a banshee, and those are her words, so you can see that even as a young child I didn’t want to be baptized. It’s not fair. I was born atheist and they were forcing me to become Catholic.”
Watch the entire story tonight on Nightline at 11:35 p.m. ET
Kagin, who is American Atheists’ national legal director, firmly believes that regardless of one’s religious beliefs, each person has the right to say or do what he or she wants, provided it is within the law. In the past, he has reportedly called out parents who subject their children to strict fundamentalist religious education, referring to it as child abuse.
One would expect that Christians, Muslims, Jews and other religious people would be offended by new “GodBlock” software aimed at removing Biblical references from children’s computer screens. But a number of atheists don’t like the tool either.
The program, according to its designers, “will test each page that your child visits before it is loaded, looking for passages from holy texts, names of religious figures, and other signs of religious propaganda. If none are found, then your child is allowed to browse freely.”
“I don’t like it,” David Silverman, national spokesperson and vice president of American Atheists, told the People’s World. “I don’t believe in sheltering kids from information.”
Although it doesn’t quite say it in the article, I am also opposed to outlawing or boycotting anything like this. Parents SHOULD have the ability to make this kind of choice, but it’s not a concept behind which I can stand.
A man in the Indian Ocean island state of the Maldives has died, apparently by suicide, after complaining of being victimised for not being a Muslim.
Ismail Mohamed Didi, 25, had admitted being an atheist and had sought political asylum abroad.
He was found on Tuesday hanging at his workplace – the air traffic control tower at the international airport in the capital, Male.
It is compulsory for citizens of the Maldives to be Sunni Muslims.
Despite the rigidity of its religious laws, the Maldives was recently elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
A Maldivian website, Minivan News, printed what it said was a recent e-mail from Didi in which he said he was an atheist.
In a press release, Wood pointed out that, last year, Olens and the Cobb Commission permitted an atheist to give the opening prayer. “As a Christian and as an American, I am insulted that Olens would allow a man without faith to stand up at a public meeting and encourage others to give up their religion,” Wood wrote.
It’s true. Smyrna atheist Ed Buckner was one of seven county residents who, with the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a federal lawsuit to halt the practice of invocations before government meetings in Cobb.
This is the court battle that Olens speaks of winning. Immediately afterward, in July of last year, Buckner served notice that he wanted to give the invocation at a county commission meeting.
In an interview this week, Olens said that, under the First Amendment, he had no choice. Picking and choosing who could give a public prayer would only have landed the county right back in court.
Buckner’s invocation turned out to be a protest, naturally. At the time, Olens called it “repugnant.” The commission chairman sent the atheist a letter saying that Buckner had proved that he was not interested in spiritual communication and would be not be allowed to repeat the stunt.
“Please! Don’t hate me because I gave the evil atheists time to speak! We all agree that we are a Christian nation and the more bigoted we are, the better! Those evil atheists, with their “constipatution” (whatever that is) made me let them speak!”
Never forget why we fight. A hearty thank you to our president Ed Buckner for giving a civilized protest against an unconstitutional act, thereby thrusting Christian bigotry into the limelight during the election. Let’s see who is bigoteder.
See the hate for yourself! Skip to the 18:00 minute mark to see the horrible offense to Christianity that they are talking about (turn your volume up loud).
The YMCA is now “The Y”
One of the nation’s most iconic nonprofit organizations, founded 166 years ago in England as the Young Men’s Christian Association, is undergoing a major rebranding, adopting as its name the nickname everyone has used for generations.
“It’s a way of being warmer, more genuine, more welcoming, when you call yourself what everyone else calls you,” said Kate Coleman, the organization’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer.
“In many ways, we are just catching up to our audience,” said Dana David Rehm, NPR’s senior vice president for marketing and communications.
For those of you not paying attention, this is what we call “measurable progress”. The Y was originally (and still is) a Christian organization, but they now recognize all people equally, and indeed seems to go to great lengths to stress the organization’s diversity on its web page.
My opinion: This is just wonderful news. The Y is now all about youth, family, social responsibility, and apparently, equality. There’s nothing bad about any of that.
Now if only the Boy Scouts would take heed and follow suit.
