I thought we really had separation of church and state!

City Councilman Bothwell in Ashville, North Carolina is an Atheist! His conservative opponents want to enforce a NC constitutional provision that disqualifies officeholders "who shall deny the being of Almighty God." which was included when it was drafted in 1868 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmS49f5wC7XKFjiS8tDTo3wv67hgD9CHCN2O0)

This is one more instance of discrimination based on non-religion! Words fail me!!!

We need to be more secure with our own abilities!!

Yes, we are here just because... that's it, no deity to manage things! Physics, chemistry, biology, those provide explanations for why things are the way they are... it's not sad or happy, it just is, religious people need to get over this continuous self-importance and accept it, use the brain that evolution provided you!

Faith in a deity and religion give those "believers" the excuse for not taking personal responsibility. When you score a touchdown, you're the one who did it, not god, and if you loose the game, it's also you!

We have our own abilities to do fabulous things, create great things like art and solve complicated problems! Philosopers since early days have been tackling questions of ethics and morality, not god! We don't need anything more than our minds, really!!

Let's not be so totally insecure that we need to give away our own power and assign the responsibility for our own greatness to something based on superstition!

Religion = propaganda

"Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels." Richard Alan Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, 1996

I think that most people would agree that the term PROPAGANDA has negative connotation, and it's usually associated with political influencing of the citizens.

But religions use propaganda in far more insidious ways. They use such terms as eternal damnation of one's soul (well, first they make you believe you have a soul) to influence masses of people to attend their events where they influence them some more in various ways to give up control of their own lives and submit to their authority!

I think that if we started calling Religion Propaganda, maybe people would at least stop to think about what they are doing before they choose to be so influenced... Oh, what am I saying, it won't happen.... It was a nice thought though...

Why Vatican must fall!!!

I have just watched this British Panorama report on BBC about the extent of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, and it made me nauseated! I have to admit that I have paid some attention to this problem over the last few years, but it wasn't until I just saw this report, that I really "got it"! Apparently the church has been fairly successful at the cover up and this policy of keeping thing quiet and out of the public view as much as possible!

What I find truly appalling is that the current pope, former cardinal Ratzinger, is the one who initiated and put into practice this policy of cover up of sexual abuse by the priest as a formally documented decree called "Crimen Sollicitationis" which spelled out how to keep these issues quiet, and even provided a punishment of excommunication for not following the policy! So, is this why he was chosen as Pope? Because he's the one who is now still the keeper of this policy?

The Catholic church is by far the largest institutions in the world, over 1 billion people strong, which, in their own words, is only responsible to god, and so can act, as the former DA of Phoenix points out in this report, as mafia in their cover of their crimes! I suspect this makes them feel pretty invincible.

And they continue to get money from all those people who come to their churches and bring their children to Catholic schools... and the abuse continues! They prey on the poor, illiterate, people who have no way of defending themselves!

I am so sickened by this that I can't even seem to write this very coherently, because my mind is just spinning with futile anger at how an institution based on superstition has such enormous power and influence that it can get away with world-wide perpetration of such hideous crimes, and still continue to have followers and continue to have them provide the financial support to continue this circle!!!

How do we, people of rational minds, make this stop? How do you fight this type of power structure? How to you reach out to over billion people world wide and convince them that they are victims of one of the greatest scams ever? And that they are the ones also responsible for these crimes by supporting the church with their donations!

Shuttle Atlantis, proof of our intelligent achievement

The launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis today reminds me of what I believe in - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0ltvXVJ5u4&feature=player_embedded# !!

I believe in each individual's potential to achieve all that he or she can achieve! A potential to produce innovative technological advancements that improve our lives, make scientific discoveries, create great works of art.... or be an inspiring teacher, parent, leader!

For those sort of individuals to thrive, we all have to work in earnest to ensure that they have an environment that encourages learning and rational thought, research, open dialog, tolerance, and freedom of expression!

Tolerating the intolerant

I am getting more and more frustrated with the politically correct idea of religious tolerance of various faith based organizations. And yet, those organizations themselves are intolerant. Example, the Catholic Church, in another one of their hypocrisies, is against providing healthcare benefits to it's gay employees, because of their opposition to gay marriage. The Catholic church is also against divorce, but is allowing divorced and then remarried people health care benefits. Hmmm... http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2009/11/catholic_charities_gays_and_dcs_poor.html

This article mainly points out however how the Washington DC City Council enacted a law that prohibits discrimination against gay marriage. Because of this, the Catholic Charities will close down and not offer help to anyone, because they take tax money and that would force them to uphold this law. Meaning, they won't be charitable to anyone, if they have to be charitable to gays!

The author of this article is placing some of the blame on the city council for enacting this law, and thus forcing the Catholic Charities to shut down and consequently having less providers of this service.

This is what I don't get! Discrimination against gay people by anyone is wrong. PERIOD!!! Compromising with the church only would support their continued intolerance and hypocrisy! The Church is WRONG and IMMORAL for doing that and it should not be condoned with compromises by the government!

The final straw

The incident that finally put me over the edge, I think was the recent execution of a young man in Iran, Ehsan, for "enmity against god", or in other words for being an Atheist. Let me say this again, a young student in Iran was executed by hanging for enmity against god!!! http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/16753

Imagine your son or daughter being imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, and executed for expressing his or her thoughts against a supernatural, made up entity! Not for killing anyone, or doing anything remotely against the "normal" social rules!

I used to think that it was a sign of tolerance to accept others' religious views and not argue for my side, the rational, atheist side. But I no longer think that. Tolerance for religious views means tolerance for ignorance. It is an excuse for allowing of what happened to Ehsan to perhaps happen to others.

So here and now I want to go on record - all religions, whether Christianity, Islam, Judaism, lead to intolerance, breed violence and terrorism, suppress rational thought and are the basis for irrational thoughts and behavior, and unless obliterated, will perverse society with it's influence.