Repeal The 2nd Amendment

This one sentence has caused more trouble than it’s prevented.

I propose that it be repealed.

A Difference Of Degree?

You may or may not be aware of the recent clashes the Taliban influenced populace of Afghanistan has had with authorities over the inadvertent and unintentional disposal of a few Qu’rans, resulting in daily protests, suicide bombings and other violence. All over some janitor burning a few books that were probably in the way. I often wonder how this actually can seem to be so horrendous to the protestors that they would resort to such extreme measures to voice their discontent. I can’t imagine getting that upset over the loss of a book.

Guns, Redux

A few posts ago I tried to get a discussion going about guns and gun control, which started but then sputtered to a stop after a few desultory comments. It was suggested by one devil’s advocate (*cough* Philly *cough*) that perhaps guns in the hands of responsible citizens protecting their homes from invasion was a counter-argument to my implied disdain for guns (my implication most obvious in the graphic of Rick Santorum holding a gun. I just don’t think frothy fecal matter and guns mix well). I tend to agree, to a point, but I don’t necessarily feel that ends the discussion.

An Interesting Juxtaposition

I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose a couple of recent news articles, and see if it sparks a discussion:

1. This one (and I won’t point out the 6th line of the article)

and

2. This one.

and

3. This one. (ignore the part about the lack of “any kind of formal firearms training” if you can.)

Islamic WTF?

People think we atheists pick on Christians too much, but tend to shy away from picking on Muslims. Actually, just about everything we object to, while often directed to some inanity of Christianity, could be easily extrapolated to any religion, because it’s theism that atheists don’t buy into.  Christianity is just the most pervasive form of theism on the planet, and a known target. In addition most atheists, if they were once part of a theistic community, were probably Christians, or at least live in a predominately Christian area. There are not a lot of formerly Islamic atheists out there. At least there are not many talking about it, even if they exist.

Follow The Money

My good friend JohnEvo (a/k/a The Ancient Atheist, tho’ he’s not so ancient)  sent me a link to this video. This is a really good example of the contention that religion has simply become a big business. Here we have a doctor, one schooled, presumably, in science and the necessity of basing the application of medicine on evidence, who’s simply shilling for a book he wrote that supposedly presents evidence for human resurrection. He travels the Extreme Christian circuit of talk shows, web sites and other forms of media hawking his book. The video blogger who created it makes a good case that there’s big bucks in the process, which, to understate it, somewhat diminishes the credibility of the claims.

God Fucked Up

I have a good friend who I’ve known for about 25 years who died the other day after losing a long bout with cancer. He won the early rounds, but ultimately his opponent wore him down and bested him. I’ll be attending his service later today, and I know it will be a mixed-emotion day, with lots of tears and lots of laughter – tears of grief and the laughter of remembrance. He was not much older than me, which at my age means that he died far too young. But he has a large and loving coterie of family and friends, incredibly supportive of each other, all who will ensure that his wife and children come away with far more positive than negative emotions. They are not having a religious service, but if they did, and they had asked me to give the sermon, here is what I would have said:

I’m Embarrassed To Say I’m A Lawyer

Troy Davis was executed last night. All indications are that there is significant room for doubt as to his guilt. He was convicted solely on the basis of nine separate eyewitness testimonies, seven of which have retracted their testimony. Of the other two, one has remained completely silent since the trial, and the other is an odds-on favorite for the actual killer. This is what we knew, prior to injecting him with a life-taking chemical. If this is what we had known prior to his conviction, he would not have been convicted in a legal system that relies on a “reasonable doubt” standard. If there is no reasonable doubt in what we now know, then the words “reasonable” and “doubt” don’t mean what I learned in law school.

Atheism WILL Supplant Religion…

…eventually.

Actually, a better way of stating that would be that eventually there will be no religion. When that happens, while technically we’ll all be atheists, we won’t need to differentiate between theist and atheist, so there will be no Atheism either. Here’s why:

Photo Essay

Evidence for the proposition “There is no god”.

Hutu Death camp survivor - Rwanda 1994