Pat Condell: The arrogance of clergy

Back from the summer vacation season and on fire!

Pat Condell: Freedom go to hell

Here in America, at least locally, we do not have quite the problem that Europe does. That said, we are in the early stages of having this problem with insane Fundamentalists. Different cloak, same problem. This medieval thinking must end.

Pat Condell: Shame on the Netherlands

What really chaps my hide is something that Pat points out: if a person spoke critically of izlame to the same extent that its own text does of other people and religions, by sharia law, that person would be imprisoned or even executed. That is a head-scratcher. Not only that, but izlamic states have tried to elicit an international accord or some-such through the UN to make criticizing a religion a crime.

How is this even possible for rational people to consider? You cannot criticize my beliefs? Our beliefs make us who we are so really this is about not criticizing people. Why is this such a big deal? Are they concerned that people will easily find something about which to be critical? Hmm, let's see. Maybe it the intolerance, the inhumanity, and the abuse of their own on a basic human rights-level. It is contemptible, anachronistic behavior that does not belong in the modern world.

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oppression, Pat Condell, Youtube, intolerance

Happy Winter Solstice, you thieves!

Link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/475823282/atheist-sign-by-nati.html

A little xmas card idea for everyone, courtesy of your friends at the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

At this season of
THE WINTER SOLSTICE
may reason prevail.

There are no gods,
no devils, no angels,
no heaven or hell.

There is only
our natural world.

Religion is but
myth and superstition
that hardens hearts
and enslaves minds.

"Most people think December is for Christians and view our signs as an intrusion, when actually it's the other way around," he said. "People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the holiday from all of us humans."

- Dan Barker, Foundation co-founder

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fear, oppression, religion, superstitions, thoughts, holidays

Regarding Pat Condell

I like including Pat Condell on here so I feel that it is worth explaining why.

Condell's discussions are about issues in Britain regarding radical Islam. He lately has been highlighting the corrosion of rights afforded everyone in Britain by yielding to the needs of Islam, which, in many instances, are egregious and contrary to the existing system. While it is easy to say Well, that is another country dealing with Islam, I find it a very simple exercise to change Britain with America, and Islam with Christianity. When I do, I am angered just as much.

Some my scoff that such a thing is not possible to occur. I beg to differ. There are fanatics of xianity who are just as vile, just as backward thinking, and just as undeserving to reside in a democracy. They propose adhering to ancient practices of bigotry, violence, and other hatreds in the name of their Boogieman. They oppose moving humanity forward because each step of progress is a step away from the fece-throwing life of their mumbo-jumbo handbook. They oppose freedom because, for one, the handbooks say nothing of it, but mostly because Boogieman is a parent figure and parents don't like it when children become adults -- because the child is no longer useful to their parent's family unit and has to be driven away.

How can anyone in good conscience and with any scrap of self-worth stomach such vile persons? Throw them out. Throw them in the ocean, put them in a spaceship and shoot them into the sun, something.

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ignorance, oppression, Pat Condell, sky daddy, superstitions

The Sunday funnies - part one.b

After writing the first segment, later that day, the phrase ignorance is bliss popped into my head. Immediately, I recalled my assessment of the parable of the garden of Eden.

The origins of the phrase are inconclusive but it must derive from some human situation where an individual, probably of privilege. The kings, hermits, and definitely children are other examples. After all, children are not informed as to the world so the harsh reality of life is nothing to them. A parent looks down into that cherubic face, thinks about their own awful day, and thinks those words.

I think that we have found another source, right there in the bibble. Garden of Eden, two idiots are wandering around doing nothing. Is that really paradise? When modern people think of the concept of paradise, I doubt that they are thinking of the garden of Eden. They are thinking of the multitudes of like-minded individuals...doing what?! Even in their afterlife state, they still cannot see or hear the deity. Even the angels cannot handle it. So once you are there, you still really will not know. What really is inside that light? Gawd, Jebus, Satan, an arc lamp, or darkness once the electrical activity in the brain fizzles away.

Blissful ignorance turns up rather frequently in the rhetoric of some modern xians. The Church certainly tried to keep its flock as dumb as its namesake. How is this remotely rewarding to an individual? On the other hand, who ever said that religion was about a reward? It is the obstacle course. Practice. Train. Run the race and maybe you will win.

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idiocy, oppression, religion, thoughts

Science in Muslim Countries

Link: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;321/5890/745

It is fairly obvious that the izlamic culture has fallen a long way from their very respected perch of 1,000 years ago. They are the people who saved the knowledge of the Greeks. They had impressive achievements in mathematics, science, astronomy, medicine, architecture, music, and literature.

What are they doing today? Nothing of significance.

Why? Religion. The article sums up that part quite well.

The author makes a good start of pointing out that America is not immune. However, as was pointed out on another site, the author does not mention medical research with stem cells or evolution. Plus, America being the over-achieving people that they are, I suspect the America can reach the same level of stagnation in a third of the time.

Taking those three items together (creationism being the third if you did not read the article), it is apparent that America is in grave danger of sliding down the slippery slope to global pig ignorance. The fundamentalists in the US are just as revolting as the izlamic mullahs and they are need to be removed from the planet.

Religion has never been a proponent of thinking and knowledge. After all, their product is the unknowable. Look at Xianity: the curse of man stems from acquiring knowledge. Not surprising is that the whole episode has a sexual undercurrent.

It is amazing to me that an individual would make a conscious choice to resist their curiosity for discovering the wonders that exist out there just because someone (a someone who somehow managed to know the unknowable???) tells them that an invisible entity does not like it and they may not make it into a place where they will be stuck - forever - with like minded, pig ignorant schmucks like themselves.

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Some additional thoughts regarding the Fundamentalist mormon cult in Texas

There definitely is no religious freedom in American but fortunately it works both ways. Personally, I would rather have splinter xian groups, like this quiet, contained, yet nutty Mormon enclave, dotting the landscape than wacky, disturbing, loud-mouthed fundamentalist groups like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, or any of those sanctimonious luddites with TV ministries. I digress.

I have not kept up with this story because it is not an important issue to me. I have a position on child abuse but nowadays, abuse is as over-used and over-extended as hero. I once saw an billboard saying that teachers are heroes. No. They can be someone's hero but their actions are not heroic. Fighting fires and patrolling the streets also is not heroic. Running back into a burning building four times to rescue people and keeping innocents safe in a violent situation is. Unfortunately, those actions come as a high price. That is heroic. I digress.

Was this all a setup to allow the government to poke its head in and pull off a raid? Maybe but how did they know that this was going on? Someone would had to have reported it, even before an operation to plant someone inside. If Sarah - a good Jewish name - is real, she is probably sequestered as a government witness. I doubt that weapons were the reason because the Feds would have moved differently, despite Waco - because the government goes by the manual and never learns. No, I am sure that their interest was the the welfare of the children. The government loves children and in much the same way the adult males of the sect were. George Carlin has a wonderful routine about the government's love/hate relationship with children: it loves the pre-born but once you are born, you are F-ed (George Carlin : Back in Town/, one of his best shows).

This is biggest issue of the bunch: the kids. America has developed a culture and society that oppresses children. Some kids are impressive because, even at eight or ten, they can carry on an educated, adult conversation because its parents cared about their child. It was exposed to information and knowledge, allowed to explore the world of ideas and develop their own, even treated as an adult. Just imagine if kids today were given the opportunity to reach for the boundaries. I think that America would not be the five hundred pound retarded gorilla that it is today. We would be Europeans.

No matter how much people dislike the concept, humans are animals - just like a dog, cat, monkey, bird or fish. When animals reach menarche, they start mating. When young apes reach the age to reproduce, they are driven off because they are sexual rivals to the parents. That is adulthood. Society and its culture define an artificial - i.e., unnatural - boundary. It goes against our innate nature. Males reach their sexual peak at seventeen or eighteen - the societal age of adulthood.

What was hyped to no end in the media was that young women were being married to older men and having children. Oh, no! Young women were having sex. That is the red alert. I think that there were a few mentions of young males being married off but those quickly disappeared from the story because that is a badge of honor for men, or it was completely false to try and lessen the perceived gravity of the situation. Women were being the sexual creatures that they are. Is it abuse? No. Obviously it is not an issue to reproduce so young or the body would not work that way. Oops, I meant to say that gawd would not have fashioned to body to work that way. Society is to blame for the age of consent problem but it is understandable. Populations would become unmanageable and drain resources, lowering the quality of life of adults. Then we would become a third-world country. In reality, medicine is to blame for this. Old people live too long, but I digress.

Xianity is wholly to blame. Saint Paul, the Apostle, was celibate but at least he did not pound his chest about it. He has plenty of crimes to answer for as is. There is another Saint, maybe Augustine or someone else, who is responsible for the establishment for xianity's attitude towards sex on top of its existing fear and hatred of women. He is a mega-hypocrite because he only came to this realization after literally screwing everything under the sun (I do have a source to quote this that I will find and insert here) and finding gawd. It is unclear if the two are related. Augustine definitely is responsible for the concept of Original Sin - not the act of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge but A&E gettin' their freak on. The reason why is another topic altogether. I try not to digress.

So, to sum up: this incident is a hollow show of protecting female "children" because they were being married off to older men, breaking the artificial rule of the society surrounding their enclave regarding sexuality and children, also artificially defined, all because some old man, 1600 years ago, was tired of sex and additionally because of the fear of the inexorable power of female sexuality.

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idiocy, oppression, religion, cults, freedom