Rationality Follow-Up

This is a point that I meant to include in my post about rationality, but it deserves its own post so it's fine. Here's a point that I know for a fact that the atheist activist blogger PZ Meyers likes to make and I believe Dawkins has pushed it once or twice:

Nothing Must be Held Sacred

It's extremely important that this idea be combined with every single person's individual creed when trying to make the world a more rational place. To emphasize his point, PZ Meyers once committed his act of "Great

Desecration" in which he took a rusty nail and jammed it through a communion wafer, a page from the Qu'ran, and a page from the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Now at first I was somewhat upset that he felt the need to include the page from the God Delusion in there for a number of reasons, but then I began to see his point. He was trying to show us that these things which he treated so poorly are nothing sacred; they're just two pieces of paper with ink and a piece of bread. Getting offended or upset over them just seems silly.

Now of course it's acceptable to value the information that such non-sacred objects provide. Information, experience, and knowledge all go towards living a more rational lifestyle, and even the brilliant Christopher Hitchens admitted reading a bizarre but pleasant form of poetry when reading the Qu'ran in its original Arabic. But being willing to kill/die over a few scraps of paper with ink on them? That's just ridiculous.

TL;DR Information is important, but holding things sacred is stupid.

Tetrapharmakos

Meaning "Four Medicines" in Greek, it was Epicurus' four-step method for living a happy life. I have a print-out of it hanging above my bed:

"Don't Fear God

Don't Worry about Death

What is Good is Easy to Get;

And What is Terrible is Easy to Endure"

-Epicurus 341-270 BC

Essentially he's saying that Gods, if they exist, are unconcerned with human life and thus we should not be concerned with them. As I said before, a god that is absolutely apathetic toward humanity might as well be a god that doesn't exist. In layman's terms, just forget about the whole God-thing, okay?

Next is "Don't worry about Death." My more rational followers will interpret this exactly how Epicurus meant it. Basically he's saying that since there is no consciousness after death, you shouldn't really be concerned with what happens after you die. In his own words,

"Death means nothing to us...when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is

present, then we do not exist."

Wise words for someone who lived over 2 millenniums ago. The rest is glaringly obvious

and has been reinterpreted numerous times into thousands of cheap motivational posters in some form or another. But the tetrepharmakos as a whole is definitely one knockout of a creed, in my humble opinion.

Good Job Anonymous

For those who don't know, Anonymous has hacked the web pages of the notorious religious hate group, the Westboro Baptist Church. This is a victory to all rational people everywhere.

I'd Rather be in Hell

-AND-

If there were true justice in the world, the roles would be reversed.

If only Hell existed...

'Nuff Said

Fundie Atheists

Here is a point that simply cannot be stressed enough: There is no Such thing as a Fundamental Atheist. Not even Dawkins and Hitchens fit the colloquialism of "Fundie" in a world filled with religious suicide bombers and homicidal maniacs.

Just last week, a man on trial for the murder of several people claimed that his sins would be forgiven because he had "accepted Jesus into his heart." It's still baffling how these people can claim with a straight face that Atheists are without morals.

This past week, in the state of South Dakota, a law has been passing through the state legislature which would make it legal to murder abortion-giving doctors. You can bet your bottom dollar that no atheist would ever legalize homicide under those circumstances.

No wars were ever fought in the name of atheism, atheism was never used to subject the populace, and it was certainly never used to justify unspeakable acts of inhumanity including torture, genocide, and child molestation.

Can He?

Great News Everyone! Apparently God can do anything! I never knew.

And here I was thinking that God was powerless to prevent

• natural disasters
• cruelty
• suffering
• war
• aids
• poverty
• Pandemics
• strife
• famine
• disease
• douchebags
• headaches

etc. But I guess I was wrong this whole time. Thake THAT, Epicurus!

Then again, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is similarly capable of the same things. So it seems that the FSM is the one true god. Praise His noodly appendage!

O'Reilly Meme

Daily process for Bill O'Reilly: Step One, Open mouth. Step Two, Insert Foot.

It seems that O'really? has recently completely failed at a basic science question that your average fifth grader could explain, and in doing so has been made into a meme. The twist was that this question was concerning god's role in creating the moon.

O'Reilly's fallacious argument for justification for his belief in god: "The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. YOU [Dave Silverman, President of American Atheists] can't explain that."

Well due to the unfortunate fact that almost everybody who graduated kindergarten could, in fact, explain that, O'Reilly's stupidity has caused him to be made into an advice-dog style meme, with his face and text superimposed over a colorful background.

O'Reilly deserves all the dishonor he receives and then some for his use of a childlike infinite regressive fallacy. I therefore choose to share with you every picture I have saved ridiculing this disgrace to American society.

Yes it was a relatively long post, but I can't help but feel that this man's shame is worth it.

The Supreme Arrogance

Lord Save us from your Followers

Busy today so I don't have time to come up with original content. I promise I'll get around to it as soon as I'm able. In the meantime, enjoy this very informative video about the scary reality of evangelicals in society.

Now for all you un-American commie foreigners (haha), there's "The God Who Wasn't There" by director Brian Flemming. The movie explores the religious and the possibility that none of what they say is true.

Darwin Day Picture

As we bid farewell to Darwin day, I'd like to share an excellent picture with everyone.

Support Darwin Day!

United States’ Representative Pete Stark has just introduced a bill (H. Res. 81) into Congress that looks to designate February 12th as “Darwin Day”.

In a statement Representative Stark said, “Darwin’s birthday is a good time for us to reflect on the important role of science in our society. It is also a time to redouble our efforts to ensure that children are being taught scientific facts, not religious dogma, and to fight back against those who seek to undermine the science of climate change for political ends.”

The bill can be read in its entirety here and I urge everyone that is interested in making this bill into law to e-mail their representative.

Also, here's an amazing picture:

Ever Notice?

Burden of Proof

I have an apple in my hand.

Now, do I really have an apple in my hand? You can't know for sure until I show you my hand holding an apple, right? You might take my word for it, but that's only because it really doesn't impact you very much. But you sure wouldn't be willing to bet your life on it until I showed you an apple inside my hand.

Now what if I told you this apple was in fact Omniscient and outside the bounds of time and space?

Would you take my word for it?

Hypocrisy at its Finest

Anybody who knows the History of the Protestant Church also knows that one of the largest problems that Martin Luther had with the Catholic church is the fact that they sold "indulgences" which were basically tickets into heaven.

Martin Luther was under the impression that "Salvation through Grace alone" was the answer for entry into heaven. So it would stand to reason that Martin Luther's church would nowadays have nothing to do with accepting donations from its members for the purpose of reaching heaven.

But this is wrong.

It turns out that the current system that is in place is almost completely funded by its tenants. Also, one of the most holy acts that can be done by a human being is to give to charity. So therefore when one gives any amount of money to the church, they then have a better chance of getting into heaven. The same practice that Martin Luther so railed against.

Hypocrisy at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

White Jesus

Picture Jesus in your mind. What do you see? Some semi-Anglican white man with flowing hair and a full beard, right?

Something like this?

Well, my friend, you are completely normal. For thousands of years, the (perhaps) most influential man in European history has been portrayed exactly how the Europeans want their religious savior to be depicted as similar themselves as possible in order to be able to relate to the image.

But isn't this detrimental to the worship of the man himself? One would think. However, apparently the collective Christian churches don't mind that the object of their worship was drastically different than how they perceive him.

He actually looked something

like this.

Yes, that's Jesus. That's how he most likely looked during his time on Earth according to a group of very smart people.

Do you think Christians would hold Jesus in the same regard if they normally pictured him how he really looked?

And from a different angle: does man create his god?

Book Burning (not by me)

I realize I promised new content yesterday, but you see the Muses were not upon me. I feel that most of my blogs should come from a source of inspiration, rather than a point of school essay- style forcing out of my tired head.

Today I have found inspiration.

The picture you see above may look harmless at first glance. It is simply three books being burnt side-by-side on a porch banister. Next to a dog bowl.

But how would you react to find out that two of these books are the two best selling books in history? That's right, one is the Bible and one is the Koran.

Now don't immediately be shocked or offended. It is for a noble cause. Besides, the third book is "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.

But the Ultimate purpose of this demonstration was to expose the extreme intolerance of the religious. Fundamentalists from both religions will instantly find themselves willing to resort to violence to defend their personal collection of words. Atheists, meanwhile, are much more likely to consider the implications that such an action would mean.

The ultimate point is that this action must be viewed rationally. Every one of these books is nothing more than a specific arrangement of ink and paper, nothing more. To be offended at the destruction of an arrangement of paper is irrational. Nothing can be made sacred if we are to move forward in life.

Pretty Much Sums it Up

This video has pretty much everything there is to be said in it. It's beautiful, really.

I promise more content tomorrow. So follow me now for more.

Being An Atheist

I'm surprised at the amount of people I talk to who misunderstand what I mean when I tell them I'm an atheist. It doesn't mean I worship the devil (I don't even believe in him); it doesn't mean I am a Pagan, Wiccan, Buddhist, or anything of the sort; it doesn't necessarily mean that I am part of a rising tide of youths who are sick of the religious controlling our every thoughts and actions and restricting our freedoms.

But I am.

But that's a story for another post. Today I discuss why atheism is, as a great atheist once said, not a denial of Theism but instead a close, personal relationship with reality. The great Christopher Hitchens is given credit for saying, "That which can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." This is certainly applicable in the case of every major religion whose creeds involved accepting some sort of higher power, or "God" but refused to grant any evidence beyond, "Well the Earth is kinda nice to live on, so a god must have designed it!"

Today we know this is due to millions of years' worth of mutation, adaptation, and evolution. We also know now that less than one millionth of one percent of the universe is habitable to humans. Turns out that all-powerful and all-knowing magic man in the sky was pretty inept after all.

God has hidden in many places beyond man's ability to perceive. In pagan days, God(s) was/were used to explain the rotation of the sun around the earth. Once Galileo came along, God was then used to explain natural phenomena such as earthquakes and hurricanes. But then once plate tectonics and meteorology came along, God began hiding before the creation of the Universe. What happened? Apparently in Old Testament times God was a fairly common visitor to the human race. Nowadays we'd have to cross dimensions just to catch a glimpse of the guy.

But soon those dimensions will be crossed. And God will run out of places to hide. The younger generation is largely waking up to this fact. But, as I said, that is a post for another day.

Inspirational Video

This man may be better than God.

I promise I'll have more content during the week. It's Sunday so it's my day of rest. And by rest I mean homework. So follow now for upcoming awesome updates!