Q:also i know you'll probably say something about over population or how we don't really need to create more children considering all the children that exist without families, or even about the validity of those couples unable to have children so for over population it's true, and i'm not saying the threat to our existence is here now but it does go against nature. as for couples who cant have children, natural selection takes care of that.
Anonymous
I knew I’d get at least one comment like this. I’ve broken it down line by line below:
also i know you’ll probably say something about over population or how we don’t really need to create more children considering all the children that exist without families,
You “know” wrong - I won’t, and I won’t need to.
or even about the validity of those couples unable to have children so for over population it’s true
Also wrong: I don’t feel the need to judge the “validity” of other people’s relationships.
and i’m not saying the threat to our existence is here now
Foreboding, but okay. Aside from ourselves, neither am I.
but it does go against nature.
Huh. That’s interesting, in its complete and total inaccuracy.
Which part of “nature” are you referencing this being against? The part where gay animals actually exist? The part where gay animals also exist as monogamous couples? How can something that already abundantly exists in non-human “nature” be “against nature?” How can something that naturally occurs in all species above a certain intelligence threshold be “against nature?”
More importantly, how can something that naturally occurs in human beings be “against nature” unless you’re using some new and vacuously self-serving definition of “nature”? To be totally honest, this is such a specious argument that I’m not even entirely sure what you’re trying to communicate.
as for couples who cant have children, natural selection takes care of that.
So your entire argument for monogamy is procreation? I think you’re missing your own point here. In fact, I’d argue that if your goal is procreation and continuation of the species, monogamy is more of a threat as it inevitably leads to a limitation on human production. Hell, tossing monogamy would help solve that natural selection “issue” you mentioned earlier as it would allow the potentially positive advantageously procreative genes from one partner to not be limited by the other partner’s nonprocreative genes.
But that’s not what you’re actually saying, is it? You’re not actually making an argument for a human institution to be regulated by the “laws of nature.” You’re just inventing arguments that sound similar enough to scientific concepts that you hope they’ll convey scientific weight to invented arguments like attributing an innate morality to nature. Put more plainly: You’re obviously grasping at straws hoping that if you make enough small points that sound like they might be valid, they’ll come together into a larger one that will.
But that’s the funny thing about small points and logic: they don’t work that way. They each need to work together for a larger point to be made. Yours work at odds against each other: Disregarding the incorrect “definition” of “nature” as demonstrated above, either male/female monogamy is “against nature” for its inability to produce children (meaning that the goal of procreation is paramount, and monogamy as an institution falls apart) or the monogamous coupling itself as a social structure is paramount and therefore it doesn’t matter whether children are produced or not. You cannot have it both ways.
But you knew that. You were just hoping that if you threw enough of those straws into the air, your lack of an actual point wouldn’t be as obvious.
So I don’t need to say anything about overpopulation or the number of children that currently require families; while they’re important topics, they don’t need to be addressed to invalidate your argument. All I need to invalidate your argument is your argument, as it inevitably invalidates itself.
Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.
In other news: sky blue, fish swim, birds fly.
Prop. 8: Gay-marriage ban unconstitutional, court rules - latimes.com
There isn’t a single logically valid, nonreligious argument against gay marriage.
Not one. And if the only argument you have is that your specific religion disapproves, well, that’s not really an argument at all; at least not in this country.
Please Pray For Jessica Ahlquist
http://unicornbooty.com/blog/2012/01/16/christian-classmates-threaten-girl-with-eternal-rape-in-hell-for-removing-prayer-from-school/
Just because she’s an atheist doesn’t make it right to make her feel unsafe or unwanted.
WWJD? Well, burn her in hell for eternity. For not believing in him. That IS what the bible says. Right? I don’t see how adding rape to eternal burning torture makes it any worse that what Jesus supposedly said if he actually existed.
-FA
If one of her classmates said “I’m going to rape and torture you” then it would obviously be punished as criminal behavior. If one of her classmates knew she was to be raped and tortured and did nothing to prevent it, they would also be prosecuted as an accomplice for failing to report the events.
So explain to me again why “My imaginary friend will rape and torture you” is protected and shouldn’t be prosecutable harassment? Whether you threaten someone or use a supernatural third party to do the threatening should be treated the same way. Your personal religious insanity isn’t a magical “get out of civilized obligations free” card that you can wave around whenever you see fit.
Let’s drop the act and stop pretending like threats of physical or emotional trauma are protected religious speech - it’s just a cowardly way of threatening someone because you’re admitting that you hope someone else does it for you.
Atheist are routinely asked how people will know not to rape and murder without religion telling them not to do it, especially a religion that backs up the orders with threats of hell. Believers, listen to me carefully when I say this: When you use this argument, you terrify atheists. We hear you saying that the only thing standing between you and Ted Bundy is a flimsy belief in a supernatural being made up by pre-literate people trying to figure out where the rain came from. This is not very reassuring if you’re trying to argue from a position of moral superiority.
10 Myths Many Religious People Hold About Atheists, Debunked (via sourdoughislife)
If you need an invisible sky wizard to tell you not to murder people, I’m staying far away just in case you have a crisis of faith.
(via stfupenguins)
(via stfupenguins)
Yes, does the climate change? Of course it does, it’s changed for thousands of years. But the idea that one factor, and man’s contribution to that one factor, of which there are hundreds of factors that have an influence on climate, that that one factor of which man’s contribution is a small part of, is somehow the tip of that tail that wags the whole dog, and that we have to change all of our economic policy based on that, is just a pure overreaction that is not backed up by any kind of real evidence.
- Rick Santorum via Santorum to Huntsman: Yes, You’re Crazy
There are so many things wrong with this statement, but the one I’m going to jump on is the following: the earth is not thousands of years old - it’s billions of years old. The climate has changed for billions of years. Billions, not thousands.
Furthermore, I’m going to be very loud and very clear here that if you truly believe that the earth is only thousands of years old - based I can only imagine on the “infallible word” of a single, poorly translated document overruling an overwhelming preponderance of evidence - then your inability to critically think, understand basic first-grade science, and/or divorce your personal beliefs should immediately disqualify you from candidacy for any political office.
I’ll even double-down on that one and make it even more clear: If your religion flies in the face of accepted science, and you accept those religious tenets as being more accurate than science, then you should not be allowed to hold a political position in this country. Your own irrationality and your own inability to differentiate science and religion has disqualified you, and under no circumstances should you be allowed to hold sway over people’s lives and livelihoods. We should not accept willful ignorance from the people who run and rule the most powerful country the planet has ever seen and we should not allow that ignorance to burden the populace at large.
To be totally clear, I’m not denigrating religion here, though full disclosure demands I admit to finding them all a bit silly. What I am denigrating is the wanton disregard of established fact in favor of personal religious opinion by those in a position to affect millions of others with that opinion. Freedom of religion in this country goes both ways - you’re free to believe what you wish, but you cannot assume that your beliefs should translate or influence other people. THAT’S what the first amendment guarantees: not just the freedom to worship, but the freedom from undue influence of any single religion, including Christianity.
We are not a “Christian Nation.” This is an indisputable fact. Do you know how I can say this? Because in the Treaty of Tripoli, signed only five years after the adoption of the First Amendment, and one of the few items put before the Senate to be unanimously ratified, it states:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,
That seems fairly clear to me.
The outright denial of science in your political decision-making because it interferes with your religious viewpoint is no different than demanding a population-wide acceptance of your religion. It’s really that simple. You’re welcome to believe what you want to believe, but I’m welcome to demand that the people who hold sway over the country as a whole be able to critically think and divorce their personal religious sentiments from the actions that directly affect me as a United States citizen.
If they cannot do so - if their religious delusion is so great that they can’t or won’t accept commonly understood science like the established age of our planet - then they should not holding political office in ours or any other country that has enacted and still recognizes a separation between church and state. Anything less, and we should just admit that the whole uproar over “Sharia Law” is really just because you want to get there first with yours.
Neorenaissance: Don’t Let Satan Fool You
In balloons above the Evolution castle are listed social ills caused by the theory of evolution: “euthanasia,” “homosexuality,” and “abortion,” “racism,” etc. The bumbling priests on the island of Christ are stupidly firing their many cannons at these mere “symptoms” of Evolution, while the lone grim scientist, depicted as a pirate, is hammering away at their foundation.
I had someone come to the door yesterday and upon my opening it, immediately launch into a diatribe that could best be summed up as “Does it bother you that they’re teaching children evolution in schools as opposed to the truth of creationism?”
To my credit, I was more polite than I would have expected of myself. I curtly responded with “I believe in science.” When offered literature about creationism that proves evolution wrong, I responded “Not if it’s creationist.” I then wished the person a good day, and closed the door as they walked off.
Ironically enough, my totally reasonable reaction has really bothered me for the past 24 hours. It was the polite thing to do, for sure, and didn’t embarrass my girlfriend, but at the same moment I’m sort of ashamed of myself. Why? For not laying into them. For not mocking them mercilessly. For not calling them ignorant, or laughing at them, or just saying that they were “very silly people.” For not quoting science incessantly until they gave up and walked away.
This reaction puzzles me as well - the second one; the one where it bothers me that I wasn’t an asshole.
I don’t quite know why, but I think it comes down to the idea that by ignoring them, I’m saying that we have a difference in opinion. But we don’t. This isn’t about an opinion, this is about them being factually inaccurate and asking me whether I believed they had the right to teach factual inaccuracy alongside - and by that note, as equal to - factual accuracy. And I don’t think they have that right. Science is not religion. One consistently and continually disproves the other, and your discomfort with that doesn’t change it. The world is not flat. Rome is not the center of the planet. Earth is not the center of the galaxy, and the whole thing isn’t 6500 years old.
All. That. Is. Demonstrably. Wrong.
You’re welcome to your own opinions, but you’re not welcome to your own facts. And I should have said that in a thousand different ways until they wrote me off as unsavable or an influence of Satan. I truly believe that the factually bereft who seek to replace fact with opinion should be marginalized and mocked for being, well, demonstrably wrong. And despite that demonstrability, for preferring to be wrong. Because who - aside from the insane - actually prefers to remain ignorant to such a degree that they’re asking the entire world to teach their insanity as intellectually equal to reality?
I think that’s what bothers me - that when push came to shove, I was polite when I shouldn’t have been. When it comes to science, and the teaching thereof, reason, reality, and fact trump fear, superstition, and religion. That needed to be said in that scenario and I dropped the ball. And if everyone else does too, under the guise of politeness, we all just threw a couple generations of children into the wilderness with the insane and told them “trust these folks, they’ll guide you.”
I should have stuck to my guns, even if those guns weren’t polite. Because unless we do, the inmates don’t just run the asylum, they teach the world. And the last time that happened we colloquially referred to it in retrospect as “The Dark Ages.”
New State Law Makes Posting Distressing Images a Crime
Tennessee: reminding people all over the world of just how backwards it really is.
My favorite comment from Reddit:
See how well this law goes down when a Moslem or atheist get offended by a christian churches photos or writings.
Questions and Answers on Atheism
I found this via luvisalluneed; I hope she doesn’t mind if I link to her answers while using the space below to answer with my own. Warning, a serious amount of text sits below the fold:
The Pope went to the continent most ravaged by AIDS and told them they couldn’t use condoms, so don’t tell me religion doesn’t do any actual harm.
Bill Maher (via cocknbull)
vruz: ratzinger makes it particularly difficult to find a moral defence for his actions. impossible without convoluted rationalisations, I’d say.
(via vruz)
Uh, let’s not act like he’s the first either. He comes from a long line of men who put faith before truth or humanity.
(via evangotlib)
Nobody is saying that Planned Parenthood cannot continue to be the largest abortion provider in America, but why do millions of pro-life taxpayers have to pay for it?
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.
Nobody is saying that you’re a huge douche….oh wait, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
(via fridaphile)
Also, this guy is fucking dumb. As the law stands now, and has since the 1990s, TITLE X FUNDS ARE ALREADY PROHIBITED FROM FUNDING ABORTIONS, ASSHOLES! Planned P’hood is only allowed to use taxpayer dollars for everything else. They have a completely separate fund set up for abortion assistance that comes solely from private donors. I facilitate trainings for new volunteers at my local PP, and we are told to highlight this fact over and over again. Get your fucking facts straight, mouthbreathers.
(via historicalupstart)
nobody is saying that america can’t continue to bomb brown people for no reason, but why do millions of anti-war taxpayers have to pay for it?
(via greenstate)
Nobody is saying public contractors can’t continue to rebuild broken infrastructure like roads, but why do millions of non-driving taxpayers have to pay for it?
(via goodreasonnews)
I can’t wait to explain to the IRS that I deducted 40% of my taxes because I’ve been told a United States representative that I don’t have to pay for that which I find objectionable.
(via evangotlib)
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny” (Caritas in Veritate, 29).
The Pope, from today’s speech in the UK
Ah history: it’s only for those who bother with A) Reading, and B) Reality. Don’t worry, The Pope repeating the completely fabricated claim that the Nazis were atheists is just par for the course. At this point I’m fairly convinced that the only people paying attention to the words coming from the papal “authority” are those who have such a fucked up and warped sense of morality that they’re somehow against or unwilling to prosecute child molesters (mainly because of the belief that some people are “above human law.”) Better still are the few who are against the distribution and usage of condoms in AIDS-ravaged locations because of the .17% chance that they won’t effectively stop the spread of the virus. I’m not real mathy, but I know good odds when I see them.
The biggest irony is that this bullshit “The Nazis, and by extension The Holocaust, happened because of Atheism” claim comes from a former member of the Hitler Youth (whose indoctrination oath ended with “so help me God.”)
But should one bother reading or knowing history, they might point out that the Nazis and the Catholic Church had their own treaty (negotiated with Hitler) which guaranteed, amongst other things:
- The right to freedom of the Roman Catholic religion.
- The oath of allegiance of the bishops: “Ich schwöre und verspreche, die verfassungsmässig gebildete Regierung zu achten und von meinem Klerus achten zu lassen” (English: I swear and vow to honor the constitutional government and to make my clergy honor it;)
- Catholic religion is taught in school and teachers for Catholic religion can be employed only with the approval of the bishop.
But let’s not let logic, history or reality get in the way of religion, right? I mean, reading and writing was so antithetical to the existence of The Church, that it was occasionally banned (as was ownership of The Bible, or the translation of such into English.)
So since I can, in fact read and research, let’s quote Mein Kampf, shall we?
“… I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord’s work.”
Maybe he’s faking it. Let’s check out a speech he gave in 1922 which was also later reproduced in one of his books:
My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
Well, that does sound convincing, but perhaps too convincing. I think Hitler doth protest too much, if you get my drift. What christian would proclaim so loudly and so often his love of Christ and christianity unless he was trying to hide something? Wait, didn’t the nazi troops march into battle wearing equipment which stated “Gott Mit Uns” or “God is with us” - that’s easily one of the sneakiest moves a closet atheist has ever made.
So how on earth is this myth still believed by anyone, let alone quoted by the pope? I don’t know. You’d think this sort of idiocy would have died out in the age of information. Maybe you just have to be the sort of person who’s willing to close their eyes and shut their ears to anything outside of that which is already pre-approved by an authority, regardless of morality, legality, or reality.
You know, like children.
But there I go again, bringing children into a conversation about the Catholic Church.
It’s probably just habit by this point.
Archdiocese defends decision to deny children because of lesbian parents - CNN.com
Here’s my take on this: It’s a horrible decision. It’s punishing the children because of an arbitrary religious law. It’s awful and shameful. But it’s the type of decision that a private institution is allowed to make.
I’m a product of a religious schooling background. The Jesuits taught me how to think, not just how to recite facts and figures. Was there religion involved? Absolutely. We had theology classes every semester. We were not required to be Catholic (nor, legally, could they only admit Catholics, so far as I know) but we were required within a Jesuit school to learn the sorts of religious lessons they saw fit to teach. It was a trade-off. They could teach the sort of things they desired since they received no state or federal monies to do so. People could choose to pay in order to receive these sorts of teachings. It happened that it was a fantastic school with a great reputation, however if its students were unable to get into colleges for lack of critical science or mathematics knowledge I think fewer parents would have chosen to admit their students.
This is why the separation of Church and State is so important. State schooling is religion-free and should stay that way. Religious schooling should be able to teach according to their own laws and morals within the boundaries of the law.
That’s the important distinction there. There’s no law saying I have to be nice. I can be an asshole to everyone, every day and it’s well within my rights. It’s a shitty way to live my life, but should I so choose, it’s a choice I can make. There’s no law (as far as I know) saying they cannot choose to not accept funds from this couple in order to school their children. Is it an abhorrent thing to do? Absolutely. Were I a member of the community would I protest? You’re damn right I would - not because I think it’s illegal, but because I want as many people to know that this place is willing to punish kindergardeners because it’s a couple centuries behind in the biological and ethical categories. Do I, and will I defend their ability to run a school according to their own rules and regulations within the scope of the law? Yes I will. They’re allowed to be assholes if they choose, just like I am allowed.
Part and parcel of me being an atheist is being on the reciprocal side of this argument - where people question my morality or my ethics because they’ve been told for decades that I’ve no moral compass. But as I said above, the Jesuits taught me to think for myself. Part of doing so is allowing others to do so as well. You can disagree with someone’s opinion, but facts are facts. They’re allowed to run this school as they so choose. They’re allowed to punish children for arbitrary distinctions in mistranslated scripture. They’re allowed to for the same reason that I’m allowed to not be forced to be a Catholic or abide by that doctrine.
It’s a classic case of disagreeing with someone’s ideas, but defending their ability to have them.
