In this video you see a confident creationist explaining his beliefs but STILL without a shred of proof. He states that the Young Earth explanation in the bible is exactly right and that it is a literal interpretation of god’s word. This, of course, is completely ridiculous to believe in an age of reason AND logically cannot stand as an argument without the most important thing, PROOF!
Faith in something that you cannot see is a refuge of the weak sheep-like masses who await their next instructions from the great talking square in the living room. The above video further illustrates how people can be tricked into believing in myths. The Creationist neither ‘owns’ nor imparts anything that logical people don’t already know; that religion is just another opiate for controlling the masses!
atheist blog
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The Jesus myth
VideoI have spoken of the Jesus myth many times and always seem to get uninformed speeches about him only being a great philosopher etc. But this video explains it perfectly and is narrated by one of the foremost intellects of our time.
International Humanist and Ethical UnionThe world union of
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Call to action: Defend the bloggers of Bangladesh
Submitted by admin on 9 April, 2013 – 16:31
There is a serious threat to freedom of thought, expression and political opinion in Bangladesh. Atheist and freethinking voices are the target (including the three bloggers paraded by the authorities in the image above).
Islamist political parties have provided government with a list of 84 “atheist bloggers” and are demanding the death penalty for “insulting religion”. Several bloggers have already been arrested and a government official promised to pursue all those listed.
Last week, we said the government would be “walking into a trap set by fundamentalists” if they gave any succour to these demands. But they did. And on Friday a rally on the order of 100,000 Islamists marched in Dhaka (video) calling for a new blasphemy law and for the execution of the atheist bloggers. Earlier this year a prominent atheist blogger was murdered in a machete attack at his home, so we are also concerned about the safety in public of those accused of “blasphemy”.
We are urging IHEU Member Organisations and humanists everywhere to act now in solidarity with the bloggers and to put an end to the threats and intimidation.
Behind the headlines
Debate between secularists (committed to separation between state and religion) and Islamists, is not unusual in Bangladesh, especially online. But the debate has now warped into open persecution. As our statement on the arrests made clear, the cause of the escalation is political. The Islamist parties are lashing out after the secular Shahbag movement, which was organised by the bloggers, demanded justice over war crimes committed by leading Islamist figures during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Mukto-Mona is a freethinking blogging network, two of whose Bangla members are among the bloggers arrested. The founder of the group told us: “Government thinks that if they put several freethinking bloggers in jail, it will keep the fundamentalists happy for the time being. The government has taken this easy route to appease a handful of mullahs whose support they need to win the upcoming election.”
This means that not only are bloggers being targeted as atheists, the campaign is also a ploy on the part of the Islamist opposition parties, and the rights and freedoms of the non-religious are being used like cards in the hand of the government, to be played however it best suits them.
Government has given a mixed message. The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has reiterated that Bangladesh is a constitutionally secular country and said, “Bangladesh does not need laws against blasphemy.” However, she also said that “existing laws are enough” because “If anybody tried to hurt any sentiments of any religion or any religious leader, there is a law. We can take any action.”
Taking action!
At IHEU we are working with freethinking bloggers and Bangla activists and making use of diplomatic channels to apply pressure on the Bangladeshi authorities. We are also encouraging our member organisations to lobby their ambassadors to Bangladesh.
But we need a coordinated, global response to defend the right to express religious criticism and secularist principles, and also to defend political activism; if the government gives in to oppressive demands now, any debate with Islamist parties in the future may be branded “hurting the sentiments of religion or religious leaders”!
There are a number of petitions set up (see the list compiled by Mukto-Mona), however none of these petitions has achieved a large following. It may be that in this case, too few people are comfortable with the complexities on the ground, and there is no obvious single recipient likely to be affected by a diffuse worldwide petition. By all means sign them, but please consider the following other actions…
#HumanistSolidarity
1. Express your dissent online. There is a “Scarlet B” campaign for bloggers and others to express solidarity with the Bangladeshi bloggers (use the image on the right). The Twitter hashtag#HumanistSolidarity has also been used in connection with the Bangladeshi bloggers.
2. Rally and protest. Thursday 25th April is a good day to hold your coordinated protest outside the Bangladeshi embassies, in line with the international day of action declaration signed by our president and many others. Contact a humanist association in your country (see our Member Directory which can be searched by country) to see if they are planning a protest event. If you are protesting, you can download the IHEU-British Humanist Association leaflets which may be edited to create your own version. (See below.)
3. Contact the ambassador to Bangladesh from your country. The American Humanist Association has urged its members and supporters to contact the US Ambassador to Bangladesh and express their concerns. Individuals in most countries can undertake a similar action, writing to protest the arrests, and the threat to freedom of speech they represent. If a national ambassador receives even a small number of letters on the same topic this can draw an issue to their attention and raise its priority with the foreign government.
4. Contact the Bangladeshi embassy or foreign office desk. This may involve a little digging to find the right correspondence address or email in your country, but a short missive drawing attention to the arrests could mean another authoritative voice feeding back to the Bangladeshi government that all is not well!
As ever when writing to foreign diplomatic missions, or to your own international officials, get the facts right, get the request right, and do be polite (otherwise you will likely be ignored). IHEU is providing pro forma messages to our Member Organisations, but individuals are encouraged to write on their own for greatest impact. For example:
- show that you understand the bloggers are being persecuted as atheists and for alleged “insuts” to religion, and that this is really a response of Islamist political parties to the Shahbag protests
- recognise that the Prime Minister has spoken against any new blasphemy law and welcome her commitment to a secular state
- but also express concern that she and other officials have said they will “take action” against atheist bloggers
- maybe a paragraph about why the international human right to freedom of religion or belief includes non-religious individuals and how we should be concerned about persecution of the non-religious
- you could explain that punishing the “atheist bloggers” now is giving in to intimidation, and will make it harder to stand up to Islamist demands in the future
- most importantly, insist that criticising religion as such, or holding to account specific religious authorities in particular, is not automatically hateful and should be protected; this is essential to maintaining a secular state
Please feel free to co
11 Badass Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes 1437 Share Chris Higginsfiled under: 111111, astronomy, celebrities, education Neil
Aside11 Badass Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes
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Neil deGrasse Tyson is America’s preeminent badass astrophysicist. He’s a passionate advocate for science, NASA, and education. He’s also well-known for a little incident involving Pluto. The man holds at least seventeen honorary doctorates in addition to his real one; we’re dealing with a badass over here. Now, eleven of our favorite NDT quotes.
1. On science: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” From Real Time with Bill Maher.
2. On NASA funding: “‘As a fraction of your tax dollar today, what is the total cost of all spaceborne telescopes, planetary probes, the rovers on Mars, the International Space Station, the space shuttle, telescopes yet to orbit, and missions yet to fly?’ Answer: one-half of one percent of each tax dollar. Half a penny. I’d prefer it were more: perhaps two cents on the dollar. Even during the storied Apollo era, peak NASA spending amounted to little more than four cents on the tax dollar.” From Space Chronicles, p. 25.
3. On God and hurricanes: “Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes…. The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms.” From Death by Black Hole, p. 361.
4. On the benefits of technology invented for use in space: “… Countless women are alive today because of ideas stimulated by a design flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.”
From Space Chronicles, p. 24.
5. On the demotion of Pluto from planet status: “I knew Pluto was popular among elementary schoolkids, but I had no idea they would mobilize into a ‘Save Pluto’ campaign. I now have a drawer full of hate letters from hundreds of elementary schoolchildren (with supportive cover letters from their science teachers) pleading with me to reverse my stance on Pluto. The file includes a photograph of the entire third grade of a school posing on their front steps and holding up a banner proclaiming, ‘Dr. Tyson—Pluto is a Planet!'” From The Sky Is Not the Limit, Kindle locations 1537-1540.
Image credit: PBS
6. On the climax of the movie Titanic: “In the movie, the stars above the ship bear no correspondence to any constellations in a real sky. Worse yet, while the heroine bobs… we are treated to her view of this Hollywood sky—one where the stars on the right half of the scene trace the mirror image of the stars in the left half. How lazy can you get?” From Death by Black Hole, p. 330.
7. On death by asteroid: “On Friday the 13th, April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup will fly so close to Earth that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, we named it Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death.” From Space Chronicles, p. 53.
8. On the motivations behind America’s moonshot: “[L]et us not fool ourselves into thinking we went to the Moon because we are pioneers, or discoverers, or adventurers. We went to the Moon because it was the militaristically expedient thing to do.” From The Sky Is Not the Limit, p. 70.
9. On who named the stars: “After the 9/11 attacks, when President George W. Bush, in a speech aimed at distinguishing the U.S. from the Muslim fundamentalists, said, ‘Our God is the God who named the stars.’ The problem is two-thirds of all the stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don’t think he knew this. This would confound the point that he was making.” From The Amazing Meeting Keynote Speech, 2008.
10. On 2012 apocalypse predictions: “There’s no greater sign of the failure of the American educational system than the extent to which Americans are distracted by the possibility that Earth might end on December 21, 2012. It’s a profound absence of awareness of the laws of physics and how nature works. So they’re missing some science classes in their training in high school or in college that would empower [them] to understand and to judge when someone else is basically just full of it. Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.” On Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, June 24, 2009.
11. Practical advice in the event of alien contact: “[I]f an alien lands on your front lawn and extends an appendage as a gesture of greeting, before you get friendly, toss it an eightball. If the appendage explodes, then the alien was probably made of antimatter. If not, then you can proceed to take it to your leader.” From Death by Black Hole, p. 107.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I included citations for each quote because I prefer research to reassurance, and want to give you primary sources for this stuff — and our man NDT has been intentionally misquoted before. Check out his books and movies and audiobooks for top-notch science content. And stay tuned for his Cosmos sequel.
November 13, 2012 – 4:11am
Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/13049/11-badass-neil-degrasse-tyson-quotes#ixzz2UqVZLuw5
–brought to you by mental_floss!
New website!
StandardAmerican Atheists Launches New WebsitePosted on: May 23, 2013
We are pleased to roll out a brand new website design to our members and supporters!
Among the features of the new website is a full integration between your online account and your membership records. After you have created a new user account, please allow for a 1-3 business days for your account to be linked to your membership record. Please note that this means that your old login information will no longer work. This is for your security and to allow for the use of email addresses (rather than usernames) as the login method.
In the mean time, you are welcome to browse our new site, check out the magazine archive, watch past issues of the Atheist Viewpoint, and read up on the history of American Atheists.
If you find problems, errors, or bugs in the site, please email us at website@atheists.org so we can correct it.
Tolerance for religion
StandardI was watching Religulous the other day when the doorbell rang heralding the arrival of my good friends the Mormons. I carefully kept out of site hoping that these suited minions of pseudo-Scientology would give up and take their gold-tablet loving asses back to the stake house and leave me the fuck alone! Little did I know that my wonderful little daughter had slipped away from me and had run to answer the door. Before I could catch her I was standing face to face with ‘The Lords faithful’ greeting them and trying to figure out an escape plan.
You see, my wife and I had been baptized Mormons many years ago in an effort to figure out how to allay the doubts that we had regarding religion and faith. We had grown wary of the various sects of Christianity due to the logical conclusion that none of them had a viable interpretation of the faith and were just winging it. Both of us were, by that time, really non-believers in the making and did not know how to take that next step toward complete mental freedom. Even now my wife is still to uncomfortable psychologically to say that she is an atheist but I know that she does not believe in a deity of any sort. From here I continue my uncomfortable encounter.
The two Mormons identified themselves as our family’s home teachers and expressed wished to reclaim us from the ranks of inactivity. I replied that we had distanced ourselves from the church and had no desire to continue our association with LDS and thanked them profusely for their time and efforts. They, in turn, gave me a couple of stern looks of disbelief and continued to press on in the soul-saving effort to reclaim us from the Devil’s clutches. Now one does not know the tenacity of a Mormon who has had his corn flakes pissed in, but I’ll tell you, these folks can shit a few bricks on command when properly challenged and I could see the shit eeking out of their Haggars as they stood there! They then began a series of questions designed to extricate the reasons for our reluctance to enter into The Celestial Kingdom. I told them that I had shitted in my magical underwear and had been forced to throw it away, further damning me to an eternal fiery death with a side of pestilence. No, I didn’t tell them that, it just popped into my head, but I sure as Hell thought it!
Actually I told them that we would not be needing their services and that I had become an atheist in a strong, like fucking Superman rending steel with his bare hands strong type of way, and that the chance of us coming back into the fold was absolutely none. The guys continued to eye us as if Satan were behind the door holding a gun to our heads or possibly aliens had inserted their shit radar into our anuses and around our brain stems. Taking ‘no’ for an answer really hadn’t crossed their minds and certainly didn’t appear in Joe Smith’s book on how to reclaim fucked up followers, but I was firm and kept trying to focus these clowns on the inevitable. They were going to leave with a few names crossed off of the church roster and that was that! I imagined pulling out my trusty bottle of Anti-Christ and hosing ’em down until they dissolved like a donut in Brundlefly’s vomit but stuck to gently closing the door and thanking them for wasting my atheist documentary time.
I returned to the couch feeling a little sad for them because they so blindly and strongly follow their faith, but I have to take a stand somewhere in the scheme of personal belief and throw down the spear. Now when the JW’s show up again, I’m whippin’ out the Anti-Christ and goin’ to town! Woot! Woot! On go the black robes and the goat’s head and out come the rubber penises baby!! PEACE!
hitchens67 Atheism WOW!! Logic and reason campaign 