Skeptically Speaking!

In my various travels, I have rarely encountered a true skeptic that held to any particular religion. I have known those who carefully weigh issues and facts, but not exercised true measures of skeptical thinking in everyday matters. Many professed religious people use degrees of critical thought and questioning, but are not actually devout in beliefs and are sort of half-assed about the whole matter. My assessment of the subject is that down deep these folks actually don’t believe in the crazy batshittery of talking snakes and holy zombies, they are just adhering to the early indoctrination of their childhood. My experience with true skeptics is that you actually can’t believe in obvious bullshit and be considered skeptical. Maybe you have degrees of skepticality, but will exercise cognitive dissonance when the ball rolls into the religious court. The truth of the matter is is that belief in talking animals, corporeal gods on Earth, and walking on water is a willful suspension of critical thinking and common sense.

My personal favorites are the complete imbeciles that know that the bible is complete bullshit, but fall back on the ‘its just parables, a guideline to live by,’ crap, ignoring that if this shit is true, then Adam and Eve are parables and Original Sin is complete schtakko. If this is the case, then that nullifies the need for salvation and a savior to be nailed to the cross after having the shit beaten out of Him in the name of Himself! Let’s forget about the fact that He is Jesus and Jesus is Him and that He prays to Himself like a schizophrenic off of His fucking meds, THAT shit is downright off the effing hook in and of itself, but far be it from the faithful to see this obvious fact because they already believe in something that has absolutely NO basis in reality!

The asshole, Bill O’Reilly is one of these idiots who invalidates his own religion by being a non-believer in the word of his Almighty God! Parables, these shitbirds say! I have never heard such a wishy-washy bunch of sissified nonsense in my entire life! These aren’t believers, these are people who cling to being homophobic, close-minded assholes just for the fuck of it! If they really adhered to the faith, then they have to believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, genocide, rape, mass murder and all! None of this cherry picking shit! If you don’t actually believe, then don’t try to lie your slimy asses out of it, just admit that you were incapable of true honesty and that you don’t actually believe in talking snakes and other batshittery!

I was frequently told as a child to not over think things, to trust in God and not to always try to rationalize why that shit seemed so fucking crazy to me even as a 12 year old kid. The constant admonishing to stay ignorant permeated religious people around me as I grew up, and followed me into young adulthood. The more questions that were asked, the more the heads of the faith tried to conjure answers based in no evidence or sensibility whatsoever. In the Reagan 80’s, a new approach appeared on the scene in which progressive ‘its cool to be a Christian’ youth ministers started to ‘encourage’ questioning saying that God WANTED His followers to be inquisitive. What this approach actually was was a creation of circular arguments that were designed to baffle with bullshit while giving the impression that questions had actually been answered! The only thing that happened during these exercises in futility, was that those with a very limited scientific background became satisfied that their pastors actually knew what they were peddling. The truth of the matter was that there was no science involved in the explanations and the language of fire and damnation was finally euphemized to dummy down the goddamned crazy talk.

The reality of these matters is that innocent children still die of cancer, starvation, cruel acts of child abuse and an all powerful deity continues to sit on His hands and remain silent! Basketball and football teams still continue to win games according to those that pray for a win. Super rich celebrities continue to thank God for their good fortune while people are raped and murdered in Sudan and the Congo, but the God of Abraham continues to demand supplication from poor hapless assholes to ignorant to stand on their own without the crutch of religion.

A very wise person once told me that 90% of living people are followers, and 10% are forward thinkers, the 90% just drag the 10% down. Now of that 10%, only about less than 5% are true born leaders. Leaders are few and far between, just look at the political landscape here in Murcuh, as Dudya was so fond of calling it. We give legacy kids and scumbag Chicago lawyers the reins of the country and just let them sell us out! Great leadership! The common denominator is how far you go to hand over our country to special interest.

These assholes are experts, and before you rush to the keyboard to write about doing something about it instead of bitching, I already do, in the form of blogging it out there, raising awareness, voting, signing petitions, donating money, writing Congress, you name it! I get shit ALL the time from armchair quarterbacks who get pissed because they feel inadequate in the light of activism! Hell, I’m about ready to launch a video podcast to increase activism and awareness, what else can a person do? I would say better than my fair share and proud to do it! Going against the common thought and promoting critical skeptical thinking is immense in its own right! I implore EVERYONE to question EVERYTHING that anyone tries to pass off as absolute truth, because the more that you question, the greater your skeptical thought process grows. Very few people think skeptically, they are too busy entrenched in their own thoughts and worldview. Changing requires pliability, forward thinking, introspect and true self awareness, things that most people definitely do not possess. I am guilty of closing my mind as well, but I am also actively trying to open it as wide as possible. The more open that you are to change the quicker you advance intellectually! I strive for greater knowledge and reach beyond my limited borders every single day to grasp a better understanding of everything for the benefit of my people and my world. It starts in small places and spreads once the seeds take hold.

Ridding the world of the sand pits that people plug with their heads is one of the most important things that one can do, and religion is one of these pits. Regardless of the small good that it does, the adherence to religious practice fosters bigotry, scientific ignorance and personal shame over just being human. People were NOT born in sin, and do fucking NOT need to accept a 2.000 year old zombie as their personal savior to gain self worth! This is the most patently ridiculous bullshit that any psychotic entity could try to pass off! As I mentioned above, most Christians don’t even read, adhere or believe in their own Bible, so why should anyone take them seriously? Scientists have to run their research through rigorous tests and peer review before publishing, well even MENTIONING results, why don’t Christian have to know the very manual that they are supposed to live their lives by? Most Christians that I have spoken too can only quote the most popular passages of the Bible and wither under my knowledge of it, why? Because I, the atheist, have actually READ the goddamned thing cover to amoral cover and know its contents!

My summary is quite simple. Lose your Bible and start questioning everything going on around you. Don’t be paranoid, just skeptical. Leave behind Fox News and CNN and start searching the internet for cross references to important news stories, why? The absence of reporters means that the news is not driven by parlor tricks and theatrics. It still needs vetting, but if you go to multiple sites, then you can start to correlate facts. This is just one example of encouraging skepticality. Religion doesn’t allow this because it usually leads to the debunking of the fantastic paranormal claims of its doctrine. There is no evidence in religion, that is the problem. Also, do a simple Google search to obtain the vast list of transitions species. Most people make false claims based only on the admonition of apologists who generally state that Evolution is a lie due to a lack of these fossils, ( that can easily be found……). Remember that ignorance involves the willful suspension of skeptical, critical thinking. Question fantastic claims and forget about the afterlife! You only have one life, and if you waste it trying to obtain a divine death, then you have missed out on everything. We atheists live for now because their IS no doing it over, or living forever in an unprovable heaven. We don’t do good because a magical man in the sky is judging us, we do good because it is the right thing to do and morality is innate, no given by some imaginary god. So get out there and live your life and try to change the world for the better based upon scientific truth. Peace be unto you, Allllalalalalalalasalamimallleekhum my brothers and sisters!

 

Alyssa Lies!

I was an abused child, so I love this video!

I remember when the faithful boyfriends of my crazy mother used to add the physical aspect to the punishment.

Antonin Scalia is an asshole!

 

12:31 PM ET

 

Scalia says atheism ‘favors the devil’s desires’

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-editor

(CNN) – As the Supreme Court begins its new term Monday, the devil is not on the docket – but the Evil One apparently is on the mind of Justice Antonin Scalia.

New York magazine has published a fascinating new interview with Scalia in which the outspoken jurist tackled a number of topics. But none seemed to surprise Scalia’s interviewer, Jennifer Senior, more than his views on Satan.

The interview was conducted on September 26, the 27th anniversary of Scalia’s swearing-in as a justice on the high court. He is one of a record six Catholic justices on the Supreme Court.

After Scalia and Senior discussed heaven and hell (he believes in them; she doesn’t), the justice said in a stage whisper, “I even believe in the devil.”

“You do?” Senior replied.

“Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, come on, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that,” Scalia said.

Senior asked Scalia if he’s seen evidence of Satan’s work recently.

“You know, it is curious,” Scalia answered. “In the Gospels, the devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore. … It’s because he’s smart.”

MORE FROM CNN: How to argue about religion online

Scalia said the Devil has gotten “wilier” and convinced people that he and God don’t exist. The justice added that he doesn’t think that atheists are Satan’s minions, but that disbelief in God “certainly favors the devil’s desires.”

Senior asked if it’s “frightening” to believe in the devil, which seemed to annoy Scalia.

“You’re looking at me as though I’m weird,” he answered. “My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, soremoved from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil! Most of mankind has believed in the devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil.”

Scalia, whose son, Paul, is a Catholic priest in Arlington, Virginia, also said Pope Francis is “absolutely” right about the church needing to concentrate more on mercy and outreach than on fighting the culture wars.

MORE FROM CNN: American Catholics agree with Pope Francis on ending culture wars

“But he hasn’t backed off the view of the church on those issues,” Scalia said. “He’s just saying, ‘Don’t spend all our time talking about that stuff. Talk about Jesus Christ and evangelize.’ I think there’s no indication whatever that he’s changing doctrinally.”

Finally, Scalia said he has not “softened” his views on homosexuality.

“I still think it’s Catholic teaching that it’s wrong. OK? But I don’t hate the people that engage in it. In my legal opinions, all I’ve said is that I don’t think the Constitution requires the people to adopt one view or the other,” Scalia said.

MORE FROM CNN: Church and state, executive power on Supreme Court docket

 

Even the highest echelon must now listen to us!!

 

November 1st, 2013 04:39 PM ET   Atheist gets her day at the Supreme Court By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer (CNN)– Linda Stephens has lived in her upstate New York community for more than three decades and has long been active in civic affairs. But as an atheist, those views have put her at the center of a personal, political, and legal fight that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue is public prayer at her local town board meetings, another contentious case over the intersection of faith and the civic arena. The justices on Wednesday will hear arguments over whether Greece, New York, may continue sponsoring what it calls “inclusive” prayers at its open sessions, on government property. Stephens and co-plaintiff Susan Galloway have challenged the policy, saying virtually all of those invited to offer legislative prayers over the years were Christians. “It’s very divisive when you bring government into religion,” Stephens told CNN from her home. “I don’t believe in God, and Susan is Jewish, so to hear these ministers talk about Jesus and even have some of them who personally question our motives, it’s just not appropriate.” The town of about 94,000 residents counters that after concerns from the two women and others, it sought diverse voices, including a Wiccan priestess, to offer invocations. Officials say they do not review the content of the remarks, nor censor any language. “The faith of the prayer giver does not matter at all,” said John Auberger, Greece’s board supervisor, who began the practice shortly after taking office 1998. “We accept anyone who wants to come in and volunteer to give the prayer to open up our town meetings.” A federal appeals court in New York found the board’s policy to be an unconstitutional violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which forbids any government “endorsement” of religion. Those judges said it had the effect of “affiliating the town with Christianity.” “To the extent that the state cannot make demands regarding the content of legislative prayers,” said Judge Guido Calabresi, “municipalities have few means to forestall the prayer-giver who cannot resist the urge to proselytize. These difficulties may well prompt municipalities to pause and think carefully before adopting legislative prayer, but they are not grounds on which to preclude its practice.” Some legal experts say while the high court has allowed public prayers in general, it has not set boundaries on when they might become too sectarian in nature. “The case involves a test between two different kinds of legal rules,” said Thomas Goldstein, SCOTUSblog.com publisher and a leading Washington attorney. “The Supreme Court has broadly approved legislative prayer without asking too many questions. But in other cases where the government is involved with religion, it has looked at lots of different circumstances. So we just don’t know whether this court will be completely approving of legislative prayers in this instance.” The justices are now being asked to offer more firm guidelines over when and if such public prayers are constitutionally acceptable. Felt marginalized Galloway and Stephens say the elected board of the community outside Rochester almost always invited Christian clergy to open the meetings, usually with sectarian prayers. And they say they felt “marginalized” by the practice. “When we tried to speak with the town, we were told basically if we didn’t like the prayers, we didn’t have to listen,” said Stephens, “or could stand out in the hallway while they were going on.” Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Washington-based group that is representing the two women, cited records showing that between 1999 and 2010, approximately two-thirds of the invocations contained the words “Jesus Christ,” Jesus,” Holy Spirit,” or “Your Son.” And the lawsuit claims that from 1999 through 2007, every meeting had a Christian-only invocation. Following the complaints from the plaintiffs, four other faiths were invited in 2008, including a Baha’i leader and a Jewish lay person. The plaintiffs say the Christian-only invocations resumed from January 2009 through June 2010. They claim those invited to the monthly meetings were selected by a city employee from a local guide that had no non-Christian faiths listed. “Politics and religion simply don’t mix, and they certainly don’t mix in the local context of the Greece town council,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, AUSCS executive director. “The town seems to take the position that because once or twice over a decade, it hears from someone of a different religion, that somehow is inclusive. It trivializes what’s going here – a local government that should be willing and interested in participation of all its citizens, it wants those citizens to participate in an almost inevitably Christian prayer, in order to begin doing their business.” Different rulings While the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New York last year unanimously ruled against Greece’s policy, other courts around the country have found such invocations – if inclusive and limited in scope – to be permissible. Congress regularly opens its sessions with a prayer. Wednesday’s invocation by House Chaplain the Rev. Patrick Conroy began: “Eternal God, we give you thanks for giving us another day. Once again, we come to ask wisdom, patience, peace, and understanding for the members of this people’s House.” Nearly 120 members of Congress, mostly Republicans, along with several state attorneys general have filed supporting legal briefs backing the city. So has the Obama administration. “The history of prayers offered in connection with legislative deliberation in this country makes clear that a legislative body need not affirmatively solicit a court-mandated variety of different religious faiths– from inside and outside the borders governed by the legislative body– in order to avoid running afoul of the Establishment Clause,” said Justice Department lawyers’ in their amicus brief. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal ministry based in Scottsdale, Arizona, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Greece Town Board, saying the Supreme Court has upheld the practice of government bodies “to acknowledge America’s religious heritage and invoke divine guidance and blessings upon their work.” “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” said Brett Harvey, an attorney for the group. “Because the authors of the Constitution invoked God’s blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn’t suddenly be deemed unconstitutional.” Stephens realizes the stakes are high for her community and for the law as a whole. But on a personal level, this legal fight has been tough. “I’ve received something of a backlash, both Susan and me,” the retired librarian said. “Threatening letters, some vandalism to my property, things like that. The prayers, and all the controversy, it makes you feel like an outcast, like we don’t count in our town.” The case is Town of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway (12-696). A ruling is expected by early summer.

Pain and gain and sustain

‘Twas a great 20th Anniversary, with great beer, wine and wonderful food! Following my long laborious post of the impending apocalypse, I feel that I need to post a little cheer and ease to lighten the mood a bit and prove that this atheist is not just teeth and vitriol. I have given to awakening the kids for school, watching or Googling 15 minutes of the news and going to the gym on my off days. This affords an opportunity to shut out all of the negativity served up by the hacks that control pseudo journalism these days, and allows me to concentrate on more important matters around the house. 

I currently have one college student and two school age children, so I do not have an enormous amount of time to spend dwelling on the idiocy of humankind, ( politicians, lawyers, supervisors, lemmings and other assholes ). I tend now to surround myself with forward thinking self-sufficient people who contribute to a positive environment and are productive members of our small tribe of realists. We do not delude ourselves about the world or keep our heads in the sand, but we have fun and create our own oasis of positive energy in the black lagoon surrounding us. We are strong and do not let outsiders intrude upon our peace and our bastion of reasonable thought. We cultivate thought and forward motion as well as sustainability among our band and seek only to be prepared in case we have to become more insular. Besides that, we eat, drink and be merry!

My wife and I consider ourselves the Mulder and Scully of our group not because we are in power, but because we provide direction without SEEKING power. You see, Kevin Costner said it well when he said “If you build it, they will come.” We have built a warm environment for like minded people to gather and express their thoughts without the threat of blowback from short-sighted sheeple. The fact that there is gourmet food and home made beer has nothing to do with it I’m sure, but we are happy to have such a diverse and growing number of people coming to our door. We are Mormons without the religion but with all of the preparation. We have no sterling temples here and no faith in gods, just in the people that we collect along the way. Amazingly enough, we have come in contact with other ‘tribes’ of people cobbled together by strong individuals into self-sustaning little communities insular from their peers. All of these people come from different walks of life and are spread across a wide spectrum of professions from hospitality to medical to technology. None of the people that we associate with are without a usable skill to benefit the community and everyone has an equal place in the sustainability chain. 

We are not people who wish to separate, just people who wish to be prepared. So on that note I will end this post and get my flabby ass to the gym to blast my fucking delts, level my lats, pump up my chest….you get the point! Have a reasonable, logic-filled day!