The newest comic from Something Positive seems strangely appropriate for my blogathon:
If you’re not reading SP, I command you to start now. And read all the back story. I’ve been reading that comic since I was 13, and have yet to be disappointed.
This is post 27 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
This is a guest post by Mike Brownstein, political science graduate student and blogger at Politics and Pucks.
At the SSA conference last week, Greta Christina said one thing that has been on my mind all week. She said that the secular movement is the first political movement where she has been a part of where she felt that people had her back on LGBT issues. As an ally I take this as a great compliment. One thing that atheists and LGBTQ individuals share it is a sense of pride about their causes and communities. In many cities around the world, LGBTQ communities share this pride with parades and a variety of other events. In some places it is very warmly received. For example, the Stanley Cup made a visit to the Chicago parade. However, in some places LGBTQ events are met with stark religious opposition. One of these places is in Israel.
The pride parade in Jerusalem is one that continues to be starkly opposed. In years’ past, the parade has seen its members severely insulted, and murder is not uncommon. Most of this opposition comes from the very religious nature of the city. This year, deputy Mayor Yitzhak Pindrus suggested the city run a “donkey parade” alongside the pride parade as a counter-protest. Pindrus claimed he wanted to show the “bestial nature of the pride march”. Luckily, the municipality was not in favor of sponsoring this. Although this idea was shot down, counter-protest occurred. Organized protests had posters that claimed that homosexuality is a voluntary disease, “sick perverts, leave Jerusalem”, and even a parade of puppet donkeys. Having been to Israel, this doesn’t surprise me. It is one of those major cities (similar to Cincinnati, OH), that has a conservative mind set. It should be expected for the religious symbolism, but at the same time, hate like this is unacceptable.
If there’s something to take from this, it is that LGBT as well as church-and-state issues exist globally. Israel, like the United States, has problems with ignorance on issues of LGBT and religion. Although America’s problems with religion are different, the similarity with Israel is sometimes sickening. The religious institutions there are very entwined with the government too. Even in another highly democratic country exist the same religious conflicts.
Something else that we should take into consideration, is that the LGBT community is our ally and vice versa. After hearing Greta Christina’s speech I’m even more convinced that our groups should be supporting one another. For one, there is considerable overlap between the communities. Not to mention the Purdue Society of Non-Theists are a part of the Queer Student Union. We should be using that to our mutual benefit, because we are fighting the same people about similar issues. As an ally, I’m proud to be a part of the secular movement, and happy that my LGBT peers feel safe that people like us exist!
This is post 26 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
…here you go. Transcript:
“When I decided to homeschool my six year old son, I told him we were going to do “Dinosaur Week”. Which turned into “Dinosaur Month”… at the least! We watched “Walking With Dinosaurs” and a lot of other documentaries. He’s a pretty smart kid, too, so even he ended up saying “Ok. Scientists say that God isn’t real. They say earth is a kajillion years old. They say that people and dinosaurs weren’t alive at the same time and that a lot of dinosaurs could have died from a big flood, but that The Flood didn’t happen. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!”. He gets really upset about people not believing in God – as in he doesn’t want them to go to hell and he can’t believe people can ignore God all around us. Every time we watch one of those dinosaur things, he gives a big, overly-dramatic sigh whenever they start talking about “millions of years” or evolution.
One that really cracked him up was where they theorize about reptiles evolving into humanoid creatures. Good grief! And they teach most of this stuff as FACT in schools!!!! I can’t believe it. Neither can a six year old. So WHY is it so accepted?!!?
I teach him what makes SENSE. NOT what science textbooks say. I also teach my kids to question what they are taught – especially what they learn in school. It’s really not fun at all having a bunch of junior scientists in the house when 99% of science seems to be atheistic.”
*brain explodes*
Yes, because if something doesn’t make sense to a 6 year old, it’s obviously wrong. That’s also how we’ve disproved gravity and economic policy and algebra. Ironclad logic.
…I …I’m not even going to bother refuting everything Random Internet Creationist Parent has to say. It’s really not going to accomplish anything other than make me weep for humanity. Seriously, it kills me that little kids are being brainwashed like this. Is he one day going to wise up, and then have to deal with the crushing social stigma of leaving your family’s religion? Will he become trapped in this mindless acceptance of unthinking religious dogma and never have the skills to do anything more than flip burgers? Or even more terrifying, will he go on to be your child’s biology teacher?
Auuugghhabbbbllllhhh. Should have saved this post for night so I could relabel it as a scary ghost story.
And yes, it was painful for me to type those periods outside of the quotes.
This is post 20 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
On one hand, it’s nice knowing the US isn’t alone in its appalling understanding of evolution. On the under hand… WTF, Australia:
Fundamentalist Christians are hijacking Religious Instruction (RI) classes in Queensland despite education experts saying Creationism and attempts to convert children to Christianity have no place in state schools.
Students have been told Noah collected dinosaur eggs to bring on the Ark, and Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs because they were under a protective spell.
Critics are calling for the RI program to be scrapped after claims emerged Christian lay people are feeding children misinformation.
It’s bad enough children are being fed religious garbage that will only muddle their real scientific education. But when parents opt to have their children removed from this program (which they have the right to do), the children are often ostracized and discriminated against. Here’s just one unfortunate example:
A parent of a Year 5 student on the Sunshine Coast said his daughter was ostracised to the library after arguing with her scripture teacher about DNA.
“The scripture teacher told the class that all people were descended from Adam and Eve,” he said.
“My daughter rightly pointed out, as I had been teaching her about DNA and science, that ‘wouldn’t they all be inbred’?
“But the teacher replied that DNA wasn’t invented then.”
After the parent complained, the girl spent the rest of the year’s classes in the library.
I do like photo and caption the article uses, though:
“The only time man has walked with dinosaurs – in the Jurassic Park films.”
Journalism Win.
This is post 18 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
From formspring.me: If the atheism thing didn’t pan out, what religion would you be?
I’m going to assume this is a hypothetical world where any religion I wish to be true actually is. My first instinct was to say Greek mythology, since I’ve always been a fan of the stories. But upon two seconds of reflection, I realized that would kind of suck. Being a Greek goddess would be fairly awesome, what with all the magical powers and transfiguration into animals and crazy debauchery, but being a human worshipper would suck. Just think about it. Gods constantly interfering in your business, placing bets on what you do for their own amusement, randomly choosing you as a mate against your will, punishing you for being intellectually curious…yeah, maybe not the best belief system.
I do really like the idea of reincarnation. I’m the kind of person who is sometimes paralyzed by over analyzing choices. Even the tiniest stuff we do can have lifelong consequences. For example, if I would have chosen to major in art at IU instead of biology at Purdue, I would be such a different person. I would probably be more religious, less skeptical, and of course have a totally different set of friends. I would have never created this blog, or traveled across the country for biology conferences. But at the same time, what experiences did I miss out on by choosing Purdue?
I see reincarnation as a way that I could experience everything in life. Maybe I chose to be a scientist in this life, but I could be an artist in another. Maybe a musician in the next. I want to keep experiencing humanity as much as possible. To me, that’s why death can be so scary – your experiences are done, and you never know what happened after you were gone. What events marked human history? What did we learn about the universe? It’s like opening a good book and having it snatched away before you get to the climax.
But I wouldn’t want to necessarily live forever, and especially not in paradise. Paradise sounds boring to me – what’s life if it’s always perfect? If I reach that point where I’ve seen it all and my curiosity has satisfied me, I’m happy to blip out of existence. Or reach Nirvana or something. Blipping out of existence is my preferred term.
There are a bunch of religions that believe in reincarnation, but unfortunately I don’t know enough about most of them to say which I like the best. If I could just tack reincarnation onto secular humanism, that would be good enough for me.
Though I do have to say, Pastafarianism doesn’t sound that bad. The Eight I Really Rather You Didn’ts offer fairly sound moral guidance, every Friday is a holiday, most holidays involve extreme amounts of silliness, and there’s a stripper factory and beer volcano in heaven. What more could you ask for?
So, if you had to pick one, what religion would you be?
This is post 12 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
Are you an atheist who’s had dating problems? No wonder! Didn’t you know all the dating advice you need is in the Bible? Why, here are some obvious suggestions for finding a woman that you probably never thought of because of your blaspheming ways:
2) “Lay hold on” a virgin who is not betrothed to another man, and have sex with her, but afterwards pay her father a sum of money. Then she’s yours. (Deut. 22:28-29)
4) Find a man with seven daughters, and impress him by watering his flock.–Moses (Ex. 2:16-21)
5) Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal.–Boaz (Ruth 4:5-10)
6) Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife.–Benjaminites (Judges 21:19-25)
You can read the rest of these woman-finding tips here. As for finding a man… sorry, the Bible doesn’t give many more tips other than “sit and wait until a man buys/rapes you.” Don’t we have it easy, ladies?!
This is post 10 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
My dad is one of the major reasons I’m an atheist. Ever since I was little, he instilled a healthy skepticism of religion in me. For one, he thought it was very important not to indoctrinate me in any particular faith. We never went to church and I was never taught about Christianity, unlike him or my half brothers (whose mom won out on that argument). I was left to my own devices. And when you’re gobbling up Greek mythology and fantasy novels, modern religions just didn’t seem too different in my head.
He also had his nuggets of wisdom. “No man is killed for any reason more than in the name of God,” was a frequent saying of his. And when a younger me asked why we didn’t go to church, he responded “You don’t have to go to church to be a good person. Plenty of people who go to church and are praying the loudest have also done the worst things.”
Despite this, I never heard him call himself an atheist. I’m not sure if he even knew it was an appropriate label for himself until I started the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue. I had noticed that now that I was more vocal about my atheism, he was also becoming more vocal in his criticisms of religion. Not long ago he saw I had a copy of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and I mentioned it was a really good read. Armed with a Kindle, he read it and loved it. The criticism of religion has definitely increased even more (Dawkins has that effect on people).
I just saw him, and he said I would be proud of him. He was grocery shopping and a man in a suit came up to him. He said he recognized him from when he coached high school basketball, so my dad stopped to talk. He then asked if he could have a minute of his time and tried to give him a pamphlet about Christianity.
Dad: Sorry, but you’ll just be wasting your time on me.
Guy: Why’s that?
Dad: Because I’m an atheist.
The guy was flustered and wanted to debate, but my dad just went along with his grocery shopping.
This is the first time I’ve heard him used the dreaded “a” word, and to practically a stranger no less. One way to increase acceptance of the non-religious in our society is to let people know that every day, good people are atheists. We’re fathers, we’re basketball coaches, and we do our grocery shopping at the same place as you. It may have taken him 64 years to do it (yesterday was his birthday!), but it’s never too late.
And yes, I am very proud of him.
Why? Religious reasons, of course:
A former bus driver has sued the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, charging that the nine-county transit service discriminated against him based on his religion when he was fired for refusing to drive women to a Planned Parenthood clinic in January.
Edwin Graning, who was hired as a driver on April 1, 2009, was “concerned that he might be transporting a client to undergo an abortion” when he was assigned to take two women to Planned Parenthood, according to his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Austin.
Graning is seeking reinstatement, back pay and undisclosed damages for pain, suffering and emotion distress. He is represented by lawyers from the American Center for Law & Justice, founded by evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson.
Joanna Salinas, an Austin lawyer who represents the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, said, “CARTS denies that it discriminated against Mr. Graning because of his religion, and we are looking forward to responding to the lawsuit in court.”
The system, operated under an agreement among participating counties, offers bus service on fixed routes and through requested pickup for residents in the nonurban areas of Travis and Williamson counties and in all of Bastrop, Burnet, Blanco, Caldwell, Fayette, Hays and Lee counties.
After he was dispatched to take the women to Planned Parenthood in January, Graning called his supervisor “and told her that, in good conscience, he could not take someone to have an abortion,” his lawsuit said. The women’s names, their location and the clinic location were not included in the lawsuit. Planned Parenthood also provides health care services unrelated to abortion.
Graning, a Kyle resident, is “an ordained Christian minister who is opposed to abortion,” the lawsuit said.
His supervisor, who is not named, responded by saying, “Then you are resigning,” the suit said.
Graning denied he was resigning and was later told to drive his bus back to the yard and then was fired, the lawsuit said.
It is not religious discrimination if you are refusing to do your job. If you were a Muslim bus driver you would be required to take people to a bar, and if you were a Jewish bus driver you would be required to take people to a butcher that sells pork. If you don’t want to perform your duties, don’t pick a job that’s going to require you to act against your religious beliefs. The same goes for pharmacists who don’t want to provide birth control because of their own moral convictions – don’t become a pharmacist if you can’t be a pharmacist because of your ethics.
Why can’t some religious people understand the concept that their religious rights end where my rights begin? You can feel free to believe in whatever you want. You cannot, however, force me to believe the same thing or follow the same rules. And that’s exactly what’s happening in situations like this – religious people are denying services to people so those people don’t do something “immoral.” It’s not the bus driver who’s getting an abortion, or the pharmacist who’s taking the birth control. They’re policing what you do with their religious standards.
Not to mention that only 3% of Planned Parenthood services are abortion services. From pure statistical likelihood, it’s more probably that this man has stopped these women from getting Pap smears, breast examinations, STD tests, or birth control. Good job, sir.
(Via Religion Clause)
Oh, Vatican. Can you ever say something without shoving your foot in your mouth? It’s great that you revised your laws to make disciplining sex-abuser priest easier, but you couldn’t just stop at that, could you?
But what astonished many Catholics was the inclusion of the attempt to ordain women in a list of the “more grave delicts,” or offenses, which included pedophilia, as well as heresy, apostasy and schism. The issue, some critics said, was less the ordination of women, which is not discussed seriously inside the church hierarchy, but the Vatican’s suggestion that pedophilia is a comparable crime in a document billed a response to the sexual abuse crisis.
Ah, yes. Women with power – just as bad as child molesters!
Not to mention heresy and apostasy are also lumped with pedophilia. Anyone who has spoken out against Catholicism? All you former Catholics? Same level as child molesters. Congratulations.
What kind of proof would it take for you to believe in God? This is a question I get surprisingly often. I usually start with one of these two answers:
1. I’m not sure, but if God is all knowing, he will surely know exactly what to do to convince me.
2. A large live tuna would appear in front of me right now! *waits expectantly* … *disappointment*
Yeah, I’m kind of a smartass at times. But then I usually follow up with a real, thoughtful answer. Greta Christina has an excellent article where she does just this: 6 (Unlikely) Developments That Could Convince This Atheist To Believe in God. It’s long but worth the read.
So how about you? What kind of proof would it take to convince you that God really exists? This could be anything from a vague deist God to Zeus to the Christian God of some highly specific sect.
