"The overturning of "don't ask, don't tell" is likely to create a ripple effect in addressing other gay-rights issues."

The headline above is a quote from a Yahoo news article from today. A ripple affect? Yep. Are Christians outraged? Yep. Why? Because secular law is once again surpassing the repulsive "moral" codes of the Bible.

Anyone in western society agrees that slavery, genocide, the repression of women's rights, child abuse/child labor and the genital mutilation of children is immoral. Yet the Bible, in the Old Testament and New Testament does not denounce slavery, genocide, the repression of women's rights, child abuse/child labor and the genital mutilation of children as immoral.

Why isn't slavery, genocide, the repression of women's rights, child abuse/child labor and the genital mutilation of children denounced as immoral in the Ten Commandments? Because the Ten Commandments are not worth the paper they are printed on.

This brings up a good point. Why isn't equal rights and human rights found in the Ten Commandments? Why doesn't the Ten Commandments insist that injuring, abusing, oppressing, torturing or killing any person is completely immoral? Why are women treated the same as farm animals in the tenth commandment? Why would any woman be part of an organization which states that a woman is simply a man's property. Why aren't women running as fast as they can away from the church and the Bible?

Why aren't there timeless morals and ethics found in the Ten Commandments? They aren't there. The first two commandments of the Bible have nothing to do with ethics, they are simply injunctions. What society says that murder and stealing is allowed? None that I know of.

The Ten Commandments is the best an omnipotent god can do? I'm certainly not impressed. How is it that I've come up with better and timeless morals and ethics than the first few paragraphs of my blog and your omnipotent god failed to do this several thousand years ago? Am I a god? Maybe you think I am. How could I write better morals than those found in the Ten Commandments? It's easy. There is no god. No god inspired the Bible. Ancient primitive men wrote the Bible in the culture and science of their day trying to explain the world around them and they failed miserably.

Don't covet your neighbors property? A thought crime? Gross. To suppress your desire to better yourself, is a bad thing? Christians subscribe to the "Keep up with the Joneses" decree on a daily basis. We've hear the words thousands of times, "God blessed me with material things." How many Christians sell all of their property as Jesus recommends in the New Testament? Christians scoff at this direction by their almighty savior. Christians: It's called cherry picking the Bible. Christians use the Bible for whatever purpose they so desire. It's disgusting.

How many Christians buy that new car, get that kitchen remodel, purchase a new home, move to a better neighborhood, buy that new dress, go to the better restaurant or improve themselves with material things? The list is endless on how Christians disobey the tenth commandment, every single day of the year.

Christopher Hitchens on the Ten Commandments. See YouTube video.

Here's another immoral proposition of the Bible: Circumcision. In case you live in a cave, the medical world (science) has declared that circumcision is an unnecessary medical procedure. Uh?, asks the US cave dwellers. How many female children have you Christians circumcised? Zero? Really? If you think it's necessary for a guy, why not for girls? Get it? If you don't circumcise girls, why do circumcise guys? If you are still shaking your head then you need to read on.

If girls know how to clean themselves, guys certainly can figure this out. The female area is larger and more complicated than the male's. Oh, you don't think it's proper for a female to be circumcised? Really? Get out of that cave! Devout Islams circumcise females and don't think twice about it. Because they get this unnecessary medical procedure from their obsolete religious texts.

The pious Christians think they have the corner on morality. What a joke. You talk to a Christian about abortion, they go crazy. Abortion is wrong, it's morally wrong, wrong, wrong! Really? Have Christians ever heard the terms of human well-being and human suffering? According to estimates, about 1.7 billion people now live in absolute poverty. The number is an estimate. However, it's a huge number. I think it's obvious that Christians really don't have any concern when it comes to real morals—human suffering.

What is more important? Billions of alive children and adults who are suffering on a day to day basis or the issue of abortion? What is the bigger problem? Who is suffering more? Is it better ethics to focus on abortion or to ignore the billions and billions of living adults and children who are suffering everyday in absolute poverty?

What is the more moral issue. The five million children who starve to death each year or gay marriage? The religious spent millions upon millions (at least 20 million dollars or more) in California to stop gay marriage. It's actually called Marriage Equality. I like to call it gay marriage just to make Christians squirm in their seats.

The more than 20 million dollars spent to stop gay marriage could have been used to get food to starving kids, teach people how to plant their own crops, or how about paying off the mortgages of people who were about to lose their homes due to the mortgage crisis. They could have used their money for something to help people but no, the pious Christians used their money to hurt people. Good job! I hope you are happy.

Hey homophobic straight people. Gay marriage is not for you. You ARE straight. We are not asking you to become gay. Gay marriage is for GAY people. Gay marriage can't harm your "straight" marriage, period. The only way gay marriage could harm your "straight" marriage is if one of the spouses in a "straight" marriage are in-the-closet and gay spouse is afraid to be true to themselves. If you are in the closet and married to the opposite sex, you are simply living a lie to you and your family.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." It is a fact that some people who shout the loudest against people who are gay, are in-the-closet gays themselves and can't come to terms with their own sexuality.

A fifth grader knows more about the world we live in than the adults of 30 A.D.

A fifth (5th) grader today knows more about the world we live than a mature adult in 30 A.D. and in fact, a fifth (5th) grader today knows more about mathematics, language, biology, science, space science, history and etcetera, than the primitive men who wrote the Old or New Testament.

Yet two thousand years later, there are millions upon millions of people in the Scientific Age who think these ancient primitive men of the Bronze and Iron Age, knew more how and why the world came into being, than scientists of today—2000 years later.

Science has given us jet airlines, luxury cruise liners, submarines, space ships, skyscrapers, modern homes, cars, trucks, modern medicine—the list seems endless.

What does science say? Science says, we don't know but let's find out. If science is criticized for being wrong, science says, let's make sure we got it right. Science likes criticism, and says if we find better information, then we'll be glad to review and up-date our knowledge base and go with the new information. Science says, if we don't know something, we are okay with that.

"There is a related claim that atheists and scientists generally are arrogant. This is rather ironic. The truth is, is that when scientists don't know something, like "Why did the universe come into being" or "How did the first self-replicating molecules first form on earth", they tend to admit it. Pretending to know things you do not know is a profound liability in science. You get punished for this rather quickly for this." —Sam Harris

What does religion say? We know the ultimate truth. We have the ultimate answer. We don't need scientific studies that other scientists can replicate. We have the answer to some of the biggest questions, "Who made the universe", and "Why are we here?". The religious claim to have the answer and abhor criticism. They don't want more information, they don't like questions and they don't like criticism.

 "Pretending to know things you do not know is the lifeblood of faith-based religion. This is really one of the profound ironies of religious discourse. And the frequency with which you can hear religious people praise themselves for their humility while tacitly claiming to know things about cosmology and physics and chemistry and paleontology, that no scientist knows." —Sam Harris

The people who wrote the Bible did not even know the earth was round or that it circled the earth. They had no idea that our solar system is about half way from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. They didn't k now our galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter. They didn't even know what light speed means. Yet the religious of the past and of today claim they know the truth about the origin of our entire universe.

Can you see the problem with this line of thinking? The thinking that coming from a position of certainty (and certainty which is based on no evidence) is simply intellectual suicide.

Which is the converstation starter and which is the conversation stopper?

Science is always open to new possibilities. Science is searching for the ways things work. If science does not know, it's okay. Science says this is not problem, we can live with not knowing the answer.

Religion is not open to new possibilities, they have found the ultimate truth. They know. Which is the conversation starter and which is the conversation stopper?

Which makes it more exciting to be alive? We don't know, let's explore, let's discover. Or is the attitude of we know, we found it, we know—is this the best attitude to have? If you know, what is there to discover?

For the religious, it's really not that special to be here, right? We know the ultimate truth, been there, done that. We look forward to dying, for that better life. This secret death wish of religions is a very disgusting way to live your life.

Religion: Giving hope in a world torn apart by... religion.

Could this be stated any better? I'd say this is probably as concise as it gets.

The internet is where religion goes to die.

The internet is where religion goes to die. What does this mean? 

 Before the internet, you'd go to a pastor to discuss your nonbelief, he'd probably recommend you go back to church. Now, you go online to see the same question answered by a pastor. In the comments or on other websites, you have dozens of different answers by pastors and they are all contradicting each other.

(This is a paraphrase of Blair Scott, Communications Director of American Atheists who was interviewed by Ed Tyll on Big 810 AM radio, this morning in Florida.)

The World Will Go To Hell Without Religion! Really?

“What is the alternative to a belief in Santa Claus? The answer really is nothing. Now, it's not that a belief in Santa Claus was doing nothing for a child. You know, a child is entranced and consoled and interested and happy that Santa Claus exists.

You take the belief away, you've taken something away—you haven't replaced it with something but whatever conspired to make the belief untenable, perhaps he saw that it was his parents wrapping the presents. The belief disappears and we all know that no one wants to be the last kid in class who believes in Santa Claus.

And imagine how untenable the position of a child would be, if he claimed not to want to throw the baby out with the bath water, he claimed to have found a moderate position on Santa Claus and he could keep the sleigh and the elves but jettison the guy in the suit.

So the first answer to the question, 'What are the alternatives to faith?' there don't have to be alternatives. If these beliefs are false, if they're untenable, we can relinquish them. As many countries in western Europe have done. Only 10 percent of Swedes, 10 to 15 percent are believers of the sort we recognize in the states.”

“We can relinquish these beliefs without an alternative. Let me remind you about how easy it is to see the wisdom of this when we simply change the word God to Zeus. No one is feeling that we should maybe hold on to Zeus.”

—Sam Harris, talking about his book, The End of Faith at the University Synagogue on January 18, 2005. See the entire video of his lecture here.

Don't question my faith, don't say mean things about religion.

You must respect me for my belief. You'll never get me to stop believing in God. The people who don't ask Christ to be in their hearts don't get it. (They are immoral, sinners, they are lost. Oops, I won't say this to anyone but just think this.) I don't want to hear about you saying my religion is mythology. I don't want to hear it. Don't tell me to think about my faith! La la la la la, I can't hear you.

I want you to shut up. How about burning you at the stake? That will make you shut up. Oops! I'd go to jail for murder. Oh hell, what a bitch. I can't burn you at the stake.

Why bring up past horrors of Christianity? There is nothing similiar about today's (21st Century) Christians and those Christians in the 1500s. In the 1500s Christians wanted nonbelievers to shut the hell up. (Hee hee, they definately got them to shut up by burning them at the stake.)

We, the Christians of today, are not like the Christians of the past in any way, shape or form. Well hell, we don't burn nonbelievers at the stake! We don't do this! We are not like them. (Whispering. We don't want to go to jail.)

What are we like today? We'll vote against them. We'll tell them they are immoral. We'll tell them they must respect our beliefs. We'll try to Christianize them by making Christianity into US Law. Nope. We are not like the Christians in the 1500s.

This time we are going to do it right. We've learned from our past Christian brothers. We will change the law so that we can get them when they are young and indoctrinate them. If you still resist our mythology, we'll change the law and make you believe.

Oh... we Christians don't do that to people today (2010), what are you talking about?? Why would anyone accuse Christians of being mean to other people and trying to force people believe in our mythology?

You need a list?

"In God We Trust", "...one nation under God..." (Both of these phrases were added recently in the 1950's by Christians), trying to teach pseudoscience in school, voting against gays, parents holding financial aid from children who are gay, kicking gays out their house when they are young, making life so unbearable for young gays that they commit suicide, refusing to treat gay relatives the same as they treat their straight relatives, parents ignoring their gay son's or daughter's partners, relatives refusing to talk about their gay son's or daughter's partners, relatives not inviting their son's or daughter's gay partners to family functions, etc.

Do I need to list more? I could write for week after week about the way Christians mistreat others in the name of their religion. The list is endless.

I do declare, we the Christians of today (2010) are NOTHING like the Christians of the 1500s.

I hope those religious who say being gay is morally wrong are happy.

“In a news release, the group noted that the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association dispute the efficacy of reparative therapies that attempt to alter a person's sexual orientation and said a 2009 study in the medical journal Pediatrics found that telling teens they can change their orientation often increases the likelihood of suicide.”

See entire article “Utah gay activists protest Mormon church remarks” which I just took this above quote from.

Christians and believers of all faiths who believe they know the mind of their god (Damn, I'm impressed, you know what a god thinks! Wow.) and claim it's their duty to belittle and demoralize gays—I hope you are happy at all the people you have helped commit suicide.

This is morality of Christianity and Islam, help young people commit suicide. Yeah, Christians, Muslims and people of other faiths love to believe—without thinking—that hatred towards others is perfectly moral. Hey, I'm offended when you tell me that my religion is immoral. I can be as immoral, errr... “moral” as my god tells me to be.

Damn, Iron Age thinking is the best! Never use your brain, just believe that hurting other members of the human race is as moral as it gets. Hey, love the sinner but not the sin is their code for, “love to influence people that you hate to commit suicide.”

The moral blindness of Christianity, Islam and other religions is transparent to everyone except the believers. I hope all of you who are Christians, Muslims and the like are happy with your “moral” teachings and dogmas. How do you sleep at night?

A quote from Sam Harris' new book.

Harris states: "And the fact that millions of people use the term “morality” as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time."

—Harris, Sam, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, New York, Free Press, 2010, page 53.

Find the book, “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values” on Amazon.com.

The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. Excerpt from page 4.

‎"Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, we will see that there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality. Indeed, I will argue that morality should be considered an undeveloped branch of science."

—Harris, Sam, The Moral Landscape, New York, Free Press, 2010, page 4.

Sam Harris on Morality.

Religion has the worst morals and ethics. We all agree that slavery, owning people like farm equipment, is morally wrong. However, the God of Abraham did get this wrong, in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Yet people claim that Christianity is of divine origin.

Why would anyone want to cling to the teachings of the Bible when these teachings are immoral? To do good things for bad reasons. You better be good or you'll go to hell. There are many good reasons to do good things. To love and fear your God. That's the very definition of sadomasochism. How revolting.

To love your neighbor. Compulsory love. Disgusting. And furthermore, most people can barely love themselves and/or their partners and/or their families. Show me a family where everyone gets along and I'll show you my unicorn. The commandment of loving your neighbor is not only an impossible commandment to follow but impractical.

How many feet or miles away, do you love your neighbors? The ones on your block, those in a two block radius, a 1 mile radius or more? How many Christians invite all their neighbors to their house every weekend to show their love to their neighbors?

To love your enemy. What? Sorry, Christ got it wrong. This is an absolutely bad moral. You defend yourself against your enemy. How many Christians want to dismantle the US Military?

I can reassure you that my Christian relatives love the military. They certainly liked Bush and the way he waged war. Where is the love there? Christians say their Bible is divine yet completely ignore the teaching of loving their enemy. Christians ignore any verse of the Bible when it's convenient for them to do so.

Sam Harris wants to begin talking about morality and human values in the context of our growing scientific understanding of the world.

Sam Harris is interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. See the interview here online.

Sam Harris quote.

“We are offending people (religious believers) but we are also telling them that it’s wrong to be offended.

Physicists aren’t offended when their view of physics is disproved or challenged, this is not the way rational minds operate when they are really trying to get at what’s true in the world.

Religions purport to be representing reality and yet there’s this peevish and tribal and ultimately dangerous reflective response to having these ideas challenged and I think we’re pointing to the total liability of that.”

–Sam Harris, 30 September 2007.

Some thoughts

“Everyone gives themselves permission to behave absurdly when religion is mentioned.” –Christopher Hitchens

Some examples of the bad behavior of the religious...

The scared, the intolerant, the deluded, the self-devaluing (You need religion because you are born bad.), the delusion of mind-reading (Your god can read your mind.), secret death wishes (Doesn't matter if you die since you'll go to heaven. If you see a city or cities blown to bits by a nuclear bomb, you secretly are happy since you think Christ is about to come back.), the grandiose delusion of thinking that you know a god, the bigoted and the erotomaniacs are all characteristics of the religious.

Iron Age thinking or Scientific Age thinking.

Iron Age thinking or Scientific Age thinking. Is it really that difficult of a choice?

The atrocities of the Catholic Church by Christopher Hitchens

If you like Christopher Hitchens and are not fond of the Catholic Church (or if you really don't know much about the atrocities committed by the Catholic Church and would like to know more), you might like this video.

And if you feel that God-bashing is still taboo and disrespectful to believers, in our society today, I submit this is exactly the same attitude of the church leaders when they were burning heretics (those who reject the teachings of the church) in the 1500s.

The video is from the debate called Intelligent 2 Debate. See Christopher Hitchens video here.

Note: After you watch this video, if you are still Catholic, I submit, you are part of a cult.

In Defense of Witchcraft

I can hear Christians gasping with fear and horror at the thought of talking about witchcraft. Lightning and thunder, Fear Not.

Okay, I take it back. For those religious who dislike the words "In Defense of Witchcraft," you should be worried because Sam Harris shows that the way Christians treat atheists today are very similar to their Christians counterparts, who burned witches in the 1500s.

Except that Christians today don't burn heretics (people who reject the teachings of the church) or atheists as they call us, because they know they'd go to jail for murder.

Christians today want atheists to be quiet. Christians of the 1500s wanted the same thing. Christians today say they have very little in common with their Christian counterparts of the 1500s. It's funny how Christians today can easily fool themselves.

Christians today use slightly different tactics.

• "Don't criticize my religious beliefs, I don't criticize yours." And under their breath, "If it was the 1500s, I'd burn you at the stake."
• "You need to respect my beliefs." And under their breath, "If it was the 1500s, I'd burn you at the stake."
• Atheists are immoral people." And under their breath, "If it was the 1500s, I'd burn you at the stake."
• It's a taboo in our society for people to criticize my religious beliefs." And under their breath, "If it was the 1500s, I'd burn you at the stake."
• Stop criticizing people's religious beliefs, let everyone believe whatever they want to believe in." And under their breath, "If it was the 1500s, I'd burn you at the stake."

Sam Harris' entire article is found here online: "In Defense of Witchcraft"

Religion is not dangerous for society. Wrong! Of course it is dangerous.

When the religious masses are homophobic, this allows for the sick gay ministers to flourish, promoting homophobia at the pulpit and then in private doing what they will to unsuspecting youth. Just like priests of the Catholic Church.

So, I hope all you homophobic straight people are happy at the conditions you have helped create to allow these sick people to flourish. I know so well, the excuses that the straight people use. "Oh, that minister or priest isn't sexually molesting children, how could you say such a thing." Or after the abuse is reported, "Well, he asked for forgiveness, it was just a phase, he'll never do it again."

Sick, sick homophobic straight people. Will you ever get it in your head that you are born gay and that being gay is not a phase?

See entire article here on: "Bishop Eddie Long"

God's Bigmouths.

"God's Bigmouths. Men like Bishop Eddie Long are fouling the legacy of the civil rights movement." See article by Christopher Hitchens.

Certainty. A False Goal.

“Certainty is, I think, a false goal. We’re achieving functional certainties in science and just… in our day to day lives. I mean, it’s a functional certainty that I’m sitting here talking to you, though it’s possible I could be dreaming or, you know, deceived by an evil demon.

Those kind of philosophical, epistemological worries don’t really relate too much to the ordinary practice of science, the very useful practice of science and our ordinary task of just negotiating our lives and finding happiness in this world.

We recognize there is a range, there’s a continuum of, you know, “I’m not sure,” “You know, it’s a coin toss, 50/50”, understanding of our circumstances, to be functionally certain about what is so.

And many people are pretending to be functionally certain or believe themselves to be functionally certain about things like “Jesus is going to come back and judge the world in their lifetime,” and 20% of the American population claims to be functionally certain that, that is going to come to pass and 78% think that Jesus is going to come back sometime, not necessarily in their lifetime.

And these certainties do real work for us. The person who is certain that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception, is the person who wants to veto stem cell research despite the fact that tens of millions of people are suffering conditions for which stem cell research is the best line of research to generate therapies.

So, these are ideas that are not just of academic interest or personal, private, spiritual relevance, I mean, these are shaping policies, they’re shaping the national conversation. And when you look at the Muslim world they are causing people to blow themselves up on street corners.” —Sam Harris

Watch video here: Is there certainty in science? (Hint: Choose the video titled, "Is there certainty in science?")

The Big Think website does not give the date this video was recorded. However, it's most likely after 2006, not sure.

Do you want to know the truth about religion at all costs?

It's actually quite simple to out religion as the fraud that it is.

Item 1:
If a certain religion was such a great thing, why would anyone have to believe in it?

Item 2:
And if a religion was the true religion, why would it not bring humanity together regardless of anyone's belief or non-belief?

Item 3:
Believers think their god is perfect. Believers even tout that a perfect being needs nothing. But the believer can't put two and two together. If a perfect being needs nothing, then a perfect being does not need anyone to believe in him/her/trans/it or his/her/trans/its religion.