Kitty Hundal: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance #NSA #StopSpying

Kitty Hundal: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance #N...: Dear Kitty, Big news. Today, the Internet is uniting to fight back against mass surveillance.  The political landscape has shift...

Support #OpCISPABLACKOUT

Why Do I Support #OpIsrael?

Why do I support OpIsrael?

Essentially my position on the Middle East is that I don’t support either side and consider both sides leadership terrorist.

Note that I’m not saying that all Israelis are terrorist anymore than I am saying that all Palestinians are terrorists.

Both sides are led by terrorists and therefore both sides engage in activities than can be defined as terrorist activities and often do so on a large scale.

Hamas can equivocate all they want but there is no doubt that they haven’t changed their position that all Israelis should be driven into the sea. And they and other Islamist religious extremist groups don’t hide the fact that they are willing to use any means necessary to make this happen. The suicide bombings are despicable terrorist acts and violate any sense of justice and humanity on secular grounds.

This is not a position that I can in good conscience agree with or accept especially on the grounds that they justify it which are religious extremist grounds.

On the other hand, what is being done to the people of Gaza is despicable and violates any sense of justice and humanity on secular grounds as well. There are absolutely no legitimate grounds for it that I can see to abuse the people of Gaza in the way that the Israeli state has been doing.

Anymore than there are legitimate grounds for the activities of the Armed Settlers which are consistently backed by the Israeli state. The Armed Settlers are implementing a religious extremist agenda established by the Kahane Chaiists.

Yes. The same people who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin when he was negotiating a peace with the Palestinians and got in the way of the illegal activity of the Armed Settlers during those negotiations with Arafat. Both were negotiating a peace on secular, political grounds. One which religious beliefs played no part in the negotiations.

That was the one brief period in the history of the Middle East that there was hope for a negotiated peace.

That hope died with Rabin’s assassination and the election of Sharon and later, Netanyahu. The Palestinians reacted to Arafat’s death in the same way by electing Hamas.

The Kahane Chaiists and their supporters like the Armed Settlers and Netanyahu’s family justify their activities on religious and racist grounds in precisely the same way that Hamas does. They want Israel for Jews only and want to create the mythological Israel described in the Bible.

Those are also not positions that any rational secularist atheist like me can in good conscience accept.

So I support the secular issues raised by OpIsrael and am protesting only those issues by supporting OpIsrael.

All the religious extremists who want to use this momentum to further their religious agendas can go fuck themselves.

What Religion Has Contributed To The World This Month

Great new YouTube monthly news series by a fellow atheist.

This is a nicely produced monthly news video series which I subscribed to. It briefly summarizes all of the contributions religion has made over the past month (and I use the term contributions loosely ;-D).

I'm sure you'll enjoy and appreciate it as much as I do. It's definitely enlightening and full of interesting bits of information which can be used to give your theist friends a reality check on their beliefs.



I'm always happy to promote new works by atheists, whether they're videos, books, etc. so feel free to send them my way for review and promotion. Occasionally life gets in the way and I'm not able to review and post them but I try to put through as many as possible.

Aaron Swartz

There are some deaths that are just such a tremendous loss to the world that one can't express the impact of that loss. I don't know or care whether Mr. Swartz was an atheist or religious. His public contribution during his short life was impressive, irrespective.

Copied from Facebook, originally posted on the  People Over Politics Page:

Harvard Law's Lawrence Lessig on Death of Aaron Swartz:

"Prosecutor as bully

(Some will say this is not the time. I disagree. This is the time when every mixed emotion needs to find voice.)

Since his arresting the early morning of January 11, 2011 — two years to the day before Aaron Swartz ended his life — I have known more about the events that began this spiral than I have wanted to know. Aaron consulted me as a friend and lawyer that morning. He shared with me what went down and why, and I worked with him to get help. When my obligations to Harvard created a conflict that made it impossible for me to continue as a lawyer, I continued as a friend. Not a good enough friend, no doubt, but nothing was going to draw that friendship into doubt.

The billions of snippets of sadness and bewilderment spinning across the Net confirm who this amazing boy was to all of us. But as I’ve read these aches, there’s one strain I wish we could resist:

Please don’t pathologize this story.

No doubt it is a certain crazy that brings a person as loved as Aaron was loved (and he was surrounded in NY by people who loved him) to do what Aaron did. It angers me that he did what he did. But if we’re going to learn from this, we can’t let slide what brought him here.

First, of course, Aaron brought Aaron here. As I said when I wrote about the case (when obligations required I say something publicly), if what the government alleged was true — and I say “if” because I am not revealing what Aaron said to me then — then what he did was wrong. And if not legally wrong, then at least morally wrong. The causes that Aaron fought for are my causes too. But as much as I respect those who disagree with me about this, these means are not mine.

But all this shows is that if the government proved its case, some punishment was appropriate. So what was that appropriate punishment? Was Aaron a terrorist? Or a cracker trying to profit from stolen goods? Or was this something completely different?

Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its. MIT, to its great shame, was not as clear, and so the prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the “criminal” who we who loved him knew as Aaron.

Here is where we need a better sense of justice, and shame. For the outrageousness in this story is not just Aaron. It is also the absurdity of the prosecutor’s behavior. From the beginning, the government worked as hard as it could to characterize what Aaron did in the most extreme and absurd way. The “property” Aaron had “stolen,” we were told, was worth “millions of dollars” — with the hint, and then the suggestion, that his aim must have been to profit from his crime. But anyone who says that there is money to be made in a stash of ACADEMIC ARTICLES is either an idiot or a liar. It was clear what this was not, yet our government continued to push as if it had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed.

Aaron had literally done nothing in his life “to make money.” He was fortunate Reddit turned out as it did, but from his work building the RSS standard, to his work architecting Creative Commons, to his work liberating public records, to his work building a free public library, to his work supporting Change Congress/FixCongressFirst/Rootstrikers, and then Demand Progress, Aaron was always and only working for (at least his conception of) the public good. He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.

For remember, we live in a world where the architects of the financial crisis regularly dine at the White House — and where even those brought to “justice” never even have to admit any wrongdoing, let alone be labeled “felons.”

In that world, the question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be labeled a “felon.” For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge. And so as wrong and misguided and fucking sad as this is, I get how the prospect of this fight, defenseless, made it make sense to this brilliant but troubled boy to end it.

Fifty years in jail, charges our government. Somehow, we need to get beyond the “I’m right so I’m right to nuke you” ethics that dominates our time. That begins with one word: Shame.

One word, and endless tears."

From Aaron Swartz to the rest of us, his post on Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/cefxMVAy

"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.
That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It’s outrageous and unacceptable.
“I agree,” many say, “but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it’s perfectly legal — there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” But there is something we can, something that’s already being done: we can fight back.
Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.
Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who can make copies.
There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.
With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
Aaron Swartz
July 2008, Eremo, Italy"

Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz dies at 26

Threat Thoughts

Dandelion Salad

Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays!

Artwork by Ray Blackbayou W

In Honor Of Our Vets

Atheists In Foxholes (United States)



Atheists in foxholes, some say they are myths,

Creations of the mind who just don't exist.



Yet, they answered the call to defend, with great pride.

With reason their watchword, they bled and they died.



They took Saratoga from the British crown,

Secured America's freedom at the Battle of Yorktown.



From Sumter to Appomattox, fields flowed with their blood.

When the cannons grew silent, the flag proudly stood.



From the Marne to the Argonne, in trenches and tanks,

They defeated the Germans -- the whole world gave thanks.



They were bombed at Pearl Harbor, fought on to Berlin.

Many freethinking women served along with the men.



Still war keeps erupting -- Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

Where is the peace that eludes people so?



It is broken by tyrants who bear crosses and creeds,

That overshadow reason with hate and cruel deeds.



So atheists prevail until your work is complete.

Mothers mourn, children cry, and bigots plan your defeat.



By air, land, and sea, you answer freedom's call.

Without god or faith, you seek liberty for all.

Piracy. The Facts

Created by: OnlineGraduatePrograms.com

The Freethinking Woman

I'll be continuing this blog but given the all the bullshit the traditional feminists are stirring up in atheistic communities on the 'net, particularly on Pharyngula's blog, I've decided to start a new blog as well: The Freethinking Woman.

I invite women and men in the atheistic communities to join as authors or to send me any diatribes you want to have published.

Freethinking feminism is about equal rights for all. Not special rights for women.

I ask that people not judge the women's movement by the ignorance and bigotry, particularly anti-male bigotry, demonstrated by traditional feminism.

Freethinking feminism sees men as our brothers in arms and not the enemy.

Book Review: Unorthodox

Unorthodox, the scandalous rejection of my Hasidic roots: a memoir by Deborah Feldman is an intimate portrayal of a young woman growing up in an environment of religious constraint and slowly freeing herself from that environment.

That is her story, on the surface. If you read it from that perspective it will enlighten and provide you with an insight into her particular religious environment and beliefs. Her personal journey will also stand as an inspiration and testament to anyone else who wishes to move out of the confines of their particular religious constraints.

However, I recognize Deborah. In my opinion, she is much more than that and her story involves much more than that, in reality. So I’m not surprised that there is some controversy over her book and challenges to it.

She is one of us. She is the rebel, the square peg who can’t fit into the round hole, the person who is never satisfied and cannot be satisfied with the status quo, whatever it is. Whether that status quo be the constraints of creed (religious or otherwise), culture, gender, etc.

Her drive to be free, that hunger for freedom runs deep and it is firmly founded in her strong natural curiosity about everything.

That is what makes Deborah different. It’s what makes me and numerous others different. People like us exist across all cultures, creeds, genders, etc. And no matter what our environment is we do not and cannot fit into the status quo of that environment.

I can’t explain why. I don’t understand it myself. I only know that we exist and that we can identify and empathize with each other. Once we understand that we can’t fit in and don’t try to fit in, we can begin the process of accepting and appreciating ourselves for who we are. When we can do that, others will accept and appreciate us for who we are. Well, at least some will.

It’s okay not to fit in.  It’s okay to be different. We can’t be any other way no matter how much humiliation and abuse is heaped on us; no matter how many constraints are placed on us in our respective environments; no matter how much we are smeared for speaking our truths.

We don’t understand the sheeple and their passive acceptance of the status quo.

We are the innovators, the artists, the creative thinkers, the one’s that can think outside of the box. We are the ethicists, the one’s who consider social injustice an outrage and we can’t be silent about it. We have a driving need to change the status quo to better our world for ourselves and those around us.

We produce what we love to produce whether we get paid to produce or not. Our lives are driven by our passions and not by personal gain. Once we accept our difference and don’t allow it to stand in the way of our self-confidence (“faith in ourselves”) personal gain almost always comes along with the ride at some point because we are good at whatever it is that we choose to do.

If we didn’t exist, society would never advance because there would be no driving force for change.

Welcome to the club, Deborah. I look forward to reading more of what you have to offer.

Deborah Feldman dot com

STOP SOPA and PIPA

Protesting SOPA and PIPA

Educate yourself on SOPA and PIPA and find out why it matters to oppose these laws!

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Electronic Frontier Foundation

Happy New Year 2012

To celebrate this new, fresh year to come I thought I'd post something that has apparently been circling through cyberspace for a few years and while I can't vouch for whether the story is true or not, it's pretty hilarious.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did and I wish everyone the best for the new year.

HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following  question was  given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid term, and an actual answer turned in by a student.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely... I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving... As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct..... .....leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

The National Atheist Party Is Born

Before I start on my rant, I do want to say that I admire and respect those who took the initiative to take on such a major venture that is, in my opinion, a historic turning point.

It is a necessary and important step.

Kudos to them, even if I don’t agree with the name of the party.

Now, I expect that the name of this new American Political Party (not the creation of it) may be controversial amongst atheists for various reasons.

As soon as I read the email announcing this new development at least one of those reasons crossed my mind as well.

Why call oneself an “atheist” party? I don’t get it.

Atheism is nothing more or less than a lack of belief in gods. There is no doctrine or belief system associated with atheism.

Not that I haven’t had numerous spats with atheists who would claim otherwise, but frankly their claims are easily refuted because they fly in the face of reality and sometimes include a rather narrow minded and bigoted approach to what they consider to be an atheist.

Sorry folks, New Agers who don’t hold god beliefs are atheists whether we like it or not or whether we agree with them or not. Certain forms of the Buddhist religion are also atheistic. So, even religions can be atheistic.

There are, on the other hand, atheistic belief systems which currently exist and which are advocated and supported by many (not all) atheists.

Belief systems like the FreeThinkers and the Humanists.

So, why not call themselves the FreeThinkers and Humanist Party or the Secularist Party?

Here’s their explanation:

We are the “atheist” party for several reasons.

The founders of the party (Troy Boyle and Mark Smith) are atheists.

We know that there is a bad connotation to the word, and we want to reclaim the word and make it a positive connotation. Much like the African-American activists of the 50s did with “negro.” They don’t use it now, but it was a necessary first step.

Humanist and Secularist are terms that the public doesn’t understand very well.

Religious people do not call secularists, secularists. They call secularists “atheists.” So you are one whether you want to claim the label or not. When 80% of the population calls you an atheist, you should own up to it and depower them, not scurry to find some other less castigated term, in the hopes of escaping the stigma. As far as Christianity and all other Abrahamic faiths are concerned, Atheists, Humanists, Secularists, Pantheists and Pagans are all going to Hell.

Now, while I understand the sentiment, I disagree that these are good reasons to attribute a political philosophy to the term atheism.

And here’s why.

Just because theists don’t understand what a Secularist, FreeThinker, or Humanist is and just because theists think that all Secularists, FreeThinkers and Humanists are atheists doesn’t mean that we should pander to their ignorance. This would be the perfect opportunity to educate them.

Presumably, since they’re the National Atheist Party they are then going to include and represent all atheists including New Agers and those Buddhist and other religions which are atheistic as well as atheists who are politically in the left, right, middle, libertarian, etc.

Yes?

Apparently not. (And I agree that it would be impossible to do)

From their web site:

The National Atheist Party is open to people of all races, sexes and sexual orientations, and cultures. We are committed to a government free of superstition and bias and are guided by principles of equal opportunity, recognition of merit, and economic responsibility.

So, since they want a government free of superstition, the New Agers, Buddhists and Jains are on the outs here.

Not a problem for me since I also want a government free of superstition. However, it does mean that they aren’t representing all atheists.

From their web site:

The National Atheist Party is a diverse, all inclusive, progressive, secular political movement and a response to the lack of representation for all free thinking people who are legal, law abiding citizens of the United States.

Here, they identify themselves as representing “free thinking” people, so now we have another exclusion. Atheists who are not FreeThinkers are apparently not included. Are FreeThinker theists included? (Yes they exist).

Again, not a problem for me since I’m a FreeThinker and an atheist. However, as I stated before, it does mean that they aren’t representing all atheists or all FreeThinkers.

The National Atheist Party is only representing the political viewpoints of the current members of the NAP and their existing policy is based on their political viewpoints. This, of course, effectively excludes those atheists who hold different viewpoints.

While I agree with most of what they say and while a democratically based policy is (or should be) standard practice in any political party and a good thing generally speaking, it does mean that they are not representing all atheists and may not even be representing the majority of atheists.

And, lastly from their web site:

We support the separation of church and state, and seek to ensure its strictest interpretation.

This last point is probably the only point that I can see all atheists (and many theists) agreeing on so if this was the only plank in the platform the argument could be made that they are representing all atheists who believe in secularism. In this case, the name National Atheist Party might work.

Now, just to be clear. I’m not saying that atheists shouldn’t organize. Atheist Nexus represents such an organization and I support them wholeheartedly.

I am saying that a political party can’t represent all atheists because we come from way too broad a spectrum of belief systems and the name, National Atheist Party, implies such representation.

What we could really use, and not just in the US, are Political Action Committee Lobby groups around the world which defend the rights of all atheists everywhere. Particularly in countries where atheists are oppressed and threatened with death or imprisonment for their beliefs like Islamic Theocracies.

All of this said, I do actually understand why the Americans would come up with such a political party given the religious extremism that is thrown in their face daily.

So, I’m not unsympathetic to this move. I just think it would have been better to do it differently or at least give the party a different name.

Call the party, The American Secularist Party or The Secularist FreeThinkers Party and start an AAPAC (American Atheist Political Action Committee).

The AAPAC would accomplish everything the founders of the National Atheist Party want including taking back the word atheist and giving it a positive connotation.

The name of the political party would be more representative of what it actually is.

Just some thoughts.

I still wish them well though and they’ll certainly get my public support despite my disagreement with their name. And if I was an American I'd probably join.

National Atheist Party web site

Best wishes to them.

Book Review: The Last Testament Of God

If an atheist rewrote the Bible in the 21st century, what would it look like?

Probably a lot like, The Last Testament of God: A Memoir by God / with David Javerbaum. Lol.

Here it is, folks. God Telleth All. Finally!

Here are the answers to your questions about the Bible and why Christians, particularly fundamentalist Christians are just plain wrong.

Did you know that first couple was Adam and Steve, not Eve?

Why does God believe in Evolution?

AND OMFG the shocking revelation that God’s NOT Perfect! He says so himself! So it MUST be TRUE!

Scandalous to be sure but God was pretty scandalous even in his crankier days when he spend all of his time smiting his enemies.

This is scandalous in a modern 21st century way, but of course the smiting continues….

1:19. I am not perfect.
1:20. Yea, I am omnipotent; but there are mortals tramping thy corridors of power who are nearly so, at least within the earthly dominion; and does their great might foster in them perfect righteousness? Or are they not mostly bastards?
1:21. Yea, I am omniscient; but there are mortals waddling the casinos of Las Vegas possessing nearly all information on the handicapping arts; yet does their great knowledge foster in them perfect judgement? Or did they not just lose their shirts on the Seahawks +2 1/2.
1:22. And so, Reader, as thou flippest through these awe-inspiring pages, be not surprised to discover that over the millennia I have erred on matters great and small, and even at times shown slight defects of character.
1:23. For despite all the sobriquets listed above, and all the wondrous attributes contained within me, I am not perfect, and have never claimed to be.
1:24. I have claimed only that my imperfections are thy fault.

And so begins Againesis….

Fast forwarding to Revelations ….

God responds to Christian demands:
1:11. “I want my Judgment Day and I want it now!”.

 God:
1:23. I had made a vow never to be dishonest to thee again, and I meant to keep it; no, this would have to be a clean and total break;
1:24. For mankind, I love thee far too deeply not to destroy thee utterly.
1:25. And so I made the decision: one last crazy year, and then we say good-bye, not in regret but in friendship; valuing the time we spent together, treasuring the memories we shared, and putting behind us the anger thou caused.
1:26. The world began on October 23, 4004 BC; it will end on December 21, 2012; pencil it in.
1:27. (But remember what I said at the end of Facts 5:2-9, about there being a little wiggle room to leave time for a sequel if this book selleth well enough.
1:28. No pressure.)

And so it was, is, and shall be ....

I want every Christian I know to have a copy of this book.

Heh. Maybe I'll give it to them as a Christmas gift from Santa Claus.

The Last Testament Of God

An amusing look at what "God" really thinks. When the book comes out, give it to any Fundies you know. :-D.

Hear that Chris! You're getting a copy!

God's Twitter feed

Catholic Church and the Duplessis Orphans

Justice at Last: The Duplessis Orphan Scandal

An Atheist Case For The Existence of God(s)

I know this sounds pretty strange, particularly coming from me … a lifelong atheist who was never indoctrinated into any religious belief.

You’re probably asking yourself why I, an atheist would make a case for the existence of gods instead of against the existence of gods given the fact that an atheist by definition has an absence of god beliefs.

Well, I’m just exploring a hypothesis. One that I’ve played with over the years and have decided to put to paper and see where it flies (or crashes and burns).

It came to mind recently as a result of a discussion I’m currently having with a friend who makes the claim that “gods are fictional”.

I don’t entirely disagree with the claim. It really is quite a good explanation for the concept of gods, however, one of the points that I’ve been making to my friend is that it’s probably not a good idea to make such statements absolute.

That is, a better statement or claim would be, “it’s probable or highly likely that gods are fictional”. The reason for this is that there are other good potential reasons why humanity adopted the god concept. In addition, not all of them are based on the non-existence of gods.

So, while this is a good explanation, it isn’t the only good explanation.

Since my friend offered up the challenge that I should falsify his claim which he defended and supported, I took up the challenge.

For the sake of argument, here it is:

Background:

It is known that in ancient times, human beings often considered their leaders (kings) gods. In some cases, they considered them representatives of gods but in many cases they were considered actual gods. This is evidenced in cultures like the ancient Egyptians who considered their rulers actual gods.

The Ancient Egyptian Pharoahs

Given the above background:

1. Ancient Egyptians considered their leaders gods.
2. There is evidence these leaders existed both through historical documentation and objective evidence (mummies of the kings).
3. Therefore gods exist and are not fictional.

The claim that “gods are fictional” has now been falsified.

Gods exist.

Holy Fuck. Am I still an atheist???? ;-D

Note to theists reading this blog (I know you're there lol). Please note that this argument cannot and does not support the existence of your preferred sky fairies which do not claim to be human. It also does not support the existence of the Abrahamic God who is claimed to have magically come to earth in the form of a human named Jesus. The reasons for this are obvious. If you don't understand why please feel free to ask.

The True Atheist Conundrum

Am I a True Atheist? Honestly? I’m beginning to wonder ….

I’ve been in a recent raging battle with an online friend and atheist on my debating group. (Yes, when the Christians and other theists go on vacation, the remaining atheists argue with each other ;-D).

Hey, what else are we going to do!

Anyway, the topic of our raging battle (and I mean that literally not metaphorically) is, are atheists inherently rational, that is, do atheists become atheists through reason, or, are atheists simply atheists by virtue of the fact that we are not theists.

At least that’s how it started ….

Then it moved to the question of can we rationally claim and argue that god does not exist or should we even bother to make statements about existence in relation to gods since the concept is irrational, absurd and/or meaningless (at best) in the first place.

Then the semantic game playing started. Is there a difference between lacking a belief and having a disbelief?

Sigh.

So … Let me explain where I stand and you can tell me whether I’m a True Atheist or not (do I smell porridge? Is there a No True Scotsman lurking in the wings somewhere? I think there might be.)

First of all, the only definition that I accept for atheism is that it is merely a descriptor of those who “lack a belief in gods”.

We are atheists if we are not theists. 

IMO, that is the one and only requirement for anyone to be an atheist. There is no other unless you believe that atheism is a belief system or doctrine and it requires reason to become an atheist.

Okay then how does one get to the point where they lack a belief in gods?

Does every single person who is an atheist become one through reason?

No. People reject theism through reason and when they reject theism, the side-effect of doing that is to become an atheist because they are no longer a theist.

Then there are some, like me, who never believed because we were never indoctrinated. We were never theists and never rejected theism. We never believed and therefore can’t disbelieve. We lack a belief in gods.

I cannot disbelieve in gods anymore than I can disbelieve in fairies. It’s a non-issue for me because I don’t and have never accepted the belief in the first place. The concept is absurd, unnecessary, and irrational. I guess I’m also an apatheist in that I don’t even care. I’ll care when there’s evidence.

One day in the near or distant future I may be proven wrong and a fairy or god might pop up in someone’s garden or the sky, but until that day I will be perfectly content with ignoring any extremely remote, potential existence of a currently absurd concept for which no evidence exists.

I’m not omniscient. I don’t know what knowledge our future will bring us and I don’t believe that the knowledge we have today is absolute truth. It isn’t. We have much to learn about our universe and I’m not about to make presumptions about anything.

So, unless one considers ancient or modern mythologies about fairies or gods evidence, or, one considers those mythologies evidence of lack of existence, no evidence exists to support such claims and it is as absurd to say that gods do not exist as it is to say that gods do exist.

If something is written in a myth or fiction is it necessarily untrue anymore than it’s necessarily true? Of course not. There are true things written in fiction and mythologies as well as untrue things. The point is that the fiction or mythology cannot be evidence of either, simply because any truth that may or may not be in fiction or mythology is unreliable. So to claim that gods do not exist because they’re only written about in mythology and fiction doesn’t wash anymore than claiming that they do exist because they’re written in an ancient fairy tale which daddy says is true.

That’s not to say that there aren’t good, solid arguments which exist to falsify the Abrahamic God. There are. Not only that but in my opinion it’s perfectly reasonable to state that the Abrahamic God does not exist based on those solid arguments which falsify that particular god quite successfully.

The claim that’s absurd is the generic, “gods do not exist” claim. This is a claim of knowledge and one that is insupportable unless one has evaluated and falsified all of the thousands of past and currently claimed gods as well as all possible future potentially claimed gods.

An impossible task.

And try falsifying the Deist God. I dare you.

The fact is that the Deist God is unfalsifiable and therefore meaningless for all intents and purposes. So why would any reasonable, rational person even try to falsify it? Why bother? I don’t even care if someone wants to believe in such an irrelevant and useless god. The Deist God doesn’t come with a doctrine that anyone is going to impose on me so they can feel free. Personally, I think such a belief is irrational but it’s really no skin off my nose if someone wants to have that particular superstition. Those who believe in the Deist God are still theists but they’re the least harmful of the bunch.

One can legitimately state, that it's highly unlikely that such a thing as gods exist and there are many rational arguments to support that claim but to make an absolute statement of knowledge regarding the existence of gods isn't legitimate and isn't applying sound reason and logic.

At one point, Dawkins was quoted and I found it necessary to point out that Dawkins doesn't say "gods do not exist". His chapter on the topic is called, Why do gods almost certainly not exist? Dawkins is a scientist and an atheist and doesn't make such an obvious error in reasoning and logic.

On the other hand, can one be an atheist and still have superstitious beliefs? Are all atheists rational and come through atheism through reason and sound logic?

Of course not. Reality strongly indicates otherwise.

There are many atheists who lack a belief in gods but hold other superstitious beliefs. One example would be those Buddhists who believe in reincarnation but believe that Buddha was a man, not a god, or my Wiccan friend who holds many traditional superstitious beliefs based on Wicca but doesn’t believe in gods or goddesses. And then there are the New Agers who have screwball beliefs coming out of their asses but don’t believe in gods. They're "spiritual". Lol.

Are any of these people, more or less atheists than those of us who do apply sound reason and logic where our belief systems are concerned.

I'm a Freethinker. Does that make me more of a True Atheist than my friend the Wiccan?

No. The fact that I'm a Freethinker makes me:

1. less superstitious, 
2. more rational, 
3. means that I am more inclined to follow beliefs based on sound reason and logic, 
4. and means that I reject dogmatic belief systems of all kinds, 

But I am no more or less an atheist than she is.

While I agree that it is inherently irrational to hold god beliefs no matter what they are, including Deist beliefs, that doesn't mean that there is anything inherently rational about being an atheist.

Some of us are rational and some of us aren’t. That is a fact.

Unless one thinks that only a True Atheist follows atheism as a belief system which requires that one actively disbelieves in gods (as per certain dictionary definitions) and includes a doctrine which requires that it’s adherents follow reason and sound logic in order to convert to atheism.

According to that definition, I am not an atheist because I think the concept of gods is too irrational to bother to disbelieve in and I never went through the process of reason and sound logic in order to convert to atheism because I was never indoctrinated into theism.

When a theist makes a claim that their god exists, I want evidence from them to support their claim. If the evidence doesn’t stand up, I have no reason to believe them or their claims and will continue to lack a belief in gods. I apply reason to their claims not to my continued lack of belief.

I am an atheist because I’m not a theist. Even if that doesn't make me a True Atheist.

End of story.

GOD, No! by Penn Jillette

This post is dedicated to the memory of Furlan Primus aka Magicus, an atheist, magician, and online friend, who died last year on July 26, 2010, and who would have loved this book.

Penn, the other half of the Penn and Teller duo has written an entertaining and enlightening book which regales the reader with great stories viewing the world through the eyes and experiences of a godless heathen.

Stories that I think most of us atheists can relate to with a chuckle and a nod.

He’s broken the book down into 10 sections which contrast the Christian 10 commandments with 10 atheist suggestions along with often hilarious vignettes illustrating what happens when the world of the godless collides with the world of the religious.

Read about the atheist stripper who contributed to the de-conversion of an Orthodox Hasidic Jew by explaining science (evolution) during a lap dance. (Only in New York you say? And sorry guys he doesn’t give her name or the name of the Strip Club, Heh.).

And then there’s the Vegas (where else?) atheist “baptism” featuring a pool and a naked Extreme Elvis with a great voice, big belly and needle-size dick.

Simpleton, my friend, it beats the ice-cube filled swimming pool party during the Eostre celebrations idea, hands down!

Combine the humor with serious and intelligent points like:

"The last time I asked anyone if they were Jewish was many years ago at MIT. I don't remember why, but I asked a genius geek who was showing us around the Media Lab, the same genius geek who joined us for AB's atheist communion, if he was Jewish. He responded, "No, I'm an atheist." His dad, as a young child, had fought and escaped from the Nazis, but that didn't make his family Jewish. He didn't see it as a racial or cultural question but a theological question. He didn't care what Hitler would have considered him; he was an atheist. He was no more a Jew than I was a Christian. That answer was important to me. It was that moment when I understood George Clinton suggesting one nation under a motherfucking groove. It was an inspiration." --Penn Jillette

And enough said!

This book is, in my opinion, a definite buy and would make a great gift for any atheist friends (and for in or out of the closet, going through the de-conversion process religious friends).

Enjoy!

The Christ Conundrum : A Brief Examination

The Christ Conundrum is a fascinating book by Andrew Carruth which essentially deconstructs the biblical stories of Jesus and presents a realistic historicity of Jesus.

As atheists, we tend to take different approaches in our debates with Christians on the historicity of Jesus and the Bible.

Some go as far as to take the position that Jesus didn’t exist at all as a historical person. A position, which, in my opinion and that of Andrew Carruth, is largely indefensible.

While I agree that the “divine” Jesus who performed “miracles” as described in the Bible was highly unlikely to have existed, I don’t doubt that there was a man who led the Christus sect and was crucified by the Romans for being a troublemaker.

Why? Because we know that someone espoused these beliefs, someone led a following of people who believed them and that someone was crucified. All of this has been verified by the existence of the Bible and independently verified in Josephus’ writings on the Jewish Wars. While there were sections of his writings that are suspect because it appears that they have been tampered with, this section of the Testimonium Flavium isn’t in dispute. Josephus does talk about and refers to Jesus by name in another section which is suspected to have been an interpolation by Eusebius.

That said, the other two approaches to history and biblical historiography are:

1. Independently vetted material only is acceptable.
2. All material available is reviewed and historical context amongst other criteria is used to determine validity.

If the first approach is used I consider the results knowledge that I feel confident of being likely to be true.

If the second approach is used I consider the results knowledge that is probably true but might not be.

Mr. Carruth has used the second approach in this interesting exploration of Jesus.

The only critique that I would offer to this approach is that I would have used all of the biblical material, including the Gnostic texts more extensively than he did and have done so in some of my debates on this topic.

However, to be honest, my approach would have and does generate controversy, particularly amongst Christians who do not accept the Gnostics texts as biblical.

Mr. Carruths’ approach, while less controversial, has the benefit of appealing to and generating interest amongst both atheists, liberal Christians and possibly even some fundamentalists.

In my humble opinion, he has made his case for his view of the historical Jesus exceedingly well.

He examines the political, cultural and social context of the period and the region, placing the historical Jesus firmly within that context, while using Scripture extensively to illustrate his points.

According to Mr. Carruth, and I would agree, early Christianity was Jewish. It evolved to adopt Hellenic and Roman characteristics as it became exposed to Gentile pagan beliefs.

“This apocalyptic cult of Jews represents the first roots of Christianity. Based on an understanding that Jesus was the messiah who had risen from the dead, they sought a continuation of their mission, which would take them into the lands of the pagans. It is in the Gentile world where the figure of Jesus develops into a fully fledged divinity…”

He attributes many of the apparent contradictions in the Bible and in ascribing Jesus philosophy and characteristics to these differing approaches between the Jewish and Gentile view. These are illustrated in his frequent comparison of the both the wording and approach of Mark (Gentile) versus Matthew (Jewish) in their Gospels throughout his book.

One of the many interesting ideas that he introduces is the idea that Jesus may not have been developing or introducing a new philosophy but engaging in a known Rabbinic tradition of the era, debate and interpretation of the Jewish Law. A tradition which apparently continues to this date.

“There are other references to Jesus’ Jewish nature. Luke states that “Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple.” (Luke 21:37). It is hard to conceive why he would teach there if he did not have a Jewish message. Indeed we shall shortly learn that the primary content of Jesus’ teaching was in line with the Judaism of his time and the fact that he was labeled as the messiah serves only to demonstrate Jesus’ fundamental Jewishness – the messiah was a very Jewish idea.”

“… some scholars have posited that Jesus might have been a Pharisee himself. It is true from a look at later rabbinic writing the Jews regularly argued amongst themselves in order to find the correct way of interpreting the law and Jesus debating the size of the phylacteries fits snugly with this image.

All Jews agreed that there is one God and that through his prophet Moses the law was given. Other than this there was no official dogma, no codified Jewish bible and religious practice was varied and open to interpretation. When Jesus is shown to be opposed to the Pharisees in actuality he was debating the best way to interpret the law, much as many a rabbi has done since.”

And just for fun, reading the sections on Why Does Jesus Ride Two Donkeys? and Why Do The Soldiers Want Jesus Underwear? will both enlighten and entertain you.

He concludes by summarizing the evolution of Christianity and examining its' political role during Constantine’s time.

The last question Mr. Carruth explores and perhaps the most controversial one is:

“With the conclusions that we have postured regarding Jesus’ Jewishness and his reconstructed mission, let us ask our resurrected Jesus what he thinks about everything that has been done in his name."

I’ll let you read the book, to explore the answers to that one.

Enjoy.

This is a must read for both sides of the AvC debate.

It brings clarity to an otherwise murky topic, is a great read and written in a popular, easy to understand style.