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

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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.'