The Atheist Blogroll-on it

SecondSkeleton.com has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.

Response:A Muslim Soldier's View from Fort Hood by Kamran Pasha

My response to a recent article in the Huffington Post about the recent tragedy in Fort Hood:

"If you can get people to believe in absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities" - Voltaire.

How tragically appropriate these words are today. We need to take this as a lesson that no teaching is above the law of reason. All doctrines held as sacred must be accountable to reality, and we cannot afford to allow the fraudulent teaching of imaginary gods and monsters as literal truth in spite of overwhelming physical evidence against.

now the long version they wouldnt accept due to character limit:

The problem is fairly straight forward, in spite of all these mental gymnastics folks are trying to do to justify religion. What it comes down to is the idea of taking instruction from an imaginary being (aka "god") and trying to use ancient books full of made up gobbledy gook instead of reasoned, rational thinking to approach life and wisdom. The only reason this doesnt happen more often is because most people are able to ignore 99% of what these ancient texts teach, and focus on what tiny bits of them actually align with common sense. (the beattitudes in the new testament for example). I cant speak for the Koran, but the Bible is full of violence, anti-humanism, slavery, misogyny, elitism, racism, anti science and learning, all in the name of its twisted version of "justice". Anyone wishing to embrace the entire bible really must become an insane fundamentalist bent on the ultimate destruction of everyone who does not believe like they do. We can keep spouting "tolerance" etc, but in the end, we keep ignoring the elephant in the room, and that is the unwillingness to hold religious teachings to the same standards of accountability and reason we hold all other knowledge. We have legally outlawed slander, libel, and fraud with this approach without stepping on anyone's individual rights. Religion needs to be put in the same category as these things and we need to cease teaching this violent fantasy as if it is actually, literally true. That constitutes fraud, and you can probably trace almost every atrocity committed in the past 2000 years to this root cause.

I am not a fundamentalist atheist, I am merely pointing out that all teaching and knowledge needs to be held to the same standard, the same scrutiny, and nothing is "sacred" or above the law of reason. Once we do that, we will see this kind of attack become a thing of the past. Sorry if I offend, but it is the truth and most of us know it.

NYT: Atheists Coming Out of the Closet

Here is a great post from the New York Times about atheists coming out of the closet.

Can you Astral Project? a conversation with Tony Gerber

Tony is a very close friend, and an incredibly smart person whom I absolutely respect and love. In SL he is known as Cypress Rosewood. Here is a snippet of one of our many chats.

Tony: can you astral project?
Tree: I can imagine im in space, or something if that is astral projecting then yes and I can bend spoons with my hands!"
Tony: do you see a silver chord attaching you to the earth?

Tree: no usually im just floating free...sometimes Im a pilot of a super cool styrofoam airplane

Tony: now its important that you dont come to resent the "sources of stress" but try to detach yourself from them and deal with them logically, as if you are someone else controlling a body.

"I think Second Life is a good analogy for that...think of your body as an avatar and use your mental "alt zoom" to look down on the situation and then you can see the solutions better." -Tree Kyomoon

Season's Greetings

"JOY TO THE WORLD, THERE IS NO GOD

LET MEN

THEIR BRAINS

EMPLOY"

Merry Holiday Seasons...remember Mythras is the reason for the season

Quotes by some famous atheists

usually its better to let smarter people do the talking. I will heed that advice for today!

". . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."-Douglas Adams

"In an infinite universe, aren't we an INEVITABLE eventuality?"-source unknown

"Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you ... and he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't seem to hold on to a few bucks."-George Carlin

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

Do you believe that that the above statement is in any way ridiculous? Is it
irrelevant? Is it a raving of any kind? Is its source guided by the phases of
the moon? Perhaps you feel that someone who thinks a wise men listening to
advice is something that should commit a person to be restrained and placed in
an institution.

If you take specific verses, sentences, or phrases, then yes, they can very well make sense if placed in a completely different context.

However, if you take the Bible as a whole, which I understand it is very seriously intended to be taken as such, the foundation is the premise that it is the inerrant word of god, dictated to man, largely through a mysterious inspiration process.

It has been argued for centuries by many scholars, not the least of which is famed Egyptologist Gerald Massey, that the bible was not the first to state the stories and quotes you are referring to and certainly not the only historical document to contain most if not all its "wisdom".

So, taken in that context, the whole context, it can be fairly stated that since god is imaginary, anyone claiming to literally "talk to god" or "receive direct instructions from god" to be a raving lunatic, or categorically insane.

My statement was terse but not invalid. There are far greater pieces of literature in existence that deserve much more consideration that this injustifiably revered work of fiction.

The primary difference between the Bible and Science is that the Bible starts with a conclusion, then attempts (pathetically IMO) to justify its position in light of readily observable evidence. Science the other hand, starts with a question and never really reaches a conclusion.

It is a constant refinement of position that gives the truth the reverence it deserves, that it is illusive and difficult to discover, perhaps even unknowable by our tiny species."

Be Sane or Insane

There are only two world views, Insane and Sane.
Insane means you believe in and live to serve imaginary beings. You make up your own reality and reject actual reality.Sane means you accept reality and disregard imaginary things. Put them aside, dismiss them as fantasy, myth, cultural faux pas, superstition.Thats it. Be Sane, or be Insane.