Atheist clubs, where?

Where? Chicago Illinois, USA! Sam Harris reports that the Cardinal Francis George reports that Atheist clubs are appearing in high schools.

The spin is that they call us fundamentalist, evangelical and intolerant. Cool! We managed to turn fundamentalist and evangelical into bad words, a few decades ago they'll be proud of calling themselves fundamentalist or evangelicals.

What we are not is intolerant, we are not putting religious messages in your money, we are not forcing you to pledge "under god" nor are we forcing your kids to pray at what ever you think we worship. We just ask for equal treatment and we ask you to get your religion out of the science classroom.

Misc stuff and Programmers day.

Today is programmers day! In Russia. Anyway I have not been commenting for a long time so I'm trying to get into it again.

Do you guys remember when I said I spend to much time reading atheist blogs? Well I find now I find myself watching to much atheist channels in youtube, the upside is that I watch them more for the humor than actual debating. Debating creationists is seems more and more with each day.

In the same spirit it feels like I'm always feeding the trolls in slashdot because the posts that deserve to be replied the most are almost always made by irrational people.

One interesting post I wanted to share: Interpolation surprise

And finally let's celebrate the apology from the British government to Alan Turing! This is just great really.

Morality Quiz

Your morality is 0% in line with that of the bible.

 

Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.

Do You Have Biblical Morals?
Take More Quizzes

What can I say, I'm only doing my best.

Lady Hopes Lies

 Purging some links from toBlog list, first comes this: the myth of Darwin turning Christian in his death bed.


 The Lady Hope Story: A Widespread Falsehood

 In summary Lady Hope, a hag that didn't even met Darwin said that she visited Darwin in his last moments, where he confessed to Christ and recanted his scientific research.

 Bullshit.

 Debunked first by Darwin's daughter who WAS with him in his last moments, then by his son who knew him well. Also in the many letters he wrote to friends, his agnosticism is more than evident.

Stepping down from the battle field.

 I'm going to stop reading about religion and those BS factories known as apologists. News about old ladies getting beaten by the religious police or about 9 year old rape victims excommunicated from their church and communities for seeking abortion even though the doctors say that giving birth to her twins will surely kill her... are just too depressing.

 And apologists have to be the most stubborn, and cheating liers in the world. You can read them passages straight from the Bible with all needed context and they'll insist this is not what the Bible says completely making shit up as necessary.

 It's just too tiring and I need to concentrate on work and the brighter side of life for a good, long time. I'll pick just one from my very favorite atheist blogs...

 Pharyngula is very fun but very high traffic and lots of noise.
 Debunking Christianity is exactly the kind of stuff I'm trying to avoid.
 Atheist Comics and By the Book Comics are somewhat funny but its fluff and I'm meaning to trim my feeds.
 Evangelical Realism is AWESOME, one of my favorite blogs, its about a guy who's practically making a religion about believing the truth. It's like a masters degreein making sense and being consistent. Yet it is exactly because of these awesome stuff I get lost into the discussion so much.
 Dwindling In Unbelief is hilarious, its a collection of lots of goofy killings made by God, including failed murder attepts by God (no kidding) or fun stuff as when the Bible described God as a redhead by proxy.
 richarddawkins.net is a forum and its news are very derivative, it could be my chosen blog simply because it's low traffic and boring but
 Skeptico is also low traffic and essasay oriented and while it covers good topics they are a little too basic for me.
 Daylight Atheism is also kinda boring (sorry Evangelical Realism has me spoiled) so I'm simply give it up.
 Why wont God heal amputees?: The blog is very good in balance between informative and succintness.
 Atheist Media Blog is excellent! More iinformative and more succint, except because I'm meaning to avoid video blogs, but simply knowing what's goping on is all I care about now.

 In the end the winner is Atheist Media Blog, however something that bothers me is that the page tends to slow my browser, but using Brief the problems are berable.

 Next is the Python blogs, must are nothing but a bother...
 
 

Morality takes you a long way

 I was reading about the "deconversion" story of a man who came to doubt his faith when he started reading about history, biology and geology and realized the Bible was wrong. I found it interesting that it was the loss of faith in biblical inerrancy that made him an agnostic, for me it was morality....

 I realized these problems before age 10, I figured out that God made the world in a deceitful way. I also knew of the contradictions in the Bible but again God himself said he wanted smart people to get lost (Mat 11:25).

 For me it was the sheer immorality of God what disgusted me to no end. Reading the Bible was an exercise in outrage, now, the Bible contains ass-covering clauses, but I could see they were cop outs, so I began reading apologetics too, not so much interested in science (I was very interested in science but Christian literature is appalling in that subject).

 Of course the apologetic garbage was a HUGE TANGLE OF COP OUTS some of them incredibly ridiculous like the ontological principle. I realized there was zero sustainable truths in christianity. Then I looked around and found people of many religions buried in the same circularly logical beliefs. Then I simply detached of any belief in Gods.

 Fear of God and belief in souls and afterlife lasted for longer though.

 Fear of God was instilled in me by brainwashing, but I knew it was irrational, for many weeks before going to sleep I found myself wondering "What if...?" but then I remembered "Are you afraid of Allah, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl? Of course no..." You grow out of that fear eventually.

 Belief in souls or afterlife is even more sticky, but my interest in science eventually lead me to neuroscience...

 Knowing enough about your brain shatters many conceptions of "self" let alone souls.

 The last problem was a problem of attitude. I was emotionally attached to the concept of souls, I found my new soulless yet pure model of reality unsatisfactory. It was dualism what was holding me back somehow. The problem is realizing that dualism is pointless.

 It doesn't matter if your soul is made of meat or ectoplasm, it is still a fragile -and malleable- piece of clockwork that can be tampered.

 If dualism doesn't protect your "self" what is the point of holding into it? especially when you consider it is false anyway.

 I'm, now, free :)

Obras canonicas de los infieles

 Acabo de leer el libro de Dawkins "El espejismo de Dios"y de ver dos películas, "El Dios que no estaba" y "Religulous" (Juego de palabras de Religioso y ridículo"

 Todo fue excelente y las recomiendo a aquellos que esten tentados a caer en la supersticion y la religión. Lamentablemente ninguna de estas obras puede penetrar la dura cabeza de alguien que cree ciegamente, aunque El espejismo de Dios, podria, en teoría.

 Al fin de cuentas lo importante es hacer conciencia, la religion triunfa, entre otras muchas cosas, por el concentimiento silencioso de las masas ateas.

 Oh, y fue muy divertido.

Heaten canon works

 I just got th read The God Delusion, an watched two movies, "Religulous" and "The God who wasn't there"

 It all excellent and I recommend them to people who feel tempted by superstition and religion. Sadly none of them can really pierce through the thick skull of a blind believer, although The God Delusion could in theory.

 In the end the important thing is to rise conscientiousness, religion thumps because, among other things, the silent consent of the atheist mases.

 Oh and it was a lot of fun.

Reseña de Quiciera se un millionario (Slumdog Millionaire)

 Es buena, vallan a verla.

 Para ciertas audiencias especializadas, la película no será demasiado original. Es acerca de un niño muy, muy pobre que se vuelve aun más pobre, debido a un trágico evento, pero de alguna manera sobrevive. Sobrevive, no esta ni cerquitas de volverse millonario hasta que se metió en un programa de concursos en la televisión.

 La cosa es que nadie cree que un pobre como el pueda haber contestado tantas respuestas bien, así que el nos relata la historia de su vida, y como aprendió las respuestas a algunas de estas preguntas debido a trágicos eventos.

 Es básicamente otra pelicula sobre crecer en la miseria, y de alguna forma, es cautivadora, tiene accón, drama e incluso romance sin verse forzado en la historia. La mejor parte es conocer sobre la cultura de la India, especialmente los barrios bajos.

 Cinco estrellas.

 Bonus Post: Chai Wallah.

 Esta frase se me pego mucho, lo tradujeron como, chico del té. Viene de:
 Chai: Té
 Wallah: Prestador servicios.

 Reconocí la palabra chai inmediatamente, lei un comentario hace mucho tiempo, que la palabra "cha" para decir "té" es universal en asia. En la india se dice chai, y en algunas partes de china se dice chi, pero en general todo el mundo reconoce "cha" para decir té, eso nos demuestra lo importancia y antiguedad del té en la cultura oriental.

 Más aun, quedé sorprendido al ver el tipo de té que se usa en la india, es cafe claro pero opaco, parecido más al... café, es decir la bebida.

 Sucede que no es cualquier té es Masala Chai, el tipo de té más común en el sur de la India, lleva pimienta negra, clavo, canela, anís y una hierba rara que jamás he probado, cardamomo.

Let the bus driver alone!! [/emo]

Everybody is making a fuss about the bus driver that refused to drive a bus with a (very positive and polite) atheist banner. Now honestly if I were asked to drive a bus with banner that said...

YOU MUST GO TO HELL YOU DAMN INFIDEL UNLESS YOU FORGO FREE THINKING AND SUBMIT YOURSELF TO THE CHURCH

I'd also refuse to do it. He must be fired, its fair, I'll be fired too if I did that, but I don't question the morality of his reaction, just the rationality (or even the morality) of his faith.

Christian cowardice

Haven't you noticed that christian blogs rarely have public comments? And that when they do they censor dissent anyway?

Here is a blog post asking why are we atheists, including his list of suspected reasons:

- You read the works of Voltaire and became a convert?

- You are a secret Luciferian posing as an Atheist.

- You are a Communist?

_ You went to church when you were younger but never experienced God?

- You want to make yourself God and do not like competition?

-You are a postmodernisand you believe that that there is no ultimate truth?

-You read the works of Charles Darwin and are writing manuscripts of the next “My Atheist Struggle”?

- A Catholic Priest made a pass at you and you blame God?

- You are secretly in love with Richard Dawkins and have not told your parents that you are not like other men?

- You are not convinced evil exists.

_ You believe the ten commandments are harmful to the well being of human kind.

_ You are following a trend?

Here is my reply which I doubt he will post:

My separation from christianity came in stages, first I rejected God when I read the bible and found God was nonsensical:

...an all mighty omniscient being taking any actions? creating light without stars? embedding spiritual beings into physical bodies when simple spirits suffice? eternally punishing weak and ignorant beings without understanding of evil? Using his magic to stuff billions of species into a tiny boat so his magical flood kills everybody in the planet instead of, you know vanishing them in a microsecond with his magic?...

and evil:

...since he already knew Abraham would accept to kill his son, the total result of the exercise was to make Abraham have a hell of an afternoon, whats up with all the slavery, bigotry, misogynism, homophobia and ultimately all the authoritarianism and insistence in obedience against any ethical concerns one might have? Why does he demands we believe without any doubt that he will answer our prayers while at the same times makes no guarantee that he will actually answer them? and then pretends that taking no action and letting matters take its logical course constitutes an answer?...

and poorly defended:

Lack of evidence? Just believe it!
Makes no sense? Just believe it!
There are better explanations! Don't listen, its the Devil!
But that's not fair! Do you want to discuss that in hell?...

But I didn't became an agnostic until I found that there are many other religions and that their followers are sincere.

I became an atheist when I found out that all of them are based on false claims that must be taken on faith.

Only science make a rigorous attempt to reach truth.

I finally cased believing in my soul and the afterlife when I learned about neurology (and evolutionary psychology, but mostly neurology).

It's simple, the mind is the brain, no brain no mind, we can actually predict what part of your mind you will lose if we remove specific part of your brain, etc.

The Bible is bullshit

I know it, you know it, they know it, but they're damn funny while knowing it, enjoy:

Penn & Teller; The Bible is Bullshit.