Heaving Dead Cats » comment

In Search Of Zingers

Neece — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:47:01 +0000

Inspiration comes from many sources. Today my mother told me that some jehovah’s witnesses came a-calling and she wished she had some good, quick zingers to say to let them know she’s a lost cause and they need to leave and never come back. I thought that was rather funny so I’m throwing it out to you.

If someone wants to proseletyze, what is a good, quick response to let them know they are dealing with a godless heathen who is a lost cause?

Please comment with your suggestions. Then I’ll do another post with a nice neat list we can keep nearby for when someone wants to “tell us the good news”.

Questions For You

Neece — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:56:33 +0000

Some days the creative juices flow easier than others. Sometimes I just can’t think of great ideas to share with you. I’m sorry, I am a bit tapped out lately. More great stuff will come, I’m sure. I’ll just have to pray about it, I guess. “Dear Mighty Invisible Pink Unicorn….”

I’m going to share some lolcats while I take the opportunity to ask you some questions.

1. Do you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to share with HDC? You can email us at HeavingDeadCats@gmail.com

2. Do you have a deconversion story you’d like to share with us? Send us an email with your story. We’d love to publish it for you. Reading how others have unshackled themselves from religion can be helpful to people who are struggling with such a decision.

3. Do you have suggestions for a topic? Or questions that you’d like answered? Send them along. We’ll happily help answer those questions and take up your suggestions if possible.

4. Do you have funny or provocative images or videos to share? Send pictures or links to videos to us and we’ll share them with the class.

Join in and participate with HDC. We’d love to hear from you. If you have any problems sending us an email, just comment somewhere and let us know. We’ll help straighten it out.

Love, Neece

10 Reasons To Believe In god?

Neece — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:48:43 +0000

Sometimes a post is handed to me on a silver platter. If only I was superstitious and religious, I’d think god his bad self had Mark write this just to help me out when I was in a tight spot. Unfortunately, I’m a godless heathen. Let the blasphemy begin!

I wrote a post on HDC awhile ago called 10 Reasons Atheists Are Morally Superior To Religious Fundamentalists. I toned it down then cross posted it to de-conversion a month ago, and I still get comments on there. Yesterday a guy named Mark wrote the comment below. After each reason, I’ll leave a reply:

Try to read and see who is really ignorant.. (by Mark on deConversion – comment 196)

Ten reasons to believe in God

1. Are you sure God doesn’t exist? You are willing to contend, aren’t you, that there is a tiny chance that God does exist? If you don’t believe in him, and he DOES exist, you’re screwed. You HAVE A CHOICE. When the day comes to choose who enters Heaven, it is highly doubtful you will be chosen, if you don’t believe. Isn’t it safer just to believe?

Puh-lease. Pascal’s Wager, Mark. I am not wasting my life on the off chance that some jealous sky daddy is up there messing around with my afterlife. I prefer to live my one life now, instead of groveling and begging to an invisible friend that ignores me.

2. So you have moral dilemmas? They’re annoying, aren’t they? What is right and what is wrong? Who knows? The law? Crap, you cross the street at a red light. God knows what is right and what is wrong. Believe, and all your moral problems are solved. If you are ever stuck again with a moral dilemma, just ask your local priest, rabbi or equivalent. He’ll explain it all to you.

Nice, condescending attitude coming from a christian. I am an ethical atheist. I am good for morally superior reasons to you. I am good and kind simply because it makes sense and I choose to be, not because I am afraid of hellfire and torment everlasting. I don’t need an invisible parent watching my every move to make me feel like I have to do the right thing. I just do it because it’s right. Religious people are not pure and innocent. Ask the catholic church about that one. Or bible thumping assholes that fill up our prisons. I got my morals from school, teachers I admired, role models from my life. I saw what was good, and how I wanted to be treated, and I realized it was best to treat others well too. Common freaking sense.

Not to mention, your god is a total asshole. He demanded death, murder, rape, slaughter,war, slavery and the death of innocent children at every turn when he talked to people. Then he came up with some stupid idea to kill his son to save us, even though he’s the one who set us up for failure in the first place. I aspire to be much nicer than god ever has. Anyone who tries to be godlike will surely end up in jail for heinous crimes, because god was completely amoral and downright evil. Not that he existed.

3. You have sinned, you know. And you DO know it. Even if you don’t call it sin. So you call it “a mistake”. But you can’t forgive yourself. God knows you’ve tried. You can’t forgive yourself. Well, if God can forgive you, you’ll be able to forgive yourself too. All the major religions have methods of forgiveness. For example:

* Christianity : confession,
* Islam : Ramadan,
* Judaism : Yom Kippur.

No, I haven’t sinned because sin is simply a control mechanism for keeping sheep like you in line by the church. I also take personal responsibility for my mistakes and errors in my life. I made them and I will live with them. That’s what grownups do. We are personally responsible. We don’t dump our problems on our invisible friend then go “sin” some more because we feel we can just apologize for it later.

4. Can you explain infinity? I can’t. I’m talking about two dimensions of infinity. Spacial and temporal. Talk quantum mechanics, and dimension folding all you like, the human mind can never grasp it. I don’t think anyone can comprehend infinity. If you believe in God, no problem.

Maybe I can’t explain infinity but that’s why I look to science for such awesome concepts. Maybe god conveniently answers your few little questions, but science never stops asking and searching and learning and observing. We don’t give up at the first sign of amazement, throw our hands up and say god did it. We are creative and thoughtful and searching. It’s a wonderful thing you in your narrow world view can never appreciate.

5. You can’t possibly believe that evolution theory completely. Oh, I’ll agree, natural selection exists. Of course it does. Creation theory does not conflict with the belief in natural selection, don’t make any mistakes. Of course, many people believe it does, but that’s mostly because they are misinformed. Natural selection hardly explains Man. And where is that missing link? You can’t possibly believe that Man (a conscious being) originated from the monkey, which is so far below him?

I accept evolutionary theory and understand that we learn more and answer more pieces of it all the time. That’s what science does. YOU are misinformed. You are getting your view of the world from a 2,000 year old text written by bronze and iron age goat herders who thought donkeys and bushes talked to them. If you believe that man originated from the monkey you are an ignorant fool who never read the first thing about evolution. You simply “know” what your preacher told you. And you are wrong.

And why are monkeys below man? They are just as perfectly evolved as humans. They simply took a different path than us. The snail and the scorpion have evolved perfectly. They are awesome. Man is simply better able to manage his environment, and much more able to destroy it. Yeah, we’re so superior. At any rate, read a freaking book that was actually written in the last 100 years for a change and you might learn what real evolutionary theory is all about.

6. What happens when we die? Scary, isn’t it? Don’t you have a soul? Of course you do. You can’t possibly, deep in your heart believe that we just die and disintegrate? There has to be an afterlife.

You don’t know any more than any other living thing on the planet what happens when we die. And we all die. We were not living for billions of years before now, so the worst part about dying is who we leave behind to miss us. That’s it. I don’t need to be afraid of what happens after we die. I accept that this is my one life. Your fear of death leads you to subjugate yourself in this life to a supposed higher power for which there is no evidence. I don’t want to die because I still have things I want to do and learn, and I want to be with my family and friends. And I certainly don’t want to leave them. Grow up and deal with it. We all die. It’s natural.

7. The bible contains predictions of the future. Many predictions have already happened, so if you are a disbeliever, you can see for yourself. No other book in the world has so many prophetic words and codes interwoven into it as the bible. Many experiments have shown this. Coincidence?

The bible is a collection of a bunch of cobbled together stories and stolen myths from other religions from 2,000 to 4,000 years ago. It has never predicted the future, any more than Nostradamus has with his vague ramblings. Seeing patterns where they don’t exist is the sign of someone who feels out of control. Why do you feel so out of control if you have your precious god watching over you? Maybe because deep down you know that god is totally made up in your head? Perhaps. I am not superstitious and have no need to read into ancient texts for hidden meaning that isn’t there. Read a real book, about science, and maybe you won’t feel so out of control.

8. The world today is full of pornography and gore and is low on moral fiber. You know it’s wrong. And you sure as heck don’t want your children to grow up in such a society. The return to morals is the only solution, and the only way to do that is through BELIEF.

The world is full of porn and gore and yet so many millions and millions of people are god fearing. Funny. How about the fact that divorce, teen pregnancy and children out of wedlock happens more in the bible belt in America than anywhere else? Being religious does not preclude you from beating off to porn on your computer. Go to Google Trends and look up pornographic terms and see which countries search for those terms the most. You’ll find a lot of perverts in very religious areas. Coincidence? I think not. What about child molesting priests? Where did you ever get the silly notion that religion = morals? You couldn’t be more flawed in your logic. Critical thinking and empathy makes for moral people. Your god has no corner on the moral market. He’s devoid of it. And the idea that belief (which is simply accepting that something is true with no evidence) leads to morals which leads to a better society is asinine. That sentence is devoid of meaning. Seriously.

9. Most of the world does, in fact, believe in God. How could this be, if God didn’t exist? If you’ve strayed off the path, you must return to it. Everyone was born capable of believing in God. Some haven’t found Him yet, others have lost Him. He WILL take you back.

A majority of people believing in the brainwashing they’ve been indoctrinated with means nothing. A majority of Americans believe SUVs are safe. They’re all wrong. They believe the marketing of the car companies. See, a majority opinion doesn’t make something right.

Everyone is born atheist. Only dogma and indoctrination make people into mindless sheeple, believing whatever the church and their hapless families teach them. Only careful thought and questioning of the mindless dogma they’ve been subjected to will save them from being led around all their lives, constantly fearful of an invisible man watching their every move.

Plus, if most of the world believes in god, why are so many children dying of starvation and why are so many people dying of AIDs? Why are there so many wars and conflicts the world over? Hmm… I wonder… maybe because belief in god doesn’t make you a good, happy person?

10. Look deep inside your heart. God is there.

I don’t have a god shaped hole in my life or my heart. I live a happy, honest life without false beliefs in Santa, gods, angels, leprechauns or fairies. I am not delusional. I have no need of regurgitated myths and superstitions. And I have no need to go around patronizing people who think differently than me with threats and cajoling pleas to force them to believe like I do. Funny how an amoral atheist can be so, well.. moral, isn’t it?

My Letter To President Obama

Neece — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 12:27:22 +0000

The other day I told you to write or call the White House to add your voice as an atheist regarding the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the issue of the separation of church and state. I thought I’d share my letter with you. Here it is, short and sweet.

Dear President Obama and staff,

Thank you for your hard work.
As an atheist and a taxpayer, I am dismayed and alarmed that my tax dollars are funding a faith based program like the Office Of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. I firmly believe in the separation of church and state. The government should not have anything to do with religion, as stated in the Bill of Rights. We are a country founded on freedom of – and from – religion.
If we must have a faith based program, please at least get rid of the Bush era rules that are still in place. Please issue an executive order barring proselytism and employment bias in all publicly funded programs run by faith based organizations. Please make these programs fully accountable to the public and please make sure my tax dollars do not go to an advancement of religion in any way.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
An ethical atheist

You can use the White House contact form like I did, or you can write or call:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

TTY/TDD
Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

Here’s a link to the First Amendment if you’d like to refresh your memory on the wording. He’s our president. Let’s at least try to hold him accountable to our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Updates: A New Study and Obama’s Faith Council

Neece — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:26:35 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Sheeple: Studies About Social Conformity. I focused on 3 studies that show how people are easily influenced and manipulated, mostly by the authority figures in their lives. The other day a new study was published that added to this and I wanted to share it with you.

Financial Advice Causes “Off-loading” In The Brain shows that expert advice may shut down areas of the brain responsible for decision making processes, particularly when individuals are trying to evaluate a situation where risk is involved. This study focused on financial advice given by an “expert” to participants in an fMRI machine who were told to make a decision on how to spend money. I have a feeling that this is also the case in other areas of decision making as well. Hopefully it will be investigated and tested.

It makes sense though, when you look at how easily people are led by those in positions of authority. If someone is an “expert” this study shows that the brain offloads the decision making process. It trusts the expert and gives up responsibility for that choice.

“This study indicates that the brain relinquishes responsibility when a trusted authority provides expertise, says Berns, the study’s lead researcher. “The problem with this tendency is that it can work to a person’s detriment if the trusted source turns out to be incompetent or corrupt.”

Now, think about how people make choices and decisions, or give up responsibility for those decisions in religious and political areas. It’s easy to view someone as an expert (whether they are or not), and give them your decision making power.

So I just wanted to add that bit of information for you, because it seems like it’s good to know. I don’t know how it can help you, but knowledge is power.

Now, onto Obama’s Faith Council. This is quite bothersome. I get notices from Americans United for different things, and they sent me one the other day about the appointment of Tony Dungy to Obama’s Faith Council. Dungy, who used to be a head football coach for the Indianapolis Colts, hasn’t accepted yet. So why does this raise red flags?

Dungy has well-known ties with intolerant Religious Right groups. In 2007, for example, he spoke at a fund-raising dinner for the Indiana Family Institute, a James Dobson-affiliated group that opposes gay rights, reproductive rights and separation of church and state.
“I feel like telling people when they look at this issue of same-sex marriage . . . I’m not on anybody’s side,” Dungy said. “I’m on the Lord’s side.”
“We’re not trying to downgrade anyone else,” Dungy added. “But we’re trying to promote the family — family values the Lord’s way.”
Rev. Barry Lynn, Americans United’s executive director, said it is important that the advisory council not advocate views such as Dungy’s that undercut church-state separation.

First, why do we need a Faith Council to begin with? How does that go in line with the separation of church and state? Second, it sets a bad precedent that the head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is a pentecostal, and now Dungy has been asked to join in with his biblical view of the world. (I talked about the OFBNP the other day and left links there, near the end of the article for you.) Am I the only person who finds this incredibly disturbing?

We need to pay attention and take action NOW before this gets out of hand. This is all very quiet and subtle, not affecting our lives now, but that doesn’t mean we can relax. Obama is slowly revealing his true views on faith and how it should be implemented in America.

Americans United makes it easy to take action. They have a whole page of how to contact the White House and let them know that we aren’t happy about this. They also give information on what the issues are, to help you to be informed.

Here is the contact information for the White House:

- Through the White House comment site: whitehouse.gov/contact

- By phone:
the comments line is 202-456-1111
the switchboard is 202-456-1414
the FAX number is 202-456-2461

- By mail:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Go to Americans United for more information.

Personally, I think that regulating any faith based programs is not good enough. I think they need to be withdrawn completely. Our tax dollars are going to these programs. That just seems like a huge violation of the separation of church and state. But if we are going to keep them, they need to be regulated so that churches and faith based programs can’t discriminate or proseletyze. We all have to do our part and stand up and have our voice heard.

Ok, I’m done, I’ll get off my high horse now. Have a great day, folks!

Belief, Unbelief and The Scientific Method

Neece — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:29:40 +0000

Yesterday I wrote a post called the Burden of Proof Lies With The Claimant in which I talked about the burden of proof and who is responsible for it, namely the person making the claim or complaint. I talked about how theists believe in a god, so it’s up to them to prove that god exists, since it’s an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence, none of which has ever been forthcoming.

The first comment I got on the post was from a man named Brian. When I got up this morning and read his comment I was inspired to reply. After a few minutes I realized my response was quite lengthy and decided a follow-up post was in order. After his comment you’ll find my thoughts. So here is his comment in its entirety:

There are a string of points here, but let’s just just address one of them which is the position of unbelief.

You see the world though a pair of glasses of unbelief. Everything is skewed and interpreted from that framework.

My guess is that your belief that God does not exist is so strong that you would not change that under any circumstances.

If God turned the sea into blood, swiped the stars from the sky, turned the moon blood red and blocked out the light of the sun (which is exactly what He WILL do) there will be millions of people that STILL refuse to believe what the Bible says.

They’ll try to find “scientific” reasons for the supernatural occurances and put off believing indefinitely while they try to figure it out. Why? Because they don’t believe.

God has already performed supernatural signs and wonders which were beheld by numerous eye-witnesses and recorded in the Bible…but that’s not good enough for the non-believers. They FIND reasons to write that off.

They frame people that lives 2000-4000 years ago as primitive, superstitious idiots who were one step away from being cavemen and their accounts of anything cannot be trusted.

However, along these lines of thinking, in 2000 years from NOW the people that will be living will consider US to be idiots that were one step away from being cavemen!

So even if God decided to bend to your “demand’ of Him for a series of supernatural signs and you had a change of heart and wrote down and enshrined forever your eye-witness experience…your words would be just those of a dead nutter who obviously was clinging to her religion.

This would necessitate a CONSTANT and CONTINUAL “requirement” that God continually reveal Himself in supernatural ways to each and every generation.

But why stop there? Why not require God to come down and have a one-on-one with each and every person? After all, he is omnipresent and all-powerful. Why not it to Him that he should have to have a face-to-face with everyone on their 13th birthday and tell them that yes, indeed, the Bible is His Word, take them on a 1-minute tour of heaven to experience the glory and then drop them for a 1 minute tour of Hell so they could experience the pain, then let them make their decision from there.

The essential problem with the burden of proof argument you have going is that people don’t WANT to believe…no amount of evidence could satisfy.

Extraordinary signs and wonders would be reasoned away, as would a personal interview with God Himself.

Thanks for your comment, Brian. I disagree with you. I do not see the world through glasses of unbelief. I believe in a lot of things, like E=mc², gravity, and all kinds of good things. I see the world as it is, rationally and sensibly. That’s the difference. I don’t have any glasses on. Nothing is skewing my vision. Good analogy though. That’s how religious people see the world, skewed through coke bottle thick glasses of faith, stamped to their heads by religious leaders who seek to control them through fear and hope of reward after they die.

I don’t have a belief that there is no god. You are skewing what I wrote based on your own flawed system. There is no god to believe in or not believe in. And your guess is totally wrong as well.

Let’s take just little ol’ me. I’m an atheist and a skeptic. I embrace the scientific method which means that I am rather open to just about anything, as long as it’s unbiased, provable, verifiable, and reproducible. I am also comfortable with the idea that we have so much more to learn about the natural world. We know tons more than we did even a hundred years ago, And we have a bright future ahead of us, as well.

So let’s say oh, I dunno, I’m cooking dinner, and your god decides it’s time to pay a visit and let me know he is real. He magically appears in my kitchen and says, “Hi Neece, I’m GOD and I just wanted to pop in and let you know I exist.” You say that even if god did that, I wouldn’t believe in him.

In some ways you’re right and in others you’re wrong. At first, I would certainly want to examine my mental health. Your god would understand this, as there are people in the world who have hallucinations of all sorts and think that god or the devil is talking to them, when in fact they have a brain disorder or mental illness.

Then, yes, god would have to perform some miracles for me. Why? Because that would help me prove he’s a god. They’d have to be pretty darn convincing, and he’d have to do them for my friends as well as a panel of scientists, to prove that other people can experience him and he’s not just my crazy imagination. The results would have to be proven using the scientific method, and god would totally understand it and be willing to do it.

During this time of testing, I’d also ask him a bunch of questions to which I’d expect good solid answers. My first one would probably be, “why me? why now? and why have you waited so long to let us know you exist?” Your god would have perfect answers to these questions and be quite happy to answer them all.

If god did all those things and science proved he exists, I’d be willing to accept that your god is the real deal, because the evidence would warrant it.

If god took the route you claim where he would just obliterate the stars in a violent swipe of his mighty hand (why does god even need a hand, I wonder), if he turned the sea to blood, and turned the moon blood red, plus all the other armaggedon nonsense, and it happened all at once, I think after a bunch of panicking and general mayhem, scientists would search for answers as fast as possible to such sudden chaos. That’s what scientists do. Scientists don’t just fall on the ground and believe in fairy tales simply because they are scared and don’t understand something. They investigate, they ask tough questions, they look for objective answers.

If god took the armageddon route, he’d be a total asshole, by the way, in my humble opinion. Why? Because there has never been a miracle in the life of anyone living. Why come on so hot and heavy all of a sudden with the nastiness?

On a side note, Brian, if you were taking a shower one day and suddenly the water got colder and a wind blew up in the bathroom and you saw, but didn’t quite see, an invisible pink unicorn standing there in all her glory, and she talked to you saying, “Hi, Brian, how are you today? Oh, look, you dropped the soap. I don’t have thumbs so I won’t pick it up for you. Anyhoo, I just wanted to let you know I am the one true god and your god is a ridiculous myth. Would you instantly believe? Would you fall on your knees in your shower and worship the Unicorn in all her invisible pink glory?

Unicorns are mentioned in the bible, so maybe you’d be more apt to fall down in worship without hesitation, but personally, I’d still like verification that I hadn’t just popped a blood vessel in my brain and wasn’t suffering from delusions and hallucinations.

You say the god of the bible did supernatural signs and wonders for people back in biblical times. First, only the old testament ever talks about Abraham’s god actually interacting with people and performing supernatural feats. The new testament was written later, and god didn’t interact with anyone anymore. Only jesus did miracles and spoke vaguely of his father, and the father. Which would lead me to ask, why is there not one single corroborating text or reference, outside of the bible, to this jesus fellow? The Romans were meticulous record keepers. It lends credence to the idea that he never existed. In fact the 4 gospels were written 40-80 years after the supposed death of jesus, which again, was never documented in any other text. Very telling, if you ask me.

I would concur that people living 2000 or more years ago were pretty damned primitive. They would have thought the earth was flat, and if you read your bible, you’ll find that they had a lot of strange ideas of how things happened in the natural world. That’s ok, they didn’t understand what they were seeing and experiencing. They created miracles and magic to explain whatever they didn’t understand. Taken in that light, the bible can be used as a tool for historians to see how people lived and thought way back then.

But to give credence to those people as having knowledge greater than the collective knowledge of today is downright silly. Why did god only talk to people in the middle east? He created the whole world. Why would he only focus on the Fertile Crescent? What about all the Chinese, Indians, and the rest of Africa and wherever else humans had wandered to by then? Why only try to save the Fertile Crescent folks with his son? Why not have several sons and/or daughters for each area that would save China, India, etc? It makes no sense. You’ve lost your ability to think and reason, if you ever were allowed to have it in the first place.

In 2000 years, people will look back (if we haven’t killed ourselves off in some stupid way by then) on us here at the turn of the 21st century as backwards and rather dumb. Imagine what they’ll look back on the Iron and Bronze age middle eastern folks and think.

The thing is, a lot of people today try to build on all that has been learned before us. We try to understand history, science, math, the natural world, the world we are making today, all of it, in context and objectively as it evolves and grows.

Then there are huge numbers of people who cling to some ancient past, namely the middle eastern view from the time of Abraham, Jesus or Mohammed. For some reason their god stopped developing back then, and they are stuck in one book. Each group has their own book that is the be-all end-all text by which they must live. Full of Bronze and Iron age violence, hatred, morals and politics. That is completely crazy, if you ask me. I think in 2000 years the ancient god of Mesopotamia, in any of his three forms, will hopefully have died away and become another silly myth that will be studied and marveled at by students, historians and scientists. People who believed in that will be thought of as completely crazy, and the future folks will wonder why rational people would let those crazy people hold public offices, dictate policies in politics and government, and even have been allowed to have children they poisoned with such mindless fairy tales.

I am not demanding that your god do anything to prove himself to me. I’m simply saying, if a god exists, there is zero evidence of that anywhere. So if that god wanted me, personally, to suddenly believe in him or her, that god would understand why I would request proof. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The Invisible Pink Unicorn or your god or the Flying Spaghetti Monster have yet to show themselves to anyone or provide any evidence in the real world, here and now.

Personally I agree with you. If your god did prove to me that he exists and I fell on my knees and worshiped and enshrined him (which I don’t think any real god would be interested in. How utterly vain and human is that?) I would really be amazed if 2000 years from now, if that same god never did anything again, that people in the future would just automatically believe my accounts. I would be just a dead nutter clinging to my religion.

Then again, I am under the impression from what your comment that you believe in the half articulate drivel of dead nutters from 2000+ years ago one hundred percent. So much so that you and a lot of your fellow christians deny a lot of what we’ve learned of this wonderful planet and the life encompassing it since then. That’s completely bonkers, in my opinion.

If a god exists, and he or she wants to have people believe in him or her, and requires devotion, worship and sacrifices, all of which are base human emotions of a megalomaniac tyrant, then such a god needs to be active in the world, needs to be available and evident to most people. If a god is omnipotent and omnipresent, then it would be no big deal to do that. Why can’t he or she be more active? Because there is no god.

So onto your idea of god coming down (so you believe heaven is above you in the clouds? Where exactly is that? Why haven’t we seen heaven when we fly planes up there above the clouds? Why hasn’t the space shuttle seen it? That’s right, because it’s a figment of the imaginations of long dead nutters) and talking to us one-on-one. I especially like the idea of god giving us a nice 13th birthday audience and tour of heaven and hell. That’s actually quite clever and funny. That would be a great idea for god.

Of course, my first concern is for the children who die of cancer at age 4 or something similar. They never get to know god? That’s pretty lousy of god to let that happen, if you ask me.

This god of yours is pretty terrible at his job. Personally I think he is a crummy god. He’s screwed up from the beginning and for the last 2000 years, he’s totally lost interest in his toys creations. Even if he did exist I seriously can’t imagine worshiping him.

You’re so wrong. You don’t understand what it’s like to think for yourself, to be rational. I know a lot of atheists. The atheists I know that are skeptics would most likely happily embrace the supernatural if it was proven to exist. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’d all worship your god if he finally showed up and took some personal responsibility and let us prove his existence. In fact, like I said earlier, I think I’d want to hang out with your god, have discussions and argue with him, but I wouldn’t worship him.

Sure it would be nice to believe in fancy cool stuff like gods, aliens, fairies, pink unicorns, leprechauns, hobbits and the like. If they existed I’d believe in them. Just like I believe in gravity, rainbows as a natural phenomenon, the sun, the earth rotating around it, the stars, and on and on.

Logic is not a bad thing. Any real god would understand and embrace free thinking individuals. What god would be interested in fawning, obsequious, mindless, automatons that blindly worship, and just as blindly hate other humans who worship a different face of the same god? How boring, how human. A god that would demand such from his or her creations is simply the figment of the imagination of a mindless, frightened people, unable to think, reason or live without a bigger than life father figure towering over them, completely unavailable, yet still telling them what to do and how to live and how to think. Atheists do not need that invisible, nonexistent father figure to live and prosper.

Microchipping Students in Rhode Island

Neece — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:18:53 +0000

It looks so harmless, doesn’t it? A tiny little RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) chip. Its uses are only limited by the imagination, it seems.

Well, Middletown School District in Rhode Island has started a pilot program to monitor students by implanting these little chips in their schoolbags. The district is in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp. and together they are going to tag 80 students. Two school busses will be outfitted readers for the chips and with GPS devices.

Parents and school officials could then log onto a school website to track the children, see if they are on the bus, when they had exited, and the bus’s current location by the GPS information.

Since the pilot program didn’t cost the school district anything, it never went through the Rhode Island Ethics Commission for approval.

Personally I find this very disturbing and for once I agree with the ACLU because they are upset about it, too. Is this necessary? NO. Can this be used in a negative way against the children? YES. Can bad people get access to RFID readers or the website and track these kids for evil intent? YES. Can some parents use this as an excuse to be even more lazy in their parenting? YES.

What if a child gets off the bus but leaves his book bag on there, or in his locker? Or kids get sneaky and take them out, put them in each others’ bags, or switch bags? It’s not foolproof. It provides no significant advantage, and many disadvantages.

I’m not saying that in some small way, it isn’t good to know if your kid got off the school bus or not, or to know if you’re child’s bus is on time. Sure, this information can be helpful and practical for good parents to make their lives easier. But the potential for this to go bad is definitely there.

Not to mention the slippery slope of tagging children at all. What comes next? We all get tagged so someone can watch us and make sure we are where we say we’re supposed to be? Actually embedding the tags in the children? Then in all of us? Read 1984 and you’ll see why this is so disturbing. This is dangerous ground. It’s just another right of freedom that is taken away in the name of implied safety.

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