I read a Terry Pratchett book recently called Reaper Man (it was great, of course). In it, he said, “In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away – until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”
In that sense, Carl Sagan is still very much alive.
My friend Charles composed the following email as a response to a ridiculous christian forward he got call “Untimely Deaths”. He thought I might like to share it with you. So here it is, including the angry christian email reply he already got and his reply to that at the end. His version had the classical large fonts, underlines and bold text that inflammatory emails often have, but for the web, I had to strip most of the formatting. If you decide to send this on to your christian friends, feel free to make them more at ease by using insanely large font sizes, underlines, unreadable colors, etc.
Do you have the COURAGE to Read this whole E-Mail?????
The TRUTH about UNTIMELY DEATHS!
John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during an interview with an American Magazine, he said:
“Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about that. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple. Today we are
more famous than Him” (1966).
Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.
Is god lazy? Lennon said he was bigger than Jesus in 1966. Mark Chapman shot him in 1980.
Fourteen years later! Was god too busy all those years assassinating other sinners? Is he a procrastinator?
“Oh yeah, that one blasphemous beatle. I really should smite him.”
The next day:
“Crap! I forgot! again!”
What a strange question from an atheist, huh? But I really mean it. Which quote is your favorite, or do you prefer a story from somewhere in the bible? Here’s my favorite at the moment:
Psalms 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Look, I made it into a motivational poster so we can all be inspired by the “good book”.
Lovely, huh? The text at the top was inspired by my husband Butch, no god involved. I turned it into a t-shirt (and other stuff, of course) too!
Know god, No Peace; No god, Know Peace. This is the correct wording.
So that’s the “good book” that gets cherry-picked by ignorant christians every day. Full of barbaric, hateful, delusional and amoral people from 2,000 years ago.
Which story sums up the bible for you? Or which quote says it all? And why?
Fundamentalists news websites, how I love thee, especially WorldNutDaily. WND never ceases to provide amusement in the form of fundie logic and wacky advertisements. Claiming itself as a ‘news source’ this beyond right-wing rag makes Fox news look like the Disney Channel. I used to get pissed at the B.S. they sling but I’ve come to embrace it for what it really is; satirical humor. Some people can take this stuff with a grain of salt and some can’t, so steer clear if you’re easily aggravated by ignorant bible thumping and rhetorical, fallicious logic. If you can stomach it ignore the ‘news’ links and head straight for the commentary pages. With scathing insights from the likes of Anne Coulter, Pat Boone,Hal Lindsey and Chuck Norris (yes, that Chuck Norris…sorry kids, he’s a hardcore creo-bot) you know you’re in for a treat.
In all fairness, there are a small handful of decent commentaries to be found if you really work for it. They have to print a few things that aren’t completely batshit crazy if they want to call themselves “credible”.
Stumbling around the web, I came across a page at lukeprog.com titled The Arrogance of Atheism. I almost moved on, but then I saw the subtitle: Why I’m an atheist, not an agnostic. Luke writes a page that is simple and concise, yet totally makes sense. I contacted him and asked him if I could share it with you. So here it is in its entirety:
The Arrogance of Atheism
Why I’m an atheist, not an agnostic.
When I tell people I’m an atheist, they say, “How can you be so arrogant to think that you know God doesn’t exist? At least say you’re an agnostic and admit that you can’t know for sure one way or the other.”
Recently, I talked about being skeptical. I wanted to show the importance of thinking for yourself, and not taking everything at face value. It’s an easy concept to understand, but it can also be easy to slip into gullibility or false reasoning.
In my article yesterday, I made some assumptions and didn’t clarify my reasoning, as well as only did some surface work on the research. A perfect example of falling into the exact trap that needs to be avoided when trying to break free of false belief systems!
Fundamentalists news websites, how I love thee, especially 
