I'm moving!

I'm moving to Wordpress!

http://gaytheist.wordpress.com/

Blogger, it hasn't been as good for me as it has been for you and I gave you plenty of chances. I'm sorry, Blogger, but it's time for us to part ways. We're still friends if you want to be.

Cyanide & Happiness: God Doesn't Exist

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Guest Post: Gay Rights

The following is a high school paper written by a Christian friend.  I greatly admire her selflessness.  It takes chutzpah for a Christian in a majority-Christian nation to not capitalise on that majority and stick up for the rights of those that many Christians (some can argue most) would find undesirable.  That is the way that our nation's founders envisioned our democracy:  The voice of the majority protecting the minority.

*  *  *

There is a lot of debate about the topic of Homosexuality and the amount and extent of rights that Homosexuals have. Gay marriage, is one of the biggest steps in the Gay-rights movement.

Gay marriage, in itself, is extremely controversial, mostly due to religious reasons. My personal view is as follows; if you are not gay, then don’t get a gay marriage. In other words, someone else’s business does not concern you, therefore you have no business saying it’s wrong.

People also use the excuse that “God says it’s an abomination”; so what? That excuse is clearly faulty. I live in America; I can believe in whatever I want. Not everyone believes in your “God”; Not everyone believes in “God” at all. If a homosexual young man is also an Atheist, what good would telling him he’s going to Hell have? People also say that “America was based on Christian beliefs”. Wrong again, my friend. Article eleven of the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by George Washington states:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen;

The United States was not founded on Christian beliefs, therefore, a person cannot be held from their right to happiness because it makes you uncomfortable.

Aside from Gay marriage, being treated like an equal to heterosexuals is probably the main goal of most homosexuals. True story: a friend of mine had his car keyed, his tires slashed, his nose broken, the air knocked out of him, has gotten internal bruises and bleeding, been stabbed, been held at gunpoint, had his life threatened and eventually tried and failed to commit suicide; all because he is a homosexual. I know people who get called “Fag” every day. If a person were to suddenly call your mother a “Bitch”, you wouldn’t stand for it. If a person were to suddenly call an African-American person a nigger, they wouldn’t stand for it. Calling a homosexual a “Fag” is exactly the same thing. It is singling out one group of people and making them feel inferior to another group of people. “Bitch” demeans women, “Nigger” demeans African-Americans, “Fag” demeans homosexuals.

The fight that homosexuals are having today is very much similar to the equal rights movement experienced by African-Americans. The latter were not allowed to attend the schools they wanted to or make the same wages or sit at the same lunch counter as whites. The former are not allowed their right of pursuing happiness as guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence.

As a whole, most gay people do not cause harm to people or society. Most are law abiding, tax paying, citizens. In reality, they really aren’t that different from you and me. They just love someone else. Is who someone loves a real reason to persecute, hurt, threaten or kill them? No. In fact, I think we could learn a lot from them; because at least they have the courage and conviction to stand up for what they believe in.

  *  *  *

Bravo, girl!  Bravo!  The biggest help for the gay rights movement in America will come and has come from the Christians.  The majority of this nation believes, in one way or another, in the Gospel.  For them to hear Atheists and agnostics and other "unaffiliates" shouting for equal rights is worthless.  They write it off as a part of some mysterious Atheist agenda.  To hear these words out of the mouth of a Christian is totally different.

I'm truly lucky to have so many tolerant and understanding religious friends and, because of them, I'm not ashamed to say that my very best friends believe in God.

(You folks weren't expecting that, were you?)

Religion is Hilarious

If you ignore the submission and repression at the heart of all religion, religion is hilarious... even to the religious.

My friend sent me the following string of instant messages:

(11:51:52 PM) Bob: you there?
(11:52:09 PM) Bob: whatever...I'm sure you'll be able to look it up later
(11:52:53 PM) Bob: but Steve just found "operating thetan" documents...basically the scientology bible
(11:52:59 PM) Bob: most messed up thing ever
(11:53:08 PM) Bob: there are explosions
(11:53:26 PM) Bob: you should DL it and read it if you're looking for a good laugh

I didn't ask to reprint this, so I changed the names.

"Bob" is not very religious, but he identifies as a Catholic. "Steve" is his fairly devout Christian room-mate and friend. I have read Dianetics and the OT and I found them hilarious. However, they're not the only funny religious texts out there. Had I been available to immediately respond, I could have replied with many other hilarious aspects of other religions.

• The Incas believed that the first tribe of humans were carved out of rocks and the women were created pregnant so they could give birth the moment they were magically given life.
• The Apaches believed that the Earth was created out of a thin celestial disc whose sides were colour-coded like a sanitary pad. ("Blue, white. Blue, white. Look. It is blue on one side, white on the other.")
• Bertrand Russell, in Why I Am Not a Christian, explains Hindu origin beliefs as such:
  

  If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject."

• The Finnish mythology describes an egg being laid on a wizard's knee as the wizard lay on an infinite plane of water. When the tides broke the egg, the fragments of the egg became the land and the yolk became the sun.
• Some Christians, mostly the Catholics, believe that Mary--a woman who was born without "original sin" and, while still a virgin, gave birth to the son of the creator of the world--never died but was sucked into the sky. This was just a folk tale, passed by word of mouth, until the mid-1900s when some guy in a pointy hat decreed that it really happened.

Oh wait... that last one is probably more funny to me than it is to "Bob" and "Steve." See? Religious people, even those who aren't so serious about it, can laugh and laugh until they hurt concerning others' religions, but the moment something equally ridiculous is pointed out about their own religion they turn to stone. It's a double-standard that's even obvious to religious people... but they never show an ounce of shame for holding this standard. I have listened to countless pastors (the Evangelicals are worst at it) laugh at the beliefs of other religions and even create mischaracterizations of real science to laugh at, but they would never even contemplate how hysterical a talking donkey (Num 22:28), a serpentine fruit salesman (Gen 3:1-6) or the assertion that any true Christian can drink poison or survive viper venom (Mark 16:17,18) really is.

Even the most beneficial aspect of religion--the ethic of reciprocity, or the Golden Rule--is hilarious in its own way. The majority of the religious people I have met are casual Christians, casual Jews and casual Muslims. They hold the "Baptist," "Catholic," "Muslim," "Reformed," and "Orthodox" labels as an ethnic identity or a sort of clan system, but they only take the main theme of their texts seriously. This theme, if you ask any 'respectable' moderate, is the ethic of reciprocity: Do unto others what you would have them do unto you. This isn't enough to distinguish between any religions. Because we evolved this ethic as a social species, it has wheedled its way into almost every religion. There are people, a large enough number of them that many of you would be surprised, that hold onto the Golden Rule and claim it makes them a Christian/Muslim/Sikh and distinguishes them from other religious people. All religions I can name have this principle as a core tenet, though many individuals can't be bothered to follow it.

That is why I laugh at the Golden Rule. Someone from almost every religion wrote it down at some point, and that's what they all think makes them unique. Many religionists hold nothing but a belief in the Golden Rule and they think it makes them not only a religious person, but a Buddhist as well! I believe in the ethic of reciprocity. I won't call it "Golden," because I don't think it's the most important principle we've ever created and I won't call it a rule because there is no one to enforce it. It's merely a human instinct, but a very important instinct to observe.

To those people, I ask: Would we not be the same, if not better, if we abandoned all religions and just followed this basic principle; one we can come up with easily without the help of a religious structure?

Blues legend Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater has a new album out called West Side Strut. It has two songs, "Do Unto Others" and "A Time For Peace," that can completely replace the Bible/Koran/Torah/Mahabharata for those religionists who want a lyrical reminder of their innate morality but don't want to put up with sifting through an ancient joke book to find it. I would suggest giving it a listen.

Sneak Peek: Tomorrow's Overcompensating

Jeffrey Rowland, author and illustrator of the webcomic Overcompensating, posted an advance issue of Monday's comic on his Livejournal page.

Dang I am so pleased with Monday's comic I'm giving it to you in advance!

This is also the first comic I ever did where I like had the idea in a half-dream in the middle of the night and instead of writing it down I willed myself to remember it and actually remembered it in the morning.

YouTuber Delusions: Dino Fossils "Proove" Creation; Revelation "Prooves" Islam Wrong; Bobby Henderson, J. K. Rowling Are Satan

This is the first part of what has the potential to be an infinite series of Internet stupidity. I shamefully proudly present YouTuber Delusions, a series where I will laugh at the average YouTube Creationist while crying for the future of humanity.

planset333 (6 hours ago)

1. those dinosaur Fossils proove creation right, not evolution, so, got you there.. haha.. and 2. thats how i know you dont know what your talking about, you dont get that in Revelation 22:18 it prooves the Koran wrong so im not worried, plus they still have sin, they didnt repent, why would i be scared on not being safe.. see what you dont understands that the bible prooves all religions wrong.. even Catholics.. how r you talking about christians when you dont even know the bible front to back?

hunta998 (5 hours ago)

You use the word "prove" far to liberally.

Writing it down in a book does not make something true!

planset333 (2 hours ago)

when 4000 prophecies come true out of the book, then, yes it does! this isnt Harry Potter or flying speghetti monster, those where CREATED in thought so people wouldnt take the bible seriously, FROM SATAN!!! and the real satan, not the joke everyones thinks satan is like oyu are as you read this..

This has nothing to do with the video it was posted on, but that never seems to matter to these Cretards. Any opportunity to make themselves look like a moron is immediately taken and driven into the ground.

Cectic: Diary of a Creduloid

Wave Particle Theology

From Overcompensating.

Hitchens vs. Hitchens

If you haven't yet seen the Hitchens vs. Hitchens debate, stop what you're doing and watch. Put down the child and let it forage on its own for two hours. Put down the scalpel and let the head stay open for another two hours. This takes precedence.

[14-part video playlist]


Thanks to the Hauenstein Center for separating the videos in reasonable places (not between words and phrases) and putting them in a continuous playlist.

I seem to have gotten rid of most of my old spammers so I've disabled comment moderation. From now on, whenever you post a comment, it will appear automatically without me having to approve it. Please--please--don't make me regret this.

A Bit of Advertising

I've been using some new programs and services recently and I think I'll give a few short reviews here.

I started fooling around with Celestia recently and I've fallen in love with it.  Celestia is an open-source program that does for the known universe what Google Earth (another great program) did for Earth.  It includes great detail about most stars and celestial bodies we can name and map.  Everything from stars (complete with accurate revolution times and Vega's irregular shape), extra-solar planets, known asteroids, comets and even spacecraft are shown in great detail.  Everything's position can be mapped to any time in the future or past, or you can simply set it to view the sky from your position on Earth in real time if you're too lazy to break out the telescope.  Exponential zoom makes navigating the galaxy--and the known universe beyond it--a breeze.

Many other objects (new discoveries, original omissions, the Death Star) can be imported into Celestia from The Celestia Motherlode.

I used GoToMyPC this past weekend while I was away from my computer.  I got much more work done than if I were on the laptop without my normal software.  I expected choppy controls and limited functionality.  I was amazed at how wrong I was.  For those of you who live on your desktop computer and travel often, I cannot recommend this service enough.  I'm an open-source junkie and generally refuse to pay for any type of software, but this is well worth the $20/month price tag if you're a frequent traveller.  (There is a 30-day free trial that you can cancel without paying a cent.)

 

I also did a search for sites linking to this blog and added some of them to my blogroll.  Here's a few of those I found:

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party - A vivacious Aussie chick with a sense of humour and a great recipe for brown rice salad.  What more could you ask for?

Ylooshi's Breaking Spells - Ylooshi seems to have stopped writing on Breaking Spells in February, but what I have read of Breaking Spells is fantastically written.  Let's hope this is merely a hiatus and we can expect a comeback.

Rockit Queen's Stupid & Contagious - I hate the overwhelming majority of celebrities.  I want to become a tabloid photographer and reporter just to watch these assholes fall hard and make money off of their pitiful demises.  This is why I fell in love with Stupid & Contagious, a blog that truly lives up to its title.  Rockit gleefully and masterfully rips pop culture a new anus every week (or so) and I can't get enough!

Literarydeadkittens' Ichthyes - I knew LDK for a time on the Richard Dawkins Foundation chat room.  She was a spunky character and was always a privilege to talk to.  I'm going to have to get back in touch with her now that I've found her blog.  Technically, Ichthyes is a joint project, but LDK seems to be doing most of the writing and I somewhat know her, so I'm lumping all the credit on her.

Jeremy's Endcycle - I rarely find a snarky blogger that can satisfy my intense hunger for snarky.  Jeremy is one of the very few who can satisfy my snark lust.

Karen Politte's Open Door - Karen may be a woman, but she definitely has bigger balls than I do.  She actually... get this... chases tornados.  Karen is originally from Scotland and moved to Arkansas to pursue a career in severe weather photography.  Having spent considerable time in Arkansas (mostly against my will), I have to respect her:  Living in Arkansas is almost as reckless and dangerous as, well, chasing tornados.

 

No, folks, I'm not selling out.  No company or blogger paid me or even asked me to write this.  I honestly endorse these programs and blogs without being forced to do so.  (I could be lying and Jeremy from Endcycle could be holding a gun to my head right now and yelling at me to add more to his review, calling him a wonderful person who everyone should strive to lay at least once in their life, but that would be silly and completely out of his character... right?  Right?)

Charlton Heston is Dead

Charlton Heston is dead.

Now maybe we can take his gun from his cold... oh... that's wrong.

New Day, Same Old Arguments

This guy has a blog. He also has his head in his ass.

The pretentious and ostentatious title of his crapfest of a blog is "Atheism Special. Any one May Respond. You are Welcome." Atheism special. That sounds like a poorly translated name of a dish in a Vietnamese restaurant. Any one May Respond. First, anyone is one word. Second, if you have to advertise that you aren't going to censor people based on who they are, what does that say about the people you run with? You are Welcome. I never thanked you for your second-rate crapfest blog. Are you really so dense to presume that everyone who stumbles upon your site will grovel at your feet in thanks for this lovely little gift of crapfest you have bestowed upon us?

Sigh.

He left this little turd-nugget on the blogosphere:

Atheism Is Ideal

Atheism is ideal if one could be absolutely sure that there is no God. But who could be absolutely sure? On what grounds?

(My email exchanges with an atheistic guru who claims to have written a best-seller on the subject is reproduced in the blog here [and I'm a self-promoting, pretentious prat with a propensity for prodding my prostate with two fingers and a prostitute's prick while I read the Bible].)

I left a comment, but it is waiting moderation and I doubt this coward will post it:

So much stupid, so little time!

Atheists don't know that there is no God or gods. There's a distinct possibility that Jesus is really God. However, there's the exact same probability for the divinity of Thor, Pele, Shiva, Wotan, Zeus, Dionysus, Amenhotep, Baal, Jupiter, Nike, Allah, Krishna, Loki, Apollo, Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Bacchus, Isis, Osiris, Loa, Mithra, Adonis, Brigit, Väinämöinen, Buddha, Axomamma (Axomamma I said how she durrin'?), The Coyote, Odin, Wakan-Tanka, Atlas, FSM, IPU and me--to recite a small part of a very, very truncated list. It's no different to be an Atheist in regard to Jesus, as I am, than to be an Atheist in regard to any of these other gods.

You aren't any more "absolutely sure" that these gods are false than I am "absolutely sure" that Jesus (at least the mystical aspects of his life) is equally a fairy tale; concocted by early Jewish mountebanks plagiarising from previous religions.

Are you "absolutely sure" that Thor doesn't have his hammer hanging above your home or Zeus isn't aiming a lightning bolt at your car? Not any more than I'm "sure" that Yahweh isn't watching me masturbate. But do you pray to Thor and Zeus for your safety? I think not.

If denying Jesus (meek and mild, died from being nailed to a board) is foolish, denying Thor (carries a big hammer, probably nailed Jesus to said board) is even more foolish.

Away For the Weekend

I'll be away for the weekend at a vocal competition. Here's a few videos to tide you over while I'm gone.

[3 videos]

UFOs: Just as much proof as Jesus and bowel movements!

This was featured on Opie and Anthony today. UFOs: There's just as much proof of UFOs as there is for Jesus and other people's bowel movements! Believe!!!

[video]


"They could be made of water. [...] They could be made of anything extraterrestrial." Yes... extraterrestrial... like water.