Source: MoveOn.org
What Daylight Savings Time Means for Republicans [Reactionaries]
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Category Archives: Anti-Intellectualism
Yes, life without God can be bleak. Atheism is about facing up to that.
Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right. Can you really tell the parents who lost their child to a suicide after years of depression that they should stop worrying and enjoy life? Doesn’t the appropriate response to 4,000 children dying everyday as a direct result of poor sanitation involve despair at the relentless misery of the world as well as some effort to improve things? Sometimes life is shit and that’s all there is to it. Not much bright about that fact.
Stressing the jolly side of atheism not only glosses over its harsher truths, it also disguises its unique selling point. The reason to be an atheist is not that it makes us feel better or gives us a more rewarding life. The reason to be an atheist is simply that there is no God and we would prefer to live in full recognition of that, accepting the consequences, even if it makes us less happy. The more brutal facts of life are harsher for us than they are for those who have a story to tell in which it all works out right in the end and even the most horrible suffering is part of a mystifying divine plan. If we don’t freely admit this, then we’ve betrayed the commitment to the naked truth that atheism has traditionally embraced. . .
And so we [atheists] don’t just get on and enjoy life, we embark on our own intellectual pilgrimages [emphasis added], trying to make some progress in a universe on which no meaning has been writ. The journey can be wonderful but it can also be arduous and it may end horribly. But there is no other way, and anyone who urges you to follow a path that they promise leads to a bright future [i.e., salvation] is either gravely mistaken or a charlatan [emphasis added].
Quote: Sam Harris
Sam Harris, Ph.D. (born 1967)
American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, co-founder and CEO of
Project Reason, whose main aim is the promotion of scientific knowledge
and secular values within society, and outspoken atheist
Paul Krugman: Ignorance Is Streangth
. . . So why are [Reactionaries] so eager to trash higher education?
It’s not hard to see what’s driving Mr. Santorum’s wing of the party. His specific claim that college attendance undermines faith is, it turns out, false. But he’s right to feel that our higher education system isn’t friendly ground for current [reactionary] ideology. And it’s not just liberal-arts professors: among scientists, self-identified Democrats outnumber self-identified Republicans nine to one.
I guess Mr. Santorum would see this as evidence of a liberal conspiracy. Others might suggest that scientists find it hard to support a party in which denial of climate change has become a political litmus test, and denial of the theory of evolution is well on its way to similar status.
It’s Not Muslims Who Are Trying To Impose Their Religion On Everyone: It’s The [International Child Raping Organization That Is] The Catholic Church
. . . [R]eligious [reactionaries] in the United States are trying to impose their values and doctrine on the rest of us. No, they won’t try to achieve such objective by telling us that abortion, marriage equality and contraceptives are sinful and against the will of God; that sanctimonious strategy would backfire on them. They are doing it in a much more sinister and deceptive way: They are suggesting that by not legislating and implementing their beliefs the rest of us are guilty of denying them ‘religious [privilege].’ After all, the best defense is a good offense and the best offense is to claim to be “the victim.”
An explicit portrayal of the Tea Party
Michael Moore: On Rush Limbaugh’s insincere apology for calling Sandra Fluke a “Slut” after sponsors pull ads / “Who’s The Prostitute Now, Bitch?”
Are the subliterate Tea Party reactionaries racist? You bet’cha darl’in!
What These Popular Reactionary Phrases Really Mean
Andrew Breitbart Dead: Conservative Blogger Dies Suddenly At 43
Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and journalist, died suddenly on Thursday morning[.]
Read more . . .
The world has a little less hate in it today, and I am as unsympathetic to this bigot’s death as I will be when others of his ilk like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, et al meet their maker. Good riddance Breitbart, you bigoted piece of shit!For those of the mindset that think one should not speak ill of the dead it is obvious that I disagree. I do not believe that one who spent a lifetime spewing bigotries should somehow have bestowed upon them a modicum of respect simply because they met their maker. No, the only place one should find sympathy for someone of Breitbart’s character should be in a dictionary, somewhere between shit and syphilis. [MSH]
Always Question Authority 