Published by Mr. Apostate on August 31, 2011Funny thing about truth . . . many times it arrives with a sting.
See my Aphorism titled, “On the Catholic Church’s Support of Child Rape”
Changing Bulbs
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Category Archives: Atheism
Aphorism: On Religious Criminalization, Part Deux
By Madison S. Hughes (08.30.2011)
On 08.29.2011 I posted I posted a YouTube video on my blog titled, “Janet Porter Prays for Control of Government,” below which I penned the caption, “WOW! How disturbing is this? Religion should be criminalized before we find ourselves back in the Dark Ages.” As one may imagine, some found my caption as disturbing as the video itself. What follows is my response to a comment left by a fellow blogger. “dannyraysongs”responded to my comment as follows:
“I have to say that I’m also very disturbed by your comment Madison. It’s seems apparent here on your blog that you desire to get your message out. Are you really that naive to think that Christians, Jews and/or Muslims don’t desire to have more of their fellow believers in government positions? It seems quite apparent (or at least inferred) in your blog that you would like less devout believers (or atheists) in positions of government. Should we now police what people pray? Who would qualify to be hired as a Prayer Police Officer? I really do appreciate your talent as a writer, but I’m one of those right-wing Christians you obviously feel are so dangerous and deserving of criminal charges.”
I responded as follows:
Sam Harris, “Whither Eagleman?”
. . . Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and I have never claimed that we can establish the nonexistence of God. We simply observe, as you do, that the God of Abraham has the same empirical status as Poseidon and that the books attesting to His existence bear every sign of having been cobbled together by ignorant mortals. This is all one needs to judge Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to be incorrigible cults peddling ancient mythology . . . In place of genuine ignorance, humility, and wonder—and even in place of real knowledge—religious people erect false idols and false certainties. Read more . . .
Aphorism: On Religious Criminalization
By Madison S. Hughes (08.29.2011)
On 08.29.2011 I posted I posted a YouTube video on my blog titled, “Janet Porter Prays for Control of Government,” below which I penned the caption, “WOW! How disturbing is this? Religion should be criminalized before we find ourselves back in the Dark Ages.” As one may imagine, some found my caption as disturbing as the video itself. What follows is my response to a comment left by a fellow blogger. “jodaph970”responded to my comment as follows:
“Sure, it’s disturbing, but I also find your comment (“Religion should be criminalized before we find ourselves back in the Dark Ages.”) to be just as disturbing. Embracing a tyrannical dictation of what others should and shouldn’t do is the very antithesis of America.”
I responded as follows:
Quote: Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov, Ph.D. (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992)
Russian-born American Author and Biochemist, Humorist, Atheist
I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, FFRF: Freethought of the Day
On this date in 1749, Germany’s most famous poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,was born in Frankfurt am Main, to a comfortable bourgeois family. He began studying law at Leipzig University at the age of 16, and practiced law briefly before devoting most of his life to writing poetry, plays and novels. In 1773, Goethe wrote the powerful poem “Prometheus” [quoted below], which urged human beings to believe in themselves, and not in the gods. His first novel was The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), a semi-autobiographical tragedy about a doomed love affair. A line from that novel: “We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things: and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.” In his 1797 Hermann and Dorothea, Goethe observed: “The happy do not believe in miracles.” Goethe typified the Sturm und Drang romantic movement, celebrating the individual. The Grand Duke of Weimar appointed him an administrator in 1775, where, according to historians, Goethe turned Weimar into “the Athens of Germany.” In supervising the arts and sciences, Goethe discovered the human intermaxilary bone, also known as the Goethe bone (1784), among other discoveries. After a sojourn in Italy from 1786 to 1788, Goethe returned to his art, writing for a journal edited by freethinker Friedrich von Schiller and starting his own. Inspired by Christopher Marlowe‘s play “Faust,” Goethe wrote part 1 of his most famous play, published in 1808. Part 2 was published in 1832. From Part 1, Scene 9: “The church alone beyond all question/ Has for ill-gotten gains the right digestion.” Although Goethe’s beliefs ebbed and flowed, he was uniformly anti-Christian and, at most, a pantheist. D. 1832.
PZ Myers, Secular Europe Campaign
There is no controversy; creationism doesn’t belong in our public schools.
The sole purpose of creationism is to defend the biblical book of Genesis. It exists only for religious purposes and it abandons anything that even remotely approaching scientific research. Creationism is an insult to the collective of human intelligence. Living a life according to myths and fairy tales is nothing short of childish and those who would cause detriment to the proper education of our children amount to little more than the “blind leading the blind” and they should have no place in deciding who is taught anything. Read more . . .
How Much Money Could the Department of Defense Save if it Stopped Trying to Save Souls?
. . . [G]iven all the current brouhaha over what should be cut from the federal budget, people might be interested to see some of examples of how the DoD is spending countless millions of taxpayer dollars every year to Christianize the military . . . [T]he rampant promotion of evangelical Christianity under the guise of Spiritual Fitness is going on in all branches of the military . . . Evangelizing the children of service members is one of the largest areas of spending . . . One of the reasons given by Cadence for the success of its “Strategic Ministry” is: “Deployment and possibly deadly combat are ever-present possibilities. They are shaken. Shaken people are usually more ready to hear about God than those who are at ease, making them more responsive to the gospel.” Read more . . .
Catholic Terrorist Arrested in Spain
A Mexican student was arrested in Madrid on Tuesday after posting his intention to attack anti-papal protestors with toxic gases, including sarin, on the internet . . . A staunch Catholic, the man said that he could not allow protests against the pope . . . So it’s secularists and atheists who are “militant” and “fundamentalist,” but they are the ones targeted for terrorist attacks and police brutality. You don’t see any atheists trying to launch poison gas attacks on Catholic events. You don’t see atheist police bashing Catholic heads at World Youth Day.
Read more . . .
Always Question Authority 