ANTI-THEISM: “Leviticus 12:1-5”

Posted on 11.06.2014 by AlwaysQuestionAuthority

h/t: We Fucking Love Atheism

Dearest Ben Affleck, Nicholas Kristof, et al.

This is what an attack on an idea—not an individual—looks like. In the future, please exercise some basic critical thinking skills and understand the difference, if unable, I am sure that Sam Harris and Bill Maher would be glad to educate you; if unwilling, please exercise quiescence in any future conversations concerning this matter.

In Reason,
Madison

Leviticus 12:1-5New International Version (NIV)

Purification After Childbirth

12 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. 3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.
h/t: Bible Gateway

ANTI-THEISM: “Godless Millennials Could End the Political Power of the Religious Right” / The Guardian / Adam Lee

Posted on 10.27.2014 by AlwaysQuestionAuthority

America is becoming less Christian because young people are less religious. That’s not blessed news for conservatives.
[…]
While the effect on evangelicals is new, the general pattern isn’t. The Catholic church, the largest single religious denomination in America, was the first to feel the pinch. Church leaders and Catholic apologists have been fretting for years over the problem of aging and shrinking congregations, declining attendance at Mass and fewer people signing up to become priests or nuns – although their proposals for how to solve the problem all consist of tinkering around the edges, or insisting that they need to try harder to convince people to believe as they do.
[…]
But even if this secularizing trend continues, it’s likely that there’s a hard core of believers who will persist no matter what: no one is forecasting the total extinction of the religious right in politics.

Still, for progressives, the eroding power of the churches is a most welcome development: the religions right can no longer claim to be the sole source of morality and virtue, nor can they expect to assert their will in political matters and be obeyed without question. Instead, they’ll have to muster evidence and make their case in the marketplace of ideas like everyone else.

CRITICAL THINKING: “What Ben Affleck Missed in the Islamophobia Debate with Bill Maher and Sam Harris” / Andrew L. Seidel

Posted on 10.11.2014 by AlwaysQuestionAuthority

Andrew L. Seidel

There’s an interesting video making the viral rounds. Bill Maher on his excellent show, Real Time, had on author Sam Harris, actor Ben Affleck, writer Nicholas Kristof, and political operative Michael Steele as guests. The discussion, debate is a better term, was about Islamophobia.

Maher and Harris argued that criticizing Islam is necessary and is not bigotry or discrimination. As is the tendency when accusations of racism and intolerance are flying, the debate got a bit heated.

Affleck said that Harris’s “argument is, ‘You know, black people, they shoot each other'” and “gross and racist.” Kristof said that Maher’s criticism of Islam has “a tinge of how white racists talk about African-Americans and define blacks.”

It is a bit frustrating to watch because the two sides are talking past each other. Maher and Harris are clearly correct. Affleck, Kristal and Steele are making valid points, but not against the arguments Maher and Harris raised.

Continue reading at Freedom From Religion Foundation