Atheists' Heaven - All Forums

Afghanistan's dirty little secret

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:36:15 +0000

SF Gate Wrote:

"How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful."

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.

"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.

Read more here

Scy

BBC shows anti christian bias

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 17:36:22 +0000

What a shame they arent getting their way all the time and now theyve thrown their teddies out of the pram.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvand...-bias.html

Archbishop says UK taxpayer should help fund Pope visit

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:58:40 +0000

BBC Wrote:The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said it is right that UK taxpayers should help pay for the Pope's trip to Britain.

Critics are angry that up to £12m is to come from the public purse.

But Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols told the BBC it would be a "sad day" when the UK "closes its doors and says we can't afford state visits".

He also hinted the Pope may meet victims of the Catholic abuse scandal during this month's four-day visit.

Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in Scotland on 16 September for first papal visit since Pope John Paul II in 1982.

This trip, which will also include events in London and Birmingham, will be the first ever official state visit to Britain by a serving Pontiff.

An online poll of 2,005 people, published this week, found 79% had "no personal interest" in the visit.

The survey, by think tank Theos, also found 77% thought taxpayers should not help pay for it.

But Archbishop Nichols told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme it was right the taxpayer and the Church shared the bill because the Pope was coming at the invitation of the government.

Read more here

Quote:Critics are angry that up to £12m is to come from the public purse.

And damned right so!

Quote:An online poll of 2,005 people, published this week, found 79% had "no personal interest" in the visit.

The survey, by think tank Theos, also found 77% thought taxpayers should not help pay for it.

Can someone please tell the pope to take the hint!

Scy

School Teaches Kids Religion Is a 'Disease'

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 12:17:18 +0000

FOX Nation Wrote:God is dead? At a top Brooklyn middle school, He is.

Just when you thought the separation of church and state was more than an option, like paper or plastic, the matter has been settled at MS 51 in Park Slope. And the lesson falls on the side of atheism.

"RELIGION," a sheet from English class, handed out to eighth-graders, is provocatively titled. The typewritten paper presents some 20 quotes that can be described as anti-God, coming from philosophers from Kierkegaard to Schopenhauer. Even a "Yiddish proverb."

"Religion is a disease, but a noble disease," reads the first quote, attributed to Heraclitus.

"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they will think," reads one by Schopenhauer.

Another sheet, titled "GOD," asks kids to ponder whether religion should be treated as poetry -- neither true nor false.

Angry parents want to know: What the devil does this have to do with middle-school English?

And, aren't these kids too young to learn something more appropriate for a grad-school theological course?

"It's not only above their level, obviously. It's inappropriate in a public-school setting," said Ken Whelan, whose daughter brought home the assignment late last year.

Read more here

I do like this quote:

Quote:Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they will think.

I also do think its ridiculously absurd to be shoving such information down the throats of these young kids.

I'm as much against religion as the next, but there are lines to be drawn. The last thing we want is to end up doing exactly what theists do, effectively lowering ourselves to their level.

Scy

Not All Nonbelievers Call Themselves Atheists

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 11:28:54 +0000

American Atheists, a group that advocates on behalf of atheists in the U.S., will hold its national convention later this month. According to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, 5% of American adults say they do not believe in God or a universal spirit, but only about a quarter (24%) of these nonbelievers actually call themselves atheists.

http://pewforum.org/Not-All-Nonbelievers...eists.aspx

Iran 'stoning woman' to get 99 lashes

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 09:07:49 +0000

Yahoo! Wrote:Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, has also been sentenced to 99 lashes for a photo published of her without a headscarf, according to her son.

In an interview published on the website of the French magazine La Regle du Jeu and the blog Dentelles et Tchador, Mohammadi-Ashtiani's son Sajjad said they learned of the new punishment from released inmates.

He said that a prison judge confirmed that she was to be lashed for spreading "corruption and indecency" by the publication of a photograph of her without a headscarf that appeared in a British newspaper.

The Times of London published on August 28 a photo of a woman without a headscarf that it said was Mohammadi-Ashtiani, however on September 3 it said the attribution of the photo, which it received from one of her lawyers that has fled Iran, was incorrect.

The photo "... is certainly not that of my mother", said Sajjad.

Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, was given the death penalty for an extramarital relationship.

Iran has subsequently said she was also convicted of being an accomplice in her husband's death, though she has denied that was the case.

Her plight has prompted protests in Europe and an international campaign to spare her. Tehran has provisionally suspended the death sentence.

Read more here

Such barbarianism! And this coming from a religion in which it's followers claim to be that of peace and humanity. What irony!

Scy

GOOD: The Almighty Dollar

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:18:01 +0000

Interesting.

Keke

Is There A God?

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:09:59 +0000

Is there a god? The question is discussed at length here:

The God FAQ

Keke

Atheist Links

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 07:28:07 +0000

The following post, which will be updated regularly and stickied, will contain links to atheist sites of interest:

Keke

American Atheists (Death's Door)

Note: This is not a post for discussion as such and, as people reply to it I will do one of three things:
* Add the link (credited) into the post and delete the reply.
* Reject and delete the post (and explain by PM)
* Split the post off to create a new thread

A Chaplain and an Atheist Go to War

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:46:30 +0000

The Wall Street Journal Wrote:

Religious Programs Specialist Philip Chute, left, keeps watch over Chaplain Terry Moran during patrol.

SANGIN, Afghanistan—They say there are no atheists in foxholes. There's one on the front lines here, though, and the chaplain isn't thrilled about it.

Navy Chaplain Terry Moran is steeped in the Bible and believes all of it. His assistant, Religious Programs Specialist 2nd Class Philip Chute, is steeped in the Bible and having none of it.

Together they roam this town in Taliban country, comforting the grunts while crossing swords with each other over everything from the power of angels to the wisdom of standing in clear view of enemy snipers. Lt. Moran, 48 years old, preaches about divine protection while 25-year-old RP2 Chute covers the chaplain's back and wishes he were more attentive to the dangers of the here and now.

It's a match made in, well, the Pentagon.

"He trusts God to keep him safe," says RP2 Chute. "And I'm here just in case that doesn't work out."

The 460 Army, Navy and Air Force chaplains deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan are prohibited from carrying weapons, counting on their assistants and the troops around them for protection. It can be a perilous calling. On Monday, Chaplain Dale Goetz, 43, of White, S.D., and four other soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb near Kandahar. Capt. Goetz is the first Army chaplain killed in action since the Vietnam War.

Army chaplains represent 130 religions and denominations, including Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. The military says it's common for assistants to be of different faiths from the chaplains they support, or of no faith at all.

Read more here

I wonder where god was for the hundreds of soldiers that DID die.

I have met a handful of other atheists while I was serving full-time in the army and even when I went back in July 2010 for reservist training, met some more, some of which are active regulars.

Even though ours is more of a defensive force, so we're not active in Afghanistan and such, we do get deployed to assist neighboring countries so I can say with a degree of certainty that the saying is B/S.

Scy

Muslims tread carefully around proposed mosque near ground zero

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:27:58 +0000

Yahoo! Wrote:American Muslims are treading carefully through the political minefield surrounding the proposed Islamic center near ground zero in New York – issuing warnings but not wanting to overreact to a recent series of desecrations and vandalism at mosques around the country, encouraging adherents to participate in a “9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance,” and changing plans for celebrating the end of Ramadan.

As the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, approaches the caution may be justified.

Acts of vandalism – which law enforcement officials are investigating as hate crimes – have been directed at mosques in Madera, Calif., Murfreesboro, Tenn., and other places around the country. Remnants of a pipe bomb were found at a mosque in Jacksonville, Fla. Playground equipment was burned and vulgar graffiti found at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Education Center, in South Arlington, Tex.

Read more here

I know its fairly obvious and has been said a thousand times before, but I'll say it again anyway:

The theists that have involved themselves in these notorious acts (I'm sure some, if not most, of those involved are theists) are so typically hypocritical.

Another fine example for how religion only serves to further divide an already divided people.

Scy

Occam: Debating Theists [SPLIT]

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 01:01:26 +0000

In discussions with strong theists, I've also asked, 'Have you ever read it'? Often they'll say they have. So, I ask that they tell me the story of Lot. They start with the evil of Sodom, god telling Lot to take his family and leave, but not look back, then his wife did and she got turned into a pillar of salt.

Then it's, "Wait a minute. You forgot what precipitated this. Two angels visited Lot and the men of Sodom went to his home and demanded he send the two angels out so they could 'have their way' with them. Lot said rather than that, he'd send out his two virgin daughters so the men could use them instead. Lot was supposedly the good guy. Does this mean god condones sending your daughters out to be gang raped?"

After they bumble around on that, I ask what happened to Lot after they left.

"They found a cave to live in."

"And what did his daughters do?" More bumbling. "They decided they wanted to get pregnant so they got their father drunk so he'd have sex with them. Since you believe so strongly in the bible, are you saying that you also condone incest?"

The best thing about knowing about the bible is that you can have a lot (sorry) of fun with believers.

Occam

Rush YYZ Video

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:06:40 +0000

Great video, awesome animation ... still got no idea about Rush, I just love this:

Keke

How Stuff Works: Frogs Legs

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 20:28:30 +0000

Quote:How Stuff Works: How twitching frog legs and salt work – a little gross, yes, but fascinating

As you can see, the chef is preparing frog legs for dinner. He has skinned the frog legs and they are ready to be cooked. When he salts them, the muscles start twitching. The obvious question: why does that happen?

Because these are fresh frog legs, the cells inside them are all still intact. The biochemical machinery still functions. There is still a source of energy for the muscles in the form of unused ATP molecules stored in the cells. All that the muscles need is something to activate them and they can still contract and relax (until they run out of ATP or something else shuts down the biochemical machinery).
[READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE]

That's freakin' amazing

Keke

Has Stephen Hawking ended the God debate?

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:39:30 +0000

Telegraph Wrote:

Hawking says science will explain the beginning of the universe

God did not create the universe, Stephen Hawking revealed yesterday. In the flurry of publicity preceding his new book, The Grand Design, to be published next week, he does some serious dissing of the Almighty, declaring him/her/it irrelevant. The point is, he says, that our universe followed inevitably from the laws of nature. But, we might ask, where did they come from?

It is perhaps a bit rich for Hawking to make God redundant after granting him/her/it a celebrity cameo at the end of his multi-million selling A Brief History of Time. In his famous conclusion to the book, Hawking wrote that if scientists could find the most fundamental laws of nature "then we should know the mind of God". To be fair, he was writing metaphorically – we all know what he meant.

He now suggests that the search for this particular Holy Grail is over, now that scientists have come up with a type of theory, known as M-theory, that may describe the behaviour of all the fundamental particles and force, and even account for the very birth of the universe. If this theory is backed up by experiment, it might perhaps replace all religious accounts of creation – in Hawking's capacious mind, it already has.

The science-religion debate has been going on since science was born, centuries ago. Until relatively recently, it seemed to have quietened down, but now Hawking and others have brought it back into the limelight. It's striking that the scientists who contribute most vociferously to the arguments work in the field of evolutionary biology and fundamental physics. These, at least superficially, appear to be the territories where science and religion can make conflicting claims, leading us to ask which has the better case. But are they alternatives? Is there really any serious argument between the two?

Read more here

Scy

Atheist Christopher Hitchens Vows to Fight Religion, Cancer, and Deathbed Conversion

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:36:09 +0000

Politics Daily Wrote:Unrepentant despite the ongoing ravages of esophageal cancer and the chemotherapy that is supposed to keep it at bay, atheist and controversialist Christopher Hitchens is vowing to "continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it's hello darkness my old friend."

One of the delusions he targets in his regular column in the latest edition of Vanity Fair magazine is the notion that the cancer is divine retribution for his irreligious spoutings, and in particular a punishment aimed at his voice, which has for years been the famously plummy medium for many of his heresies.

His throat, the high-living Hitchens notes with characteristic drollery, "is not at all the only organ with which I have blasphemed."

And he issues a "prebuttal" to assure both his foes and his many fans (some of them believers) that even if his voice survives to his deathbed, they shouldn't believe any reports of a last-minute change of heart.

"As a terrified, half-aware imbecile," Hitchens writes, "I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be 'me.' (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)"

As he often does, Hitchens picks out the cartoonish views of one of the uglier believers to comment on his illness in order to set up his deconstruction of faith.

He quotes one anonymous believer as commenting: "He's going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he's sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire."

Read more here

Scy

Seriously, Google?

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:32:05 +0000

I came across this and actually tried it, to verify. Wtf

Scy

DEOBAND: Clearest Rational Argument for the Existence of a Creator (Ahem!)

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:26:34 +0000

I "stole" this from a CFI thread

Quote:Clearest Rational Argument for the Existence of a Creator
Mufti Yusuf Mullan

The following six step argument has been formulated with the modern agnostic and atheist in mind. Each premise is accompanied with an explanation of the exact ‘manner of deduction’, so the reader may appreciate exactly what is being done.

The argument seeks to establish an Entity attributed with necessary existence (ithbat al-wajib) and attributes of perfection such as life, will, power and knowledge, and also free of all flaws, including resemblance to the creation in any way which would allow one to pose the question, “Who created him?” This will all be done based only on universally accepted absurdities (musta’hilat). Certain areas where attempts have been made to undermine the proof have been given extra attention. Most major objections have been dealt with in the main body of the article.

Assumptions and Summary
Due to the lengthy nature of the article, we will first list the hinges upon which the argument depends, and then a brief outline of the premises. This will be followed by detailed commentary on all of the stages of the proof, including preemting all major rebuttals. The issue is a serious one, and we ask our reader to please bare with us. The argument presupposes two matters that we believe are beyond debate. We will thus not engage in attempting to ‘prove’ these two issues. Instead, we would rather not discuss with anyone doubtful in these two issues. They are very obvious:

Firstly, the real existence of beings, attributes and events we observe in the world. Our direct observation of them is sufficient in acquiring knowledge of their real existence.

Secondly, the principle of non-contradiction. It is not possible for two directly opposing propositions to both be true, and likewise for both to be false. Necessarily, one will be true and the other will be false. Similarly if a proposition leads to contradiction - and we are able to demonstrate this - its opposite will need to be accepted as true on this basis alone. It is not warranted for someone to claim we have not proven our point, if we were successful in demonstrating contradiction within its opposite. Yes. If an opponent wants to contest our disjunction, claiming a third option is possible, they are free to do so. Throughout the article, we will preempt all such occasions. Naturally, the article will get lengthy at such places. For this reason we offer a brief summary before beginning. Below are the six stages of the argument listed in a summarised fashion:

Premise 1: [I lift my hand in real life, point to it and say:] The movement of my hand is something which began to exist.

Premise 2: Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.

Premise 3: Therefore, the movement of my hand must have a cause.

Premise 4: This cause will either be A: contingently existent [along with what that entails], or B: necessarily existent [along with what that entails]. There is no third possibility.

Premise 5: This cause is not a contingently existing cause.

Premise 6: Therefore, by rational necessity, it must have been a necessarily existent Being who created the movement of my hand [along with all of what this entails].

Just by viewing the summary above, one can gather the following:

* This is not your conventional cosmological argument that sets out to establish a finite beginning in time for the universe and argues for a “primary mover” or “first cause”. We ask our reader to please put aside preconceived notions of what they might think the argument is attempting and instead pay particular attention to the commentary which is to follow.

* From the premises above, one can clearly see that this argument is attempting to prove both the existence of a Creator and also occasionalism, all in one go.

* In establishing premise 5, the argument will invoke the absurdity of “infinite regress”, as we believe no sound argument for the existence of a Creator can be formulated without tackling this important angle. Again, we ask that the reader not jump to conclusions prior to reading our explanation.
[READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE HERE]

For the interests and amusement of those who philosophically minded

Keke

What is your favorite South American band?

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:12:01 +0000

My own current favorite is Andean Fusion. I bought three of their CDs years ago and still listen to them frequently Come to think... i should buy more > _ >

How about you guys?

Tony Blair pelted with eggs at book signing in Dublin

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:59:28 +0000

BBC Wrote:Activists clashed with Irish police as they tried to push down a security barrier outside the bookshop
Eggs, bottles and shoes have been thrown at the former prime minister Tony Blair as he attended a book signing in Dublin.

It happened as he arrived at Easons on O'Connell Street in the city to sign copies of his autobiography.

The missiles, which were thrown by anti-war protesters, did not hit Mr Blair.

Four people were arrested as activists clashed with Irish police at a security barrier outside the bookshop.

Around 200 protesters demonstrated at Mr Blair's role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on one side of the street on Saturday morning.

On the other side, more than 300 people gathered to get a copy of his book signed.

It was Mr Blair's first book-signing since the publication of his autobiography.

Read more here

Scy