I just find this so amusing. It is like the movie with demi moore. A pastor came up with the idea. They wear it proudly, but it was our religion to place it on their sites!

It is like we told them they were sinning, and they ran and believed it and grabbed themselves a badge for it.

I did not know, I thought it was to show their faith in not believing in God.

Now I will look at those sites as a Pastors idea to let others know what sinners they are. LOL

If anyone knows of someone making or considering doing an outing for Christians and our own version of a letter, let me know.

HTML would be more appropriate since many sites are banning java script.

I did not know that the scarlet A, was the idea of a pastor so we know which ones are really bigoted to avoid. I thought the idea was done by an atheist to promote their beliefs. That is not the case!

They wear a badge made by a Christian so we would know which sites are more bigoted then others.

is a blog run by a science professor named P.Z Myers. Not only does Mr Myers believe in the fantasy of evilution, but every year he milks thousands and thousands of dollars out of the education system to indoctrinate children into his hateful cult. Like most liberal educators at America’s secular colleges, Myers lives a life of luxury at taxpayers’ expense—taking long vacations with his trophy wife, driving expensive foreign cars, dressing his children in exclusive fashions—all the while promoting his vengeful and deceitful ideology.

Scarlet Letter Campaign Update: A Victory! « Republican Faith Chat.

On a personal note I do not know this man, and will be researching whether this is fact on the money and educational system. I want to talk to both him and the pastor whether this is accurate.

While avoiding reading I should be doing, I stumbled upon Richard Dawkins’ Out Campaign. The Out Campaign is Dawkins effort to convince atheists to ‘come out of the closet,’ he writes:

As far as subjective impressions allow and in the admitted absence of rigorous data, I am persuaded that the religiosity of America is greatly exaggerated. Our choir is a lot larger than many people realise. Religious people still outnumber atheists, but not by the margin they hoped and we feared. I base this not only on conversations during my book tour and the book tours of my colleagues Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, but on widespread informal surveys of the World Wide Web. Not our own site, whose contributors are obviously biased, but, for example, Amazon, and YouTube whose denizens are reassuringly young. Moreover, even if the religious have the numbers, we have the arguments, we have history on our side, and we are walking with a new spring in our step – you can hear the gentle patter of our feet on every side.

Our choir is large, but much of it remains in the closet. Our repertoire may include the best tunes, but too many of us are mouthing the words sotto voce with head bowed and eyes lowered. It follows that a major part of our consciousness-raising effort should be aimed, not at converting the religious but at encouraging the non-religious to admit it – to themselves, to their families, and to the world. This is the purpose of the OUT campaign.

Before I go any further, I must forestall one major risk of misunderstanding. The obvious comparison with the gay community is vulnerable to going too far: to ‘outing’ as a transitive verb whose object might be an unfortunate individual not yet – or not ever – ready to confide in the world. Our OUT campaign will have nothing, repeat nothing to do with outing in that active sense. If a closet atheist wants to come out, that is her decision to make, and nobody else’s. What we can do is provide support and encouragement to those who willingly decide to out themselves. This may seem trivial to people in parts of Europe, or in regions of the United States dominated by urban intellectuals where support and encouragement is unnecessary. It is anything but trivial to people in other areas of the United States, and even more so in parts of the Islamic world where apostasy is, by Koranic authority, punishable by death.

You can read Dawkins’ introduction in its entirety here. The ‘A,’ that you may have noticed on the right, is used to show support for the OUT campaign.

D3 report: 2001 followed and this is the limit Twitter impose, so I think that I’ll have to use some other place to list everybody, 285 following, people still come in.
I keep collecting the URLs of people Rting “Getting a count of atheists on twitter by hashtag!”

Sometimes 140 characters are not enough to tell a story. So this blog comes as a complement for the @AthOnTwi account.

I started the project two days ago, following a message via @samiahurst:

RT Getting a count of atheists on twitter by hashtag! If you’re an atheist, RT this whole message # atheist

I think it will be interesting to have a single point where the tweets of  Atheists On Twitter may be found. Impossible to follow all of them but maybe I will manage to create a cloud of frequent terms and maybe hastags used by this particular subset of Twitter users in which I belong.

Set up the AthOnTwi account, searched for “Getting a count of atheists on twitter by hashtag!” and started saving the URLs of atheists tweeps and following them. Stopped when Twitter was saturated

While the aim is clear in my mind, bring us all in a single point, the way to get there isn’t.

Any help, advices, suggestions, is welcome. Some came in without need for asking (thankx Matt), I’m looking forward for more.

Replying to a blog post at End Hereditary Religion, 0ne of the commenters spoke out against the “scarlet A.”  The scarlet A serves as the rallying symbol for Richard Dawkins’s “Out Campaign”, which is designed to encourage atheists to own up to their atheism more publicly and vocally, and to support one another as fellow atheists in a predominantly religious world.

Here was the commenter’s objection:

I’m disappointed in the red A. this will attract and encourage the development of the (worst) human tendencies to group together in like-mindedness when ideas are challenged. Isn’t this what is wrong with the world now?

Humans are social creatures and social creatures group together and have means of identifying themselves as members of groups, means of establishing group norms, and means of perpetuating group goals.  This is called being human.  It’s not what’s wrong with the world right now, it’s the precondition of every human social interaction.

But your objection is a bit more specific than this.  You are saying that grouping together in like-mindedness when ideas are challenged is the problem.  But the issue is that groups are already like-minded before the ideas are challenged.  And every group shares some ideas or values or goals, etc. in common—again before any specific challenge from outside.  So, banding together around like-mindedness is, again, the precondition of having groups, and being in groups is an irremovable feature of human life.

So, what is the real problem, is it sticking with the group when the group’s ideas are challenged rather than breaking away straight away?  That seems too imprecise again.  We are not solitary knowers—we learn and we think in community.  Sciences and other academic disciplines are collaborative endeavors and their investigations require a high degree of agreement even as they also keep a vigilant lookout for the necessary places to disagree.

Within any realm of human life from the most ordinary to the most refined expert discussions, people are obliged to rely on a degree of authority and on shared paradigms for analysis.  And when one’s authorities and reigning paradigms are challenged, it is not always just group-think to insist on deferring to, or trying to defend, those authorities and paradigms rather than immediately abandon them.  Because you are not thinking by yourself, there are things you think and should think for which you nonetheless do not possess all the adequate evidence or understanding yourself.  And in some cases, this is because it is a practical impossibility for you to have adequate reasons given the limitations of your own training or your own alternate specialization.  This is the nature of expertise, we have to stand behind credible experts even when we personally cannot ourselves discern the difference between what makes their claims better than alternative ones which sound fine to our untrained ears.  This is humility and deference to legitimate authority.

Now, what is vital is that specialists take extra pains to reexamine the paradigms they share, that experts take under advisement the legitimate external challenges to their paradigms, that experts test and police each other, and finally that they earn their credibility with the public through demonstrable authority in whatever ways that educated people will be able to recognize.

The problem with religious thinking is not that it involves deference to authorities per se but rather that the alleged authorities in “theology” have no credentials to speak with any knowledge about the things theology claims to address.  The Scripture writers of all traditions have no more access to knowledge about supernatural schemes of justice requiring propitiation of sins than you or I have.   They have no more access to know the thoughts of “God”, let alone anything about the existence of such a being, than you or I do.

Authority and community of like-mindedness are corrupted when the alleged authorities cannot demonstrate their sufficiency to speak with authority and when community of like-mindedness is preserved by policing against dissent, is based on authorities who are in principle unquestionable, is based on unsubstantiated claims that no experts could justifiably defend, etc.  This is why religious faith in particular is a corruption of reason, it is structurally an unjustified commitment to undeserving authorities as a deliberate choice.

So, what are the pros and cons of atheists ourselves branding ourselves with the “scarlet A”?  (1) It is a means of providing political solidarity since regardless of whether we disagree with each other on any of a number of other issues, we share at least one particular philosophical position which has political consequences for us and it is valuable for us to be in touch with each other insofar as we have a common practical interest.

(2) Sharing that single philosophical position does not necessarily entail any other specific ones, but it often does make us more likely to agree on at least several others.  And it also means that a whole set of other positions will be rejected in common as part of our coming to our philosophical conclusion (that there is no adequate reason to believe in God) in the first place.  As a result, dialoguing with others who share this philosophical position promises to be fruitful in particular ways that discussion with those who disagree with us is not.  We can bracket all sorts of questions where there is disagreement and both (a) explore the implications of what we agree on and (b) find the places where even we disagree with each other.  It is valuable both to argue with your enemies AND your friends, and your arguments in each case will be potentially fruitful in differing ways.

(3) As a group with a shared philosophical position, we can rely on each other’s complementary areas of expertise to aid us in filling out the implications of what we already think (for our own good reasons) and to be a resource for each other against counter-evidence that we cannot address within our own means.

Now, the danger is that we hide behind group membership or each other’s authority even when there is some compelling evidence that we are substantially wrong and our authorities do not have sufficiently better answers than competitor authorities do.  But that danger is inherent in any thought endeavor that is communal and nearly all successful human thinking happens communally in the ways I described above.  So, this good thing—thinking in tandem with other people—requires a vigilance against its possible vices, e.g., protection of the group or the group’s cherished ideas as a dogma which becomes unassailable.

I want to say that atheists are inherently skeptics and so not as prone to this group-think as others are, but unfortunately there enough Marxists in the world to prove that thesis false!  Yes, we atheists if less scrupulous about the rest of our beliefs than we are about matters related to gods, may get snookered by bad economics, bad psychology, bad politics, etc., just like any one else.  And, even worse, we may compromise our intellects out of rabid allegiances to group identities just like any one else.  That’s a universal and unavoidable human temptation that comes hand in hand with the group identities which are so integral to human life.

So, we, like all other holders of common philosophical positions and members of politically identifiable communities (from the ordinary to the intellectual kinds) must scrupulously hold ourselves to rigorous standards of evidence and critical reexamination of our beliefs which we take as settled.

So is the “scarlet A” a poison to atheist thinking or is it a bridge to connect currently isolated people who would make for a productive political and philosophical force in the culture if only they could start finding each other and constructively interacting together with each other?  My suspicion is that it’s the latter, given the disorganized and alienated state of atheists in America today.

And if it makes you feel any better, even as I (quite excitedly) adopted the A for my website, I simultaneously adapted it to fit my own site’s aesthetic by making it orange.  So at least in my own case, I can attest that my own gesture of like-mindedness expressly asserted my rights non-conformity at the same time.  And I imagine Dawkins would be proud.

Your Thoughts?

Atheisten standen schon immer an vorderster Front des rationalen Denkens und waren stets Leuchtfeuer der Aufklärung. Jetzt können auch Sie Ihren Idealismus zeigen, indem auch Sie an der OUT Campaign teilnehmen.

Atheisten sind viel zahlreicher, als es die meisten Leute vermuten. KOMMEN SIE HERAUS aus Ihrem Hinterstübchen! Sie werden sich befreit fühlen und Ihr Beispiel wird auch andere dazu ermutigen, ebenfalls HERAUSZUKOMMEN. (Aber “outen” Sie niemanden anderes; warten Sie, bis sie sich selbst OUTen, wenn sie bereit dazu sind.)

Die OUT Campaign ermöglicht es jedem Einzelnen, andere wissen zu lassen, dass sie nicht alleine sind. Es kann auch eine nette Art sein, ein Gespräch zu beginnen, und helfen, das negative Bild von »den Atheisten« zu zerstören. Teilen wir der Welt mit, dass wir nicht mehr verschwinden werden, und dass wir denen, die uns verdammen wollen, nicht erlauben, uns in den Schatten zu drängen.

Indem mehr und mehr Leute der OUT Campaign beitreten, werden sich immer weniger Leute durch Religion einschüchtern lassen. Wir können anderen zeigen, dass Atheisten in allen Formen, Größen, Farben und Eigenschaften daherkommen. Wir sind Arbeiter und Berufstätige. Wir sind Mütter, Väter, Söhne, Töchter, Schwestern, Brüder und Großeltern. Wir sind Menschen (also Primaten) und wir sind gute Freunde und gute Mitbürger. Wir sind normale Menschen, die es nicht nötig haben, sich an etwas Übernatürliches zu klammern.

Es ist Zeit, unsere Stimme zu erheben gegen das Eindringen von Religion in unsere Schulen und in die Politik. Atheisten sind es zusammen mit Millionen anderen Menschen Leid, von denen angegriffen zu werden, die ihre eigene religiöse Einstellung unseren Kindern und unseren jeweiligen Regierungen eintrichtern wollen. Wir müssen das Übernatürliche RAUSHALTEN aus unseren moralischen Prinzipien und aus dem öffentlichen Gemeinwesen.

Es ist Zeit, vorzutreten und…

One great thing about blogging is connecting with like-minded individuals on the web.  I’m a strong proponent of intelligent and rational discussion of ideas.  The more skeptics out there that also find a way to be open with their atheism, the stronger and louder voice we have to be heard.  Unfortunately, coming out can be a very difficult thing to do for many people who live with and love people with different theological beliefs.  Luckily my wife is also a non-believer, but I can only imagine the difficulty this could cause in a family with different beliefs. 

My childhood family was very religious and continues to be. I am the only one able to break free from the dogmatic way of thinking that Christianity imposes.  While I am sad for them, we have enough respect for each other not to belittle each other for our different worldviews.  Therefore, my announcement of atheism came as no suprise. 

Has coming out, or the fear of coming out, been difficult for you?

Os não-crentes precisam começar a falar mais.

Richard Dawkins tem razão quando chama a campanha pelo lobby ateísta-agnóstico. Os não-crentes precisam se tornar mais agressivos, mais ativos e denunciar mais algumas das coisas que tem acontecido. Precisamos, de uma vez por todas, acabar com argumentos do tipo “tá na bíblia”, “porque deus quis” e “é minha fé, minha esperança”. Ninguém liga para nenhuma destas coisas. Vai te justificar direito.

Uma das maiores decepções da minha vida intelectual foi em 2007, em Chicago, ouvindo um cara que eu admiro muito. O John Caputo estava lá, expondo alguns argumentos sobre este ou aquele autor. Alguém pergunta: “ok, e como fica?”, ele “esta é minha fé, minha esperança”. É contra este tipo de coisa que precisamos nos levantar, este tipo de irracionalidade . Como assim “esta é minha fé”? Ninguém se importa. Tu pode acreditar no papai noel, no coelinho da páscoa ou em maomé. São todos a mesma mentira. Quem se importa com tua fé?

O poder destrutivo da irracionalidade religiosa, da fé, precisa ser confrontado de frente. E isso só vai ser feito se os não-crentes perderem o medo de dizerem “porque crer em um monstro de spaghetti gigante é absurdo e crer em uma criatura mística que controla o mundo não é?”. Por mais sofisticada que seja tua explicação, no fim das contas, tá lá o sentimento de fundo. De novo, porque devemos ter medo de fazer estas perguntas?

O conforto, qualquer conforto, que a religião te traz é só um substituto para a tua falta de condição de entender o mundo que te cerca. É a mesma função os contos de fadas, são coisas que a gente inventou para fazer sentido do mundo quando a gente não sabia lá muita coisa. Mas a evidência que as lições de mundo que a bíblia, o corão, ou qualquer outro livro sagrado, te dão são completamente dementes. São histórias de um deus que pede para um homem sacrificar seu filho só para depois dizer “TAVA TE SACANEANDO, VELHO! VALEU AÍ!”. Ou de um deus tão demente que manda uma parte de sua essência (?) para a terra, apenas para que essa parte possa ser deliberadamente sacrificada, para cumprir parte de uma profecia (?) que vai nos salvar de um sposto pecado (?) original (???) . É um bom argumento para um livro de ficção, e o cara tem que ter muita cara de pau para dizer que algumas passagens não são boas. Mas francamente. São histórias tão factíveis, ou tão “valiosas” quanto a do coelinho da páscoa ou do bixo papão. Ou simarillion. Tu não tá pronto para dizer que o Simarillion é a verdade da vida, né?

Existe um deus? Não sei. Ele tem um plano para mim? Claro que não. Ninguém tem um plano para mim além de eu mesmo. Ainda que seja importante a liberdade de credo, a liberdade de apontar o absurdo da religião tem que ser mantida, e tem que ser exercida por aqueles que identificam este absurdo. Assim como o absurdo de não lavar as mãos foi apontado. Temos bastante evidência para não crer, e não crer torna nossas vidas mais significativas, porque não somos mais resultado de um plano – mas o resultado de uma absurda série de eventos que levaram até a nossa existência, parte de uma ordem de prioridades miméticas – que de alguma forma conseguimos resistir.

Tudo bem se a religião te ajuda a viver uma vida mais justa. Mas se tu és capaz de identificar o absurdo de parte do sistema de crenças que a religião te oferece, porque não largar tudo de mão? Porque não admitir, de uma vez por todas, que qualquer conforto que a fé pode te trazer ele é insignificativo diante dos absurdos que a religião protagoniza. O movimento contemporâneo que tenta re-adaptar a religião, ou apelar para um misticismo, está apenas substituindo seis por meia dúzia. Este papo new-age de misticismo é apenas a resistência aos elementos que tu não gosta na religião alheia, e daí tu resolve fazer uma mistureba para tentar levar tua vida – superstição, amuletinhos, Jesus Negão, todas estas bobagens.

Sem religião é possível viver uma vida justa. Porque então, precisamos de religião? Para tentar achar uma vida após esta? Desculpa, é altamente improvável. Para tentar achar no passado lições para o futuro? Tu não precisa de deus para isso.

Inclusive, tu não precisa de deus para nada.

I was out (at the races!) yesterday and met this guy; he was the sort of person who observes other people and then starts poking to see what will happen. It was all in good fun. He was drinking way more than me, and I can be a good poker, too, so I’m not sure which of us had the upper hand in our little battle of wits. I told him he was like the Sicilian in “The Princess Bride”, which he was really taken aback by, and a lot of people thought my observation was just hilarious (because it was true). He was accurate, too, when he said he wasn’t sure if I was the sort of person to have a Jesus fish or a Darwin fish on my car. “Interesting you should say that,” I said. “I quit Christianity two years ago.” That topic didn’t come up again until later, when I mentioned that I was glad to be out with everyone because otherwise I would be at Bible Study right then.

And this guy was really curious and started asking questions. I briefly told the new guy that I’d quit Christianity because I didn’t believe in God any more, and that I was a part of the local atheist group, and that my husband was an Evangelical Christian. But what confused him was this: “Why not be a quiet atheist?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, why say anything? Why join a group? Why cause all this stress with your husband?”

“Why shouldn’t I say anything?” I asked. “It was kindof a big deal, and I needed to tell my husband. The only other option was to lie, and pretend to be a Christian, and fake praying and worshipping … I couldn’t do that. Besides, it is true that I am an atheist. And it is nothing to be ashamed of. I’m an atheist, and I’m not sorry for it. I’m actually proud of it. Why not be open about it?”

He didn’t know.

At this point my friend says, “Alice is the sort of person who, if you ask her opinion, she’ll gladly give it to you.” This is true. I’m honest and open and see no need to hide something unless it is a confidence I am keeping. Also, I believe the best way to live is to be as informed as possible. Know as much as you can, as well as you can, and you’ll be able to make better decisions. Believing that, it would be hypocritical of me to hide my atheism. I try to explain it to people as well as I can, because then that’s one more person who understands what atheism is and what an atheist looks like and behaves like.

So, for example, while my friends from Bible Study can go on making claims about what non-believers do, they know a non-believer personally, and if they ever want to know more about what secularists are really like, they can talk to me. If they choose not to inform themselves, that’s their choice.

But then, they might fall victim to one of the classic blunders– the most famous of which is, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

I reported about Atheist Pride Day a few days ago here. Follow the link if you wish to know more about it and how you can participate. But something that I forgot to mention was that it coincides with the vernal equinox (probably not by accident). Today (Friday) is the first day of spring, which reminds me of an old myth that you can only balance an egg on the vernal equinox. This is a myth that Phil Plait debunks here:

Apparently, there is a movement to make this Friday (tomorrow) “Atheist Day.” I am not entirely sure if this is to be an annual atheist day or just a one time event. Nor am I should I really want an “Atheist Day.” To me everyday is an atheist day. It isn’t as if I believe in deities for 364 days and than take a day to doubt.

In any case, part of the “Atheist Day” celebration calls for the greater atheist community to make our presence known online by displaying the Scarlet A as a profile picture on all social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. This I think is a good thing and something worthy of mass participation.

It is not that I think people will choose to reject belief in God because they see large numbers of atheists out of the metaphorical pew, but I do think that there are many Christians out there who quietly doubt or even outright disbelieve in their deity of choice but are afraid to make such doubts and disbeliefs public. This is understandable because atheism is still a minority and still faces major discrimination. But the more people make it know that they do indeed have doubts or disbeliefs about ridiculous bronze aged deities, the more others will be willing to reveal themselves as fellow freethinkers, skeptics, doubters, and disbelievers.

So tomorrow, please take part in this “Atheist Day” by making this image or images like this your profile image on all your favorite social networking websites. Let people know that you lack belief in ridiculous deities. Come out, come out, come out, and be free.

Please check out my Daily Blog at: DangerousTalk.net

Πληροφορήθηκα απ’ το blog της toomanytribbles ότι γίνεται μία παγκόσμια προσπάθεια την Παρασκευή 20 Μαρτίου οι άθεοι χρήστες του facebook να αλλάξουν την εικόνα του προφίλ τους στο γνωστό Α του outcampaign.org. Η προσπάθεια έχει ως στόχο την διεκδίκηση της ελευθερίας της έκφρασης και την κατάργηση του κοινωνικού στίγματος που συχνά συνοδεύει την έννοια του “αθέου”. Περισσότερες πληροφορίες για τους στόχους αυτής της κίνησης μπορείτε να βρείτε στο σχετικό event του Facebook εδώ: “I am an atheist“

The title pretty much says it all. But how you participate is to change your Facebook profile picture to the following:

And change your status to something like “I am an atheist”or something similar.

I think this is an awesome campaign idea that will hopefully show some of the misinformed just how  ubiquitous atheists are.

More information is on the Facebook Event page. Already, there are over 3,000 people signed up to “attend”!

I went to Sprout Community Garden yesterday. I brought some plums from our tree in the garden. Together we preserved apricot jam and rhubarb/plum jam! We also made lemon cordial. The good feeling that was brought about from producing something yummy whilst working together is indescribable. We made our jam in a kitchen at the Aboriginal Advancement League. I felt so privileged to be allowed to go to this special sacred place. The Aboriginal Advancement League provides “family support, food assistance, home visits, advocacy, counseling and educational programs, drug and alcohol awareness and funeral services.” (source: ATNS, http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=1028). I tried to find a website for the organization that is in Thornberry, Melbourne (Australia) but with no luck. I feel that there is much to learn from the Natives of the Australian Land… I will fill you in on this blog as I try to really connect with the Aboriginals.

Atheists and Agnostics are not without morals or sense of virtue like some would commonly believe. I don’t need a God to dictate my way of life nor book. I discovered the warm feeling that comes from working together and sharing by the encouragement of my mother and my own involvement with the world. I very much encourage getting involved with your local community – you will help others and feel good too.

Oh and I have done a bit more more research into running a radio program. I shall hopefully be recording my podcasts at Gateway in Collingwood (Melborune, Aus) and hosting a radio program with RMIT’s station SYN after some training. The only downside is that my show might be late at night initially. I have pleanty of time to write a show aswell as think of ways to spiff it up.. music, poetry etc. I would hate mean to be a bore with nothing but talk back. I want the show to be welcoming to all… I also need a radio show name… how about The Big Thinkers? I dunno lol. Perhaps I could go by the pug lover on the show?

Also check out this video from QualiaSoup on youtube…

…it totally rocks my socks! I love the simplicity and animations! I hope to create similar videos once I learn how! What program do this guy use? There are many more great videos like this on his youtube!

I have seen this Scarlet A every where.. ! I have just discovered that the Scarlet A is linked to the Out Campaign. On the Out Campaign website you can find an atheist and freethinker blog roll. When I become part of the blog roll I might have some more traffic!

I found an Atheist via the Out Campaign that creates comics that mock religion and bring about some truth to atheism. Visit the site at http://religiouscomics.net/. I have discovered that some of the comics were created by a site known as Strip Creator. From my understanding you use a web based tool on the website to create comics! I hope to make some comics for my blog with this site.

The free thought tag police are coming!

Splendid Elles (right) tagged me to answer these series of questions.

Can You Remember The Day That You Officially Became An Atheist?

Officially is a redundant word in the question. I neither am a card carrying atheist, nor had a party where people celebrated my non belief. If you want an action that publicly made that, it would be in front of the White House when to a TV crew I spoke about atheists being treated as equal citizens with everyone else – that it was no reflection on your character or ability to be a moral person.

There is no one moment, where you rid yourself of the blood of the lamb. While at University it was a nagging feeling that there was no evidence for a supernatural being that communicated directly with us. Reading philosophy, and in particular Bertrand Russell, and reading politics just meant that god slipped away as I realised we humans have to take responsibility as the only conscious species in making the world a better place – rather than hoping with death we make it to a better one.

Do you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?

Fairly soon after leaving the study of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It occurred to me that their religion was the work of man and that prophecies claimed in the bible were allegories or concerned with actual events that had already happened. The human yearning though for a spiritual side to existence was one that completed the human experience, but religion was only an answer to that expression rather than the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything.

Some people think the politically correct thing is to term yourself a skeptical agnostic. Yet becoming an atheist just means that you hold out there being no evidence that there is a god; and refuse to accept any argument by a person as being divinely inspired. They will need rationality, logic, empirical evidence, and the welfare of life to consider.

How about the last time you spoke or prayed to God with actual thought that someone was listening?

When I read Watchtower publications and realised that these were the works of men, with false prophecy and changed dogma. I prayed for realisation of what his will was, and that I may come to an understanding of the ultimate truth of things. The answer to those things is in the living.

Did anger towards God or religion help cause you to be an atheist or agnostic?

No. My anger was directed at the Watchtower organisation. That new editions of books did not highlight changes interpretations. It was almost doublespeak of Orwellian descriptions. My anger was directed at the real possibility of dying from refusing a blood transfusion – one that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have changed their mind about since 1956 when they first decided it was against god’s will.

Here is a good one: Were you agnostic towards ghosts, even after you became an atheist?

I never believed in ghosts. However nothing wrong with science trying to rationally explain the paranormal experience people have. Everyone has to make a living.

Do you want to be wrong?

If there is a god I think belief in him is the last yardstick by which he will measure your life on earth. The notion of freedom and autonomy for me goes against wishing for a celestial all powerful being to exist. There is no guarantee such a being would be benign – with 99% of all living things now extinct, and the way entities in nature try to survive pointing to life as a reflection of god’s attitude is one that would terrify me.

I do not fear death, just as I do not fear life. My ancestors went through it. People around me do it. You just have to figure out what you want to do in the time you have.

So to spread these ideas around, and keep the meme alive, I better tag some people:

Gary William Murning Online

Copland III

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Despite compelling his children to flog themselves with a five bladed whip during the Ashura ceremony, Syed Mustafa Zaidi was handed a suspended sentence. He claimed that it was his religion, and that he believed he was doing nothing wrong encouraging his children to flog themselves.

Judge Robert Atherton stated:

“I reject the suggestion that they were forced to participate, although I consider it likely that the fervour of events is also likely to have affected their wish to participate.”

The father handed his 15 and 13 year old son the zanjeer whip. How on earth a child can be said to voluntarily, under his father’s direction and instruction, commit self flagellation is a mystery. This was not just a lack of parental care. Religious fervour does not excuse such encouraged acts of brutality by a father done by a minor to themselves. This was child abuse in the name of faith.

The judge further commented:

“You must realise that the law recognises that children and young persons may wish to take part in some activities which it considers they should not.

“It is sometimes expressed as protecting themselves from themselves.

“Your wrongful act was providing the means by which they were able to participate.”

I hope that the sentence provokes an out cry. His wrongful act was not just supplying the means, but encouraging his children to partake in an act of violence that they could not reason for themselves. This is a shameful verdict, given that this was an unprecedented case brought by the Crown Prosecution Service.

All quotes from BBC News.

The father, after whipping himself with a five bladed whip, hands it to his 15 year old son and demands he do the same, followed by his 13 year old brother. However, in court the father claims that he had done nothing wrong. For it is his religion, the Ashura Ceremony. Had he known the law would have been against him would he have spared his children the ceremony.

People sometimes tell me that only through faith can you know what is right and wrong. I wonder if they could do that while looking at the photo of the whip with five curved blades that was used, below reposted from BBC News. There has to be more to what you do then saying it is my religion.

UP DATE 24 September 2008:

new blog on sentencing

Zaidi had denied child cruelty

A devout Shia Muslim has been convicted of child cruelty after forcing two boys to beat themselves during a religious ceremony, in an unprecedented case.

The jury at Manchester Crown Court found 44-year-old Syed Mustafa Zaidi guilty of two counts of child cruelty.

The boys, aged 13 and 15, were forced to beat themselves with a zanjeer whip, with five curved blades.

Zaidi, of Station Road, Eccles, Salford, also flogged himself during the ceremony in January.

The court heard the boys admit that they had wanted to beat themselves, but not under duress and not with the whip.

This is a part of our religion Syed Mustafa Zaidi How a Shia ritual ended in court

The Ashura ceremony takes place during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar and commemorates the death of Husayn, a central figure in the Shia faith.

Zaidi admitted he allowed them to use the bladed whip, but denied his actions were wrong, saying: “This is a part of our religion.”

A local Muslim leader Safdar Zia has said the community was now working with police and the Crown Prosecution Service on a code of practice for the Ashura practice.

“We cannot eliminate this practice, but we can and will work to a code of practice so that the children don’t get hurt, the law isn’t broken, and the people who do want to take part don’t get prosecuted,” he said.

“We have to take into account people’s beliefs and their rights, and we will respect them.

“But we are not above the law and we never will be and working with the authorities is the best chance we’ve got to prevent any harm being brought against any children.”

The boys suffered cuts from the zanjeer five-bladed whip

During the trial the 14-year-old boy, who was 13 at the time, said that during the ceremony Zaidi told them both: “Start doing it, start doing it.”

The child told the court: “We said ‘we don’t want to do it’.”

He said he saw Zaidi flogging himself before washing blood from the whip and handing it to the 15-year-old boy.

The boy said Zaidi continued to pressure the older teenager to whip himself.

He said the 15-year-old boy “swung it once or twice and said ‘I don’t want to do it anymore’.”

Zaidi told the court: “It was an emotional time and the children were happy, they asked for it. No one forced anyone.

“If I’d known this would be the result of breaking the law I would never have done it.”

This is a very unusual case and the first of its kind to be prosecuted by the CPS in England and Wales Carol Jackson, CPS

The boys both received multiple lacerations to their backs, mainly superficial, with several deeper cuts.

Supt Nadeem Butt, of Greater Manchester Police, said: Zaidi had “abused the vulnerability” of the children, gone against the wishes of his own community and broken the law.

Carol Jackson, of the Greater Manchester Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said the prosecution “was not an attack upon the practices or ceremonies of Shia Muslims”.

“Indeed, the prosecution relied as part of its evidence upon the president of the local Shia community centre,” Ms Jackson said.

“We are satisfied that, given the age of the children involved, the coercion employed by Syed Mustafa Zaidi, who did not accept that he was wrong, and the possibility of such an incident occurring again, the decision to prosecute by the Crown Prosecution Service was the correct one.

“This is a very unusual case and the first of its kind to be prosecuted by the CPS in England and Wales.”

Zaidi will be sentenced on 24 September.

I’ve been slowly inching toward this moment for years now. It’s time to finally come out of the closet (at least online – don’t tell my family!).

I am an ontological naturalist. Since most people probably don’t know what that means, I’ll explain. It means I consider the natural world to be all there is. This rules out anything supernatural, including ghosts, spirits, demons, angels, devils, and gods.

I take this view because, as I see it, once something can be proven to exist, it must therefore exist in the natural world. We have no means of empirically testing for the existence of the supernatural; therefore, the supernatural has no meaning for me. I am essentially Ignostic.

I usually find myself aligned more closely with atheistic worldviews than with agnostic ones. And so, in the spirit of solidarity, I shall henceforth wave my freak flag high!

I invite all others in similar situations to come out, too!

Professor Alister McGrath and Professor Peter Atkins debate on whether or not we should rid the mind of God.

Source

Part 1:

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsFv6fr1xWo
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iWg4eY5iQk
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wAv_8cd4o
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1bACyxlYx0
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQZqfiDjfFQ
Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o1M1H_clI0
Part 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ImC1iN0ts