Clipmarks | earnric's 'religion' clips

Religious Non-sense - alive and well today.

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:33:09 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: So what non-sense is the church putting forth today -- that is impeding science?

How about the idea that a ball of 150 or so cells is a human being -- and is thus stifling research into embryonic stem cells.

When does the idiocy end?

Clip Source: newsweek.washingtonpost.com

Sorry, Charley: Church Apologizes to Darwin

Proving it's never too late to evolve, the Church of England has apologized to Charles Darwin for vilifying him for having the audacity to question, wonder, and doubt.

"Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still," Rev. Malcolm Brown, director of missions and public affairs for the Church of England, wrote in an essay entitled "Good Religion Needs Good Science."

Tags: church, science, lunacy

Mediocre Leadership...

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:42:03 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Sam Harris points out the fact that we love our politicians... but we love them to be like the "average guy" -- pretty dumb.

Clip Source: articles.latimes.com

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the “Who would you like to have a beer with?” poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

Tags: religion, politics

Christians & Muslims beleive god wants you to marry only virgins...

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:43:01 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Or you have to at least believe he USED to require it... cuz there are many passages in the old testament that indicate you should stone your wife if you find out she's not a virgin on her wedding night...

I guess god changes his morality based on the age however - since we're not supposed to do this anymore right?

Clip Source: dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com

The annulment of a young Muslim couple’s marriage because the bride was not a virgin has caused anger in France, prompting President Sarkozy’s party to call for a change in the law.

The case, which had previously gone unreported, involved an engineer in his 30s, named as Mr X, who married Ms Y, a student nurse in her 20s, in 2006. The wedding night party was still under way at the family’s home in Roubaix when the groom came down from the bedroom complaining that his bride was not a virgin. He could not display the blood-stained sheet that is traditionally exhibited as proof of the bride’s “purity”.

Is there something about bloody sheets in the Quran? No, for shit like that you have to go to the Bible.

Tags: religion, islam, christianity, insanity

Devolution...

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:40:13 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: The ability of mankind to cling to ancient myths when they can't fully grasp science is astounding...

Clip Source: fogghorn.blogspot.com

You would think I wouldn't have to beat this subject to death, but here we go again. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, said to be on the short list for running mate with the idiot McCain, wants his kids to be exposed to the "best science" because he's a "Christian" and to be politically correct according to Christian politics, that means ancient and resoundingly debunked legends handed down from illiterate goatherds on the edges of civilization. Jindal insists that the denial of all observed facts packaged as Intelligent Design is a "legitimate scientific discipline." It's not. It's none of those three things, but perhaps it makes Bobby Jindal just dishonest enough to appeal to American voters.

Tags: evolution, culture, religion

Twain on the heavenly father...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:59:08 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: From a blog... some thoughts on god as father...

Clip Source: www.blogger.com

The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shield it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. God's treatment of his earthly children, every day and every night, is the exact opposite of all that, yet those best minds warmly justify these crimes, condone them, excuse them, and indignantly refuse to regard them as crimes at all, when he commits them. Your country and mine is an interesting one, but there is nothing there that is half so interesting as the human mind. -- Mark Twain

Tags: religion, twain, god, cruelty

Baptists on the decline...

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:00:15 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: could it be...

...that people are waking up to the fact that religion is based on superstition and the desire of one group of people to control others?

When you can say "god wants you to do this" -- and you believe in god -- it makes it easy.

Clip Source: www.azcentral.com

But with membership slightly down last year, and flat for the past five, Southern Baptists face a growing anxiety about their future as they gather for their annual meeting Tuesday in Indianapolis.

"We have peaked," Southern Baptist statistician Ed Stetzer wrote in an online commentary on the latest statistics from 2007. "For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline."

Tags: religion

State religion...

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:15:39 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Why is the state authorizing a sectarian license plate?

I hope the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Atheists all protest this one and take the state to court.

Legislatures have more important stuff to do than this...

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

Yesterday, South Carolina became the first state to offer its drivers vanity license plates featuring a cross over a stained-glass windows and the words “I Believe.” While most of the other 200 specialty plates cost around $70 — with proceeds going to the sponsoring organization — the “I Believe” plates will cost only $4 to $6, “just enough to reimburse the state for the cost to produce the plate.” Dr. T. Jeremey Gunn, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, said the plates might be unconstitutional:

The whole issue here is that people are trying to get the state to endorse their religion, and that’s wrong. It’s almost as if there’s insufficient support, and they have to go to the state to get it.

Both the ACLU and the American Jewish Congress are considering challenging the plates in court.

Tags: religion

People in need of education...

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:31:02 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Seems like a lot of people who comment on an issue I raised don't know what "begging the question" means... They simply assume the desired outcome (e.g. - marriage is a religious institution and given to a man and a woman) and say "I defined my term -- you are wrong"... How silly can you get...

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

begging the question has traditionally described a type of logical fallacy (also called petitio principii) in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises.

Tags: argument, religion, logic

Clarifications on Eisteins view on the god of the bible.

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:33:18 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Many think him a believer... A recently released letter spells out his beliefs in no uncertain terms...

Clip Source: dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com

What did Albert Einstein think about the Bible? Well, here's what he said a year before he died.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

Tags: religion

Vactican craziness

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:08:51 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: In an ever more idiotic attempt to reconcile religion with science we hear how the Vatican is prepp'ng the flock for the eventual discover of extraterrestrial life forms ... You can't make this stuff up in Hollywood

Clip Source: www.mentalfloss.com

For the first time ever, Vatican astronomers have admitted the possibility — even the probability — of intelligent life on other planets.

He compares the potential multiplicity of life forms in the universe to that here on Earth, and goes on to speculate that such alien life forms could even be “free from Original Sin … [remaining] in full friendship with their creator.”

Tags: religion, crazy, extraterrestrials

They got it right...

Fri, 16 May 2008 18:54:59 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: It is often up to the courts to enforce freedoms that a bigoted public would rather restrict (vis a vi - interracial marriage, segregation, etc.)

Clip Source: www.au.org

In a May 15 decision, the court majority held that the state constitution mandates that same-sex couples have the same right to the benefits of civil marriage as opposite-sex couples.

The justices made clear, however, that the ruling applies only to civil marriages. Religious communities remain free to marry same-sex couples or not, in keeping with their theology.

Said the court, “[A]ffording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person; no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs.”

Tags: religion, government, gay

Jim Castelli

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:57:58 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: A US Journalist... on religion in the public square.

Clip Source: www.positiveatheism.org

Religion is bad for American politics when it undermines the civil religion: when it speaks of political matters with the certitude of faith in a pluralistic society in which faith cannot be used as a political standard; when it treats opponents as agents of Satan; when it weakens a sense of national community; when it violates the precept of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which formed the basis for the First Amendment -- the precept that any American should no more be treated any differently than any other American on the basis of his or her opinions about religion than on the basis of his or her opinions on literature or geometry.

Christ's tomb?

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:28:48 GMT

clipped by: earnric

Clip Source: www.azcentral.com

Will believers run amok?

We had all better hope that the claimed discovery of Jesus' stone ossuary is a hoax.

You can't believe how many times I, as a non-believer, have been asked, "What keeps you from killing and stealing if you don't believe in Jesus?" Apparently, if the discovery should prove to be true, then Christians will run amok in the streets killing, raping and stealing since their belief is all that holds them back. - William M. Hooks, Mesa

Tags: religion