Agnostic Leader Update

As some of you already know Chili recently elected an agnostic female president, Michelle Bachelet. She has vowed to fill 50 percent of all positions, starting with her cabinet, with qualified women. On Saturday, March 11, the day of her official inauguration, she introduced and swore in her 20 cabinet ministers, 10 of them women. It was a sight to behold.

Because Michelle is agnostic, and what I would call a freethinker, I have hope that she will create a stir in the eyes of the conservative leadership that exists here in the US and in many leading western countries. From the little bit of news I’ve been able to read on Michelle, it all seems very promising.

Funding for social improvements
In April she defended a bill that maintains the current 19 percent sales tax to support her planned social improvements. The VAT (value-added sales tax) would expire in 2007 and revert to the previous 18 percent. Bachelet justified the step, saying “one percentage point of VAT means 600 million dollars.”

Anti-Corruption Initiative
The Chilean government has asked civil servants to declare their assets and interests as part of an anti-corruption effort initiated by President Michelle Bachelet, a government spokesman said in April.

I think this is a great first step in the war against corruption. I can’t say there is any effort in the US government to stop corruption.

Volunteer Army
She also announced a new plan to professionalize Chile’s Army and abolish obligatory military service within the next five to ten years. The program is part of a general trend to modernize Chile’s entire Armed Forces.

“The idea is to have a professional Army with fewer conscripts and more professionals,” said Bachelet during her visit to the Buin First Infantry Regiment on Tuesday. The president was accompanied by Army Commander in Chief General Oscar Izuriet and Defense Minister Vivianne Blanlot.

Fighting Big Tobacco
In May she signed a law toughening this country's regulations on advertising, selling and consuming tobacco.

"Why is this law important? Because we know very well that tobacco is harmful to health and we know very well that there are not going to be enough doctors' offices or hospitals to attend to the (health) problems if we're not able to avoid them before they occur," the president said.

During the signing ceremony, which took place in a school in the capital neighborhood of Macul, Bachelet emphasized that the aim of the legislation is to harmonize Chile's internal regulations with the World Health Organization's framework agreement on tobacco control.

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Keep you posted on her progress.

Support the ACLU

StopTheACLU.com is at it again, trying to prevent people from their constitutionally given rights. Below is my rebuttal to their post.

http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2006/05/25/american-legion-in-ca-says-enough-brings-adf-aboard-to-defend-against-aclu-atheist-attacks-on-vets-memorials/

Wouldn’t we honor our brave men who gave their lives to defend the freedom by having a memorial that better represented all of them?

Where all the brave men Christians? I doubt it? Who many men are you disrespecting by having a cross in their name. How would a Christian like a Star of David to be remembered by?

I think most of you will agree that 99% of the people who appose the ACLU are theists. Theists in this country usually talk about their outstanding ethics and morality. Keeping the ethics and morality of their elected officials aside, it seems obvious from this article that theists have terrible ethics and morality. They are only moral when it suites their needs.

Most of you are a disgrace to your own core beliefs.

Cross to be taken down

For all whom think this is a Christian nation. Read the Constitution, then read below.

I’m sure most of you have heard about the 17 year lawsuit battle in San Diego, CA over the illegal placement of a 29-foot cross on public property. A federal judge has ordered the cross be removed within 90 days or the city will face a fine of $5,000 a day!

The people who think the cross should not be removed have panicked over the judges ruling. Mayor Jerry Sanders has even sought presidential intervention by taking the land the cross is on using the power of eminent domain.

In mayor Jerry Sanders’ letter to the president he completely ignores the fact that the cross is placed illegally.

Read the letter to the president yourself. (PDF)

Congress representative Duncan Hunter also wrote president Bush for help. Hunter has the audacity to write,

… liberal judges have continued to rely on their interpretation of the California State Constitution to justify the removal of this historic Memorial.

These republicans see nothing wrong with this cross. They refuse to respect the national respected first constitutional amendment.

Read congressman’s letter to the president. (PDF)

McElroy has been involved in the case since 1996, when he volunteered to help Paulson file a motion. In the past 10 years, he hasn't charged his client a dime, but McElroy has billed the city hundreds of thousands of dollars under a legal provision that forces the losing side to pay the victor's legal fees in certain constitutional disputes.

The city already has paid him $100,000, a judge has ordered the city to pay him an additional $280,000, and McElroy intends to bill the city for a large sum – “well into the six figures” – on top of that.

Source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060514-9999-1m14mcelroy.html

References:
Bush asked to intervene in cross battle

Cross case brings mountain of hate mail

Freethought Lobbyist

I’m a little late in reporting this, but better late then never.

I didn’t know until I went to the annual American Humanist Conference, but freethinkers finally have a lobbyist in Washington. Lori Lipman Brown. USA Today’s Jill Lawrence wrote about Lori back in September of 2005.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-18-atheists_x.htm

I was so happy to have met Lori in person. It was an honor to hear her speak about her first nine months in Washington. Most of the work Lori is doing is thanks to huge donations by a select few such as Herb Silverman, President of the Secular Coalition for America, the organization responsible for our proud Lobbyist. Please support the freethinker’s voice in Washington and donate to Secular Coalition for America. I will keep you updated with Lori’s news.

Atheists stand up

An atheist group in Utah has worked up the courage to sue the local government for violation of Church and State. The ten foot steel cross is painted white and bears the name of a deceased Utah Highway Patrol, Trooper Joseph Brumett who died on duty in 1992.

I totally support their cause and will keep a close eye on their progress. I hope this goes to the supreme court. However I do fear that the ultra conservative judges that Bush has been appointing might judge against our first constitutional amendment.

Read the entire story

Watch video clip of the story as it appeared on local television

Assisted Dying Bill

Not sure if all freethinkers agree with some forms of legalized assisted dying. I think there are situations where assisted dying is ok. There is a bill in the UK that will legalized a very narrow category of assisted dying.

Religious organizations around the UK are using all of their money and power to prevent the bill from becoming a law.

Earlier this week, the British Humanist Association released a hard-hitting report that exposed systematic misinformation, scare-mongering, and hypocrisy among Christian groups opposing the Bill. The report has been well-received by peers intending to support the Bill tomorrow and many of them intend to refer to it in the debate. You can download the report at http://tinyurl.com/nxln7 (PDF Document)

The British Humanist Association’s executive director Hanne Stinson condemned religious opposition to Lord Joffe’s Bill as deeply immoral. She said,

“There is overwhelming public support for the option of assisted dying to be made available. This Bill gives terminally ill people that autonomy and choice, and contains ample safeguards to ensure that the choices made by those experiencing unbearable suffering are informed and genuine. Who are the Bishops to deny people this freedom?”

If the Christian groups were really right about their reasons behind the bill, why would they have to use lies and deceptions?

Why Religion Must End

I don’t have a ‘hero’; someone you look up to as a child, or even as an adult. I think if I was going to choose a hero, it would be Sam Harris. I don’t know much about him. I really enjoyed his book, The End of Faith. He's adamant in his belief that religion does more harm than good in the world, and has sparked controversy by suggesting that when it comes to faith-based violence, religious moderates are part of the problem, not the solution.

I agree with him on so many levels. I found this interesting interview on AlterNet by Laura Sheahen, Beliefnet. He drives the irrationality of faith so well.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story/36195

Why Religion Must End

Interview by Laura Sheahen | Published: 04.16.2006

Sam Harris is not your grandfather's atheist. The award-winning writer practices Zen meditation and believes in the value of mystical experiences. But he's adamant in his belief that religion does more harm than good in the world, and has sparked controversy by suggesting that when it comes to faith-based violence, religious moderates are part of the problem, not the solution. 

Laura Sheahen spoke with him about his provocative book "The End of Faith" and his comments at the World Congress of Secular Humanism, where this interview was conducted.

Laura Sheahen: You've said that nonbelievers must try to convince religious people "of the illegitimacy of their core beliefs." Why are these beliefs dangerous?

Sam Harris: On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of our lives. We relax so totally that people believe the most ludicrous propositions, and are willing to organize their lives around them. Propositions like "Jesus is going to come back in the next fifty years and rectify every problem that human beings create"--or, in the Muslim world, "death in the right circumstances leads directly to Paradise." These beliefs are not very contaminated with good evidence.

LS: There are beliefs--like kids believing in the tooth fairy--that I wouldn't say are dangerous.

SH: Right. Those are not as consequential. But this whole style of believing and talking about beliefs leaves us powerless to overcome our differences from one another. We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole.

LS: You're saying we should be part of the human race, not part of any particular religious or national group?

SH: Yeah. It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige of that kind of thinking, we're not going to be able to undermine these divisions in our world.

To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam.

LS: If 9/11 hadn't happened, what would be the example atheists would point to--another egregious, contemporary misuse of religion?

SH:There are so many. Let's take the extreme case, honor killing in the Muslim world. Imagine the psychology of a man who, upon hearing that his daughter was raped, is inspired not to console her, not to seek immediate medical and psychological treatment for her, but to kill her. This is an honor-based, shame-based psychology. You cannot name a Muslim country to my knowledge where it doesn't happen. It even happens in the suburbs of Paris. It falls right out of the theology of Islam.

LS: What are some problems with Judaism and Christianity?

SH: There is no text more barbaric than the Old Testament of the Bible--books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus. The Qur'an pales in comparison.

LS: Richard Dawkins, a vocal atheist, has said the Old Testament God is a "psychotic monster."

SH: Not only is the character of God diabolical in those books, but there are explicit prescriptions for how to live that are not metaphors; they are not open to theological judo. God just comes right out and says "stone people" for a list of offenses so preposterous and all-encompassing that the killing never stops. You have to kill people for working on the Sabbath. You kill people for fornication.

LS: Doesn't the evidence show that people take their sacred texts with a grain of salt?

SH: That's the point: in the West, we have delivered the salt. Obviously, people are no longer burning heretics alive in our public squares and that's a good thing. We in the West have suffered a sufficient confrontation with modernity, secular politics, and scientific culture so that even fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews can't really live by the letter of their religious texts.

We now cherry-pick the good parts. That's easier to do with the Bible because the Bible is such a big book and it's so self-contradictory; you can use parts of it to repudiate other parts of it. Unfortunately, the Qur'an is a much shorter and more unified message.

But you ask me what the scariest things are in Christianity: this infatuation with biblical prophecy and this notion that Jesus is going to come back as an avenging savior to kill all the bad people.

LS: Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christians believe that Jesus is going to come back, period? They don't necessarily believe that he's going to come back as an avenging person to kill people.

SH: One of the things that is overlooked by many Christians is that there is a wrathful Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus comes out and condemns whole towns to fates worse than Sodom and Gomorrah for not liking his preaching. You can find Jesus in some very foul moods.

Look at the theology of the "Left Behind" series of novels and all the religious extremists in our culture who describe a Jesus coming back with a sword and punishing those who haven't lived in his name.

Cherry-picking is a good thing and it's to be hoped that Muslims will eventually cherry-pick as well. But the Qur'an, virtually on every page, is a manifesto for religious intolerance. I invite readers of your website who haven't read the Qur'an to simply read the book. Take out a highlighter and highlight those lines that counsel the believer to despise infidels, and you will find a book that is just covered with highlighter.

LS: Let's return to your idea that people must be convinced of the "danger and illegitimacy" of their core beliefs. How can they be convinced?

SH: It's a difficult problem because people are highly indisposed to having their core beliefs challenged. But we need to lift the taboos that currently prevent us from criticizing religious irrationality.

LS: How do you bring it up, and in what context? At a party?

SH: I'm not advocating that people challenge everyone's religious beliefs wherever they appear. In a crowded elevator, if someone mentions Jesus and you start barking at them, that's not really the front line of discourse.

Whenever you're standing at a podium or publishing a book or article or an op-ed, that's when it's time to be really rigorous about the standards of evidence.

Interpersonally, we don't challenge everyone's crazy beliefs about medical therapies or alien abduction or astrology or anything else. Yet if the president of the U.S. started talking about how Saturn was coming into the wrong quadrant and is therefore not a good time to launch a war, one would hope that the whole White House press corps would descend on him with a straitjacket. This would be terrifying--to hear somebody with so much power basing any part of his decision-making process on something as disreputable as astrology. Yet we don't have the same response when he's clearly basing some part of his deliberation on faith.

LS: Many people consider America to have been founded as a Christian nation. They think many of the Founding Fathers were specifically Christian and very religious, whereas many secularists argue they weren't. You've said the issue is a dead end.

SH: I just think that it's the wrong battle to fight. Even if the [Founding Fathers] were as religious or deranged by their religiosity as the Taliban, their beliefs now are illegitimate. Secularists are on the right side of the debate and fundamentalists in our culture are distorting history. The Founding Fathers--many believed that slavery was a justifiable practice; we now agree that it's an abomination. Anyone trying to resurrect slavery because Thomas Jefferson, that brilliant man, didn't free the slaves--that's an argument that would be so appalling to us now, in terms of 20th century morality.

LS: You've said the First Amendment is insufficient to protect against encroachments of religion. What would you do  to supplement what the First Amendment does?

SH: I'm not eager to monkey with the Constitution. It has to happen at the level of popular, grassroots expectations of what it means to be a rational, well-educated human being.

LS: You've said that people perceive the word "atheist" as along the lines of "child molester." How should atheists present themselves?

SH: I'm very distrustful of finding the right label because labels are ultimately sloganeering. You had the label the "brights," which is stillborn. I think atheism and secularism are also names that ultimately we don't need. We don't need a name for disbelief in astrology. I don't think we need anything other that rationality and reason and intellectual honesty.

In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. You cannot have presidential aspirations without being willing to pretend to be certain that God exists. You have to pander to the similar convictions of 90% of the American population. 70% of Americans claim to feel that it is important that their president be strongly religious. No aspiring politician can fly in the face of those numbers now, so we are rewarding people for false certainty, false conviction.

Clearly, anyone who claims to be certain that Jesus was literally born of a virgin is lying. He's either lying to himself or he's lying to others. There's no experience you have praying in church that can deliver certainty on that specific point.

LS: You're saying it's not verifiable.

SH: It's just not the kind of thing that spiritual experience validates. You can pray in a room to Jesus and even have an experience of Jesus being bodily present. Jesus shows up with a whole halo and the beard and the robes and it's the best experience of your life. What does that prove? You wouldn't even be in the position to know whether the historical Jesus actually had a beard on the basis of that experience.

Yet one thing I argue in my book is that experiences like that are very interesting and worth exploring. There's no doubt that people have visionary experiences.

There's no doubt that praying to Jesus for 18 hours a day will transform your psychology--and in many ways, transform it for the better. I just think that we don't have to believe anything preposterous in order to understand that. [We can] value the example of Jesus, at least in half his moods, and we should want to discover if there's a way to love your neighbor as yourself and generate the kind of moral psychology that Jesus was talking about.

LS: What is your response to people who like science, who agree with it, but who say "It's not enough, it doesn't satisfy me, I need more?"

SH: With religious moderates, you have people talking about just wanting meaning in their lives, which I argue is a total non-sequitur when it comes down to justifying your belief in God.

If I told you that I thought there was a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in my backyard, and you asked me, why do you think that? I say, this belief gives my life meaning, or my family draws a lot of joy from this belief, and we dig for this diamond every Sunday and we have this gigantic pit in our lawn. I would start to sound like a lunatic to you. You can't believe there really is a diamond in your backyard because it gives your life meaning. If that's possible, that's self-deception that nobody wants.

LS: What if people prefer self-deception to despair and chaos?

SH: I would argue that is really not the alternative.

LS: What is the alternative? If there's no God who orders things, some people would say there's chaos, it's all random, their life is meaningless. There really is despair out there--especially about evolution.

SH: You don't have to believe in God to have the most extraordinary, mystical experience. Personally, I've spent two years on meditation retreats just meditating in silence for 12-18 hours a day. 

You can try to be a mystic, like Meister Eckhart in the Christian tradition, without believing Jesus was born of a virgin. You can realize the value of community and compassion and love of your neighbor without ever presupposing anything on insufficient evidence.

There are many ironies here. The [sacred texts] themselves are very poor guides to morality. The only way you find goodness in good books is because you recognize it. They're based on your own ethical intuitions. In the New Testament, Jesus is talking about the Golden Rule--a great, wise, compassionate distillation of ethics. You're doing that based on your intuition.

Hopefully, also, you recognize that stoning someone to death for not being a virgin on her wedding night, or beating your child with a rod, as it recommends in Proverbs, and which millions of Christians do in our country, that's not a good thing. You know that based on your own intuitions and the evolving human conversation about what is ethical and most conducive to human happiness.

LS: You're saying that we can figure out moral, ethical behavior on our own, without benefit of religious concepts.

SH: All we have is human conversation to do this with. Either you can be held hostage by the human conversation that occurred 2,000 years ago and has been enshrined in these books, or you can be open to the human conversation of the 21st century. And if there's something good in those books, then it is admissible in the 21st century conversation on morality.

LS: Some people say the good that religion does outweighs the bad things they get away with because they're religions. 

SH: We can do all that good--and we are doing all that good--without any affiliation with religion. It's true there are Christian missionaries doing very fine work in Africa. There are secular groups like Doctors Without Borders doing the same work. They don't need to believe in Jesus coming out of the clouds in order to do that work.

It's not that people don't do good and heroic things on the basis of their dogma, it's just those things aren't best done on the basis of religious dogma. We can agree that famine in Africa is intolerable to us for perfectly compassionate and rational and modern reasons that have nothing to do with beliefs. We just have to believe that it is unethical that people are starving to death while we are throwing out half of our meals.

Click here to read entire article

Trying to Understand Angry Atheists Responce

In response to Rabbi Marc Gellman’s Column
“Trying to Understand Angry Atheists
Why do nonbelievers seem to be threatened by the idea of God?”

In responce to: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12498143/site/newsweek

Dear Rabbi Marc Gellman,

A little bit about me. I am 24, male and living in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, raised in North-eastern New Jersey and been living here in Fort Lauderdale since 1999. I am also homosexual and prefer to be labeled as a secular humanist over atheist. Not sure how you feel about homosexuals, I’m curious to find out. I believe you can deduce a lot from a person’s worldview by understanding how they feel, fundamentally about homosexuals.

I’m happy to hear you’d like to better understand atheists. I hope I can help you to understand this atheist. When I first started to read the article, I was surprised to see you generalize that atheists were angry.

The more I thought about it, I saw that I myself am a bit angry, but not about any one god, but about the people who stubbornly use supernatural reasons to discriminate and spread intolerance around the globe.

You write:
”So we disagree about God. I'm sometimes at odds with Yankee fans, people who like rap music and people who don't like animals, but I try to be civil.”

That is a funny comparison. A disagreement with a Yankee fan about sports hardly can quantify to disagreement on a belief system (that cannot be argued) which tries to dictate laws that effect millions of people.

Above you imply that you are civil where atheists aren’t always civil. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can generalize. I’m pretty involved in political news in the US. When I think back, I find it hard to see examples of atheists being uncivilized.

When I think about people of faith in the news, I easily remember a crowd of people standing around a public building screaming and ranting like lunatics. One of these, a man was throwing a temper tantrum over the ten commandments like a 7 year old child. When was the last time you saw an atheist act anything like that?

So, I admit I’m angry; I am upset. What is important is not that I’m upset, but why I’m upset.

Have you watched the movie named, “Not without my daughter” (1991). If not I suggest you watch it. It would help you to understand my example below.

Picture yourself living in Iran with your daughter or wife, all not of the Islamic faith. Everyday you see terrible atrocities from a deadly dose of mistreatment of women to a strict and unfair law system. The country is a theocracy and therefore few of the laws and cultural ways can be improved or changed. I believe in a situation such as that, you’d be angry or upset at the views of the people around you. You’d witness atrocities all in the name of a supernatural being.

You might find this example a bit of an exaggeration, I agree. The point is, some of the people of faith in this country have similar mentalities. They create discrimination based on views they think came from a supernatural being. My case is even stronger me being a homosexual. I cannot marry my partner. I cannot visit my partner if he was sick in the hospital. I have to go through expensive lawyers to prepare special paperwork in case I die, all so my partner can inherit my things. All rights granted to a man and a woman in marriage. You cannot tell me that is not discrimination. A god that discriminates, how quaint.

The argument used by those who are trying with all their resources to outlaw gay marriage, have one fundamental argument. “Marriage is sacred between a man and woman.” That is not an argument. It is a statement made by the faithful. They have no reason (besides the Bible) for their statement. Should that be a deciding factor in law when many American Citizens aren’t Christian?

I am angry because some of the views of the faithful go against human rights. They are brainwashed to believe they are divine. It is upsetting to say the least.

I like to look to the future to define my actions. People of faith look to the past. Even though knowledge of the past is an important step in building a good future, it should not be done without rational thought, something people of faith claim to do, but clearly don’t.

Thanks for taking the time to read my enormous rant. I hope it helps you to understand why an atheist might be angry. President Bush is a classic example of what faith can do to a society without coincidence he does this with lies, much like the deception put forth by faith.

Click here to read entire article

Canadians are losing faith

Ted Byfield, editor-in-chief of the feisty an ultra-conservative Alberta Report newsmagazine, wrote an interesting article where he shows through a recent Canadian poll, Canadians are loosing their faith.

Ted’s summarizes that from other possibilities Canadians are loosing their faith because they’ve always been protected by some empire; in the 1600-1700s by the French, 1700-1900s by the British and now by their neighbors, the American Empire. This constant protection makes them “Spoiled brats” according to Ted.

I don’t think Ted’s hypothesis is very far from the truth. I would never call them spoiled brats. However I think this supports the even greater concept that faith is fueled by fear. The US’s recent political direction of fear and rhetoric has fueled an incredible faith based interest.

It is a vicious cycle faith. It grows with fear and ignorance, teaches intolerance while suppresses rational thinking; all that in turn causes conflict, death and suffering which makes people scared. This is obvious by anyone with a simple understanding of history.

Source: http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Byfield_Ted/2006/04/22/1546173.html

Canadians are losing faith

Ted Byfield | editor-in-chief of the feisty an ultra-conservative Alberta Report newsmagazine | 04.23.2006

Immediately before Easter, Ipsos Reid pollsters queried 814 adult Canadians and 768 adult Americans on their religious beliefs.

The results, published last week, confirm something that is becoming increasingly evident, both culturally and politically. The U.S. is a far more Christian country than Canada.

To the assertion, "I have committed my life to Christ and consider myself to be a converted Christian," 41% of Canadians answered yes, against 60% of Americans.

To the assertion, "I feel it very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christian," 25% of Canadians answered yes against 46% of Americans.

To the assertion, "The world will end in the Battle of Armageddon between Jesus and the antichrist," 20% of Canadians answered yes against 46% of Americans.

Answering the question, "Would you say that you have ever had 'a religious mystical experience,' that is, a moment of sudden religious insight and awakening?" 29% of Canadians answered yes against 47% of Americans.

On this point, incidentally, regional differences were greater in Canada than in the U.S.

The American response varied from 53% yes in the Midwest and 51% yes in the South down to 34% in the Northeast.

Canadian response ran from 45% yes in the prairies to 19% in Quebec.

The seeming abandonment of Christianity in Quebec over the last 50 years has somewhat distorted the Canadian decline percentages, according to Reginald Bibby, University of Lethbridge sociologist and foremost authority on Canadian religious trends.

Quebec church attendance in the '50s ran as high as 80% and now stands at less than 15% in some surveys.

The Canadian average, meanwhile fell from 45% to about 20%, rising to 25% since 2000.

But Gallup polls, he notes, show little change in U.S. church attendance percentages over that half-century, which remain in the range of 45%.

Bibby has published little by way of explanation for the difference between these two countries, whose cultures in other respects are much the same.

Having lived throughout this 50-year period, however, I have developed two explanations of my own.

First, there's the "Spoiled Brat Syndrome." Throughout its entire history, Canada has belonged to some kind of empire.

For its first 150 years or so (1608-1763), it was part of the French Empire. For the next 180 years or thereabouts (1763-c.1945), it was part of the British Empire.

For the last 60 years it has been part of the American empire.

Always we have been protected. The French protected us from the British. The British protected us first from the Americans, later from German and Japanese aggression, and later still against the Soviet slave state.

In our first two imperial roles, we were naturally asked to help our mother country on occasion, and in the 20th century we responded nobly in two world wars.

In support of American resistance to Soviet aggression, however, we gradually contributed less and less. Instead, we increasingly assumed the role of critic, offering gratuitous observations on what the Americans were doing wrong and how they might improve their performance, and even making occasional overtures towards dubious entities like Cuba.

So, Explanation No. 1 is people who must stand on their own feet soon learn to rely on God. Spoiled brats can be bravely agnostic.

Explanation No. 2 is based on the "Respect for Authority Syndrome"

We probably also derived this trait from our inherently colonial status.

Americans are instantly suspicious of authority in whatever form (government, academe, "expert opinion," the Supreme Court, the media), while Canada positively craves authority.

That's why Americans are often prepared to settle controversial issues by referendum, vesting the ultimate power to decide in the general populace.

In Canada we deeply distrust "the mob." We prefer to let "the people who really know" decide.

Therefore 50 years ago, when authority was at least nominally Christian and went to church, Canada did, too.

Now, when authority has embraced skepticism, so does much of Canada.

In the years to come, if voices filling the current role of the Globe and Mail and the CBC should return to the faith, Canadians generally can be expected to rediscover God.

Not a very attractive national portrait, is it? But it seems to me to accord with the facts.

Click here to read entire article

Family Guy (Big Bang & Evolution)

This Sunday’s Family Guy episode was great! The last couple weren’t all that great. I guess it all depends on the content.

In the beginning of the episode, Peter is telling his Family, the family history, starting with the Big Bang and Evolution.

The writer’s did a great job of mocking creationists! So freakin’ funny! Watch below.

Atheism is a liberating world view

I found this interesting opinion piece by Gilbert D. Shapiro a Tucson podiatrist. He is able to eloquently encompass all that is Atheism in just a few short paragraphs. What do you think of what he writes? Comment below.

Source: http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/125152

Atheism is a liberating world view

Gilbert D. Shapiro, Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.19.2006

Atheists are "seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public," according to a national survey conducted by the University of Minnesota.

The research, reported in April's American Sociological Review, sadly confirms to me that many of our citizens are uninformed and undereducated. The conclusions are an insult to an estimated 30 million Americans who are honest, rational, moral and unfortunately far too quiet.

It is therefore time for atheists to "come out of the closet" and shout out loud the famous line, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any longer!"

I certainly do not speak for all atheists, but I think I can briefly clear up some misconceptions and clarify a few atheist positions.

Let's first affirm that atheism is not a religion. It is quite simply a fundamental world view that asserts that to date there has been no evidence for the existence (reality) of gods. Logically, it is therefore incumbent on believers to support their claims rather than the reverse.

The evidence that we do have argues quite strongly that the Judeo-Christian deity does not exist. For example, God is traditionally described as all-powerful, -knowing, -present and -good and not of time or space. Like square circles and married bachelors, it is an incoherent statement on its face and proven so by a simple reality check.

Scientific research just published in the American Heart Journal has found that praying for someone's health to improve is ineffective. Miracles (events that violate natural laws) have never been documented. Indeed, there has never been confirmation of a divine intervention or, for that matter, anything supernatural.

Spirituality, regrettably for many, has never been shown to be anything more than just heightened human awareness. The suffering and misery resulting from tsunamis, earthquakes, famines, etc., are testimonies that nature is exquisitely indifferent to all living things.

Evolution, a nondebatable scientific truth (like gravity), denies the divine character of man as portrayed in the Bible. Faith, the underpinning and the engine that runs religion, is defined as belief without reason. In the rational world, if one has supportable reasons for a position, then one would not need faith. For atheists therefore, all belief has to be based on reason, logic and rational thought.

Atheists have observed that the deeper the religious belief the more there is a lack of intellectual integrity.

Whereas atheists would change their position the minute there was evidence for a god or for the supernatural, religionists are so hard-wired and vacuum-sealed in their beliefs that they freely admit that their position is not even open for discussion.

Atheism is the liberating view incorporated in the philosophy of secular humanism. Its central theme is that man alone is solely responsible for his destiny on earth. Morality has been shown to be a product of human development over thousands of years; no deity is necessary to counsel us about right and wrong.

Atheists are continually amazed that Americans can reason with such clarity and critical thinking on most aspects of life except when it comes to God and religion.

God, faith, religion, and the supernatural are, in the atheist's world view, the causes of the delusional wishful thinking that has at best, wasted man's time and at worst, been responsible for his most awful behaviors.

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Letting Go of God

Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God" as featured on Ira Glass's "This American Life".

Why would a god create people, so imperfect, then blame them for their own imperfections, then, send his son to be murdered by those imperfect people to make up for how imperfect those people were; And how imperfect they were inevitably going to be.

What a crazy idea!

Rapture Carelessness Interview

Many of you have heard of Jim Jones, the man that was able to create a religious cult that led to the mass suicide of close to a thousand people. I often use his story in debate with religious friends. They scoff at the comparison usually telling me how great a person Jesus was, blindly convincing themselves that what they believe is completely harmless.

BuzzFlash interviewed Stephanie Hendricks, author of:
Divine Destruction: Dominion Theology and American Environmental Policy. Her thesis is that corporate interests, with all-out government support, have exploited millions of American Christians by linking rampant environmental destruction with visions of Armageddon and the Rapture.

All this talk of the Rapture has caused a carelessness for the environment among Christians that is creating havoc for our future.

Read the Interview

A Vocabulary Lesson

I found this really funny article, The Religious/Political Right: A Vocabulary Lesson on BlogCritics.org that defines certain key words often used by the religious right. They describe what the word means to them. This is surprisingly true.

Some of the words translated are: Normal, Law-abiding, Patriot, Homosexual, Special Rights, Evil, Liberal, Pedophile, Secular, Offensive, God-fearing, and God.

In God's Country

PBS has produced an inside look the Evangelical movement in the US. The video is very disturbing from a secular perspective. It really seems as if they are taking over this country. There are organizations who create video’s that try with great conviction to convince viewers that this nation’s founding fathers did not intend for a separation of church and state.

Story on PBS Website / Watch Video

Humanist Conference

This weekend I attended the American Humanist Association Annual Conference. This is my second year at the conference which has a multitude of workshops ranging from subjects such as Church-State separation to religion’s destructive role in American society’s sexuality.

I had the pleasure to shake hands with Brian Flemming, the maker of the famous documentary, “The God that wasn’t there”. I found out he is working on a second movie for sometime next year. I can’t wait!

I’ve also discovered that Freethinkers now have a lobbyist in Washington DC named Lori Lipman Brown. I had the honor of listening to her talk about her first months as an atheist lobbyist. She is doing a great job! Please support our cause by donating to the Secular Coalition for America. I will be reporting any news surrounding our new lobbyist.

Bill Maher and Intelligent Design

Bill Maher has a huge following and his own show, Real Time with Bill Maher - HBO. I consider him of being a freethinker. He opposes most of what freethinkers consider totally outrageous such as the Intelligent Design movement.

Watch Bill Maher rip so-called “Intelligent Design”

Religion often the problem, not the solution

August Berkshire, vice president of Atheist Alliance International recently wrote a great article Maine Today.

Religion often the problem, not the solution goes into light detail on how any atrocity can be justified by the belief in a god. History proves this is true; September 11 being the most recent example.

Read the article:
Religion often the problem, not the solution