Individualism in atheism

They're not bibles - they're books by people who think pretty much the way I do.

I'm reading "The End of Faith" at the moment, and while I agree with an awful lot of what Sam Harris says, there's a fair bit I don't agree with. Still, that's the whole point of this, really - atheism is NOT a religion. Atheists have no rule book, no code of behaviour, no centralised tenents, canons, dogma or prophets. We think for ourselves. A boss I had once described managing a team of systems experts as akin to "herding cats" - which I think is a pretty fair simile for atheists too.

By contrast, you really have to leave your common sense at the door if you go to a church, mosque or temple. You're attending a gathering of people who believe corrupted, rambling and inconsistent writings from a different time and place, which advocate many behavioral practices and beliefs which by any modern definition are actually insane.

I don't have all the answers in life, and neither does anyone else. This is for sure though - I'd rather live by my own rules, they make a hell of a lot more sense than any religious book.

Why I'm an atheist...

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

- Stephen Roberts

Concise, clear, and to the point, this quote echoes my own standpoint. Argue it if you can!

The Ten Commandments

Words of wisdom from George Carlin. heheh

SEX ED

If you're after naughty pictures, look elsewhere. This is serious shit. Mostly, anyways.

While browsing the right-wing conservative sites in search of laughs, I came across this little gem. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=why_liberals_lie_about_sex&ns=KevinMcCullough&dt=07/15/2007&page=full&comments=true
This bloke Kevin McCullough is a prime candidate for Arkham Asylum if he really believes the feculent slurry he writes. The gist of this garbage is that liberals (not Australian Liberals, which are actually conservative, but true liberals - to the left of centre - intelligent people - hell, you know who you are) - want your children to have sex. Apparently we're all deviates and perverts on a fast train to hell, while the only responsible people are the conservative religious right (who, incidentally, have the worst record of sexual abuse throughout history). In their view, they are battling to have their kids remain virginal until marriage, while us evil lefties are showering them with condoms and information that will encourage them to go out and fornicate.

Do these people live in the real world? My theory is that they're getting their beliefs confused with reality, when actually they are pretty much completely different. Kids, as in adolescents, are kids. They have raging hormones which no amount of cold showers or bible studies are going to suppress. Do you remember when you were 16? If you weren't actually having sex, a high proportion of your time was spent in contemplation of it. (That's a male perspective, anyways - ladies, correct me if you had a different view). Short of physically locking your kids away from puberty to marriage, you are not going to prevent them from making intimate contact with the opposite sex (or the same sex, if that's their inclination) - so telling them to save themselves for marriage will have about as much effect as an ice cube in a steel smelter.

Liberals don't want your kids, or their own, to have sex. However they're smart enough to realise that the chances are they'll do it anyway. In that case, the absolute best thing you can give kids is information - lots of it - on the risks, the possible consequences, and the ways to minimise both. Seeing some old teacher rolling a condom onto a banana is not going to encourage Little Tommy to go jump someone's bones, but it may just prevent him from catching an STD or becoming a father at 15.

To any conservatives out there, PLEASE think. Look past your beliefs and actually use your brains. Information is going to save your kids, not dogma.

HYPOCRITE

The man above (no, not god, the dude in the photo) is bible-bashing US Senator David Vitter from Louisiana, darling of the religious right, who stands for "family values", preventing gay marriages, and teaching abstinence (but not safe sex practices).

Oh, and he's been caught using hookers. Twice.

What makes it especially poignant is his letter to the Senate Committee on Finance of 21/6/07 pushing the abstinence bill (http://www.vitter.senate.gov/forms/abstinenceLetter.pdf), in which he says "These (abstinence) programs have been shown to effectively reduce the risks of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by teaching teenagers that saving sex until marriage and remaining faithful afterwards is the best choice for health and happiness."

Remaining faithful huh David? Which bit of that involves BANGING PROSTITUTES?

Just to make this even better, this hypocrite was one of the attack dogs howling for Clinton's impeachment when he got caught receiving a blowjob from Monica. Probably at the same time he himself was strapped to a hotel bed being whipped by a high-priced 'ho.

Of course, David's repented of his evil sins and says that both his god and his wife (in that order) have forgiven him. Neither of which makes a blind bit of difference to his misguided constituents who should have known better than to elect a bible-thumper on moral grounds rather than looking at the important issues (oh, say education, health, civil rights, equality, economy, and not to mention that little war you've got going). Now, looks like this man talks the talk but sure doesn't walk the walk.

And here lies one of the many problems with religion. Even "moderates" will elect a clean-cut conservative on the basis of his beliefs RATHER than any real policies. Then, when Larry Flynt finds your senator's phone number on the list of an escort service, what does your hypocrite really stand for?

Wake up and smell reality, America.

Australia's most well-known atheist - Phillip Adams

While I'm studying I like to listen to ABC radio from home, so I download podcasts of Radio National's program Late Night Live. The presenter, Phillip Adams, is an atheist and humanist. His interviews and commentary are insightful, thoughtful and always interesting. I'd recommend a listen for any atheists around the world.

Phillip Adams' Wikipedia bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Adams

Radio National's Late Night Live: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/default.htm

Late Night Live's podcast url: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/lnl.xml

Give it a try! Keeps me sane, especially hearing another Aussie voice while overseas.

The gospel according to Marty (not sainted)

We know the story as believed by christians, right? A virgin gives birth to the son of god, who grows up, does a few miracles and gets himself killed, then rises again and pisses off to heaven. Hmmmm.

For a start let's have a look at the "virgin" issue. Basically, some ecclesiastical nutjob bolloxed the translation from Hebrew. The term used in the original (ha‘almah) has been traditionally translated as "virgin", but further research shows it also means "a young woman of marriageable age". Which is the logical choice? Then there's the whole muddy waters of exactly when Jesus was born, where, the myth of Herod's baby-killing spree and the new star in the east that no one except for 3 wise men noticed. It's too long to go into here, but the full dissection can be found on this excellent site - http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christianity_birthnarrative.html

So, when you remove all the bullshit you basically have a story about a Jewish kid who was born, somewhere, at some stage. It was only far later that the gospel writers tried to make him fit a 700-year old prophecy.

From there, the story goes that he argued theology with the religious teachers, became a carpenter, had a bit of biffo with some money lenders, recruited some followers, did a few miracles, and ended up executed.

Most or all of the stories about Jesus are no doubt exaggerations, myths, half-truths or outright lies. Don't forget that at this stage there was no media services or checking of facts, news was passed by word of mouth. When you consider that even today stories are twisted, "spun", and influenced on a daily basis, you can imagine the "chinese whispers" effect on news of those times. Someone found a forgotten stash of wine at a wedding that Jesus may or may not have attended; by the time someone wrote the story down he'd created it from water.

Then there's the execution, which again may or may not be based on fact. Even if it was real, victims of crucifixion usually died over the course of days. Jesus was apparently only on the cross (which was actually a "T" shape, thus buggering up the christian symbol completely) a matter of hours. The chances of him surviving this experience are therefore quite good, which would explain the resurrection story had he been spotted walking around afterwards.

In summary, the christians would have you believe that: A virgin gave birth to a child, who was the son of god, who died to take away your sins (bit presumptive really) and was brought back to life.

The realistic view is, of course, that there may or may not have been a man who became a bit of a folk hero for one Middle Eastern tribe. He cocked up politically and may have got himself sentenced to death, which it seems likely he survived.

People being what they are, of course, this myth has grown out of all proportion until you have the ridiculous situation that we have today; hundreds of millions of people believing that a 2000-year old semi-historical figure from a different culture has the power to "save" your imaginary soul.

It's funny, I don't see Tutankhamun's second cousin or a sergeant in Genghis Khan's army being worshipped around the world today!

Generational change - a solution to religion?

The idea that generational change may provide the eventual downfall to most recognised religions may seem an absurd idea at first. However while it's damn near impossible to change the mind of a believer, it is almost a given that following generations, exposed to different ideas, will have a different outlook on life.

My family are devout christians, of a little-known sect that claims to have no name but is known to others as "Cooneyites" after the founder. Out of 5 kids, I'm the only one to actually reject their beliefs (at age 20). Don't get me wrong; I love and respect my parents, and apart from my eldest brother, who's a bit of a twat, I get on pretty well with the rest of the family.

This sect is mainly comprised of families, and succeeding generations are brought up within the faith. Marriage outside of the faith is not encouraged. The point is, despite these strictures, there are encouraging signs that the current young generation are not conforming to a frankly outdated way of life.

My sister's family is a good example. Although devout herself, she married an "outsider" and now has two kids in their late teens. The boy takes after his father, fully and frankly rejects his mothers' beliefs, and seems from all accounts to be a happy and healthy individual with a secular humanist outlook on life. The girl, though at this stage still going to meetings with her mother, has an "outsider" boyfriend and has a social lifestyle similar to "normal" agnostic kids her age.

Just the thing to give the kids screaming nightmares! From inside the Duomo, Florence

The sad thing, in my family's case, is their belief that anyone not in their religion is going to hell. (As 99.999999% of the earth's population don't even know of their existence, that means that heaven is going to be pretty empty and it'll be standing room only in hell!) So, my parents would mourn the fact that I'm going to hell. My sister thinks her husband will. This irrational belief - not only in an afterlife, but that a smug few will gather around their god as he shuttles the majority through a cattle run to eternal flames, is one of the saddest aspects of religious belief.

However in an information age it's going to get harder and harder for religious parents to "shield" their kids from heretical ideas. That's why it's great to see atheism blogs and sites all over the net; if they cause kids to question their parents beliefs, they're providing a huge service to humankind. Of course, hard core monotheistic religions do all they can to prevent this - especially islam, where in some countries there's no separation between church and state, and kids get taught religious bullshit instead of useful knowledge. Even so, knowledge has a tendency to ignore international and religious borders.

Through ignorance, people used to believe all sorts of strange things that they don't today. Religion is the same, just another idea that has continued past its use-by date. Give it time, and it'll fade away all by itself.