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Omnipotent Poobah

An American Sharia in Texas? - 0 views

omnipotentpoobah.com/...an-american-sharia-in-texas

khristian oliver amesty international religion politics sharia

shared by Omnipotent Poobah on 18 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Omnipotent Poobah on 18 Oct 09
     
    The Bible and 10 Commandments are eloquent, but can't serve in lieu of secular laws. The case of Khristian Oliver, now on Death Row in Texas, is important case. Should the jury should have used the Bible as a basis for determining Oliver's original death sentence?
Omnipotent Poobah

Pass the Candy and Welcome to the Middle Ages - 0 views

omnipotentpoobah.com/...and-welcome-to-the-middle-ages

halloween satanic candy pat robertson christians religion candy

shared by Omnipotent Poobah on 30 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Omnipotent Poobah on 30 Oct 09
     
    As close as I can figure, it's actually 1009. I know this because people are acting like it's the Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer just joined the NYT as a new columnist, and Pat Robertson is four-square against Halloween candy.
Bakari Chavanu

answeringinfidels.com - 4 views

www.answeringinfidels.com/index.php

god

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 30 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Here Richard argues that Metaphysical Naturalism is better than any religion, because if society were to adopt his view, there would be no religious conflict.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 30 Oct 09
       
      I have to agree with this point. Richard in his presentation sounded very naive as to think enough people who accept "Metaphysical Naturalism" as a dominate worldview, when in actuality no particular worldview is dominate.
  • This seems pretty straightforward, but there is a gaping problem. Richard claims that the adoption of his view by society would bring an end to religious conflict. But what does he mean by “adoption”? He can’t be referring to a simple adoption of his view by a government, for this would not put an end to religious conflicts, whether internal or external.
  • For instance, if Congress suddenly voted in favor of a Metaphysical Naturalism Amendment to the Constitution, there would still be Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Jews, Mormons, and others contending for their faiths. Thus, there would still be conflict. 
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • His argument, then, amounts to this: “If we all believed in Metaphysical Naturalism, then there would be no disagreements about the truth of Metaphysical Naturalism.” If my point isn’t clear yet, just compare Richard’s reasoning with the following arguments, which are based on similar logic: 
  • If Christianity were adopted by everyone, then no one would disagree about whether or not Christianity is true. We wouldn’t have to worry about Muslim extremists anymore, for Islam would be a thing of the past. The war in Iraq would be over! Thus, everyone should adopt Christianity.
  • But this logic could be used to justify any policy change: If we just made it a law that immigrants could come to the U.S. at will, then we wouldn’t have to worry about patrolling our borders or making immigration policies. We could then take those resources and use them elsewhere. Thus, U.S. borders should be open to everyone. If people would simply agree that abortion is wrong, the abortion controversy would be over. This would allow officials to spend their time debating other issues, such as health care. Thus, people should agree that abortion is wrong. 
  • Needless to say, the Song of Solomon isn’t about the joys of child-rearing. I’m sure Richard is familiar with this part of the Bible, so I still don’t understand why he would say that the Bible teaches that sex is only for procreation.
  • Richard is also wrong when he says that the Bible lacks a mature view of sexuality. According to the Bible, God created sex. He could just as easily have given us the ability to reproduce asexually, but he didn’t. He wanted man and woman to be together, and he made sex pleasurable. When he finished creating us this way, he called everything “very good.”[23] And contrary to what Richard says, sex has purposes other than procreation. 
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 30 Oct 09
       
      But how do you know this? Plus, sex like other behaviors in life is extremely problematic for human societies. It represents the best and the worst about our nature. What type of god would allow that to occur in humans?
  • “[A]s atheists know better than anyone else on the planet, if you say you don’t believe you often become a social outcast.”[24]  This is the epitome of egocentrism. Around the world, people have been shunned, oppressed, tortured, and killed for their beliefs, yet Richard thinks that he’s got it worse than all of them. He even shares with his readers the suffering that resulted from his stand against theism: “For the first time, rather than being merely constantly pestered, I was being called names, and having hellfire wished upon me.”[25] If
  • Even more interesting is that Richard inadvertently implicates a number of his atheist colleagues in his crimes against reason: The Internet Infidels were also instrumental in helping to complete the latest phase of my intellectual development, especially Jeff Lowder and many affiliated colleagues: Evan Fales, Victor Stenger, Keith Augustine, Dan Barker, just to name a few, who also gave advice about improving this work specifically.[31] Shame on all of them! Either they lacked the reasoning ability to see the flaws in Richard’s arguments from breasts and blue monkeys (in which case they should all stop writing), or they don’t care that atheism is based on ridiculous arguments (in which case they should stop trying to persuade the world that their beliefs are important). Either way, they are guilty along with Richard. Aristotle would not be pleased.
  • On the last page of his book, Richard says that atheists “gain a sense of community and conviction through fighting together against our common enemies—the foes of reason, truth, and liberty.”[32] He then pleads for his readers to join him in his battle against Christianity. Remarkably, half way down the page he adds, “Failing that, if you’d rather pass, then I would like to extend another plea: for tolerance, acceptance, and understanding.” Thus, Richard’s message at the conclusion of his book seems to be: “Let’s all join together and destroy Christianity, our greatest enemy, until it is gone from the earth! But for those of you who don’t agree with me, let’s all be tolerant and understanding toward one another.”
  • Indeed, Christianity has enslaved the minds of billions of people: The fact is that we believe in God and an immortal soul because of the missionary zeal and religious intolerance intrinsic to the Christian religion. We owe our superstitious ideas to sword and gun and flame. In this corner of the globe, the Christian church was the victor, and our minds were the spoil.[39] 
  • Richard calls for war, a battle “to defeat the nonsense and lies” that Christians have spread.[40] He even refers to his campaign against Christianity as a “crusade” and says that “it would be immoral not to fight it.”[41] 
  • In the first passage, Jesus is addressing the idea that he had come to usher in a golden age of peace. Contrary to Jewish expectations, the purpose of Jesus’ first coming was to die on the cross for the sins of the world and to tear down the barrier of separation between God and man.
  • That Jesus here uses the word “sword” figuratively to represent the division brought by the Gospel is obvious to anyone whose last name isn’t Carrier.
  • From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”[47] 
  • All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.
  • The story is meant to illustrate Jesus’ immanent departure. Jesus was leaving, but he would one day return. In the meantime, people can either serve Christ or they can rebel against him. We can do as we like, but we mustn’t forget that one day Jesus will return, and that we will all be judged. That’s the obvious meaning of the passage
  • In the other passage, Richard calls Paul an advocate of slavery. But notice what Paul says. He tells his readers that slaves shouldn’t rebel against their masters “so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.”
  • f Richard had been writing the letters, slaves would have rebelled, and Christianity wouldn’t have lasted very long.
  • Besides, in his letter to Philemon, Paul does ask a slave-owner to free his slave.[49] 
  • For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.[50] 
  • not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.[51] 
  • Paul says that we are all one. He tells slaves to render service with good will, then turns around and says that masters should do the same things for their slaves. He adds that our true Master is in heaven, and that there is no favoritism with God.
  • In other words, we are all equal in God’s sight. This idea ultimately resulted in the Founding Fathers’ declaration that “All men are created equal,” which in turn gave birth to democracy in America and to the eventual abolition of slavery.
  • As we investigate Richard’s claims, a pattern should be coming into view. Richard goes to the Bible searching for the most unfavorable interpretation he can find. It’s fine if that’s his method, but remember that he demands that the principle of interpretive charity be applied to his writings.
  • Are these really contradictions? I’m not so sure. Consider the following statements: 1. Yesterday morning, Aunt Ginger came to my house to visit me.2. Last night, Aunt Ginger and Uncle Tony came to Virginia to visit my father.3. Yesterday afternoon, my aunt came to town to go to the beach.4. Yesterday, my aunt and uncle came to my house to get a dog. Believe it or not, these four statements are all true. 
  • Atheists are free to accuse me (or the Bible) of gross contradiction, and in fact this is a very common approach in atheist apologetics. But for Richard to interpret obviously reconcilable statements (i.e. one passage mentions two women at the tomb, while another mentions three women, etc.) as horrible contradictions and then to demand that the principle of interpretive charity be applied to all of his writings would require a completely different type of charity. It would require us to say,
  • Since some Christians have done bad things, Christianity must be bad. For Richard, any bad deed that a Christian does is evidence against Christianity, even if the deed is contrary to Jesus’ teachings. 
  • Yet, strangely, nothing an atheist does counts against atheism. Stalin killed millions of people because he had no respect for the sanctity of life, but should this affect our opinion of atheism?  Hitler tried to apply atheistic evolution to society, concluded that the Jews needed to be removed from the gene pool because they were interfering with human evolution, and killed millions of people.
  • Second, Richard says that the Bible is useless, childish, and boring, for it contains “extensive genealogies of no relevance to the meaning of life . . ., long digressions on barbaric rituals . . ., lengthy diatribes against long-dead nations and constant harping on doom and gloom.”[56] 
  • Obviously, very few people lay awake at night tormented by the question “What do words mean?” Nor do they care about analyzing normative propositions or studying the differences between reducible and irreducible sensations. I’m sure Richard would respond by saying, “But these topics are important! If someone finds them unimportant, then something must be wrong with him!”
Bakari Chavanu

Amazon.com: The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture (9780970950512): ... - 5 views

www.amazon.com/...ref=sr_1_1

bookreview

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 19 Nov 09 - No Cached
  • The God Virus goes beyond analogy, offering a fascinating and detailed look at the wiggling, maddening virus itself how it moves, how it survives, and how and why it continues to thrive. Dale McGowan, Author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, Harvard Humanist of the Year (2008) --Dale McGowan, Author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, Harvard Humanist of the Year (2008)
  • It's a book that non-believers will enjoy and religious readers can only dare to read. --Hemant Mehta author of I Sold My Soul On Ebay (Waterbrook Press, 2007)<br /><br />Your book is a convenient handbook on how real life Atheists can stay sane while others are freaking out with religious madness and blaming it on those that challenge the true believer s faith based system.
  • What makes religion so powerful? How does it weave its way into our political system? Why do people believe and follow obvious religious charlatans? What makes people profess deep faith even as they act in ways that betray that faith? What makes people blind to the irrationalities of their religion yet clearly see those of others?
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The paradigm can explain the fundamentalism of your Uncle Ned, the sexual behavior of a fallen mega church minister, the child rearing practices of a Pentecostal neighbor, why 19 men flew planes into the World Trade Center or what motivates a woman to blow herself up in the crowded markets of Baghdad.
  • The author speaks of the importance of "vectors" (priests, ministers, etc) in propagating religious ideas and how religious people and organizations will protect those "vectors" even in the case of abuse or other crimes.
  • Similarly, the fifth chapter deals with sex, and religion's attempt to control sex by creating a sex-negative environment. He mentions that even though religion uses positive terminology such as "focus on the family" really the message of "focus on the family" is a message of focusing on the rules and tenets of religion, which cause feelings of guilt and negativity towards sex. The function of this is not to create happy, dynamic family structures, but to propagate religion.
  • Rather than approach the god problem from a logical or hypothesis perspective A la Victor Stenger's God: the Failed Hypothesis, it approaches the problem of religion's impact on the individual and society.
  • It may not be so appealing to people who are intensely literal or who take the metaphor of the god virus as an argument rather than as a mechanism or metaphor for explanation.
  • One could say that atheism is a type of mind virus, and my feathers would not be ruffled. I think that it is very accessible to people who are capable of stepping outside of religion and looking at it objectively. I think that the book could have also been titled "the religion virus" without much harm.
  • After reading Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, I still needed a question answered- How does religion work? None of the aforementioned books really make any in-depth attempt at answering this dangerous question. -Dangerous only if one would try to tell the truth. The God Virus does exactly that.
  • This book answer's that question! Darrel Ray's explanation is undeniable, comprehensive, and brutally accurate of what religion REALLY IS. Those who are infected will not understand his analogy, and will by definition try to protect there infection as instructed.
nick gibson

Your Race Affects Whether People Write You Back « OkTrends - 0 views

blog.okcupid.com/...-whether-people-write-you-back

skepticism

shared by nick gibson on 21 Nov 09 - Cached
  • People of the various Zodiac signs match each other all at roughly the average rate, and, as we would expect, they reply to messages similarly.
  • racism is alive and well. It would be awesome if the other major online dating players would go out on a limb and release their own race data, too. I can’t imagine they will: multi-million dollar enterprises rarely like to admit that the people paying them those millions act like turds.
  • nick gibson on 21 Nov 09
     
    Just more proof that zodiac is bullshit
thinkahol *

my comment on, "Enjoy the next 3 months (Judgment Day may be coming)" | Thinkahol's Blog - 0 views

thinkahol.wordpress.com/...ths-judgment-day-may-be-coming

my comment on "Enjoy the next 3 months (Judgment Day may be coming)" | Thinkahol's Blog

shared by thinkahol * on 07 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 07 May 11
     
    I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that people assume that there is no difference between the way they experience the world and the world as it exists. I'm surprised people are willing to assume that metaphysical claims (i.e. claims outside of the purview of human testability/experience) are absolutely true. It seems that the only honest position one can have on "God" (in quotes to emphasize the lack of consensus on its definition) is to hold that "God" or "The Kingdom of Heaven" or "enlightenment" seem to be possible states of human consciousness; as such they may have individual normative value and seem to me to be generally socially desirable.
Sunny Jackson

Friendly Atheist - 1 views

friendlyatheist.com

shared by Sunny Jackson on 29 Jun 11 - Cached
JW Summers

The History of Satan - 0 views

www.markbeast.com/...history-of-satan.htm

shared by JW Summers on 11 Jul 11 - No Cached
    • JW Summers
      JW Summers on 11 Jul 11
       
      The Christian Right Wing Conservatives are Satan's Beastly army..
  • JW Summers on 11 Jul 11
     
    History of Satan - future Very soon Satan will be released from the spirit world. He will appear on earth in a glorious, physical body. Then Satan will be called the beast. He will pretend to be God and he will have the appearance of God. The beast is the name for Satan when he comes visibly to the earth claiming that he is God. His demons will come with him and they will appear to be angels from heaven. How long will be beast be on earth? Satan will be given 3 ½ years as the visible god of this world. During this time he will try to convince every person on earth to worship him. Do not be deceived. He is not God and you should not worship him. Who will worship the beast?
thinkahol *

Sam Harris - The Great Debate: Can Science Tell us Right From Wrong? (1) - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

Sam Harris - The Great Debate: Can Science Tell us Right From Wrong? (1) YouTube

shared by thinkahol * on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 19 Oct 11
     
    The Great Debate On November 6th, 2010 a panel of renowned scientists, philosophers, and public intellectuals gathered to discuss what impact evolutionary theory and advances in neuroscience might have on traditional concepts of morality. If human morality is an evolutionary adaptation and if neuroscientists can identify specific brain circuitry governing moral judgment, can scientists determine what is, in fact, right and wrong? The panelists were psychologist Steven Pinker, author Sam Harris, philosopher Patricia Churchland, physicist Lawrence Krauss, philosopher Simon Blackburn, bioethicist Peter Singer and The Science Network's Roger Bingham.  Recorded live at the Arizona State University Gammage auditorium.  "The Great Debate" was sponsored by the ASU Origins Project in collaboration with the ASU Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Center for Law, Science and Innovation; the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge; and The Science Network. ------ Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values," "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation." "The End of Faith" won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. Harris has a doctorate in neuroscience from UCLA and a degree in philosophy from Stanford University. He is a co-founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society.
thinkahol *

Philip K. Dick on reality - A Little Book for Humanity - 0 views

thelittlebook.blogs.fi/...u-stop-believing-in-it-7672157

Philip K. Dick on reality - A Little Book for Humanity

shared by thinkahol * on 18 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 18 Oct 11
     
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
anonymous

Funerals & Memorials - 1 views

www.secularseasons.org/...funerals.html

funeral memorial atheism humanism

shared by anonymous on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 16 Feb 10
     
    How to prepare a funeral ceremony for an atheist, humanist, Bright, or any other person who wants to have a nonreligious ceremony.
Kylyssa Shay

Atheist Charities - 6 views

www.squidoo.com/Atheist-Charities

atheist atheism atheist charities atheist charity atheist charitable organizations

shared by Kylyssa Shay on 05 Dec 11 - Cached
  • Kylyssa Shay on 05 Dec 11
     
    Gives information about an assortment of atheist charities.
Alison Barris

Pennsylvania No Credit Check Loans Instant Online Source of Funding - YouTube - 0 views

youtu.be/lrX3QdqQ4ok

pennsylvania no credit check loans loans up to 1000 online loans 1 hour loans

shared by Alison Barris on 28 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Alison Barris on 28 Mar 16
     
    Pennsylvania loans no credit check offers best deal in the time of cash deficiency. People can get this finance is also provided to individuals who have a bad credit history.
  • Alison Barris on 28 Mar 16
     
    Pennsylvania loans no credit check offers best deal in the time of cash deficiency. People can get this finance is also provided to individuals who have a bad credit history.
anonymous

Greta Christina's Blog - - 0 views

the-orbit.net/greta

shared by anonymous on 10 Apr 18 - No Cached
salvinlinda

Wicks of Wisdom Consultation | Dr. Linda Salvin - 0 views

lindasalvin.com/...wow-consultation

Spiritual Consultant

shared by salvinlinda on 03 Feb 18 - No Cached
  • salvinlinda on 03 Feb 18
     
    Linda's love of people comes across in her delivery, whether in person, on the radio or in her frequent TV appearances. For private psychic readings online, healing sessions, channeling sessions or astrology charts, you can order online or call (888) 509-1077.
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