By Skeptic on
5/4/2009 1:38 PM
The moderates are all so tollerant. I wonder if they really have a clue as to what their doctrine says. I imagine most theists of all stripes just carry on the family tradition with out as mush as a thought as to what they actually claim to beleive. All these incompatible belief systems so happily accepting of one another while the only ones actually adhering to the rules are the fanaitcs. Standing arm in arm they raise voices together against those who would dare to dicount them all. It's ok to discount most of them as long as you pick one, but if you choose to pick none? If you choose to disregard islam with the same logic that a Muslim discounts Christianlty...well, then, that's not good. You must choose one irrationality for the moderates who are so tollerant of other irrationality's to deem you acceptable. You see, have discounted all religions. Using the same intellect that has evolved in you to discount all but the one you hold dear.
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
11/24/2008 4:19 PM
I have two young daughters, both under 4. I have given thought to the Santa issue as an atheist. I have decided that Santa is really not a harm as it is not a "world view". It is simply just a fun thing for children to believe. It does not tell you to live a certain way (with the exception of "be good for goodness sake"). As that phrase becomes more the atheist/secular motto I can live with it even more.
If my 4 year old were to ask me if Santa really exists I would not lie, but I may tell here not to tell her sister. For me its like ghosts stories at summer camp. The rational side of me knows its not true but there is really no harm.
So go ahead, be afraid of ghosts when you are a kid and look forward to Santa and the tooth fairy because its not indoctrination when we all know these false beliefs will be abandoned all too soon.
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
10/2/2008 9:03 PM
From the home office in Grand Rapids Michigan the top 10 things you must accept for me to deem you a rational person.
10. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald
9. People who claim alien abduction are odd
8. Astronomy is real, astrology is not
7. Sylvia Brown and people like her are frauds
6. Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman do not exist
5. The Apollo lunar landing really happened
4. Elvis is dead
3. The attacks on 9/11 were planned and carried out by Al-Qaeda
2 . Scientology is no more ridiculous than Christianity
1 Evolution
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
9/19/2008 12:20 PM
 How propheic was Carl Sagan's statement from the Introduction to Broca's Brain in October of 1978.
This book written just before-at most, I believe, a few years or a few decades before-the answers to many of those vexing and awesome questions on origins and fates are pried loose from the cosmos. If we do not destroy ourselves, most of us will be around for the answers. Had we been born fifty years earlier, we could have wondered, pondered, speculated about these issues, but we could have done notheing about them. Had we been born fifty years later, the answers would, I think, already have been in. Our children will have been taught the answers before most of them will have had an
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
8/17/2008 11:37 AM
My wife and I attended her high school reunion last night. I don't have much to say about it on the whole as I did not really know anybody at her high school however, she did relay something to me which I veiwed as a positive. She attended a Catholic High school, in fact this was a "real" catholic high school. Her first year there was the first year in which girls attended and browsing through the yearbooks there was a disturbing number of preists who served as teachers in a variety of subjects. Not just religion as I would have expected.
Anyway, back to the positive occuraence. Earlier in the day my wife attended a tour of the school and memorial for fellow students and faculty who had passed away. I was happily able to avoid this part of the day. Upon returning to my inlaws house she mentioned that the classroom where religion had been taught for years had been turned into a science classroom. I know this is not the big ending to this post that you may have b ...
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
6/17/2008 2:49 PM
Why am I an atheist? Because I have seen no evidence of a god.
Why am I an activist?
This is the more pertinent question. The first question has an obvious answer especially to fellow atheists. I do not believe in god for the same reason that I don not believe Elvis is alive. There is no evidence. Being an atheist is easy and frankly it is intellectually honest. It does require one thing that faith does not; it requires thought. Faith does not require thought. Faith requires…well…faith. The word itself is almost immoral and I would not take anything in my life on faith. Sure, I have h
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
5/23/2008 9:35 AM
Ah... the the intellignet arguments presented by those annonymous email "debaters". I am sure Amanda Mathis is not this persons real name and if it is I am certain its not the professional golfer.
As usual these people leave me at a loss for words. Although it is only because they are too cowardly to allow me to respond.
Well said Amanda :
from: Amanda Mathis
date: Fri, May 23, 2008 at 4:07 AM
subject: best
cont ...
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
5/22/2008 8:51 AM
I spent much of last Saturday with my wife and daughters (1 and 4) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto. I had not been there in probably 15 years and was looking forward to the opportunity for my 4 year old to see the dinosaurs. The ROM is not a one day activity unless you are running and it is even slower with kids in tow. At most I figured we would have a 4 or 5 hour window before the youngest completely lost it. We were there from about 11 to 3:30 so my estimate was bang on. What brought me out to the museum in the first place was the American Museum of Natural History’s Darwin Exhibit.
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
4/8/2008 1:52 PM
All honest people are agnostic. This is the statement I am making. Whether you are a believer in god or not, if you are honest with yourself you are an agnostic. The following is pulled from Dictionary.com:
An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning "without, not," as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnōsis,
Read More »
|
By Skeptic on
3/27/2008 2:13 PM
Madeline Kara Neumann is dead beacause of of religion. This is the only reason. I am disgusted when I hear stories like this. In the past it has been Johova's Witnesses refusing blood transfusions on behalf of their children in the name of some imaginary friend. These morons who this girl had the misfortune of being the daughter of chose to put their faith in...well, faith. Faith, what a stupid premise.
I do not have faith in anything. I do not have faith in science or in the love of my children or in the sun coming up tommorrow. For these things and all others happenings I have evidence. My children tell me they love me, that is my evidence. The sun has come up on roughly 24 hour intervals for billions of years, that is my evidence(it is repeatable). Insulin was discovered through science and it has saved thousands of lives over most of th
Read More »
|