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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Decade in Review
Friday, October 30, 2009
The True Meaning of Halloween
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Friday, October 2, 2009
God's Pests
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Monday, September 28, 2009
Getting Scoped
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Faith-Eating
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Monday, August 3, 2009
10 Small Steps
• A woman U.S. presidentAs opposed to reproduction. I've read that scientists have already created RNA, which is thought to be responsible for copying information in primitive life. It's only a matter of time before we get a cell, I just don't know how much time.• Extraterrestrial lifeIt's very improbable that life exists only on this planet. The universe is just too big. Life (as we know it) seems to need, first and foremost, liquid water. Our own solar system has H2O all over the place. Intelligent life of course would be much rarer if not exclusive, but primitive life should be out there. We just need to find it.• Commercial space travelThis one is a shoo-in. Virgin Galactic is already selling tickets.• A Mars landing• Fully functional robotic limbsI'm talking almost real. We're getting there.• The Eradication of AIDSThis may be optimistic, but there is hope—thanks to all the dedicated scientists, researchers, doctors, philanthropists, and everyone else trying solve this crisis who don't think AIDS is god's curse on gays. It turns out some people are virtually immune to HIV and there may be a way to give that resistance to others.• My 100th birthdayHumans in developed nations keep living longer and longer. With advances in nanotechnology I think we're on the brink of some major developments that will surely translate into the world of medicine. The current life expectancy in the U.S. is 78. The closer I get to the life expectancy, the higher the number gets. Unless the rate of increase surpasses aging, I will one day meet that mark. But hopefully after 100. Or I might be crushed by a falling jet engine tomorrow.• An openly non-religious OR gay U.S. presidentBoth would be too much to hope for, but maybe we can get one or the other. A woman prez will come soon, we already have a black one and other racial minorities will follow, but these two groups are hard for people to accept.• A mass conversion to scientific thought
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Friday, July 17, 2009
F U Friday: The Pope
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Rational Theism (Irony Alert)
Do not mistake passion, which can change its mind, for fundamentalism, which never will. Passion for passion, an evangelical Christian and I may be evenly matched. But we are not equally fundamentalist. The true scientist, however passionately he may “believe”, in evolution for example, knows exactly what would change his mind: evidence! The fundamentalist knows that nothing will.
Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically: the disagreement between Professor Stephen Jay Gould and Professor Richard Dawkins, concerning "punctuated evolution" and the unfilled gaps in post-Darwinian theory, is quite wide as well as quite deep, but we shall resolve it by evidence and reasoning and not by mutual excommunication.
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Thursday, July 9, 2009
Letter from a Christian Nation
Dear School Board of America,
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A Conversation with God: Free Will
God, why if you are wholly good did you make a world in which people rape and murder, commit genocide and other atrocities?
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Earf Day
Friday, July 3, 2009
Iran's So Far Away
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
This excerpt from the founding document of the United States screams like a bullhorn in light of the recent events that have taken place in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Continue to show your support for the people of Iran as they fight to have their voices heard.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
One Order of Looney, Please. Hold the Reason
Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern (R) has cooked up a giant batch of crazy. Her "Oklahoma Citizen's [sic] Proclamation for Morality" blames Obama, gays, and divorcees for the nation's current economic woes. This is the same Sally Kern who last year called gays a bigger threat than terrorists. There's really nothing I can say to make this funny, so just read the following crazy in its entirety:
OKLAHOMA CITIZEN’S PROCLAMATION FOR MORALITY
We the People of Oklahoma, Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to
secure and perpetuate the blessing of Liberty; to secure just and rightful Government; to promote
our mutual Welfare and Happiness, do establish this proclamation and call upon the people of the
great State of Oklahoma, and our fellow Patriots in these United States of America who look to
the Lord for guidance, to acknowledge the need for a national awakening of righteousness in our
land.
WHEREAS, “It is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon
which Freedom can securely stand” (John Adams); and
WHEREAS, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with
human passions unbridled by Religion and Morality” (John Adams); and
WHEREAS, “Our Constitution was made only for a Moral and Religious people” (John
Adams); and
WHEREAS, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the
power of government…but upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity
of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to
the Ten Commandments of God” (James Madison); and
WHEREAS, “Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that
belongs to us by the laws of God (Benjamin Franklin); and
WHEREAS, “God who gave us life gave us liberty and can the liberties of a nation be
thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the
people that these liberties are of the Gift of God” (Thomas Jefferson); and
WHEREAS, “Whether any free government can be permanent, where the public
worship of God, and the support of Religion, constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state”
(Joseph Story); and
WHEREAS, “We hold sacred the rights of conscience, and promise to the people…the
free and undisturbed exercise of their religion” (Roger Sherman); and
WHEREAS, “This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians”
(Patrick Henry); and
WHEREAS, “When you…exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be
impressed upon your mind that God commands you to choose just men who will rule in the fear of
God” (Noah Webster); and
WHEREAS, “The principles of genuine Liberty and of wise laws and administrations
are to be drawn from the Bible” (Noah Webster); and
WHEREAS, the people of Oklahoma have a strong tradition of reliance upon the
Creator of the Universe; and
WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national
moral crisis; and
WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion,
pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and
many other forms of debauchery; and
WHEREAS, alarmed that the Government of the United States of America is forsaking
the rich Christian heritage upon which this nation was built; and
WHEREAS, grieved that the Office of the president of these United States has refused
to uphold the long held tradition of past presidents in giving recognition to our National Day of
Prayer; and
WHEREAS, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States
disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to
an immoral behavior;
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that we the undersigned elected officials
of the people of Oklahoma, religious leaders and citizens of the State of Oklahoma, appealing to
the Supreme Judge of the world, solemnly declare that the HOPE of the great State of Oklahoma
and of these United States, rests upon the Principles of Religion and Morality as put forth in the
HOLY BIBLE; and
BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned, believers in the One True God and His
only Son, call upon all to join with us in recognizing that “Blessed is the Nation whose God is the
Lord,” and humbly implore all who love Truth and Virtue to live above reproach in the sight of God
and man with a firm reliance on the leadership and protection of Almighty God; and
BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned, humbly call upon Holy God, our
Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer, to have mercy on this nation, to stay His hand of judgment,
and grant a national awakening of righteousness and Christian renewal as we repent of our great
sin.
Signed on the second day of July in the year of our Lord Christ Two Thousand and Nine.
Thank Averageness!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Obama Implicates Iranian Government in Death of Michael Jackson
LOS OLIVOS, CA -- Amid speculation and suspicion revolving around the recent death of pop legend and child entertainer Michael Jackson, President Barack Obama spoke out this morning about new developments in the investigation.
Atheist Blogroll
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