Posts tagged atheist

atheismfuckyeah:

Western countries have appealed for an end to violent protests targeting their embassies, sparked by a film mocking the Prophet Muhammad.

The EU urged leaders in Arab and Muslim countries to “call immediately for peace and restraint”.

The US is sending marines to defend its embassy in Khartoum and has called on Sudan to protect foreign diplomats.

At least seven people died in protests in Khartoum, Tunis and Cairo on Friday and there are fears of further unrest.

Protests in Egypt have spread, with demonstrators breaking into a base holding multi-national peacekeepers in Sinai, and clashes outside the American consulate in the coastal city Alexandria.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban said their attack on the huge Camp Bastion Nato base, in which two US marines were killed, was carried out in response to the film.

‘Civilised world’

US embassies have borne the brunt of the attacks after clips of the film - which was made in the US - were distributed online.

Marines were deployed to Libya on Wednesday after the attack that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans and to Yemen on Friday after violence in Sanaa.

On Friday, US Vice-President Joe Biden called his Sudanese counterpart, Ali Osman Taha, to express concern over the security of the US and other Western embassies in Khartoum.

“Vice-President Biden reaffirmed the responsibility of the government of Sudan to protect diplomatic facilities and stressed the need for the government… to ensure the protection of diplomats in Khartoum,” a White House statement said.

A crowd of several thousand attacked the US embassy in Khartoum on Friday, and state radio said three protesters had been killed in clashes with security forces.

The German and UK embassies in Khartoum were also attacked, although the controversial film has no known links to either country.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso condemned the attacks as unacceptable and against “the rules of the civilised world.”

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged “national authorities in all countries concerned to swiftly ensure the security of diplomatic missions and protect diplomatic staff”.

“It is vitally important that leaders across the affected regions should call immediately for peace and restraint, as has already been the case in many countries.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the Sudanese ambassador in Berlin had been summoned on Friday and “unequivocally reminded of his government’s duty to protect diplomatic missions”.

‘Standing fast’

Protests against the film - Innocence of Muslims - began on Tuesday in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

The film depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a womaniser and leader of a group of bloodthirsty men.

However, its exact origin and the motivation behind the film’s production are still unclear.

A man suspected of involvement in its making, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is being questioned by federal probation officers in California.

Nakoula, who was jailed for bank fraud in 2010, is not allowed under the terms of his release to access the internet or to use aliases without permission.

He has denied involvement in the film.

Two people were killed in Tunisia on Friday after crowds breached the US embassy compound in Tunis and clashed with riot police.

The nearby American school was looted and set on fire. There was also one death during protests in Egypt and another in Lebanon.

On Friday, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base for the repatriation of the Americans killed in Benghazi.

Mr Obama said the US would “stand fast” against the violence at its diplomatic missions.

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BBC News

As soon as this stopped being a conversation and became a mass riot, as soon as people were injured, as soon as people were killed and property damaged, I lost every single fuck I could have given about why the ‘protesters’ were pissed in the first place. 

~Mooglets

atheismfuckyeah:

Bill Nye, the famed “Science Guy,” found himself the center of attention this week after a video in which he saidcreationism should not be taught to childrenwent viral.

“I say to the grownups, ‘If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve observed in the universe that’s fine,” Nye says in the video. “But don’t make your kids do it.’”

Of course,the Twitterverseand many viewers had a strong response. The Huffington Post reached out to Nye to ask him more about science, religion and teaching creationism in school.

What’s the best scientific argument against creationism?

Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past. The examples would be nearly limitless. Why does radioactive dating indicate that the world is 4.54 billion years old, if radioactivity is not a feature of nature?

Should teaching creationism be against the law?

Teaching creationism in science class as an alternative to evolution is inappropriate.

Tax dollars intended for science education must not be used to teach creationism as any sort of real explanation of nature, because any observation or process of inference about our origin and the nature of the universe disproves creationism in every respect. Creationism provides no insight whatsoever into nature. Creationism might be taught in a philosophy, psychology, or history of science class, for example.

Is religion inconsistent with science?

If your religion is inconsistent with science, consider tempering your beliefs. For me, the claims of creationism are completely unreasonable.

Judge Jones in Dover, Pennsylvania, used the expression “breathtaking inanity,” meaning so empty, so silly that it took his breath away. The age of the Earth is very close to 4.54 billion years rather than a millionth of that time. The idea that fossils were buried in the Earth by some hidden deity to test ones faith is completely unsatisfactory. We can observe the processes of evolution, physics and especially geology everywhere every day. To deny what I see around me is unacceptable to me. Science is the acceptance of what you observe and seeking the natural laws that cause these effects.

How can science-minded people make it “safe” for believers to acknowledge that evolution is real?

The bible that is often cited as a guide to natural law has been translated from other ancient languages. There must be countless subtleties and nuances that are literally lost in translation. I got into good bit of controversy, when I showed an audience in Waco, Texas, USA that the bible, as translated into English, claims that the Sun lights the day, and the Moon lights the night. I pointed out that this translation is unsettling. To my ear, it doesn’t seem as though the author realized that the Moon’s light is reflected sunlight. It seems to me that many ancient people may have realized that the Moon casts reflected light, but it’s lost in translation. This being but one example.

Will anything good be lost if creationism disappears?

Because of the robustness of our historical records, creationism will probably never disappear as such; instead, creationism can be used in classrooms and conversations to illustrate the process of science.

To wit, people once accepted an idea that the Earth was built in a week. In recent centuries, we have discovered the actual nature of nature. The process of science debunked and disproved the old idea, so it was cast aside for a better idea.

Did you ever believe in creationism? If so, what changed your mind?

The biblical stories were presented to me, but they never seemed reasonable.

I remember asking about Noah’s ark. Did he look after the invertebrates: the bees, for example? What about the yellow-jackets? And, the black wasps that stung me a few times? All those ants? There’s no mention of the most numerous organisms in my world. As a kid, I remember imagining a series of barges full of soil to be pulled like trailers behind this big boat. Grownups explained that it was just a story (whatever that meant). I remember asking, what was the point of the story? What was this guy’s idea to get animals two-by-two? What did he hope to accomplish, if all the bees, worms, oak trees, and rosebushes were gone? Let alone the question: why did he let the poison ivy come back? He missed a huge opportunity, etc. It was never satisfying to my mind.

If you could speak directly to the children of creationists, what would you say?

Hang in there.

There is another amazing, exciting, inspiring way to know the world, one that will fill you with joy and reverence. Pick your battles with grownups. These creation ideas are important to the grownups in your life right now. Accept that.

Do your views place your personal safety in jeopardy?

We’ll see. You don’t get shot down, if you’re not flying.

We are at a turning point, a crossroads in human history. Climate change or an asteroid impact can only be addressed with science. Shooting the messenger is not going to make creationism able to explain anything in the natural world. It still will be completely unsatisfactory and useless to anyone trying to solve an engineering problem in the real world. No science; no asteroid deflection.

Do you have any superstitions?

None that I know of. I change my socks often, because I had bad bouts of athelete’s foot fungus infections as a kid. I may be able to change socks less frequently and not get the fungus. But, I’d rather not run the test to determine just how infrequently I could change socks. I don’t feel superstitious about it.

Who is your favorite scientist?

Don’t make me pick.

Michael Faraday was amazing. He clearly realized that his discovery of a means to generate electricity, would change the world. I have great admiration for my physics teacher George Lang and my old professor Carl Sagan; he changed the world. My dad was no slouch, either. My older brother Darby continually showed me wonderful scientific principles.

The big step comes when you can convince yourself of the truth of a natural law. It changes the way you think of everything around you.

HuffingtonPost

theunfriendlyatheist:

That, thanks to religious imperialism, pagans still are persecuted in most parts of the world. 

Sometimes it takes the form of blaming the unwanted with witchcraft and/or paganism. Think of burning unwed mothers and independent women, torturing mentally ill people, etc for “witchcraft.” 

Sometimes, it’s just hatred of pagans. 

Christian missionaries are an example of the latter. They go to people’s countries and try to remove their indigent religions by force, because they consider paganism inferior and usually evil. This “missionary” idea first destroyed Italy’s religions, and has invaded every populated country. This is an insidious manner of anti-pagan sentiment, as it is still considered to be noble and holy in even the most moderate religious groups.

Reading the news, I find examples of the former pretty often as well. There are things like killing or abusing mentally ill adults and children, from the mistaken idea that the victim is “possessed” or a witch. This happens from both Muslims and Christians, usually extremist ones. 

Hatred of pagans is frequently rooted in or inspired by misogyny. From the little I’ve read, the idea of women being witches originated when the ruling religious needed an extra motive to hate women who were unwed mothers, “promiscuous” women, widows, unmarried women, etc. It also seems that “witchcraft” was frequently associated with “hysteria,” which was a cover-all label of irrational behavior that was applied whenever a woman defied cultural norms.

Today, it’s difficult to tell exactly where American anti-pagan bigotry is rooted in. As a mere conjecture, I’d wager that direct anti-pagan sentiments are more from hatred of paganism itself, and the trivialization of anti-pagan discrimination could be more from the association of paganism with unwanted women. 

In any event, discrimination against pagans is pretty strong. Americans are so heavily into opposition to paganism that Christianity is considered American and even “patriotic,” while real American religions are usually covered up and forgotten. In similar favoritism to Christianity, pagans are thought to be extra irrational, superstitious, and silly, as if Christianity was the pinnacle of reason. 

In most cases, anti-pagan sentiment accompanies anti-atheist sentiment, and vice versa, which makes the pagan cause important to atheists. 

(via apple-beveragesaur)