Posts tagged theism

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.

—-

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

atheismfuckyeah:

After numerous failed doomsday predictions, Family Radio founder Harold Camping announced this month that he has no plans to predict ever again the day of God’s Judgment. He also issued an apology to listeners, admitting that he was wrong.

“We have learned the very painful lesson that all of creation is in God’s hands and He will end time in His time, not ours!” a statement on Family Radio’s website reads. “We humbly recognize that God may not tell His people the date when Christ will return, any more than He tells anyone the date they will die physically.”

Camping, 90, has made predictions about Judgment Day, Christ’s return and the end of the world for the past few decades – with the May 21, 2011, forecast receiving the most media attention. Each time the date passed, he did not admit to mistaking the timing but instead reasoned that the events happened “spiritually” rather than physically.

But once Oct. 21, 2011 – the day Camping said the world would be destroyed physically – came and went, the Christian broadcaster began to reevaluate his views about being able to calculate and know the exact date of the apocalypse.

“Even the most sincere and zealous of us can be mistaken,” Camping and Family Radio staff stated in their March letter. “We realize that many people are hoping they will know the date of Christ’s return. In fact for a time Family Radio fell into that kind of thinking.

“But we now realize that those people who were calling our attention to the Bible’s statement that ‘of that day and hour knoweth no man’ (Matthew 24:36 & Mark 13:32), were right in their understanding of those verses and Family Radio was wrong. Whether God will ever give us any indication of the date of His return is hidden in God’s divine plan.”

They went further to say that their “bold” insistence that the Bible guaranteed Christ’s return on May 21 was both “incorrect” and “sinful.”

At the same time, they pointed to the good that came out of all their failed forecasts, which were condemned by evangelical pastors.

“Even as God used sinful Balaam to accomplish His purposes, so He used our sin to accomplish His purpose of making the whole world acquainted with the Bible,” the Family Radio letter says.

Though they were wrong, their doomsday predictions directed the world’s attention to the Bible and spurred discussions about the Scriptures among people who might have never heard about Christ, they noted.

Still, that does not excuse them, Family Radio acknowledged.

“We tremble before God as we humbly ask Him for forgiveness for making that sinful statement. We are so thankful that God is so loving that He will forgive even this sin.”

The letter was intended to be mailed out to Family Radio listeners first before being posted on the website. But the content was leaked, forcing the Oakland, Calif.-based broadcasting network to post the letter immediately.

While there are still doomsday dates currently circulating, Camping and Family Radio said they have “no new evidence pointing to another date” and have “no interest in even considering another date.”

“God has humbled us through the events of May 21, to continue to even more fervently search the Scriptures (the Bible), not to find dates, but to be more faithful in our understanding,” they highlighted.

“[W]e must be satisfied to humbly wait upon God, and trust He will guide His people to safety. At Family Radio, we continue to look to God for guidance. If it is His good pleasure for us to continue on with our original mission, the proclamation of the Gospel, God’s Word, then we must continue to look to Him.”

The Christian Post

Wow.

Just.  Just wow.

atheismfuckyeah:

This morning, Democrats tore into House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for preventing women and minorities from testifying before a hearing examining the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Republicans oppose the administration’s rule and have sponsored legislation that would allow employers to limit the availability of birth control to women.

Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had asked Issa to include a female witness at the hearing, but the Chairman refused, arguing that “As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness.”

And so Cummings, along with the Democratic women on the panel, took their request to the hearing room, demanding that Issa consider the testimony of a female college student. But the California congressman insisted that the hearing should focus on the rules’ alleged infringement on “religious liberty,” not contraception coverage, and denied the request. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) walked out of the hearing in protest of his decision, citing frustration over the fact that the first panel of witnesses consisted only of male religious leaders against the rule. Holmes Norton said she will not return, calling Issa’s chairmanship an “autocratic regime.”

AlterNet

See a video compilation of the exchange at the link.

I’ve bolded the part I thought needed the most attention.

You know what that statement says? That says that women shouldn’t be allowed to talk ever, the men are being important and making important decisions, so the women should shut up and just take it.

IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH THESE PEOPLE TALK ABUOT IT BEING A RELIGIOUS FREEDOM/RIGHTS MATTER, THAT’S BULLSHIT - BECAUSE GUESS THE FUCK WHAT? IT IS A CONTRACEPTIVE, REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL AUTONOMY MATTER.

THE EMPLOYEES WHO HAPPEN TO HAVE WOMBS ARE GOING TO BE AFFECTED BY THIS DECISION. THE EMPLOYEES WHO HAPPEN TO BE ABLE TO GET PREGNANT WILL BE AFFECTED BY THIS.

AND LOOK WHO’S ON THIS PANEL. OLD, WHITE, CIS-MEN OF A RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVE BENT.

TELL ME THESE OLD, WHITE, CONSERVATIVE, RELIGIOUS CIS-MEN AREN’T JUST SCARED OF WOMEN HAVING CONTROL OF THEIR OWN BODIES.

GO ON. TELL ME THAT. WITH A STRAIGHT FACE AND NO SNIGGERING.

Fuck the Republicans.

Sometimes I am so grateful to be British. I get to actually have control over my womb here.

~Mooglets