dwnomad

By now you all know that I think it’s a good thing for atheists to be out of the proverbial closet. I’ve had a scarlet letter lapel pin for a few months now and wear in on occasion. Yesterday I got a letter and lapel pin from the American Humanist Association encouraging me to be out to friends, family, and co-workers. In the AHA newsletter, which I also got yesterday, they’re encouraging us to wear the pins the whole day on July 4, whether we’re at parades, parties, or work.

If I could I would be marching in Boise’s 4th of July Parade with the Idaho Atheists, but I can’t. I’ll be busy at work. If I go out after work, I very well may put on both lapel pins, but I’m not going to wear it at work. When religious conversations come up at work, I think we should be free to speak our minds, but that is not the place to be going around spouting off what you believe or don’t believe to everyone who walks through the door.

Last year, I had a colleague who wore “God’s Army of One” dog tags. An obvious play on the “Army of One” dog tags recruiters were giving out a few years ago. I let it slide for a few days (I was his manager), but I finally pulled him aside. I put it quite simply, “Do you think those dog tags are appropriate at work? How would you feel if I wore dog tags that said ‘There is no God’?”

He took them off and I never saw them again.

Most work places are not appropriate places for atheist or humanist lapel pins. If you have to interact with the public, work for a conservative Christian, or are in a management role you should keep that kind of stuff to yourself or save it smoke breaks or lunch room conversations when somebody starts going on about their church, talking about Bible verses, or complaining about atheists. Those are all suitable times to bring it up, especially since if a complaint comes up you have the grounds to defend yourself.

Actually, now that I think about it, a lapel pin, regardless of what it is, doesn’t belong on your work attire unless it’s issued by your employer.

If you’re not afraid of people finding out and you only bring up your lack of belief in appropriate contexts then trust me, the rumor mill will do the work for you and pretty soon everybody will know that their kind, hard working co-worker is an atheist.

From my back yard in Boise I have quite the nice view of the foothills and Table Rock. It’s nice, except for one eye sore. It’s a 2100W six story lighted cross. It actually doesn’t bother me much, mostly because it’s on private land. Of course, now I know more of the story:

For years, the Table Rock Cross of the Idaho Jaycees Inc., to which Ryals belongs, has quietly kept the 4,500-pound cross lit. The brainchild of Jaycees who were inspired by a similar cross erected in another small American town, it went up 55 years ago on land owned at the time by the Idaho State Department of Correction.

By the early 1970s, however, locals watched Oregon courts rule that a similar cross in Eugene violated the U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state, and they grew fearful of a similar result. A 1972 deal with the state of Idaho remedied that, putting the 70-foot by 44-foot patch of ground on the southwestern edge of Table Rock’s jagged butte in private hands.

There have been a few failed lawsuits over the years claiming that the sale of the land was an illegal attempt to keep the state constructed cross around.

Next month, thanks to modern technology it’s getting brighter and cheaper to operate.

The private group that owns the cross atop Table Rock is replacing its electricity-devouring fluorescent tubes with 2,600 energy-efficient LED lamps to cut the power bill from about $60 monthly to just $20.

According to one of the people pushing for the upgrade says:

“It’s going to be even brighter,” he said Tuesday. “It’s a beacon of peace and hope to the majority of Idahoans.”

I wonder how the majority of Idahoans would feel if instead of a cross it was a crescent moon or a pentagram? After all, wasn’t it Jesus who said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”?

I wonder how this makes Boise’s refugee population feel, especially the non-Christian refugees.

I know some atheists in town don’t like it, but most of learned to live with it. When I first moved here it bothered me a little. Once I found out it was on private land I didn’t care so much. Now that I know it was originally built by the state and the land was sold in a shady deal it might bother me a little more.

I see this every day and now that it’s going to be brighter, especially now that I know it’s history, I’m not sure if it’ll start bothering me. On the one hand it’s a reminder of what I’m free of. The final thread in my theological unraveling was salvation. Once I concluded that the doctrine of salvation was complete and utter BS, it started my finally steps towards freedom. In many ways I was freed from bondage by the cross. On the other hand, it’s an in your face reminder that I’m in hostile territory…

When it comes down to it, there are bigger issues to address in Idaho, such as the state’s failed education system, the lack of gay rights, and churches being used for polling places just to name a few.

Placental mamillian reproduction couldn’t happen without viral gene insertions. I would love to hear a creationist explantion for this. It is a benifitial mutation, it links several species together with the only plausible explanation being common decent, and something so fundamental to humanity happened thanks to the selective use of a portion of a vastly different genome.

Theistic evolution would be compatible with this, but special creation is not. Just further evidence that the only way to be a creationist is to be ignorant of or ignore the evidence.

(Via RichardDawkins.net)

It’s time again for this week’s Tuesday Science News. There will also be a Tuesday Science Video posted today at 2:00 pm MDT. I’m changing the formating a little to make it more uniform as to where the link for the article will be. If it’s just one article at the end of that section there will be a (Full Article) link. If its a synthesis several sources then there will be links found in the sections that are gleaned from each article. If I found the article thanks to another source then you’ll see (Full Article via Source).

• Los Alamos National Laboratory has been closed due to a fire that’s less than a mile from the lab. (Full Article)
• A Yale primatologist is working with some advertising executives to develop non-human primate advertising. While the images aren’t available yet, they will be “branding” two different types of almost identical jello and then display images that a monkey would find sexy to see if they’re influenced by the advertising. (Full Article)
• It turns out that finches follow grammatical rules in their songs. (Full Article)
• Canada helped block the adding of Chrysotile Asbestos to the UN’s list of hazardous chemicals, despite all of the factual evidence. This doesn’t surprise me since when I was representing the US in the International Air Cadet Exchange in Canada I was given a tour of the massive open pit Asbestos mine in Thedford Mines, Quebec. Canada is the world’s second largest producer of Asbestos. So way to go Canada for blocking the attempt of science to promote good health. (Full Article)
• Yeast in a laboratory has been observed to evolve into multicelluar organisms. Last time I checked, a change like that would be macro-evolution. As it turns out, all that takes is a series of selected mutations over time. Due to the artificial selective pressures this evolution occurred in just a few weeks. (Full Article via RichardDawkins.net)
• Another uncontacted tribe has been discovered in the Amazon. (Full Article)
• Parrots have now been found to have the ability to apply logical reasoning. They now join humans and other apes as the only species found with this ability. (Full Article)

Pakistan’s Islamist party is now using their blasphemy law to try to get the Bible banned. This is a country that legally follows the rules in the Qu’ran, a book that recognizes Christians as “people of the book” a status that should free them and Jews from persecution. Of course this is far from the case.

So what’s their justification for banning the bible?

According to JUI leader Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, the Bible contains passages that show biblical figures whom Muslims regard as prophets (such as Abraham and Solomon) to be engaging in “a variety of moral crimes.” As such, the JUI has called on Pakistan’s supreme court to have the entire Book banned from the country if the offending passages are not removed.

While the JUI acknowledged its petition was partially in response to the Koran burning organized by Florida pastor Terry Jones in March 2011, it also dismissed the notion that banning the Christian Bible would cause additional trouble between Muslims and Christians.

Saying that “prophets” weren’t prefect is blasphemy? You’ve got to be kidding me. Most people only consider blasphemy to be the slandering of their god. Muslims, of course, take this a bit futher. If they extend that to their “prophets,” then how long until clergy and even all of the “faithful” are included. Could you imagine getting to the point where saying that a living person did something wrong was blasphemy? It would be a blank slate for wrong doing. Accuse the wrong person of a crime and go to jail. Fortunately they’re only extending that ridiculous principle to dead people.

The concept of demanding that a religion give up part or all of its scripture is just horrific. There have been plenty of cases throughout history (and even currently) where the Bible has been banned (even by Christians). It doesn’t go away, it just goes underground. Just like with the prohibition of anything else, all it does is turn otherwise good citizens into criminals.

Let’s keep in mind that the US gives Pakistan hundreds of millions of dollars each year. It’s time to start making aid contingent on human rights and personal freedom.

Any regime that doesn’t allow such basic rights is not worth of US support or my tax dollars.

(Via The Atheist News Group on Atheist Nexus

Unfortunately the 2012 Presidential campaigns are in full swing. Of course once again, ignorance, hypocrisy, and even science (pseudoscience) are at the center of it all.

If case you missed that, Bachmann said:

I support intelligent design… What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don’t think it’s a good idea for government to come down on one side of a scientific issue or another, when there’s is reasonable doubt on both sides.

There is no reasonable doubt that evolution has taken place or even that all life on this planet is descended from a common ancestor. The only doubt that exists is an unreasonable, faith based rejection of the evidence.

If she wants to push ID, then she’s deciding what is and what isn’t science. Unfortunately for her, ID is not science. With a statement like that Bachmann is either ignorant or a hypocrite.

(Via Atheist Media Blog)

A while back I received a text message from a lady friend that included, “You’re a good guy for a godless heathen!”

I’m glad she didn’t call me a “great guy” since that’s always followed by “but [clever way of saying I don't ever want to talk to you again].”

I’ve also had people say things like, “well you’re an atheist so you must not believe in honesty…” and “I know you don’t believe in God, but do you think you could help me out?” I’ve even heard, “you’re an atheist so you probably don’t believe in love…”

Come on people, Atheists are human too!

Just because we don’t believe in a cosmic dictator or hold to a divine command theory of morality doesn’t mean we don’t have emotions or empathy. Atheists can be quite generous as can be easily seen with the way the community raised over $30,000 to provide for Damon Fowler’s education after his family cut him off. Atheists do community service. Atheists even serve and die for their country.

What’s different is that we actually think about why something is right or wrong and we try to understand how things work. This comes with the end result of being (at least potentially) pretty ethical.

Honesty is usually the best policy, but I’m not going to be honest if it’s going to needlessly and uselessly harm someone. If you wrong me in someway and there’s a good reason I’ll be pretty forgiving and I’ll usually give you the benefit of the doubt if I don’t know why you did it. If you need help I’ll give you a hand if I can, just don’t preach at me afterwords.

Whether or not someone’s a godless heathen, they’re at least as likely as anybody else to be a good guy.

Tim Minchin is on tour here in the US, in fact this weekend he’s in the Northwest. Seattle Yesterday and Portland today. I’m quite jealous. Hell, if I’d heard about this sooner I probably would have taken the weekend off and headed up I-84 to see him perform.

I spent some time yesterday evening checking out some of his songs on Youtube. To my surprise I came across one that I had really enjoyed back in my days as a believer. I have to say, I like it so much better when it’s performed by an atheist musician/comedian.

On second thought, the girls who would sing it at church (especially in college) were always really hot…

Anyway, here’s something that even my Christian readers should be able to enjoy:

I’m curious, does the fact that it’s sung by an outspoken atheist critic of religion change the song for you, either for better or worse?

There’s an electronic “Highway Evangelism” billboard along I-84 in Nampa, ID. Unfortunately I have to drive past this hideous eyesore (sorry no pictures) every week when I head to my freethought group’s meetings. It usually displays a Bible verse, but other times it’s got some cheesy phrase on it. I’ll be honest, I’m often amused by the lameness and inaccuracy of what they post.

For example, they recently posted something along the lines of “God’s anger lasts a moment, but his love lasts forever.”

Cheesy? Yep. Inaccurate? Well, anytime you’re talking about your imaginary friend, you can say whatever you want. Unfortunately for them, that doesn’t match up with the god of the Bible.

He punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation (Numbers 14:18, NIV).

So unless your idea of a “moment” is three or four generations long, then to say that God gets over his anger quickly is just not consistent with the Bible. Well, there is one exception. Some times he’d get over his anger after having the person or people he’s mad at brutally slaughtered, especially when their children are included.

I was baptized when I was 12. I had grown up in the SDA church and at that point I had already read 44 of the 66 books of the Bible, including the whole New Testament. Nobody, not even my parents had asked me to get baptized, but it was the expected norm in the church to get baptized at 12, so I did.

After my baptism the pastor grilled me in front of the entire congregation. Well, maybe grilled isn’t the right word, but he had me swear to the very detailed baptismal vows in front of everyone. I don’t even know if I saw the complete vows before hand. I took them very serious, at least serious for a 12 year old and I sure felt guilty when I broke those same vows the very next year. What was my offense? I drank a Mountain Dew given to me by my parents! Yep, abstaining from caffeine was one of the many “moral” dictates included in the vows.

Why 12? Well, supposedly that’s the age of reason. TWELVE? You have got to be kidding me!

We don’t allow 12 year olds to drive cars, sign contracts, consent to medical treatments, join the military, or get married and all for good reason. They are incapable of making rational, informed decisions, at least incapable of doing so at an adult level. The fact that 12 year old (and often younger) children are allowed to take baptismal vows just shows how much of a joke the whole thing is.

Let’s put that another way: Anything that you allow a 12 year old to commit to cannot be taken any more seriously that what summer camp to go to or what kind of pizza to order. Of course that is the level of commitment appropriate for a religion.