Achtung! Blog Feedback Wanted

I have been trialling the excellent site content management system Squarespace over on stuartforsyth.com and am more than happy to turn over to that site the photography related portion of my life.  Squarespace, in spite of all it’s strengths, has one major failing as far as I’m concerned and that is forcing you to choose a single page or journal as a default.  I have made the photography journal the default for that site and as such the thoughtmenagerie is not immediately visible or accessible.

The idea behind having all your on-line eggs in one basket is an appealing one and I thought, incorrectly as it turns out, that consolidating all blogs and journals under one umbrella would be a good strategy.  The problem is the majority of debate and collaboration has occurred here on wordpress and the exposure to the same content over on squarespace, due to the aforementioned technical constraints, just isn’t as good.

So I’m giving serious thought to keeping my day to day journal at WordPress.  

So here is my question to all readers who have been gracious enough to leave both intelligent debate and snark.  What is it you’ve enjoyed from this blog up till now and what topics would you rather not see more of?

My preferences currently, and not including much photography, is to carry on blogging about technology, science and belief (from my atheistic standpoint of course ; I’d really appreciate your feedback.

Catholic Church furthers Hypocrisy

[Source: Boing Boing ...]

In the sixth century, Pope Gregory handed down a list of “seven cardinal vices.” Now the Vatican has issued an additional seven “social sins.”

You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord’s name in vain or coveting your neighbor’s wife, but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos,” said [Bishop Gianfranco] Girotti, who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions.

The seven social sins are:

1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control

2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

The original deadly sins:

1. Pride

2. Envy

3. Gluttony

4. Lust

5. Anger

6. Greed

7. Sloth

One of the best comments for this posting was by Takuan

AH those crazy kids at the world’s largest real estate operation! How about the child raping huh? Or the targeting of the poor for recruits and the increasing of the ranks of the poor by opposing family planning? All those vatican art treasures gathering dust when they could be sold for food for the hungry. Aboriginal people everywhere still badly wounded from having the native beat out of them. All those nuns,monks and priests with blighted lives from having their natural sexuality crushed in the name of subjugation to church power. Gay people everywhere, murdered by church sanction and still being made to fight for basic human rights. Cultural treasures lost to the bonfires of the church in South America, The Inquisition, the retarding of science, the wilfull delay of medical advances, the overweening hypocrisy , the brutality, the greed, the ignorance……

How dare they show their faces much less preach about “sin”?

Well said!

Richard Dawkins Quotes

By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

Richard Dawkins Quotes

Prachett on Pascal’s Wager

‘Vlad the Impaler’ sent me a comment reminding me of Prachett’s unique and fantastic take on Pascal’s Wager from his book Hogfather.  I distinctly remember finding this brilliant at the time but Prachett, like Seinfeld to a degree, is so full of amazing observations on human thought and behaviour that my brain can only hold so much and it slipped into the obscurity of short term memory.

This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, ‘Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it’s all true you’ll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn’t then you’ve lost nothing, right?’ When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, ‘We’re going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts . . .’

Annoy Thy God and he will make you eat your kids

Yes I know the title is controversial but I kid you not (oh the puns!), you annoy the benevolent sky-god and he’ll serve little Johnny up to your enemies and if you don’t get the hint you’ll have to eat him yourself.

Leviticus 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

…

Leviticus 26:29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

God apparently has a cannibalism fetish especially when it’s close family:

Ezekiel 5:10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.

Deuteronomy 28:53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:

Deuteronomy 28:57 And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.

The only question left really is with or without fava-beans?

God’s Cure for Leprosy

I was perusing the skeptic’s annotated bible as I do from time to time when I came across this gem; God’s cure for leprosy from Leviticus.
You can read it in its original form but I prefer the pithy translation as it contains all the good stuff without all the thou’s and thus’s.

God’s law for lepers: Get two birds. Kill one. Dip the live bird in the blood of the dead one. Sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the blood-soaked bird fly away. Next find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right ear, thumb and big toe. Repeat. Finally find another pair of birds. Kill one and dip the live bird in the dead bird’s blood. Wipe some blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle the house with blood 7 times. That’s all there is to it.

I’m truly at a loss to explain why God just didn’t rid the world of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae but doubtless the millions of afflicted souls throughout history were deserving sinners and a progressive degenerative neurological disease with deformity was fitting punishment; I mean this is the same God who sends bears to maul rude children. If only this had been more widely published although I can only imagine the SPCA would be up in arms about all the little birds and gambolling lambs but at least it’s clear cut irrefutable word-of-god.

update 19.12.07
2 Kings 15:5
God struck down King Azariah with Leprosy lucky guy!

15:5 And the LORD smote the king, so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house. And Jotham the king’s son was over the house, judging the people of the land.

Brushing off the pen

I have taken a bit of a break from writing of late, this move has been a wild ride which has left me rather exhausted and not a little stressed. Recently however, as all the millions of todo actions come together I find myself with a little more time for personal reflection and the need to write again.

I had some impetus to pull out the pen/keyboard and get cracking again when a fellow blogger wrote comments on my blog that made sense to most sane and rational minds but then spoiled the whole thing with an act of cowardice by writing all sorts of calumny on his blog calling me ignorant and saying that I believe Islam equates to terrorism. I find it rather funny actually as he clearly has not taken into account the de facto atheist standpoint of this blog, or the fact that I write about other religion as well; no doubt he believes I am another infidel out to persecute a religion of love, peace and global harmony with my ‘ignorance’; he also seems to have some hang-ups about Americans.

To end with a little saying from the Quran dedicated to Haj:

2:6 As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not.
2:7 Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.

So it’s actually alright, you needn’t get into a twist by my reporting on the rantings of a mad Muslim Cleric and his belief that girls who get raped are asking for it – as a non-believer / Atheist my fate is pretty clear; all that stuff about awful doom gives me the shivers.

Clearly my right to air my incredulity is bigoted and anyway my blog is all about islam=terrorism; in your view. Thanks for getting it so completely wrong.

Help Protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali

She has been included in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Born in Somalia she chose not to submit to a forced marriage to a man she did not know and she fled to her country of exile; the Netherlands. She is fluent in Somali, Arabic, Amharic, Swahili, English and now Dutch and she soon became a prominent translator for Somali refugees fleeing some of the horrors woman find themselves living under in their Islamic world. She is an outspoken critic for Muslim woman who have no voice and whose lives are filled with abuse, mutilation, sexual subjugation and forced child-bearing. She now lives in exile under constant guard for she is a vocal Islamic apostate and critic and for her sins she is sentenced to die.

Sam Harris and Salmon Rushdie wrote and article about Ali in the Los Angeles Times:

Hirsi Ali may be the first refugee from Western Europe since the Holocaust. As such, she is a unique and indispensable witness to both the strength and weakness of the West: to the splendor of open society and to the boundless energy of its antagonists. She knows the challenges we face in our struggle to contain the misogyny and religious fanaticism of the Muslim world, and she lives with the consequences of our failure each day. There is no one in a better position to remind us that tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.

Her promised protection by the Dutch government has been rescinded and she is in hiding in the United States. The costs of making someone disappear from the eyes of fanatics are great; Sam Harris has created a place where free-thinking people can pledge a small amount of money to help towards her protection and continuing loud and brilliant voice against intolerance and religious extremism.

Links:

Los Angeles Times: Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Abandoned to fanatics
New York Times: Daughter of Enlightenment
Sam Harris’ website: URGENT APPEAL: Please help protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Tags: extremism, islam, muslim, rushdie, atheism, religion, extremist, apostate, apostasy

River Tam on Noah’s Ark

What can I say; the greatest sci-fi series ever!

The Hallway: Firefly & Serenity Quotes

Book: “What are we up to, sweetheart?”

River: “Fixing your Bible.”

Book: “I, um…(alarmed)…what?”

River: “Bible’s broken. Contradictions, false logistics – doesn’t make sense.” (she’s marked up the bible, crossed out passages)

Book: “No, no. You – you can’t…

River: “So we’ll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God’s creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah’s ark is a problem.”

Book: “Really?”

River: “We’ll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat.” (rips out page)

Pascal’s wager?

On Faith: Sam Harris: The Empty Wager

While Pascal deserves his reputation as a brilliant mathematician, his wager was never more than a cute (and false) analogy. Like many cute ideas in philosophy, it is easily remembered and often repeated, and this has lent it an undeserved air of profundity. If the wager were valid, it could be used to justify any belief system (no matter how ludicrous) as a “good bet.” Muslims could use it to support the claim that Jesus was not divine (the Koran states that anyone who believes in the divinity of Jesus will wind up in hell); Buddhists could use it to support the doctrine of karma and rebirth; and the editors of TIME could use it to persuade the world that anyone who reads Newsweek is destined for a fiery damnation.

But the greatest problem with the wager—and it is a problem that infects religious thinking generally—is its suggestion that a rational person can knowingly will himself to believe a proposition for which he has no evidence. A person can profess any creed he likes, of course, but to really believe something, he must also believe that the belief under consideration is true. To believe that there is a God, for instance, is to believe that you are not just fooling yourself; it is to believe that you stand in some relation to God’s existence such that, if He didn’t exist, you wouldn’t believe in him. How does Pascal’s wager fit into this scheme? It doesn’t.

Monica Goodling, One of 150 Pat Robertson Cadres in the Bush Administration

How to hijack a nation without them even knowing.

Goodling’s involvement in Attorneygate is not the only aspect of her role in the Bush administration that bears examination. Her membership in a cadre of 150 graduates of Pat Robertson’s Regent University currently serving in the administration is another, equally revealing component of the White House’s political program. Goodling earned her law degree from Regent, an institution founded by Robertson “to produce Christian leaders who will make a difference, who will change the world.” Helping to purge politically disloyal federal prosecutors is just one way Goodling has helped fulfill Robertson’s revolutionary goals.

I personally would want no part of Robertson’s changes to the world, a world where his god strikes down people with tsunami’s because of homosexuality; maybe he’d bring back stoning for working on the Sabbath.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070330/cm_huffpost/044588

Filipinos crucify and whip themselves on Good Friday

What a lovely religious ritual – I hope the kids get to watch!

More than a dozen Filipinos were nailed to crosses and scores more whipped their backs into a bloody pulp on Friday in a gory ritual to mark the death of Jesus Christ. The voluntary crucifixions in the northern Philippines were the most extreme displays of religious devotion in this mainly Catholic country, where millions are praying and fasting ahead of the Easter weekend. In the small village of Cutud, about 80km north of Manila, seven men cried out as nails the size of pencils were driven into their hands and feet before they were hoisted up in the scorching heat.

Link…

update (04-10) : Photoblog about the crucifixion’s.

The Infidel Guy Debate Hour

I have been subscribed to the Infidel Guy podcast for a time now and I can really recommend it to rational thinkers and atheists alike. Reginald Finley brings an air of passion and intensity to top class debate; his guests are interesting and the caller feedback on the show is excellent.

Really, if you havn’t listened to the infidel guy debate hour you are missing out.

Listen here: http://infidelguy.libsyn.com/

How many has god killed?

Answers (and lists) over at Dwindling in Unbelief

In a previous post, I’ve listed and counted God’s killings in the Bible. But I only included those that said exactly how many were killed by God. I came up with 2,270,365. But that didn’t include some of God’s most impressive slaughters. How many did God drown in the flood or burn to death in Sodom and Gomorrah? How many first-born Egyptians did he kill? The Bible doesn’t say, so there’s no way to know for sure. But it’s possible to provide rough estimates in order to get a grand total, and that’s what I’m attempting here. (New total: 32.9 million.)

This is the work of the god that utters these words:

Hosea 14:1 Samaria has rebelled against God. They shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed to pieces, their expectant mothers shall be ripped open.

What a loving deity, worthy of so much praise and salutation!

the God Murders

www.thegodmurders.com

If you haven’t visited DeVaney’s “the God Murders” website I strongly recommend you do. Gary DeVaney started at Genesis and read through to Revelations noting just how unpleasant this Yahweh character is. This website is the culmination of thousands of hours of work and research and should, like the skeptic’s annotated bible, be a must-read for the religious and non-religious alike.

I defy anyone to actually read the contents of these websites and remain faithful to this conceited, petty, jealous, aggressive, homicidal entity who loves only the grovelling and drooling of his creations and sets them up to fail like impotent pieces on a board game. A god who, though supposedly omniscient will then knock over the pieces, get annoyed that they fail and embark on a path of slaughter and suffering on an unprecedented scale to teach a good lesson.

A god who kills women and children because they didn’t believe or happened to be born into the wrong tribe; who employs gestapo style death angels to slaughter children in their sleep (Exodus); who sets wild animals upon taunting children (2 Kings); who ordered the genocide of many non-Israelite people and consigned their women as sex slaves to the victors – this is not a God worthy of respect, worship or any place in modern society.

Richard Dawkins best summed up all believers in the Abrahamic god as:

“a tribal cult of a single fiercely unpleasant God, morbidly obsessed with sexual restrictions, with the smell of charred flesh, with his own superiority over rival gods, and with the exclusiveness of his chosen desert tribe.”

I object to followers of this death cult having any power or say over what happens in this world. I object to raving lunatics not giving a crap about global warming or war because they are eagerly awaiting tribulation and end times. I object to innocent people being killed in the name of this terrible being. I object to children being indoctrinated to continue spreading the myth. I object that this cult still acts as a set of blinkers and a hand-brake to rational thought and scientific enquiry.

It is time for God of the old testament to go, he has no place in the future of mankind.

Separate Church and State!

Watch this ABC news video of atheists and evangelicals facing off outside the Supreme Court. The occasion: a lawsuit by America’s largest atheist group ‘The Freedom from Religion Foundation’. This is a call to sanity against the Bush Administration and its faith based initiatives; a much needed call for separation of state and church (I can’t believe I’m writing this in 2007) and a call for an end to outdated and barbaric literature as a reason for so much fundamentalist horror and violence.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2923023

Intolerance

There have been many assumptions about the origins of the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words”. We have seen countless times how the pulpit bashers can spew the most septic calumny on every topic from rock music to role playing games to abortion and yet get antsy whenever someone else reserves the right not to believe in homosexuality as a sin or obedience of women or their right not to revel in the sin-pit of a creator god. We can write ad nauseum about these things or we can capture it’s essence in pictures. Though the target of this satire is Christian, it applies equally to all beliefs where views become rigid and dogmatic.

The problems lie not in the believing (or not), but in the dogmatic and self-righteous view that the things you believe are more correct than the other person. The problems lie in the need to make others believe the same things as you do and in the belittling that follows when they don’t.

The problems apply to the religious and atheists alike.

Kudos to atheist eve for this one.

The Blasphemy Challenge

http://www.blasphemychallenge.com

The idea is that you record the following phrase “I deny the existence on the holy spirit” and upload it to youTube, It is a somewhat juvenile attempt to prove the courage of your convictions after all the bible is very clear in what you can expect by doing so; according to the instructions found on the blasphemy challenge website:

You may damn yourself to Hell however you would like, but somewhere in your video you must say this phrase: “I deny the Holy Spirit.” Why? Because, according to Mark 3:29 in the Holy Bible, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” Jesus will forgive you for just about anything, but he won’t forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Ever. This is a one-way road you’re taking here.

I am not sure what the point of it all is other than scoffing in the face of religious ideology, a kind of religious “bloody Mary” if you will. I don’t feel that people shouldn’t do it but have to wonder what all the fuss is about. Some of the video’s I have watched have all the breathless anticipation of naughty school boys who have just been caught smoking behind the shed. The only real outcome of this that I can see is some publicity which may be more negative than positive in light of what atheists are trying to achieve.

I don’t deny that it provides a comfortable forum for people to share their beliefs (or lack thereof) with their peers but I feel in this exciting world of collaborative technology trite little video clips are probably not the best way to do it. Moderates who may have been enlightened (for want of a better word) by debate and intelligent literature may be put off by this very visual – in your face denial that really serves no real purpose other than winning the odd dvd.

George Bush says Muslims are Atheists

A very interesting article by Autine Cline shows just how far men will go to segregate their Gods.  It is inconsequential that the roots of all 3 monotheistic religions have their roots firmly entrenched in the same bloody soil; even Christians can’t agree over the fine points of their faith so it comes as little surprise that some Christians, while at war with the noun ‘terror’ and bombing whole countries back to the stone age, haven’t a clue as to what drives terrorists to commit their acts of violence.

As part of the Chanukah celebrations [please someone enlighten me] at the White House, President George W. Bush reportedly described Muslim terrorists as atheists:

Bush said that despite declarations of piety from Muslim radicals now fighting the United States, he doubted that they believed in God. “ ‘Terrorists’ can’t be God-believing people,’ ” Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University, quoted Bush as saying.

Unfortunately for George, if he bothered to replace his advisers with anybody with a bit of common sense, he would learn that the radicals believe a little too much in God.  It is a desire to fight for Islam against the infidels of the west, a desire to go to heaven and hand-pick friends and family members [who could be right sods] to join you and a perverse anger at economic western success that should not be the right of the unbelievers that drive people to fly planes into buildings or to detonate themselves as vessels of immolation in God’s ‘righteous and just’ cause.  Another interesting point about George’s statement is that is apparently OK for God-fearing people to kill what amount now to 655,000 Iraqis (and counting) with impunity  – the old quotation that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter is a cliche for a reason.

Remember that fabulous old article from 2003:

A few weeks ago, George W. Bush noted during an interview that while he glances at newspaper headlines, he “rarely” reads the actual articles because “A lot of times there’s opinions mixed in with news.” So where does he get his info? Bush said he prefers to be briefed by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. “The best way to get the news,” he explained, “is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.”

Let me reiterate the point in case you glossed over it – George gets all his worldly information from his ‘objective’ advisers.  How this man ever got elected is really beyond me – this shows a level of gross ignorance that borders on the obscene.  Perhaps George should open a book [the old testament doesn't count] from time to time.

As Cline rightly wondered, will George be penning in well know atheists like Harris and Dawkins under Osama?  Somehow it wouldn’t surprise me.

Where did Sajji go?

I am greatly concerned for the whereabouts of a fellow blogger.

Sajji was the author of a very promising blog called Metamorphosis. I did not know much of Sajji other than he was married, lives in Pakistan and through his writings vocally renounced Islam in favour of an atheistic stance. I also know that Muslim punishment for renouncing Islam is death … period. There is no leniency granted to apostasy, even if the apostate reverts back to his former faith the sentence is still death. I therefor worry since his blog (http://sajji.wordpress.com) has been deleted and I have not heard from him since last year.

I am aware that there was some family pressure not to be quite so vocal about his beliefs, Sajji if you are still floating around the blogosphere let me know.