Warning!

The following rantings do not represent the views of the US Government or any Local/National Atheist groups.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Offending Religious Sentiment

Here in America you can be charged with a crime if you impersonate a government official.  And It matters weather or not you were just making fun of the type of official, (that would be a freedom of speech violation) unless you tried to get special treatment to attempt illegal shit while doing so. Which makes sense, and its purpose has nothing to do with possibly offending any officials. But for some reason in Maltese Nine people might be charge with a crime. The same type of charge we have here...but it extends to church and religious officials. Why? Seriously, why?

the behavior was “not simply a case of people dressing up as Christ or the saints” but more a question of public indecency and offending religious sentiment.

Offending your religious sentiment? What about your religion offending and completely disregarding gay sentiment? What about verses in your bible calling for the death of homosexuals? What about unequal rights for women all over the world? What about its advocation of slavery, stoning, genocide and technological deceleration? No, you don't deserve a "don't pick on me" card. As long as you get your morals from a book that leads to and advocates beliefs that keep society from evolving and making itself better you will be mocked...and I will laugh.

P.S. Tim Minchin doesn't like the Pope.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Bastrop High Gets A Letter In The Mail

www.bastropenterprise.com/archive/x2085346315/file
So yeah, I was waiting for this letter to be sent. I really feel for the kid who got this ball rolling, and I hope he sues the pants off the school district for being a bunch of ignorant jebus-twats thinking they are the only people in the world.

Oh, here is a Christian explaining why everyone should be against ritual prayer in schools.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46828
"I would say in love to my Christian brothers and sisters, before you yearn for the imposition of prayer and similar rituals in your public schools, you might consider attending a football game at Wahiawa High School. Because unless you're ready to endure the unwilling exposure of yourself and your children to those beliefs and practices that your own faith forswears, you have no right to insist that others sit in silence and complicity while you do the same to them."

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Faith is not a virtue and Harold Camping used it to be a douche'

First off, it's important to point out what the hell faith is. It's a word that's been twisted and shat upon by various groups of people to help get convoluted points across. "But when I talk about my faith I mean my religion" Well then you're just replacing the word religion with another word. I could say "My faith is Muslim" or "My cantology(art of singing) is Muslim" and it's equally as silly. Just because a religion encompasses various forms of cantology and faith, it doesn't mean you should be word shuffling to make your voodoo sound accurate.

Well then what is faith? Simply put, it is believing something without evidence. But it's even more philosophically honest to say that faith is a belief held on bad evidence or no evidence at all, bad evidence being an important distinction later on. Also important to note is the fact that beliefs and faith are not mutually exclusive. Anyone is free to believe anything their mind can come up with. It's what you base that belief on that dictates whether or not other people on Facebook are going to mock you with impunity. Basing your beliefs on solid grounds is good and basing your beliefs on bad or no evidence is bad. Making important decisions based on hunches and faith is an irresponsible way to live your life.

Which leads me to the main point.
Harold Camping (Lets call him H.C.) and his campaign of bullshit slinging needs very little introduction. But what does need explaining is how hundreds of thousands of people could be conned into believing something so fucking stupid, not to mention the fact that the manner in which he "derived" the date itself is so very asinine.
In addition, the very book he used his woo-woo math on tells him he is wrong and any serious claim to know is considered "testing Yahweh". What H.C. did, was make a claim and asserted a belief, based on BAD evidence on some points and NO evidence on others. The equation he pulled out of his ass was bad evidence and the claim of it being on the anniversary of the great flood was a claim with NO evidence at all. (Genesis is such complete bullshit that I consider it non-evidence). With so many things working against H.C. on his claim, he is reduced to telling his mindless followers "Have Faith".

Well, that turned out well.
With people giving their entire life savings, kids' college funds, vehicles, homes and any other number of monetarily valuable things under the guise of: WTF do we need money for? Jebus is coming back. Or old scripture like Malachi 3:10 and crap in the new testament praising being poor.

No matter how much you try to fluff up shitty old sayings like "Blessed be the meek" or "The poor man is rich in spirit", it does not make them true! Monetary based happiness claims are WAY more complicated than trying to sum them up in a single sentence or "the old saying" (topic for another day).

H.C. played these people like a bunch of flutes. Are they complete idiots for believing him? Not necessarily, but I will still make fun of them. Also, what happened to these people to allow them to be so duped? Well, I can answer that. The same reason and logic they use every day, when driving their car, making a big purchase, offering non-religious advice to a friend and trashing other gods they don't worship, was not used when presented with outlandish rapture claims. Yeah, I think we can call them idiots. I think we can call H.C. a fucking douche' bag. Above all, I think faith isn't something to be used...Ever.

Childish Critical Thinking

(picture from Klepsacovic's site)
I find myself of the opinion that we should all be more critical, than less, of children. This also means paying more attention to what they say. All too often I see adults pretty much just shaking their heads all the silly things their children say.
Responding to, "Mommy I wanna fly on the lawn mower when daddy gets home," with something like, "Thats nice honey," as a reply. This could amount to some lazyness or being too indulgent.

When what should be happening is a critical analysis and breakdown of the statement. In this case, lawnmowers don't fly and you might get asked why. Be prepared to give and explanation of your answers to their questions. "Because I said so," is a bullshit answer (I heard this the other day at lunch). Its very surprising how much a 2 or 3 year-old can understand, and even more so at 5 or 6 if critical thinking is taught from the very point they can put together more than one word.

Now, I'm not saying that we should never let our children imagine crazy shit. But, we are not helping them along in their educational development by letting them completely immerse themselves in bull-crap.

Not that I know anything about raising children... I just had this one my mind after browsing some blogs this morning. And a quick google check gave me tons of sites dedicated to this stuff.

I apologize for being an ignorant twat all those years ago.

This is via a recent facebook note I put up. Content pending, I'll be equally sharing all posts here with my facebook notes.

A common occurrence I've seen among "enlightened" people, including some of my favorite philosophers, is a public apology for any transgressions that may have occurred at a time in their life when they "had all the answers".  This is my "oh shit, sorry" letter.
I apologize:



To gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people:  When I was younger I preached your hearts were filled with gross perversions and it was through your own free will and sin that you were gay.  I participated in "Cure the Gays" prayer circles.  I stood by as ridicule and hate were spewed from people I chose to look up to or call my friends, even if I felt it was wrong. I was told it was God's will, which is much more important than ours. I shamefully passed down these horrible points of view to younger generations of youth and I sincerely hope that they see reason now after my unsubstantiated bigotry.  I apologize for signing multiple petitions to prohibit gay marriage and suppress gay rights.  I deeply apologize for saying these things with no rational justification what-so-ever.

To Non-Christians and atheists:
I ridiculed or tried to convert on mission trips.  I was once pig-headed enough to think that my reasons for believing in something were better than anyone else's... they aren't.  I was confused and it never truly occurred to me why I disapproved of other peoples gods. If I had ever stopped to think about it, I would have realized why they don't believe in mine*. I'm sorry I said that you are going to hell to be tortured forever. That was bullshit. (put simply)  I now find it morally reprehensible to assert that someone disserves anything of the sort for simply holding different beliefs under the same evidence as I hold mine and I refuse to put any stock in a God who would do something even close to that.

To the Wiccan girl who was made fun of by my friends and me for an entire school semester while adults did nothing to shut us up:  We inflicted upon her a mental torture that some kids experience, but not for that length of time without any outside help.  I very deeply regret the stupid and ignorant things that were said.  I realize this technically fits into the apology above, but I'm convinced it deserves its own space due to its content.

For not investing more time and money into worthwhile charity work:  I've spent most of my life tending to the comforts of my own mental and physical state.  Since my college days, after all my comforts have been taken care of on a weekly basis, there has been plenty of either money or time to spare.  I give myself no real excuses and will strive to give more of my excesses to those who cannot provide themselves simple comforts.

For allowing and accepting sexual repression in various forms including women's rights:  I'm sorry for signing a petition to stop funding for Planned Parenthood. I'm sorry for aiding the struggle to encourage young men to feel ashamed for masturbating.  Making someone feel sick inside for doing something so natural (even more awesome when done with a partner) I am ashamed of.

I'm truly sorry.  I once thought it was a good thing for the world to push my own beliefs, I now view as dangerous, unto others.  I wasn't making the world a better place, I was making it a bitter hate-full place and being a bigoted douche' bag while I was at it.  It is now my prerogative to ensure that "my" absolute certainties of belief and faith are replaced with reason, logic, facts and sound moral thought.

From Craig to Dawkins, from Buddha to Nietzsche, from The Bible to The Koran, they all point out some of the very same simple facts:  I am born, I live (for a short while), then I die and what I do during life is extremely important.  For me it is deciding that my importance in this life is to chase knowledge in all its forms while helping all others in their chase of life and liberty.

From the pinnacle of my intelligence (from the bottom of my heart is to imply
I think with my feelings, which I no longer do) I apologize.

Sincerely,
JoeNavy

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

My attempt at putting my scatter brain crap on the internet before it gets lost from my horrible memory.

I wanted an epic title for my very first blog post...I'm happy with it.

So anyway, I guess I should introduce myself. You can call me Joe. I've been in the military since mid 2006 and have been voraciously studying philosophy, religion in all its forms, political law and to a lesser extent politics in general with a mix of sociology for about the last 7 years. This has mostly been on my own time and without formal education (I did take 3 years of college at OK State, but I was studying athletic medicine which turned out to be not the least bit interesting). Before I digress too much I would like to point out that writing has never been, and never will be, my strong suit but I plan to get better at it. And hopefully I do. I'm currently attempting to get into the school of philosophy at the University New Mexico.

Ere' go and hither unto I would ask please don't hesitate on being a sentence structure or grammar nazi (yes, I know the N should be capitalized...I did it out of disrespect).

Now you may be asking yourself, "Why the silly blog name? And where did it come from?" Well, it was partially random and partly on purpose. I have been wanting to create a blog for quite some time now and was too lazy to do so. Today I fettered up the inspiration and decided that it's time to start keeping track of this awesome stuff that rolls through my head everyday. While trying to think of a name I was reading this silly ass post on another site about spirituality and how is compares to our digestive system (so utterly stupid that I'm not going to link it because it's not worth the read). Anyway, half way through I realized how incredibly funny I found the title "Spiritual Constipation" and thought, "Man, what an awesome blog name that would make!" Five minutes later, while doing some paperwork, a big flashing neon light went off above my head.

No, I don't support anything spiritual or any religion for that matter. And if I still did, my spiritual digestive system would be completely blocked up with all the woo-woo-bullshit-faith-crap that has to be believed in order for one to be spiritual in today's science driven world.