Anyone catch The Cleveland Show?

I really need to get this baby on a schedule or something, she always needs love when I am doing stuff, at least she'll be worth it...I hope.

The reason I am asking is because the show brought up the topic of atheism, and the protagonists attempt to change his son's beliefs, The show also brings up several common criticisms of religion, all this happening while the family is coping during a disaster. In one of the situations, the religious part of the family prays for food because they choose to only buy food one day at a time, the son who is also the only person to watch the news, stockpiled weeks ahead of the hurricane. You should be able to catch the episode on Hulu, I am horrible at reiterating TV shows.

As a side note Amanda Knox was freed from jail today, I am happy to see that this miscarriage of justice has been corrected.

I promise I didn't disappear

It's been a bit since I last posted, but I went back to work on the 19th and just spent the last two weeks catching up and finishing close out. I have a few things I would like to talk about today, but first I get to spend time with my wife's confused religious family, hopefully they won't pray in tongues again, no I'm serious, they really do that it's disturbing.

Oh Ya, These Kids Will Have A Career

Creationists piss me off, I don't understand how they could accept such a simple answer for a complex existence, ironically they say that the complexity of life only proves that god created it all., even though Evolution has a mountain of evidence, just look at drug resistant bacteria, but when you ask for proof from creationists they only use The Bible or God as their version of proof. Now I don't know about you but I prefer Evolution's answer to life because it makes perfect sense. Below is a video that is not only disturbing with how the Tour Guides argue against science, but by how you feel after watching it, seriously I felt my IQ drop as I watched it, the video is old but I couldn't resist not showing it.

Statistically Speaking; Less Christians = Better Society

 Sometimes people will look at Kim and me, and think we are crazy for being in a atheist relationship, raising a second generation atheist. A popular argument amongst religious supporters is that society and families benefit from religion, historically the United States has a very large proportion on Christians (76%) for their population respectively, but does religion really make society better or does it inhibit its growth? I spent a good portion of this morning researching western societies in Europe and the US, and for the problems in society that I researched; I used the most commonly cited issues by Christians;

Hard Drug Abuse

Teen Pregnancy

Divorce

Prison Population

  I also devised a ranking system using points, the more the problem showed up, the more points a country received, the most a country could receive was 10, the lower the society rating, the fewer problems they have. The results from my research do show that statistically, the less Christian a country becomes the fewer problems that country will have. I do have sources for all my statistics; please feel free to email me for a copy of the sources and the complete report. I apologize for such a short post about this. I just wanted to get this out and soon as I could. 

*Note; This is not all the data, please email me for a copy of the full report I compiled.*

 

	United States	Netherlands	Norway	Greece	Avg
Percent Christian	76.00%	34.00%	32.00%	81.00%	48.00%
Percent Atheist	15.00%	27.00%	17.00%	3.00%	18.50%
Drug Abuse	8.90%	0.50%	0.30%	8.60%	2.21%
Teen Pregnancy	5.56%	0.77%	1.36%	1.22%	1.65%
Divorce Rate (% of Marriages)	45.80%	38.30%	40.40%	15.70%	37.66%
Jailed Population	0.74%	0.10%	0.07%	0.11%	0.16%
Education Ranking	17th	10th	12th	32nd
Society Rating (Out Of 50)	42	17	19	35	26.9

My Take: How 9-11 Changed Religion and The US

I can remember where I was when the towers fell, and I could have never imagined how much our country would change in some ways good, in others bad. Whether you chose to believe it or not 9-11 changed all our lives, the Christians became more outspoken, the Muslims were treated unfairly, and Atheists became more militant. Militant Atheism is a complicated issue for me, while I do disagree with some of the views, I do agree with the idea that we need to be more open about our disbelief. It can be hard sometimes as an atheist, because unlike organized religion we are not organized, so invoking a change in the thoughts of the majority is difficult.

A few months back a group of atheists sued the government for the WTC cross, the controversy is well known within our community for causing a series of death threats against atheists to be posted on the Fox News Facebook page. I can honestly say though that I can see both sides of the debate, I understand why Christians would want their religious symbol displayed for their fallen, but what about the Jews, Muslims, and Atheists who died on that day, I think that the Christians shouldn’t have been acting like they were the only ones who died, One of the interesting comments left on the blog that I will leave a link to, has a person stating “The 9/11 attacks was an attack on Christianity.”, the poster then states that he believes that we should make everyone worship his god. Maybe that’s why atheists have became more militant, the Christians became more self-absorbed, A reasonable compromise to the WTC Cross controversy would be the establishment of all religious symbols at the site, including our own, of equal size and quality.

I think that the most damning piece of evidence though should be the effects that it had on my generation, I along with thousands of others volunteered to serve our country, Atheists and Christians, Muslims and Jews, religion did not matter because we were all one fighting against terrorists not Muslims, the most disappointing factor of 9-11 is really just the polarization of religion in all of our lives. I think that we should follow the example set by our soldiers, airmen, marines, seamen, and coasties and work together, try to coexist and help our fellow Americans during this difficult time, because chances are no one religion will ever have full control. 9-11 was never an attack on Christianity it was an attack on Americans, and the worst thing that we can do to honor these victims is create more hatred against one another.

Addiction and Atheism

I found this story on CNN’s Belief Blog, I would like to thank Andrew Hall at Laughing in Purgatory for having an article on his blog that allowed me to discover the CNN blog.

The story was written by an atheist and talks a lot about her experience with AA while being an atheist, I think the part that really shined through the article is the way she describes the initial reactions from people in the groups;

“I told them I believed in math. Chaos, I said. Infinity. That sort of thing.

They looked at me in despair.

And not infrequently, they said, “So you think you’re the biggest, most important thing in the universe?””

A lot of religious folk would say that atheists think that they are the center of the universe, especially here in Texas. What they fail to realize is that by believing in Math, we are saying that we shouldn’t exist, but by that mathematical fluke we exist. We are easily out shined by the other millions of flukes that surround our lives, some of which can be awe inspiring. As someone who has been around alcoholics for a portion of my life, not all of it though, I have seen the two sided coin to AA and even NA, I personally do not support the idea of replacing one addiction with another as shown below.

“And this can be something of a sticking point when you’re sitting in a meeting room, desperate for almost any route out of hell, and someone cites “the blood of Jesus” as the only way to go. Or when you realize that six of AA's 12 steps explicitly refer to God, a Higher Power or He.”

I think that everyone can learn moderation it just takes discipline. I know because I have had my periods of time where I wasn’t all there and it took a long time for me to learn that balance. This article has shown though that the perceptions that the religious right tends to have of us are very incorrect and tend to be the opposite of what we believe. I don’t believe you need a higher power to quit any addiction, all you need is someone worth doing it for. The link for the article is below, and as always please leave your comments below and let me know your take on the article.

My Faithlessness: The atheist way through AA 

The Wolf and The Lamb

I think this is the latest at night I’ve ever posted, but I finally got the baby to bed and momma is on the couch so I have a few minutes to crank one of these out real fast, Firstly what is everyone’s thoughts on Marijuana, or on any type of prohibition? Please leave comments if you would like to add your point of view for either side, Now I definitely should clear this up, personally I do not identify myself as a liberal or a conservative, I do not believe in party lines and feel that they are counter productive to the political process of any country, but back to the topic.i

Personally I don’t support marijuana prohibition because I can’t scientifically see marijuana as being more harmful then alcohol and tobacco, I also view marijuana as a product that if  legalized then properly taxed and regulated would be of great help to our economy, and free up police departments to go after real criminals and reduce our jail population that is a burden to the economy, I also view this in some ways a mostly Christian attack on individual liberties that our founding fathers wouldn’t have agreed with.

Below are a brief summary of the reasons for my above views.

1.                          Marijuana is far safer then alcohol easily by comparison, the therapeutic dose for alcohol is around 8:1 – 15:1, Marijuana is >1000:1 to understand these significance of these numbers, Water is 20:1 – 30:1, I can kill you with water before I could kill you with Marijuana.

_2.                            The enforcement of Marijuana law is a burden to our economy in part by the DEA of the United States, in fact after a long string of exposure over their destruction of Marijuana plants consistently showed over 90% of the funds for them going to the destruction of Hemp which is the same plant but lacks the THC needed to get high, the DEA began withholding the Ruderalis statistics.

_3.                            States that have legalized marijuana have used the tax revenues to help balance budgets and fund transportation projects, and Texas in fact has a 8.5 cent/gram tax on Marijuana

_4.                            Marijuana laws steal people’s lives away, in the United States you can commit murder, rape, robbery, child molestation, and even torture, and still maintain eligibility for FAFSA loans, you get caught with a joint and you lose that eligibility. Is that the kind of message that we want to send to our kids? Also when people have a better education they tend to pay more in taxes which helps the economy.

_5.                            Jails are packed these days, and most of them are just people who were caught with a little weed on them, by removing these laws we can free up the over 600,000 imprisoned yearly it cost on average $62 a day to take care of one of them, and most are there from 1-5 years. Which is $37,200,000 yearly.

_6.                            As an atheist, I believe the prohibition of marijuana to be a Christian attack on individual liberties that their religion doesn’t agree with, much like blue laws and dry counties for alcohol. But even their bible says their wrong because god couldn’t even prohibit a fruit from being eaten by two people, so one could even say that the bible doesn’t necessarily agree with the concept of prohibition. Most prohibition moments are started by the religious right.

_7.                            Our founding fathers built our country with Hemp and Marijuana, George Washington even smoked, so there is proof that Marijuana and society were just fine before the laws were introduced in the 1900’s, the first law in the United States was a law prohibiting failing to grow marijuana, also during WW2 their was the Hemp for Victory videos which were government made films that were denied to exist by the US until 1989.

              So those were just a few of my arguments, when I find something new to post, I will elaborate on those issues more. I left so links below with arguments for and against so that anyone can read up if they have any interest in the issue, but I just realized that my baby needs to eat so I have to go.

Pro Marijuana Reform
Drug War Facts 

Against Marijuana Reform
Christianity and Marijuana

Seems Kind of Cruel

''My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.”

—South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, arguing that government food assistance to lower-income residents, including food stamps or free school lunches, encourages a culture of dependence, Jan 24. 2010

I realize that this is an old quote but I stumbled upon it today and just had to say something, first of all what reasonable person would take advice from a person that isn’t as intelligent as an animal behavior specialist over the psychological ramifications of feeding a stray animal. Personally I am for these types of programs, it makes sense people shouldn’t go hungry at all sometimes its disturbing how many christian politicians are in favor of such repeals, now feeding someone and making sure that no one goes hungry isn’t a religious issue its a human rights issue, I have no problem helping these people, so long as the benefits are reviewed and scrutinized every few months not yearly, I see no issue. To me I see this comment as being a little condescending towards the least affluent.

 I think that sometimes people think that atheists don’t care about other people, that we lack moral standing and are apathetic towards our fellow man, Leave your comments below and let me know what you think, please be sure to leave your religious affiliation so that I can tabulate the results and see how atheists and others who may view this blog, feel about the Lt. Gov’s Comments. 

I apologize for the short post tonight I have to be up at 7 tomorrow morning so I have to get some sleep with Kali around.

Atheist In Texas: A Brief Explanation

It’s been a couple of posts in and I’ve decided to write a formal explanation of the purpose of this blog;

                       1) This blog is to discuss the current prosecutions of Atheism in the United States and around the world.

                       2) Provide written commentary on current issues from an atheist point of view, whether they are social or political.

                       3) Further down the line I intend to set up a section on atheist parenting and my adventures with raising an Atheist child in Texas.

                       4) Discuss current breakthroughs and studies in science that provide evidence to the absence of supernatural beings.

Some things I won’t do and some rules to follow;

                       1) Talk down to believers unprovoked, I don’t have a problem with religion, I have a problem with people who don’t treat ALL religions with respect.

                       2) Allow threats of any kind to be directed to towards anyone, we are atheists, we are the voice of reason, and threats tend to stem from a lack of reason.

My changing life and DOMA

I realize that my last post was forever ago, and I would post often but recently my daughter was born, so I've been a little caught up in being a father. Kim who is my wife by common law, has some family members who believe that we need to get married, because god says that we are horrible people for living together and having a kid together, yet the kid is here and the apartment is our home so I could really care less. I don’t want to get married not because I don’t love my wife, but because I don’t support DOMA, also known as the Defense of Marriage Act, I don’t believe that marriage should be defined by clear cut boundaries set by a thousand year old bigoted belief system, because love isn’t about that. I love Kim, and I would lay down my life without question in her defense. Below are a few of my arguments against state sponsored marriage;

* DOMA is wrong because technically the Federal Government of the United States has no legal qualification to define such an act, as well as our State Governments, in fact by following the constitution, Marriage in and of itself is a religious belief, besides a husband and wife are really just exaggerated boyfriends and girlfriends.

*DOMA is wrong because it defines marriage can only exist between heterosexual a couple, which again is a religious viewpoint, modern science shows us that homosexuality is NOT a choice but instead a complex chain of events involving brain chemistry and physiology, much like love.

*DOMA forsakes the most important aspect of making a commitment of that magnitude, Love. Yes, two people who hate each other can get married so long as they are heterosexual, but two people who love each other can’t if they are homosexual.

"If gays want to get married and be miserable like the rest of us, then I say let them."
- Peter Griffin

           
Maybe one day everyone will have the same rights but until then Kim and I will choose to remain “sinners”, it’s not like my daughter will know the difference, it’s just a slip of paper after all, it won’t change anything about our love.

More to come...

Vote For Rick Parry! With an 'A' like America and Iowa

First of all I need to thank Stephen Colbert for showing us what may be the greatest thing ever...Rick Perry's supporters are disturbingly ignorant, not only to politics but even the names of the candidates that they support! You can watch the video by following this link.

For those who don't live in Texas you might be wondering why an atheist blog is so concerned about this, you thought this was just going to be a blog about Atheism, well it is I just like politics, mainly because it always astounds me how a entire group of people can be so ignorant of the issues, I'm talking about Tea Partiers and the Christian Fundamentalists who claim they want to take back America and bring it back to the way it used to be, which of course would be an Equal and Secular Freethinking Non-Christian society, but of course Christians need Priests to do the thinking for them, especially in Texas, and Priests tend to change the facts to suit the needs of the time, so this may explain why only 17% of US High School Seniors pass history, now watch this I'm going to use christian logic(that's the definition of an oxymoron) to defeat christian ignorance, since about 17% of the US is either Atheist, Agnostic, or Secular, its obvious that Christianity's account isn't correct because if they were 80% of students would pass their history test. Our forefathers must be rolling in our grave.

 Now that my rant is done, my main issue with Perry is mostly how he acts, the man has no respect for the separation of church and state, oh and that whole Gardasil incident, but I'll talk about that another time, lets begin. The prayer rally was a blatant violation of the separation of the two, here's why Perry will contend that its a prayer for America and its crisis, mostly he is referring to the economic crisis, however following that line of logic, where was Perry back in 2008 and the housing market collapsed sinking the economy because republicans didn't want a lot of regulations in the US Mortgage industry, and because of this almost every bank in the world insured their mortgages with one US company, which was bleeding out like a dead hooker in Perry's trunk, which probably happened at some point too. He goes running with a gun all the time, I'm all for 2nd amendment rights but the man perpetuates the negative stereotypes of Texans, seriously it seems like he picked up a book on rednecks and just uses it now as a self help book, including the time when he hired a creationist to the Texas Board of Education.

Anyone who has been to Texas will realize that we have too many Evangelists, seriously Atheists everywhere could tie them together and use them as a float to Europe which seem to tolerate us pretty well, especially since the reason we are here is because they were religious oppressors, I got to make a stop in Amsterdam but hey at least they like us, back to the point Evangelists were worried about having potential GOP candidate who is Mormon, to qoute cnn's article over the issue;

 

"We think a them Mormons as bein' in kind of a cult," one of the Houston rally attendees told me. "I couldn't vote for one a them when we got a real Christian like Governor Perry runnin'."

(see what I have to put up with daily)

So Rick Perry what do you say now about your prayer, seems to me like the rally only served to have you viewed as a "True" Christian. As a side note you can get a preview of the future of America with Perry in charge, while the prayer rally had 30,000 people in attendance,  nearby a separate event was being held giving out free backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, haircut vouchers, immunizations and fresh produce to the needy, over 100,000 so many showed up the event had to be closed early, job creation only works if you can replace the jobs that you lost in the first place or get better ones, not the other way around.

More to Come...