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Text of the page (random words):
triotism was his religion christmas for irving berlin was not a religious holiday it was an american holiday the words to white christmas are not about the birth of a savior god they are about winter the real reason for the season all in all i ll take that as two votes for a secular interpretation halloween as a seasonal celebration however i wouldn t want to force anyone into a halloween celebration that makes them uncomfortable or makes them feel unwelcome barry of staring at empty pages discusses a similar dilemma in the dinner game perhaps a better way to approach the holiday is to consider real horrors as opposed to imaginary ones rather than discussing ghosts or demons or other make believe maladies we should instead consider the very real nightmares that our society has created whether you agree with the iraq war or not it would be hard to argue that what s happening there is not horrible westminster wisdom discusses one aspect of the very real problems applying religious belief to government can create in faith in politics and references tony blair s purported faith based decisions regarding the conflict part of blair s justifications for the conflict were assertions that he had knowledge that was both secret and or private richard of philosophy et cetera isn t buying it in experience and testimony he expresses his dissatisfaction with the whole notion of private evidence for those that have been slow to enter the political fray or may still be trying to get off the fence this election season stephan of fearless philosophy for free minds offers up several good reasons why he won t be elected to public office anytime soon in a personal attack ad against myself intentional misinformation is a horror often perpetrated by religion hell s handmaiden offers one example in evolution isn t theology while the greenbelt offers another in enter the ark mojoey of deep thoughts exhibits another type of horror that of morality of personal convenience in abandoned meat so where does this leave us we can t escape our history as a society we are a fabric woven from the actions of those that came before us we can only hope to change our future the fabric of my past enjoys the halloween holiday so obviously in deference to the past i have decided to use the traditional halloween color theme for this post but out of a desire to see a future decoyed of religion and religious influence i am leaving out the ghosts goblins and witches they don t exist so why should we honor them i do think pumpkins are ok because they evoke the flavor of the season if then we can only change the future what do we have to look forward to i m left with two different takes on our possible future the skwib takes a more pessimistic though very literary outlook in the empty arches while wad s place offers a more opportunistic outlook in i bring news ultimately it may not matter if as suggested over at avant news it turns out god doesn t particularly care about humans posted by leona tom at 22 50 0 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels carnival of the godless friday 15 february 2013 skeptic rant short answer in and out of a prescription drug stupor that makes me feel worse than the condition it is intended to treat while simultaneously trying to get through one of my busiest work cycles of the year long answer oh who really cares the point is i ve been dealing with a bunch of medical crap and now i m back i ve talked about this with so many people doctors co workers friends family that i m sick of it i m not dying anytime soon but i wasn t so sure for a while there i have allot of personal experience now with considering my death and plan to synthesize that into a couple of posts i ve missed allot during my absence so i thought i would take a quick moment to catch up on some house keeping the 46th skeptics circle is up at left brain right brain surprisingly during my absence i got a few comments i got a bizarre unintelligible loony rant from somebody calling themselves ivor manuel prophet who apparently is still stuck on the whole 911 act of god thing i also got a couple comments worth responding to and i will try to do that over the next couple of days posted by leona tom at 04 49 0 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday 9 august 2012 criticism of government homeowners affordability and stability plan santelli drew attention for his remarks made on february 19 2009 about the homeowners affordability and stability plan while broadcasting from the floor of the cme group during pre market hours santelli accused the government of promoting bad behavior and raised the possibility of a chicago tea party he also suggested that individuals who knowingly purchased high risk mortgages and faced impending foreclosure as a consequence were losers scattered cheers whistles and applause could be heard from some of the personnel around the floor some subsequent protests in american cities dubbed tea parties may have drawn inspiration from santelli s outburst but were not directly associated with him during a white house press briefing white house press secretary robert gibbs was asked about santelli s comments and expressed skepticism over whether santelli had actually read the government s plan santelli later clarified his comments and addressed concerns that the event was staged cnn com reported that some compared santelli to fictional reporter howard beale the protagonist of the 1976 satirical film network santelli has said i think that this tea party phenomenon is steeped in american culture and steeped in the american notion to get involved with what s going on with our government i haven t organized i m going to have to work to pay my taxes so i m not going to be able to get away today but i have to tell you i m pretty proud of this on april 20 2009 santelli participated as a panel member in an economic leadership forum hosted by the george bush presidential library foundation at texas a m university posted by leona tom at 04 50 0 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday 30 november 2006 i ll never be angry about relativism last week i read a post entitled angry atheists by avi shafran it got me thinking about the atheist morality question again i m not interested in trying to deconstruct all of what he wrote most of it is just meaningless self affirmation however he does make a claim that i felt is worth a reply there was no credible counter argument whatsoever no claim that right and wrong can somehow have inherent meaning without recourse to something higher than ourselves that too was telling of the truth that atheism in the end cannot assign any more meaning to right and wrong than to right and left my guess is that most of the more prolific atheists simple ignored avi s first post on this subject and that he neglected to do any research on the topic of atheist morality otherwise he would have found that there is a plethora of opinions out there on how one can derive a moral viewpoint without god in general these morality systems seem to fall into one of three very broad groups of thought morality derived from god or some other place outside of human existence morality derived from individual rights absolute individualism or morality derived from arbitrary social constructs moral relativism the more difficult concept for many people to swallow is that of moral relativism even amongst those that claim to support moral relativism there are certain things that most people consider absolutely wrong such as murder or rape as with avi when confronted with the notion of complete moral relativism most people exclaim but without some moral absolute then there s no real morality and anyone can do anything yes so what morality is relative get over it there are no absolutes there is no purpose to life if that means your life is meaningless that s your fault not mine the meaning in my life is my family my career and a quest for knowledge my life is affirmed every time i hold my daughter kiss my wife achieve at work or observe the awesome spectacle of existence i don t need anything else why do you according to avi atheists are intellectually cornered into a place where the very concepts of morality and ethics are rendered meaningless a worldview in which a thieving philandering serial murdering cannibal is no less commendable a member of the species than a selfless hard working philanthropist in fact from an evolutionist perspective the former is probably better positioned to impart advantages to the gene pool it is a thought so discomfiting to an honest atheist that all it can yield him is fury from a tit for tat approach to this debate i could point out that the old testament is filled with examples of thieving philandering serial murderers who earn not just forgiveness but rewards from god and that therefore this line of argument is perhaps a bad choice for the theist but that would just feed into his point about angry atheists so instead i ll point out that i m definitely not furious over this issue in fact i find it quite exciting we all of us are in control of the world we live in not some arbitrary set of rules handed down by a faceless imaginary sky monster we decide as a group what is right or wrong personally i find this to be far from infuriating and in fact rather liberating there is no evidence for nor any need for an outside source god for morality no the bible doesn t count as evidence should anyone be able to bring forward any actual evidence for god and or his terminator style enforcement of morality then i will be happy to reconsider divine absolute morality in the mean time i won t hold my breath similarly moral absolutism based on individual rights is on equally shaky ground proponents of individual moral absolutism suggest that morality can somehow be scientifically qualified and that individualism itself somehow imparts each of us with a magic bullet of moral self importance but placing the root of morality in the individual is no less arbitrary and imaginary than placing it with god we are all individuals but we are not solitary individuals we do not exist nor can we exist in a vacuum whether we like it or not it is necessary for us to interact with other individuals in these interactions we will not always have the same self interest i may want a smoke free environment you may want to smoke if we are both in an area designated as public property who s need is greater in that situation some might argue that given the potential for harm caused by secondhand smoke that i have a right to a smoke free environment others might argue that the smoker should have a right to light up when they want and that any law that restricted their right to do so would constitute coercion and thus would be morally wrong who s right in our country there is a growing number of people that feel the non smoker has more rights than the smoker on this issue but in many other countries the trend is just the opposite ultimately there is no absolute morality on this issue though i am certain there will be those that disagree take another example two individuals are lost in a desert they are two weeks away from any hope of rescue and there is only enough water for one of them to survive given no other information and assuming that the two individuals are of equal age gender status etc what is the right moral course of action if they share the water they guarantee that they both die if one of them keeps the water for themselves they condemn the other to certain death more important than what they do is how do they decide they will have to come up with a system a mini social contract to decide perhaps they ll draw lots but what happens if they can t agree on a system neither of them wants to die if they can t agree peacefully they ll be forced to fight for the water or die in indecision it s in neither of their self interests to concede to the other taking the water to capitulate would be the same as committing suicide so is it wrong for them to fight over the water if one of them dies as a result of the fight should the victor be considered a murderer those types of struggles are faced by humanity everyday without an imaginary friend in the sky to tell us what to do we must create rules systems or social contracts to define how we will interact with each other when we create these rules not everyone is going to agree with them it s not in the self interest of those that have agreed to the rules society to allow those that disagree with the rules criminals to ruin it for everyone else so society protects itself through laws and enforces those laws through punishment if the disagreement escalates or if large groups disagree then we get wars but no matter what the rules are all still arbitrary constructs of social interaction that s it there s really nothing more to it than that who decides the rules everyone does just like wikipedia the stock market or open source code do some people have more influence than others of course there will always be individuals that hunger for power and control and there will always be people that just want to live their life and stay out of the way in the end everyone participates in creating the rules whether they think they do or not and they always have the choice of not following the rules or attempting to change them for those that lack the mental fortitude to grasp the vagueness of such systems this must be a very scary concept for those that embrace them they open up a world of possibilities but as long as most people are convinced that there is some kind of magical right or wrong we will continue to be stuck in the moral stone age with the avi shafrans of the world posted by leona tom at 04 29 0 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday 17 october 2006 dwayne wade can kiss my ass this is essentially a direct rip off of i am s post about carrie underwood no dwayne wade has not started a country music career but if he did i am sure it would be very similar to underwood in it s abundant references to god why do i think that well apparently wade felt it necessary to subject the general populace to an explanation of his faith in god in the form of a converse ad i wouldn t really care except for the tag line if your curious you can see the ad for your self at converse com now it doesn t matter to me if he can t sleep at night without a spiritual comfort item my three year old has a teddy bear and a favorite blanket wade has god i also don t care if he feels the need to justify away his talent by giving the credit to god but i am sick and tired of being told that my life is meaningless worthless bleak or otherwise lost unless i subscribe to an illogical destructive self effacing delusion i am not lost should i get lost i ll get a map and gps not a bible what really su...