“Freedom of thought,” says the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville, “is the only good more important than peace. Without it, peace would be another word for servility.” This is the basis for the first amendment in the American constitution; itself formulated from the thoughts from the man who perhaps coined the term “United States of America”, namely the great Thomas Paine.

As Paine wrote in Common Sense:

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.

Those last words are resounding and might be the distant echo to the so-called Rushdie Affair. The “defense of custom” seems to have become the staple diet for the majority. We have fought so long and so hard for tolerance that we tolerate the intolerant; We defend their customs and their ideas which themselves are based on bullying strategies that renders a cloud of protection on “men of faith”. When someone who is not of the cloth utters that the 2007 floods in Northern Yorkshire are a deity’s judgments on homosexuality, as the then Archbishop of Carlyle, Graham Dow, did, we would think them insane. But because he has archbishop next to his name we are meant to “respect” such barbaric, backward and unhelpful thoughts.

Recently, my friend the great Johann Hari has faced a horrible string of threats, underpinned by death, fear and Islam. He alerted his faithful readership to the horrid poison, weaving a noose within the veins of equality in the UN. Islamic countries are demanding that we respect their hideous misogynist notions of shari’ah, to steer clear of criticising an illiterate pedophile who flew on horses to heaven, and to never raise reason as an ecumenical notion for everyone.

They are demanding this because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stresses the right to free-speech, free-thought. This logically means the ability to criticise openly any and all ideas. The only thing that the UDHR even alludes to being “sacred”, in the normative sense of the word, is the unified human spirit to unite without superstitious, overzealous boundaries. Muslims fear this, as Hari correctly highlight, because it would mean that young people would do the one thing all religions fear: THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

“Sapere Aude (Dare to know)!” says Kant in his essay on the Enlightenment. ” ‘Have courage to use your own understanding’ – that is the motto for the Enlightenment.” Islam – and all religions – would quiver under such scrutiny. The use of intellect is hardly encouraged unless it is in accordance with Allah’s will. Everything is supposed to be through Allah; but everything includes good and bad, right and wrong, evil and misconceptions. So wouldn’t this religion, which is mistakenly called a “religion of peace” by many world leaders, cherish such open-mindedness? Why then the fear of Enlightenment values?

Because then the foundations would fail, it would flounder and like a hydra dying and frothing red beneath the sea, it would sink into the bottom depths of our history. Muslims realise this. They realise their grips would falter on the minds of their flock; so much so that they are willing to arrest the Indian editors of Hari’s article.

How could Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha be arrested for publishing Hari’s article? Because hurting religious feelings is part of the Indian penal code. Under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code it forbids “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings”. The irony rests in the double-standards. And what religions are included in section 295A? Why some religions, Islam, but not others, Norse or Roman? And, of course, what about those who are outraged but are not religious? Why do we never get any “special treatment” for our “feelings”?

Boo-hoo, my childish Islamic friends. Your feelings were hurt? Shame. I can tell you exactly why those of us without religion neither have any law against offending us, in India (and most places), and more importantly, why we usually don’t fight for one: Because we believe in the freedom of open criticism. We believe in the right to express any ideas, in a rational, open way.

This means I do not care whether you worship Zeus, Allah, or Yahweh: If it makes you happy, go ahead. If it consoles, by all means do it. But you can not demand me to respect such ideas and to not criticise them. I am open to you criticising my ideas, any of them. I will not be privy to respecting any ideas just to make the faithful happy. To quote Hari:

[A] free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence.

Whilst we writers against religion limit ourselves to words, our antagonists would find vent in bullets. Whilst we would change and let the plateau of equality be the ground on which we all walk, Muslims would have the high-ground to censure equal human rights. They would rather we shut up and step away from hurting their poor feelings.

I support Hari in his criticisms, as is apparent. Hari had every right to write what he liked, as did people in my country’s past. Consider that Steve Biko’s book is entitled I Write What I Like. I even support the freedom to write tripe like creationist or Holocaust-denial literature. Because scientists and historians can then openly criticise and point out the flaws in the creationist and “revisionist” literature. I don’t believe in banning books or writers or the stultification – in fact, my life is dedicated to fighting for anyone to say anything, in an open minded, discursive way.

Not so for the religious, as this reaction to Hari’s article displays. If that is not a sign of backward thinking, pointing away from the path of reason into the dark woods of dogma, then I am not sure what is. Perhaps the Quran and its horrible statements of death to infidels (”Kill them where ye find them!”)? Perhaps the terror Muslims invoke, when we draw cartoons of their Prophet, or the death-threats when a Teddy-bear is named after him?

I want us all to be amenable to change, criticism and open to ideas. This is a grownup way to look at the world. But the neotony inherent in our species finds vent in that which is itself a product of our mind’s infancy. Consider this bounder, called Abdus Subhan, who “[was] prepared to lay down his life, if necessary, to protect the honour of the Prophet [against Hari]” and Hari should be sent “to hell if he chooses not to respect any religion or religious symbol … He has no liberty to vilify or blaspheme any religion or its icons on grounds of freedom of speech.”

But why not? We need to all grow up and face the fact that many things will “offend” us. We are diverse and diversity inculcates a sense of realisation of many different things.  So, using “that offends me” as a reason and argument to cease that which causes offence, is no grounds at all for it to cease. Before you think me venturing into the territory of cultural relativism, I mean it simply according with what we understand to be human rights, personal autonomy, the right to liberty, freedom of thought, and so on.

I stand by what I write here as I stand by Johann Hari. Muslims should be more horrified at me, someone who was once Muslim, now admonishing them; I deserve their scorn and outrage more than someone who won the Amnesty International Newspaper Journalist of the Year (2007). Please let us all grow up, face the beauty of the world and time we have. Muslims must realise that we are fighting for them and their freedom as much as anyone else. The ones who suffer the most from the dogmatic assertions of clerical bullying are other Muslims.

We want everyone to be free, we want everyone to have the right to liberty and freedom. Let the ashes of dogma settle to allow some growth of a newfound liberation and reasoned tolerance. If we hurt each others feelings so be it. But that does not mean we are allowed to kill, arrest or maim each other. Growing up and opening our eyes means we see and experience more, which means more opportunity for pain. But it also means more opportunity for growth. Like trees entwined at the roots, our growth rests in each other. The faster we all severe our ties from celestial propitiation, the faster our own lives can be rendered to soar with freedom and openness

I know this will do nothing to stop or cease Muslim’s anger. It might incite more. But, I will quote Paine again to finish. Immediately after the first line I quoted above, he says:

But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Let it be so.

Granted, Battlestar Galactica is based heavily upon creator Ronald Moore’s own Mormon faith… and Orson Scott Card is a right-wing conservative Mormon, but other than that, science fiction appears to be within the realm of secularism and really bad SciFi Channel Original Movies. And even if there are a few religious themes in some books or TV shows, until I found this episode of Space: Above and Beyond*. Let’s go through the checklist -

Grumpy, Stereotypical Atheist – CHECK

Conversion Through a Miracle (or Series of) – CHECK

What? Christmas Isn’t About Secular Rampant Consumerism!? – CHECK

Some Stupid Discussion About “Faith” – CHECK

Anyways, enjoy -

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v505582YYEAqz8k

*It’s actually a pretty good show in general in my opinion that deals with serious issues that could arise in the future, but this episode was definitely a miss.

Are you black, white or Asian? Are you Arab, Dutch or Spanish? Are you Reformed Hassidic Jew or a Secular Protestant? Are you an “atheist” or an “agnostic”?

When my parents moved into their second house during apartheid, they were faced with typical bureaucratic nonsense. The National Party, then the ruling party and the continuing antagonist to human rights, had assimilated the ultimate forms of racism into politics. This meant unreason had poisoned the very foundations from which a society grows, its fruit withered before it could grow, its leaves never to open. The documents my parents had to fill out were an example of your typical rotten fruit grown under the darkness of irrationality.

The question they faced was this:

WHAT RACE ARE YOU?

My father shrugged and simply ticked the box “COLOURED”. According to their actual ID documents, both my parents were “INDIAN”. This, they told me, was the first and only time they had lied to their government (as much as they despised the apartheid government, it was still their government). This brazen display of ignorance listed itself on the rest of the page, running parallel to open boxes to define oneself: “WHITE” “BLACK” “ASIAN”. If my father had not opted for “COLOURED”, my parents would not have been allowed to live in their desired area.

HL Mencken, reporting on racist policies in the USA some years before, said of these policies:

Is such a prohibition, even supposing that it is lawful, supported by anything to be found in common sense or common decency?

But this is not about apartheid or racism; it is about labeling. Consider the questions at the beginning of this article. Race is a good entry point to highlight some particular brands of unreason regarding labeling. Perhaps it is simply my sensitivity to notions of “race” but I find them all to be quite unhelpful and stupid.

And I am not the only one.

In the 1994 book (ironically the same year apartheid ended), The History and Geography of Human Genes , the authors state:

[F]rom a scientific point of view, the concept of race has failed to obtain any consensus; none is likely, given the gradual variation of existence.

Commenting on this quotation, Michael Shermer says: “In other words, the concept of race is biologically meaningless.”

Think about it for a moment: Yes, you can say you are Indian though you live in, say, South Africa. You can say you’re Indian because your grandparents were both from there. But which grandparents? And how far back are we allowed to go to call ourselves Indian, Asian or Arab? What if, as in my case, it was only your great-grandparent who was originally from India? And what if your maternal grandmother is “white”, which is also my case?

It seems to me quite arbitrary to assign a random number of grandparents or great-grandparents, to put a full-stop after their names, and proclaim oneself their nationality. I was born in South Africa – that’s all that should concern anyone. Why does “race” matter, why is it even on surveys, forms, etc.? I have yet to find a satisfactory answer is to how indicating your “race” (which one? Your mothers? Your fathers? What if you are “black” but your mother is white? Are we judging simply then by pigmentation? If that’s the case, why is it in the survey or form at all?) What does the colour of one’s skin indicate about one’s abilities as a worker or employee in the environment? This is to forget the individual human who we should judge as a fully-formed human being, consciously – not according to some non-evidenced based category (horribly, astrology does this too, with 12 random signs; this is another form of torrid prejudice in my opinion).

There is much politics surrounding this: For example, in South Africa, there is a policy to empower “previously disadvantaged groups”. Thus, in deciding between a “black” or “white” candidate, the employer should choose the black one to win favour from our government. This is not the place to debate the pros and cons of this policy, but it certainly indicates the elaborated intricacies of “race”. Yet in this case, it is not judging by his “skin colour” but by the candidates disadvantaged past.

Anyway, enough of race. What of labeling ourselves in this so-called battle of reason versus faith? I myself loathe the term “atheist”. It is unhelpful: We shouldn’t use it. Too many co-thinkers have attempted to formulate ways of integrating atheists or assimilating nonbelievers, or referring to atheism as a mentality, a mindset, a world-view, a philosophy. “Atheism” really and truly is nothing. The reason I find the term unhelpful is its superfluous nature: Everyone is an atheist.

Presumably no one reading this believes in Fidi Mikullu, the African god. Therefore, we both, dear reader, are atheists. The latest kid to hit the scene, that Yahweh character, is no more special than Fidi in existing. Certainly the Old Testament indicates a vindictive, puritanical, homophobic, racist misogynist but adding such adjectives does not make him exist more than Fidi. And simply because more people believe in him, those who do not are somewhat estranged. It’s why the requisition of the term “atheist” is so strange: When we call ourselves atheist, for some reason the logical assumption is a “nonbeliever in the monotheist god”.

But why? Why is he so special, just because the majority of the world believe in him? We need to address this immediately and forcibly elaborate to those who would leap to the conclusion that we are atheists of their particular god. Hence, I find the term “atheist” a silly label; we are, as Sam Harris stated (in a similar and better appeal than my own current one), drawing a chalk outline and stepping into it, killing our ideas off for our antagonists.

Not atheist. We should not label ourselves anything and I find it hard to deal with people who would willingly mine a term from my depths. We give labels and more often than not they turn out to be gravestones for further conversations. Buried beneath the soil of unremitting stereotyping, labels can do nothing but fester and quiver in their tombs. So I say: Let them have their graves and let us build a garden. We need to allow sentences, ideas and reason to breathe. It will not do so, encumbered by labels and terms, and unhelpful connections – such as the atheism of co-thinkers and the atheism of Stalin.

I do not call myself a humanist, either. The only one I find helpful, strangely, is the anti-theist position. This, basically, means I am glad that all the monotheisms have no evidence to show their supernatural claims, of heaven, hell, their god, etc. to be true. As a corollarly, I would be unhappy if these claims of the theisms were true. When even the “good” ideas are shown to be undesirable, this usually engages believers in far more fulfilling ways then simply nonbelief. However, I am still weary of labels.

The use of labels must end and the clear, concise explanation of ideas and reason must prevail. We must stop digging in the graveyard by night, conjuring defeated labels like necromancers. We should gently pluck the shrubs from a garden of constant elucidation, of flowing ideas and of ever-growing discussions. Without labels, stereotyping will whither; and perhaps then the full-stops will be erased and conversations can begin.

Consider this recent comment from perhaps my favourite Chris Ray post. This is Comment #25, from BluffingtonBoast:

In all, the murders, genocides, starvation and killing brought about by atheists either trying to excise religion from the populace by sheer force, or by their own lack of moral compass easily approach the billion mark. And you call yourselves ‘humanists?’ Try putting the pre-fix IN when having the gall to breath the word. In fact, the Mickey Mouse poll you run at the top of this blog dispells [sic] any doubt. The great majority of your responders would prefer a world without religion at the same time they express they would pursue that goal actively. Which means exactly what…???

Not only is this insulting, saying we have “no moral compass”, it is also patently bizarre.

As many know, I find the term “atheist” unhelpful. We are all atheists but specifically Bluffington has focused on the god of the old testament as somehow more special than other gods. As if the god of the Bible is more reasonable or believable than Thor. I would speculate that Bluffington does not believe in Thor or Filli Mukullu, so he or she is also an atheist. His or her lack of belief in Thor is also responsible for the deaths and so on that the apologist sides love to bring up, in some sick blood-thirsty satisfaction. Yet somehow the nonbelievers in one particular group’s god is er more responsible than the nonbelievers in the other gods… IF you’re confused, then welcome to my club. It makes no sense to say atheist caused this or that, because we are all atheists.

I also find the word “humanist” unhelpful and do not call myself that (now at least). Regardless, let us question this fact further: Do BluffingtonBoast and others honestly believe that The Edger readers are going to murder, pillage and destroy churches, mosques and temples? And what of the excellent writers at Edger, who constantly talk about equality, liberty, justice and beauty – without the usurpation of religious bigotry to underpin such ideas to the blackboard of dogmatic truth. Whilst promoting such important (not even good) ideas, how is it that with a second blink they would destroy, hurt or promote destruction?

BluffintonBoast has set up a false dichotomy: either there is religion, with people tolerating it and being respectful or there is no religion which is brought about through destruction and pillaging. But that’s not true. Chemistry “eradicated” alchemy, astronomy “replaced” astrology – yet, were chemists grabbing their bottles of acid and tossing them into the homes of alchemists? Were astronomers taking their telescopes and bashing the heads of “seers” and their crystal balls? Of course not. That is patently absurd and an insult to human sensibility if one considers it as such.

The growth of ideas is simply the coming to fruition of budding knowledge. Old ideas and world-views, like astrology and religion, once shaded our eyes as we gazed into the beautiful, mad world around us. But soon, from the same roots as astrology and religion, arose better and more lucid ideas. The ideas we call astronomy and humanism. These grew higher and we could climb and see more of the world. But religion and astrology, blocked by the growing forms of these better ideas, should wither and fade back into the soil of the human past. But there are those who vilify and feed these old plants, keeping them alive, turning them into weeds. They crawl along the bark of these new ideas, trying to gain the light and pulling these better ideas down.

So when those of us who selected from the Mickey Mouse poll to “actively pursue this”, what do we mean? Our words are the length of our armory. Religion can be replaced by promoting better ideas and not respecting the ideas – forget the people, the ideas are what we are dealing with – of religion. We do not have to. So if we mock, chide and dismiss foggy notions of talking burning bushes and blood thirsty gods, it is not a precursor to destroying churches. I love churches, I love mosques and temples. I remove my shoes when I enter, I pray at friends houses when they ask me to. I respect the people but not the ideas.

Not only is it insulting to suggest we desire blood, it is a complete misunderstanding. As chemistry replaced alchemy, so will the wonder of the present moment, the beauty of science, and the love of fellow humans replace religion. It will eradicate faith. I doubt it will ever happen, but yes, Bluffington and others, I do plan on actively seeking that goal.

Atheists Should Be Treated Like Trolls – FOX NEWS

Wow. Just wow.

I shouldn’t even look at anything from Fox News because this is so typical. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen a news story with logic this flawed. As the video explains, there was an atheist sign near a nativity scene that was stolen, and the owners of the sign now want to replace the old one with a “thou shall not steal sign”. Fox makes it sound like that by doing this, the atheists are hypocrites. It’s definitely ironic, that’s for sure, but apparently not for reasons anyone at Fox realizes.

Michelle Malkin goes on to complain about atheists a little bit. She suggests that atheists are just being attention whores with all these “christmas wars”, “outbursts”, and “tantrums” (apparently a sign qualifies waging war on Christmas.) 

She then says that atheists are so radical, soon they’ll be saying they’re indispensable.

I don’t know about you, but I find atheists pretty useful. A good majority of the world’s most influential and intelligent scientists are atheists. I’ve never thought about it before, but I realized that, yeah, if every atheist in the world were to just suddnely disappear, there would be problems, especially because so many intellectuals are atheists. Malkin suggests, however, that if every atheist alive just suddenly died… well, it would be no skin off her back.

But get ready, because she’s about to say the most horrible, meaningless, overdone remark you can imagine. Ugh. I hate this, hate this, HATE this line. I hear it in discussions, debates, you name it. People think it’s a valid thing to say. They think that it gives them extra points and automatic credibility. And I’m sure you guys know what I’m talking about.

Immediately following her last comment, Michelle Malkin says:

“Now, some of my best friends are atheists.”

What?! Does she hear the things she’s saying about “some of her best friends”? 

A minute later she says atheists “just can’t leave well enough alone and let people enjoy the season.”

So someone who had their property vandalized should just let it go because it’s Christmas? I mean really. She relates the sign to “making a nusence in the town square.” 

And THEN… oh boy, this is good… that blonde news anchor from the beginning of the video says that if this kind of thing doesn’t stop… Christianity will DISAPPEAR. 

And now for the biggest joke of all.

The solution? Treat atheists like trolls.  Mock them. They’re just attention seekers anyway.

This article shows another side of religion that the theists don’t like to mention.

To make a long story short: A Hindu priest rapes a woman, is arrested, and confessed to the crime. The woman’s son refuses to believe that the priest did it (because men of god don’t do bad things ever, right?), and now refuses to visit his mother in hospital.

This is utterly despicable, not only on the part of the so-called holy man who used his position to commit monstrous crimes; but also on the part of people who are so deluded religious leaders that they would rather be split from their families than believe that a man of god could have done something wrong.

When religion is concerned, it seems that everything suddenly becomes AWWRIGHT. Children dying because their parents refuse medical care – it’s AWWRIGHT! Families split because of religion – it’s AWWRIGHT! Science education messed up because of religion – it’s AWWRIGHT!

[appeaser-speak]What makes it AWWRIGHT, you ask? Why, because it is religion, of course! Religion should not be criticized because it is RELIGION, and we need to show some respect here. Respect religion because it is religion! Don’t you see the logic here? You might offend someone, and that is bad![/appeaser speak]

See the problem with that approach? When situations such as the above happen, most appeasers are quick to denounce the practice as ‘extremism’ and the like, without realizing that their actions then make them exactly like the so-called ‘militant atheists’ they abhor…because, we all know that speaking out against religion makes us militants.

Militants. Serious business.

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” —Romans 1:20

Creationists often claim that the ‘beauty of creation’ tells us something about the nature of their god; and that we atheists are ‘without excuse’ for not believing in god after looking at the world around us. The closet creationists, the IDists, also claim that such wonderful design in the universe is proof of a designer, which to them is the Christian god.

Now, let us take a look at a beautiful organism that must have been created by god. The evidence for special creation of this organism is so convincing that I am seriously doubting my acceptance of evolution.

This wonderful organism, Cymothoa exigua, simply must have been created by a loving creator! This cute little tongue-eating isopod causes degeneration of the tongue of its host fish, the rose snapper, Lutjanus guttatus, and it then attaches to the remaining tongue stub and floor of the fish’s mouth by hook-like pereopods. In this position the isopod acts as a replacement to the fish’s missing tongue, and in a marvel of god’s sheer ingenuity, gets the first opportunity to devour incoming meals.

Praise god for creating such a wonderful organism! Through this, we see that god loves parasites, is sadistic, might have been on pot, should not be messed around with, and…oh…according to Christians, must be worshiped. If you don’t worship this sadistic god, he will damn you to hell, and considering his amazing creations such as the above, this is a threat that we should seriously consider! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord for being a loving and sadistic god at the same time! Praise the Lord for giving us such awesome creatures that helps us marvel at the beauty of his creation!

Praise our Father in heaven, the loving Creator of gruesome organisms! Amen.

The things the girls were saying were pretty repulsive like “I’ve chosen a higher standard in my life” and “I wouldn’t want to bring anything unhealthy into my body.” That unhealthy thing, being a relationship that is toxic. They even went as far as to compare a bad relationship, where someone suffers because of a broken heart…to cancer. Yes. Cancer. I guess I’ve had the equivalent of cancer. How can someone learn to deal with pain, develop a mature attitude toward love and compare different men/women in the world without…”shopping around” so to speak. Having a broken heart is a part of life. It happens. And I find it pretty insulting that I am living a lower standard of life because I’ve chosen to have sex before marriage. That’s just rude. -_-

There is a long line of events that has to happen before that cherry can be popped. First the girl has to let the male meet their father. Their father has to approve of the male. They have to group date with other people. Then all those group dating have to group date with their parents. Then the male has to ask the girls father for their hand in marriage. Then finally, on the wedding day… after the “i do”s…they can have their first kiss. These girls don’t even kiss before marriage. Their first kiss is at the alter, before God, their father and their family… pledging themselves to one another. I don’t know about everyone else, but it took me a lot of kissing to perfect it all. I’d hate for my wedding day kiss to be that awkward first kiss.

Besides the fact that this all seems somewhat perverted, incestual and against basic biological urges,  I have a few other issues. The first in the notion that if a girl doesn’t have a father in her life, they she is going to be royally messed up as she’s growing up and when she is grown up. And more ridiculously, she won’t be able to form any sort of normal, healthy relationship. Most people know this, but for those who don’t, I was basically raised without a father. He died when I was 8, so my sister and I both didn’t have a father. …But guess what? I am in a normal, healthy, loving, nurturing and beautiful relationship. And my sister is too. I can see why not having a father figure in someones life might have them miss out on a few life experiences and might mess a few things up. However – the lack of a father does not lead to a slutty, mislead, screwed up young woman. And I’m sorry – but if I had to pledge my virginity to my father, that would mess me up in so many different ways than the loss of my father did.

I have some friends that took this purity vow.

Case one: she met a guy, dropped out of university 2 months later and married him within the next 6 months. They’re up for divorce after a year.

Case two: she met a guy and married him after 7 months and had 3 kids within the first 1/2 a year. she had to drop out of university and lives in poverty because niether of them can get a job.

Case three: they actually got pregnant before they were married and were thus ostracized from their church, family and circle of friends. her mother didn’t go to her wedding.

Case four: he met a young lady, and had to go on 5 dates with her father before he was allowed to take her on one date. again, they married within three months and divorced after less than 1.5 years.

My point – they get married too fast, they get confused, they get tangled up in this idea that for some reason because they’re not having sex in those first few months that it means they’ve gotten to know each other better than those who DO have sex…because instead of screwing they spend more time talking and getting to know one another. …But given the divorce rate that I’m seeing, rushing into marriage just to have sex isn’t really worth it. (or is it…? i guess it depends how much the wedding costs…)

These kids are getting married after dating for less than a year. They end up dropping out of university to start a family, but then get divorced after there is a kid involved so its hard to just go back to school and start your life where you left off. It’s scary.

And finally, the most screwed up thing that I heard on this documentary: if they date someone else, have sex with someone else or kiss someone else other than the person that they end up marrying it is cheating. It is breaking a 10 commandment – committing adultery. Because they are GOING to be married to that person in the future, they can’t kiss anyone else before they meet that person, because it would be cheating on the person they’ve never actually met and who may not actually exist – or who may be the person that they didn’t kiss and didn’t feel that incredibly “za za zoo” for. Sometimes an unexpected kiss can be the thing that opens your eyes to the beauty of a person.

But no, if you kiss another person, or love someone else before the one that you are destined to be with then you have given away parts of your heart. Parts of your heart that you can never get back, and thus when you get married and find “the one” you will be unable to give them all of your heart and all of your love because you’ve given some of it away already.

That is so. screwed. up. …And essentially what I would deem as child abuse, again. Fair enough that some of these girls are 18 – 25 years old. ..Fine. If they want to give the rights of their vagina to their father, let them. Its their loss. But there were girls as young as 4 – 12 at these things. Thats a scary age to be telling kids that by experimenting, dating and loving people before they are married is committing adultery and that they thus should pledge their life to their father. And let him be the one that she loves until he decides that shes met the right man. …ew.

Tuesday was a truly historic day. Not only did America elect its first African-American president, but it also decided to reject the policies of perhaps the worst US president in history and also the fear-baiting, irrelavent fringe-issue politics of John McCain and Sarah Palin. And while racism certainly isn’t dead in America, the election of Barack Obama at the very least sends a powerful symbol to the rest of the world that we have begun to move past the old race and culture wars of the 1960s. And while Obama may be far from perfect and we don’t necessarily agree with all his policies, there is no doubt that he is extraordinarily intelligent and curious – and given the far-right stoicism and domination of religious conservatives in government of the past 8 years that have run the country into the ground, there is no place to go but up.

Obviously the election of a black man is a huge unprecidented milestone, but other milestones were reached today for the nation and the Democratic Party. I will attempt to list them below:

• Barack Obama has won more votes than any other candidate for president in history. He also has won a greater percent of the popular vote than any other Democrat since 1964 and a greater percent of the popular vote than any candidate since 1988.
• The Obama-Biden ticket is the first Democratic ticket without a southerner on the ticket to win since 1944.
• Obama (or McCain for that matter) is the first president to have spent much of their childhood outside the country.
• Obama won Virginia and Indiana. The former is of course the capitol of the old Confederacy. The latter is the 7th most conservative state in the nation. Neither state has gone for a Democrat since 1964.
• Obama won North Carolina, a state that hasn’t gone for a Democrat since 1976.
• Obama won the greatest number of electoral votes of any candidate since 1996.
• Perhaps most importantly for Edger readers… Obama probably isn’t an atheist. But he has a multicultural as well as an interfaith family. His mother and father are atheists. He and Michelle are Christians (unless you ask Roy). His half-sister Maya is Buddhist. And his stepfather is Muslim. Hopefully this diversity will give us a President who is more inclusive of people of all beliefs rather than just someone who panders to the Religious Right.

Also, Obama won the popular vote by 53% to 46%, just as I had predicted. Furthermore, there is a good indication that the right-wing culture warriors are losing on the so-called “pro-life” issues -

• South Dakota defeated a draconian abortion bill 55% to 45%
• Colorado defeated a measure to define life as “the point of conception” 72% to 28%
• California rejected Proposition 4, a parental notification measure, 52% to 48%
• Michigan approved embryonic stem cell research 52% to 48%. They also approved medical marijuana by double digits.
• Washington approved a measure to allow euthanasia of terminally ill patients 57% to 42%

But not everything went well on November 4th. While all the anti-abortion measures were defeated, anti-gay marriage measures were also defeated across the nation. We still have a long way to go -

• Proposition 8 was passed 52% to 48%. Gay marriages are now banned in California according to its constitution, although homosexuals who have already married still are legally married… for now.
• A constitutional ban on gay marriage was passed in Arizona 56% to 44%
• A constitutional ban on gay marriage was passed in Florida 62% to 38%
• A measure to ban gay adoption was passed in Arkansas 57% to 41%

Proposition 8 Post-Mortem

Proposition 8 was the only aforementioned measure that had a good chance of failing. In fact, it was trailing by 17% in the polls at one point. However, there were several factors that helped get it passed -

• The Mormon Church. Say what you will about them, but they do have military-like precision, and they pumped enough money into the campaign to outspend the No on 8 people by a 2-to-1 margin. They also knew how to press peoples’ buttons. Rather than trying the measure as a civil rights issue, they falsely claimed that schools would be forced to impose the notion of homosexual marriage on young schoolchildren. They also falsely claimed that both Barack Obama and John McCain support Prop 8 (Obama opposes it)… but if you repeat a lie enough if becomes true.
• Ineptitude of the No on 8 Campaign. The No on 8 Campaign blew a 17 point lead and endorsements by Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Arnold Schwarzenegger by a lack of funds and a lack of organization. They only really got off the ground one week before the election when they finally decided to take money from the teachers’ and the nurses’ unions. And by then it was too late. They also did not exploit endorsements by the aforementioned – all of whom are popular politicians in CA – until the very end either.
• Old People. Young voters (those aged 18-29) overwhelmingly rejected Prop 8 62% to 38%. However, the 30-44 voting bloc split evenly on Prop 8, and those 45 years of age and older all voted for Prop 8 by significant margins.
• San Bernadino and Fresno Counties. They voted for Prop 8 by almost 40% margins. Can we kick them out? The 51 state can be called Dumbifornia.

All in all, I was very pleased with Tuesday’s results. I would trade 20 Proposition 8s for an Obama administration, perhaps even more.

What this theist refuses to acknowledge is that he is conveniently comparing apples and oranges. I do not deny that some atheists do bad things, as some Christians do. The difference is, for example, in the case of the Inquisition, murders and torture were condoned in the name of their religion and their god. Even if Stalin was a devout atheist, he did not commit his tyranny in the name of religion or because he claimed to defend reason. Stalin was simply a megalomaniac and a political opportunist. When was the last time you heard a terrorist act being done in the name of atheism or science and reason? When was the last tine a terrorist act was done in the name of a religion’s imaginary god?

Stalin was not motivated by atheism; if he was motivated by an “ism”, it was Communism. While communism is an ostensibly atheistic political philosophy, atheism is not inherently communistic. To restate that more clearly: communists are supposed to be atheists, but atheists do not have to be communists – no matter what your local evangelical tells you. The intent of the communist revolution was to eliminate capitalism, not religion.

An atheist doesn’t need to be a communist, but he/she doesn’t need neither to be a capitalist, an anarchist, a feudalist, or anything else. In fact, an atheist doesn’t also need to be a humanist. There are atheists that see humanism as a kind of ’speciesism’ against other biological organisms, and thus reject it. There are also anti-humanist atheists that do not think that every human being deserves respect simply for being human.

There are all kinds of atheists, politically, socially, economically, etc.

Moving on…

Although Stalin was an atheist, he was praised as a god in the Soviet Union and in all the official Communist Parties in the world.

An example:

“O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth.
Thou who fructifiest the earth.
Thou who restorest the centuries,
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical cords.
Thou, splendour of my spring,
O Thou, Sun reflected by millions of hearts …”
(Pravda, August 28, 1936.)

And another one:

“I would have compared him to a white mountain – but the mountain has a summit.
I would have compared him to the depths of the sea – but the sea has a bottom.
I would have compared him to the shining moon – but the moon shines at midnight, not at noon.
I would have compared him to the brilliant sun – but the sun radiates at noon, not at midnight.”
(Znamya, Soviet Authors’ Union Monthly, October 1946.)

Perhaps Stalin is a self-theist?

Also, the USSR didn’t reject religious doctrines out of some ‘rational analysis’, but because Marxist-Leninist doctrines called for it. It’s good to remember that unquestioned adherence to those doctrines drove them to reject real science (especially genetics) because, according to them, it contradicted orthodoxy and was therefore false. Ring a bell, theists?

The problem here isn’t Stalin and his supposed atheism. It is about unquestioning obedience to dogma, whatever that particular dogma may be. That is why religion is so dangerous, and this why theists need to wake the up.

Also: This particular theist has just lost the game.