Happy Blasphemy Day!

Jesus Christ, it’s my first Blasphemy Day as  an atheist!

Although technically, when you’re an atheist every day is blasphemy day! The spirit of the day is to push the idea that religion should not be above criticism. All ideas should be criticized, and religion shouldn’t be exempt from this, especially since it permeates almost every part of society.

I was thinking that I would celebrate by posting all kinds of blasphemous images and phrases, jokes poking fun at religion, etc. But what would that accomplish? Protesting the idea of blasphemy shouldn’t be about mudslinging, it should be about eliminating the protective shielding that people have put around faith. So instead I’ll just briefly summarize my world view, which is in itself blasphemous.

I believe that all religions are fairy tales made up to comfort people and to provide easy answers to tough questions that haven’t yet been answered by science. Faith is not a virtue, and will not lead us to any truth. I have seen no evidence that would lead me to believe that there is a god, but if there is one then he’s either a huge jerk or an incompetent idiot. A god is not a prerequisite to finding beauty and meaning in life, and as I see it, life, the universe, and everything is more incredible when you don’t give credit to a sky fairy for popping it into existence. I’m thankful for every second I have of this life, because once it’s over, it’s either over or I’m going to hell for not worshiping an egotistical, jealous maniac who lives in the clouds.

The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas

I just heard about this book today, and it sounds fantastic!

Ariane Sherine: "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life"

Ariane Sherine, the brains behind the atheist bus ads, has compiled a collection of musings on Christmas from 42 atheists. I think that the holiday season is somewhat of an awkward time of year for atheists because there’s so much religion involved.

I’ve always loved Christmas, and even when I was a Christian I found that it was more about spending time with family and decorating the house than that pesky midnight mass. Now that I no longer have any reason or desire to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, I just want to enjoy the season for what it is: excess, family time, and an excuse to party! Tom Flynn has been making me feel guilty about enjoying this holiday, so I’m looking forward to hearing thoughts from other atheists on what Christmas means to them.

This Christmas will be an especially difficult time for me as my parents announced very recently that they are splitting up. So this book is coming at the right time, and it provide a welcome distraction.

Half of the profits from sales of this book will be going towards the Terrence Higgins Trust, a UK HIV charity. Said Sherine:

“Given some of the comments the Pope made earlier this year about condoms and Aids, we thought it was appropriate,”

Kentucky Bigfoot Photo Debunked

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a so-called Bigfoot photo that had been taken in Kentucky.

I agreed with someone’s idea that it was probably a bird that set off the motion camera, and now this video has been made showing that this is probably the case.

Ray Comfort Compares Himself to Oskar Schindler

Bananaman Ray Comfort has cooked up his most recent scheme as an attempt to brainwash students into thinking that creationism is a legitimate alternative to evolution before they start their education. He is concerned that too many students lose their faith in the course of their university education…is that supposed to be a bad thing?

So Comfort has defecated on inserted his own introduction into Darwin’s On The Origin of Species containing all of his made up crap arguments about why evolution is wrong, and he’s giving away free copies on university campuses on November 24th.

He obviously thinks that this is some noble cause and that he’s going to be saving lives (or, I suppose, souls) by doing this as evidenced by his words in the September 22nd Way of the Master newsletter:

Recently, I watched a (clean) version of the movie, “Schindler’s List.” Schindler used his wealth to purchase 1500 Jews from Nazi death camps. At the end of the movie, he broke down in tears because he wasted much of his wealth on vanities, and said, “I could have saved more!”

I can’t help but think of this when it comes to what we are doing.

He then goes on to brag about how he’s giving $10,000 of his own money to the project and to ask people to donate their time and money to this deceitful venture.

Get over yourself Ray Comfort. Oskar Schindler was actually saving lives. What he did was dangerous and helped people, and it’s an insult to Schindler to pretend that Comfort’s mission is in any way comparable to someone who risked their life to help others. All the bananaman is doing is lying to students about science and hoping that some of them are gullible enough to believe him.

PS: I’m disturbed by the idea of a “clean” version of Schindler’s List. In my opinion if you’re going to watch a movie about the Holocaust it should disgust you, anger you, and freak you out.

I wonder if Comfort reads a “clean” version of the Bible…

Water on the Moon

The big space news in the last couple of days has been the discovery of water on the surface of the moon, which I think is pretty freaking cool:

NASA scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the Moon. Instruments aboard three separate spacecraft revealed water molecules in amounts that are greater than predicted, but still relatively small. Hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, also was found in the lunar soil. The findings were published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Science.

People are saying that this makes colonizing the Moon more of a possibility because we would be able to mine the water, but it doesn’t seem to me that there’s all that much of it:

“The data from Cassini’s VIMS instrument and M³ closely agree,” said Roger Clark, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist in Denver and member of both the VIMS and M³ teams. “We see both water and hydroxyl. While the abundances are not precisely known, as much as 1,000 water molecule parts-per-million could be in the lunar soil. To put that into perspective, if you harvested one ton of the top layer of the Moon’s surface, you could get as much as 32 ounces of water.”

Maybe it’s enough, obviously I don’t know much about what the needs of a moon base would be, but I think this discovery is really awesome even if it makes the return of people to the moon just that much more within reach.

Parents

So two days ago I found out that my parents are splitting up, and it’s so shitty. I never thought that I’d be going through this as an adult.

On Tuesday I got home from work and I got a phone call from my dad saying that him and my mom wanted to have a family meeting with my siblings and I. He wouldn’t give details so we all got there as soon as we could.

My parents each read a letter to us that they had written about why they’re separating, and then it was just silence and tears for awhile. It was so awkward. What do you say?

Anyways I’m pretty emotionally drained right now and I don’t have the energy right now to go into things, but this is just an excuse for why I may not be around as much in the next little while.

Psychic Didn’t See It Coming?

This isn’t really a funny story, but I admit I let out a little chuckle when I read that one of the occupants of this building was a psychic:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Firefighters were called to the scene of building fire on Monday afternoon.

The building located near Mathewson Street started on the second floor. Officials say that is where renovations are being done. The fire quickly spread to third floor.

Businesses on the first floor of the building including a convenience store and psychic have suffered significant water damage.

About 50 firefighters were called in to help fight the blaze. No one was injured in the fire. Officials are still trying to determine the exact cause.

Do you think they’ll start doubting their psychic powers? Hopefully, now they can go and get a proper job. Unless they did predict the fire, in which case they should apply for the million dollar challenge.

Contact Page Added

FYI I have added a contact page to my blog (Here) so that you can send me any stories that you might think are of interest to me or this blog, or subscribe me to any newsletters that you think are relevant.

I said it there, but I’ll repeat it here: If you send me any emails containing threats of violence I will post your full name and contact information.

What’s With The Google Alien Doodles?

First there was this one:

And now…

Anyone know?

I Had a Religious Experience

…But it didn’t involve any gods. It did, however, involve more than one Gord.

On Thursday night I went to a Tragically Hip show, and it was amazing. Who needs Church when you have rock and roll? I jumped, I danced, I sang, and it was all for something real and something that improves my life in tangible ways: great music.

Gord Downie

The Tragically Hip

Preach!

The beautiful lull, the dangerous tug
We get to feel small from high up above
And after a glimpse over the top
The rest of the world becomes a gift shop

The pendulum swings for the horse like a man
Out over the rim is ice cream to him
The beautiful lull, the dangerous tug
we get to feel small but not out of place at all

We’re forced to bed but we’re free to dream
All us human extras, all us herded beings
And after a glimpse over the top
The rest of the world becomes a gift shop

I don’t know what to believe, sometimes I even forget
And if it’s a lie, terrorists made me say it
The beautiful lull, the dangerous tug
We get to feel small from high up above
From high up above