Charles Darwin is EVIL!

Well, I was on YouTube, and I came across an absolute gem.  It is another clip from the show where the bigot/sexist/homophobe/racist, Pat Robertson was on – The 700 club (it’s called that because it only has 700 viewers).  Here, he is talking about Charles Darwin!  Well, I came across that, and I knew that this was going to be worth checking out.  So, with that in mind, here is what Pat Robertson had to say about Darwin.

The founder of the theory of whate is called “evolution,” Charles Darwin, was born 200 years ago today.

That’s cool!  Happy Darwin day!  May you all enjoy the fruits of what a brilliant scientific mind has given us.  Okay Pat, you’ve made me happy.  Continue.

That means everything, from birthday parties to concerts are taking place worldwide.  Sponsored mostly by atheists.

Well, maybe I was wrong!  Maybe he is going to be talking about how this is a good thing.  I gotta say, I was expecting him to open up with a bunch of anger and bigotry.  But here he is being civil.  That makes me happy.  I might just take back some of the mean things I’ve said about him.

Reporter Gailon Totheroh brings us this look at Darwin Day.

If you open the link above, you’ll see that this guy can’t pronounce names.  Nice work.  Sorry Pat, what does he have to say?

 The bicenntenial events highlight the work done by Darwin.  You’ll find Darwin in a party hat, Darwin T-Shirts, even clocks with his face.

This is so pleasant!  I really think Pat Robertson may have come back around.

Now it’s a worldwide celebration.  

What?  It’s cool, yeah, but not something I hear much about.  The different speakers will have different color text.  That is John West, the author of Darwin Day in America.

For some people now it’s like Christmas for atheists.  That they sing holiday songs.  Sometimes mocking Christmas songs.

Again, what?  Yeah, because nothing shows respect to Darwin like mocking Christmas carols.  Okay, this is very strange.  The reporter goes on to talk about how there is all this “speculation” about the Theory of Evolution, with no evidence to back it up.  Really?!  No evidence at all?!  Yeah, because the theory of “Intelligent Design” (if only it was) has so much evidence to back it up too, right?

Wells rejects Darwinism, with its randomness and unguided processes, in favor of “Intelligent Design.”   

Uh, what?  Randomness and unguided processes?  Where the hell did that come into the picture?  And better question, why should that matter?  And Wells (biologist) talked about how there is no proof for evolution (except all the mountains of evidence that we have).  So, Intelligent Design has more, right?

Fact: There is absolutely NO evidence that shows that the universe was created by a supreme being.  One big theory that was recently debunked was “irreducible complexity.”  The idea that something is so complicated that it could not have evolved.  To date, there have been NO proven examples of irreducible complexity.

 Scientist Stephen Meyer says plenty of that evidence in the detailed complexity of all life.

Oh, go figure!  I get to debunk a theory of irreducible complexity!   Alright, Meyer, hit me with your best shot.

And what we know from experience, from our uniform and repeated experience, which is the basis for all scientific reasoning.

Stop!  Dumbass alert!  The basis for all scientific reasoning is the Scientific Method.  The idea that you create a hypothesis, test it, and then arrive at conclusions based on the tests.  So, this isn’t a good way to open one’s case.

Is that those forms of technology, information technology, informational coding, invariably arise from one and one only type of cause.  And that cause is intelligence.

Sigh…here I was hoping that I was going to get a good argument.  This man said nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  For real, not one cogent argument was made in that whole diatripe of bullshit.

Still, scientific documentaries persist in speculations portrayed as evidence.

Yeah, because that Bible thing of yours has so much proof, right?  Never mind, it’s NOT SPECULATION, Dumbass!  We have plenty of empirical evidence.  It’s religion that has no proof.  Now, I am not going to post what Pat (The bigot) Robertson’s response was, because he agreed with this idiot reporter who clearly only looked for one side of the story.

I get tired sometimes of having to listen to religious people try and justify their stupidity.  This little report was just one of a million documents that try and prove that evolution is a lie.  It’s pathetic, really pathetic.  The fact is that it is proven, absolutely proven.  It is still called a theory because, as all good scientists do, they are willing to be proven wrong.  There can be laws of physics, but there cannot be laws of biology.  Therefore, we only call evolution a “Theory” because we are open, every single day, to being proven wrong.

Richard Dawkins recently talked about his new book, and he said, flat-out, that it would be so easy to disprove evolution, but it hasn’t been.  The geographic distribution hasn’t been disproven.  Fossil evidence hasn’t been disproven.  The universal genetic code has also never been disproven.

Now, I will say that there are plenty of Christians who believe in the theory of evolution, and I am not making this post attacking you.  Who I am attacking is the people who NEED for it to be false.  They will argue, tooth and claw, that it is false, because if it is true, then their entire belief system is called into question, and if that happens, then they have to actually do something that so few Christians like to do – think.

That’s the real crime – ignorance.  God is a force of ignorance in this world.  He is a force that says that you have to do what he says.  To hell with asking why, you just have to do.  No need for that excessive thinking.  That’s just wrong.

I have said it before, I’ll say it again – atheism is the perspective of cosmic humility.  People like me are more humble than you Christians could ever hope to be.  We accept that we can be proven wrong.  Christians, you won’t accept it.  Science is disproving your beliefs, all the time, but you will stand like a child in the mall, stamping your foot because you didn’t get your way.

Grow the fuck up!

Happy Darwin Day, everybody.

Until next time, a quote,

“‘The finely-tuned universe’ argument.  Okay, this has already been addressed, numerous times.  There’s an entire chapter in The God Delusion that addresses this.”  -TJ Kincaid, GOD IS REAL(ly an antiquated social construct that must be eschewed in the name of socal progress) 

Peace out,

Maverick

Is There Morality Without God?

That is kind of the key question that a lot of theists come at atheists like myself with.  Is there a form of morality that exists without a supreme being to back it up.  One of the big thing that Christians seem to like is the fact that goodness is rewarded, while evil is punished.  They applaud this system as being so wise, while the rest of us secular people have absolutely no system by which we can claim we get our morality from.  This is a debate which has had many great minds weigh in on.  Here is my position -

I told my best friend Emily that I believe that I have no moral code.  I do not follow any particular code, because I don’t believe in having a code to follow.  I told her that my ability to empathize, and gut-feelings tend to guide my decision-making processes.  With this in mind, I believe that I do not have a moral code.  She contends that I do, because, while I don’t actively accept my system of deciding what is right and what is wrong as a moral code, it is all the same.

I respectfully disagree.  I get where she is coming from, but I think that a moral code must be something perceived, understood, written down.  For people like me, who generally don’t think too much about the moral implications, just operating on my ability to empathize, it falls a little flat.  What I understand about morals are that they are units of measurement, usually with two settings – right and wrong.  I totally discard that off-hand, because morally gray is such a vast area, as I have come to understand.

My views on morals is that they are guidelines.  Morality is a system of guidelines.  These guidelines are usually cultural, though there may be some slight differences for each person.  They can also be faith-based.  But the fact is that these guidelines tell you how to act.

Think about this – do morals stop you from doing bad things?  How many times have people done horrible things in the name of God?  How many massacres have been done in God’s name?  A lot of people look at Islam and talk about how violent their culture is, and there is a cogent argument to be made there, but think about this – what about all the horrible things that have been done by Christians?  Hitler did all of his killings in the name of God.  The Spanish Inquisition was a Christian undertaking.  Charlemagne killed 2,500 people for refusing to convert to Christianity.  This was all done in the name of their God.  A lot of people will say that their actions were justified.  Many will also say that they were horribly immoral.  The line that draws what is right and what is wrong is where?

The fact is that having moral precepts has never stopped anybody from doing anything.  Murder has gone on in the name of God.  Bigotry has gone on in the name of God.  Moral codes often validate these forms of activities that many would find unacceptable.  In the Hindu cultures, it is considered wrong to console somebody who is suffering, because they earned that suffering for their actions in a previous life.  According to Mormon morals, if somebody leaves the church, you are supposed to shun them, and disown them.  The same can be said for a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  These are moral values that guide the actions of somebody.

I live a life where I have no moral compass guiding my actions.  I follow my ability to empathize when it comes to internal debates about what is right and what is wrong.  I genuinely believe that it is better to be empathetic than to be moral, because it is clear that morality can be subversive to society, degrading, destructive, and oppressive.

That brings me to my next point – morality is ALWAYS a system of control, always.  Think about this – in wolf packs, there is an Alpha male and female.  They control the actions of the pack.  They are very quick to crack down upon behaviors that they don’t like.  Take a look at a moral system.  These systems are dictated and led by figures of authority.  The secular system that this country has is led by figures of authority.  The religious systems like Catholicism are lead by figures of authority.  Every single system of morality comes from a place of power, and is given to those without power, to get them to behave in a way that they see as correct.

Examining that critically, the fact is that morality has absolutely nothing to do with how you treat others.  It is a system that is given to mankind by those who want to have power over them.  Richard Dawkins believes that morality came from the natural urge to group together.  His idea has no basis in reality because his theory only pertains to altruistic behaviors.  But it is very clear that what humanity does goes well-beyond altruism.

The fact is that the true concept of morality is nothing more than a way for those with power to control those without it.  So I disagree with Emily.  I get where she is coming from, but the way I perceive what morality actually is inspires me to disagree.

So, can there be morality without God?  Well, that’s pretty easy – yes.  There already is.  Morals that came from God are just systems of control.  The systems that gave morals to the cultures that arose before Christianity were just as prevalent, and just as real.  Morality existed long before the Christian God, and it will continue long after.  It will continue as long as there are those in power who want to control other people.

That’s the ultimate truth – belief in God is nothing more than a system of control.  All the decent things that people do are the result of our ability to empathize, what I do every single day.  God doesn’t add any morals to the mix that don’t or haven’t already existed.  His system is no better than any other system.  But empathy, and trying to be empathetic, that is really doing good for the human race.  That is really the ultimate truth – if we want to really progress as a culture, ALL forms of morality need to go.  We have to embrace empathy.

Morality, Christian and otherwise, has exploited the best and the worst of all of us, and this is what I believe we need to do to be free of it.  Freedom, true freedom, comes from not following a system that tells you exactly how you should feel, and instead follow your ability to empathize.  For those who can’t, like sociopaths or those with Asperger’s Syndrome, well, that’s too bad.

Get rid of morality, ged rid of religion.  Embrace empathy.  Religion does nothing good for society, and morality is nothing more than a means to control people.  That’s my opinion, anyway.

Until next time, a quote,

“Morality, which has convinced even brilliant men like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris that it is here to help, when it is only here to strengthen our chains of bondage.”  -TJ Kincaid, The End of Morality and The Anarchy Of The Soul

Peace out,

Maverick

Don’t Like Bigots? Then You Must be with Hitler!

There is a growing paradigm in this country that is actually a little bit disturbing for me to see.  I have been viewing it for some time in the public forums and it is honestly a little bit off-putting and off-pissing.  It is becoming so commonplace in modern society that people are not even noticing and getting as offended as they should be.  Really, it is becoming so widely used that history is becoming nothing but a joke.  This is dangerous because people need to understand about real history.  They don’t need Christian bigots and right-wing morons giving them deliberately bad information in order to get people’s fear going.  The new target paradigm for people those groups don’t like – Hitler and the Nazis.

Now, here is a bit of real history – Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German who became the leader of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, which is known in modern vernacular as the Nazi Party.  It is the horror of what the Nazi Party did during their reign that has been one of the big talking points of people who are against socialism, which is a huge logical fallacy, but we’ll get into that later.  Hitler was a devout Roman Catholic.  He believed what he did was for God.

Now, a lot of people believed that Hitler had a very cozy relationship with the Pope, Pius XII, but there is also some data that shows Pius didn’t see eye-to-eye with him.  I will choose not to voice and opinion because there is too much data that contradicts itself.  Besides, some Catholics get their panties in a bunch when you do that.  Of course, we’ll get into it later about how the Catholics have no reason to get on anybody’s case, ever, about the views of Adolf Hitler.

But back to history, Hitler began his Party as a grassroots movement.  All fascism starts as a grassroots movement (don’t tell that to the Tea Party, eh?).  They quickly came into power after the Great Depression.  In 1934, he came into total power as the Fuhrer.  Using his power he did atrocities all over the world.  Some estimates put him at killing 17 million civilians, over 6 million Jews, and half a million Romani people.  That is who the man really was.  He was a monster who killed, destroyed, and had no regard for human life in any significant way.  His way of thinking didn’t die with him, and this is a tragedy that should be mourned by everybody.

But now the new paradigm that people think is perfectly acceptable is to have groups that they don’t agree with compared to the Nazis and Hitler.  Every example that has come up is tragic and the people who makes these examples are nothing but scum.  Not one of them is a worthwhile person in any way.  The first example that I am going to bring up is when Pope Benedict (or as TJ calls him, Been-a-dick) decided to link Atheism to Nazis.

Even in our own lifetimes we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.  As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and
thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny.”

Yup, apparently, all the muder that Hitler did was because he was an atheist.  This is an issue that makes me question Pius XII and his unsettlingly cozy relationship with the Nazis.  When somebody goes out of their way to make the point that a group they don’t like is like a group who has some evidence of being too cozy with them, that doesn’t bode well to me for the point that they weren’t friends.

Now, I know that all Catholics don’t think like this guy.  I know plenty of Catholics who didn’t like that statement and severely disagreeded with his sentiments.  But this is offensive becuase, as Richard Dawkins also commented on, it diverts attention away from the fact that Hitler did what he did in the name of the Catholic church.  He killed so many people because he wanted to, and his faith did guide him.  So that is probably the most extreme, but certainly no the last example.

It is easy to forget now that he is gone and nobody gives a shit about him all the comparisons that Lonesome Rhodes Beck made between the liberals and Nazis.  It is kind of amusing how Lewis Black said that he has “Nazi Tourrettes.”  Beck would go on and on and on about how everything Obama did was like Hitler, how the liberals were all like Nazis, and the Tea Party movement that gathered around him was quick to pick up the slack and go on and on and have sign after sign about how Obama is Hitler.  Yes, the President, the democratically elected president of this country is a Nazi.  And why is he a Nazi?  Because he wants free healthcare.  Yeah, that so seems like something that Nazis were all about.

And the bigotry keeps going.  Bryan Fischer, a very good friend of a group that is funding Rick Perry’s little shindig that is going to be happening on August 6th, had a thought about who the Nazis are.  His belief is that the Nazis were gay.  Yes, if you are gay, you are just like the Nazis.  He believes that the Nazi Party began in a gay bar.  Yeah, because the Nazis were very cool with gay people too, right?  Wrong, you bigoted dumbass!  The LGBT community were also victims of the Holocaust.  It is unclear how many were killed in the concentration camps, but they were also struck down by the Nazi regime.  But of course, no point telling Bryan Fischer that.  He doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together, so it is pointless to try.  Here is Bryan Fischer’s quote about being gay and being a Nazi -

The Nazi Party was formed, ladies and gentleman, in a gay bar, and historians agree.  Hitler’s earlies enforcers, the stormtroopers, the brown shirts, were almost, without exception, homosexuals.”

And my final example was brought to my attention today from a person I had heard a little bit about, but had never looked into in a significant way until now.  There is a woman named Pamela Geller.  This woman is the worst kind of bigot.  Her bigotry knows no limits and she never has a problem making her voice heard.  There are Republicans who think she is attractive, but I am with Coughlin when I think that she looks more like the Crypt Keeper.  In any case, she believes that the reason that the Nazis exist is because of Muslims existing.

These people are all scum, each and every one of them.  Given all the crimes that the Catholic church has been involved in, like thed Spanish Inquisition, witch burnings, the Crusades, and the list goes on and on, they have no right to ever lecture anybody about how one group is better than another, morally speaking.  And for those who point to Hitler and talk about evil socialism, you think all socialism is like this?  If you do, you’re an idiot.  Guilt by association, very classy.  But the fact that people find it so easy to ignore history is even worse because people who have actually done horrible things are now being misrepresented and when people start to forget real history, they are even more doomed to repeat it.

Until next time, a quote,

“Even if Hitler had been an atheist, as Stalin most surely was, how DARE Ratzinger suggest that atheism has any connection whatsoever with their horrific deeds!”  -Richard Dawkins, a rally protesting the Pope in England

Peace out,

Maverick