Because The Holy Cee Is A Center Of Stupidity

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

I was raised Irish Catholic. Yes, I was once was a Papist bastard (though I couldn’t tell you any of the popes prior to Ratzinger). I did the whole holy communion, catechism, the whole schlemiel. I’m willing to bet that most atheists who were raised in a specific cult (yes CULT) likely despise their historical hogwash. As a result, when that veritable vacuousness that is the Vatican is mentioned, my lips curl in a sneer and my eyebrows furrow, and I try to be civil in my opinion of it, which is near impossible given my level of contempt for this ‘institution’.

Madness. Worshipping statues and crackers. Virgin birth. Unproven ‘miracles’. Complete folderol.

Which is why I get…irked, when I see shit like this:

Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity refuse to allow Indian orphans to be adopted by single or divorced parents

How many lives are injured by Catholic dogma, with the Church’s response that Dogma is Dogma, and All Will Be Set Right in the New Life? This one’s particularly noxious, as the policy of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity is dooming orphans to a life in state custody, and preventing them from getting forever homes.
According to The Catholic Herald, the Catholic News Agency, and The Telegraph, the Missionaries are closing down their adoption service after changes in Indian law that now allow single and divorced parents to adopt children. (Gays in India are still forbidden to adopt children—an odious law that should be changed NOW.) India recently streamlined its notoriously labyrinthine adoption laws because there is a huge backlog of orphans compared to people willing to adopt them via the old cumbersome process.
The closure of 30 adoption agencies means that the Missionaries prefer children to live on the street, or abide in government homes for destitute kids, than to find a home with a single parent. Why? Well, first, because single parents can’t provide “real love”. From the Catholic Herald:

    Maneka Gandhi, head of the Women and Child Development Ministry, said the Missionaries of Charity have “cited ideological issues” with the adoption guidelines and that “they do not want to come under a uniform secular agenda.”

    Sister Amala of Nirmala Shishu Bhawan, a New Delhi orphanage run by the Missionaries of Charity, said: “We have already shut our adoption services, because we believe our children may not receive real love. We do not wish to give children to single parents or divorced people.

    “It is not a religious rule but a human rule. Children need both parents, male and female. That is only natural, isn’t it?”

Yeah, moron, so is starving to death in the streets, getting killed by members of your own species, and dying by ingesting a ‘natural’ poison. Yeesh, these people get right under my fucking skin.

Because in the olden time, one parent died, they took the kid away. Wait, what? They didn’t? When parents get divorced, guess what? One of them has to take the child, not put it up for fucking adoption. It’s this sort of lopsided reason that is just plain idiotic.

And what is ‘real love’ anyways? Is it different from ‘fake love’? How so? Try pinning a religious person down on definitions, and watch the clumsy mental gyrations ensue. I’ll bet it takes either of those ‘sisters’ at least an hour to cough up a semi-ambiguous explanation that explains nothing at all.

These assholes fucked up the whole Western world with their presuppositionalist bullshit. And that manure, it’s gotta stop.

Just tired of Italian assholes dictating their weirdnesses to the world, and watching the flocks of sheeple showing their simian side by doing as they’re told.

Till the next post, then.

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The World I Want To Live In…

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Violence is the last resort of the failed argument, and the first resort of the coward. - Zen Proverb.

Let’s take a step back for a second, from the complaining and outrage, to get a better overview.

Recently, a Muslim poster from a couple of posts ago, accused me and/or this site (Oasis), of advocating murdering Muslims. This is untrue. The only times I advocate something like that, is when faced with the crazy assholes (of any religion) who go about blathering about how their version of their religion is hollering for genocide, slavery, ideocide, and how blood and fire is the only way to ‘cleanse’ an unclean world. These people (if they can be called that: there is a point where any human can abdicate from humanity) are a blight. A crazy-ass bloodlusting hairy-eyed fanatic is for the most part a rabid dog. I consider a member of ISIS or Boko Haram to be equal to that mad asshole Manson. Or McVeigh. Anyone who is willing to resort to violence to enforce their vision of the world on others, is bugfuck crazy. I don’t care if you hale from the Middle East or Minnesota, Arabia or Indiana. It’s not geographic, it’s not demographic. If I were handed a gun, and told to shoot Manson in the head, I’d do it. Probably without hesitation. ‘Cause that guy, he’s abdicated. He only looks human. This is neither a failed argument nor cowardice: some things just need to be done, regardless of how distasteful they are.

Certainly this falls under the purview of Hume’s Is/Ought guillotine – that is, my idea of a ‘perfect’ world is based on how mucked up this one is. It’s easy to preach reform, it’s harder to instate it.

Here then, is my idealized version of the world.

The world I want to live in….

Is free of mentally deranged individuals hiding under the umbrella of religion. (Yeah, likely impossible)

Is not based on payscale. Everyone gets free housing, food, medical care. Anything else, you gotta work for it.

Does not discriminate based on religion, or the lack of it.

Only gives free passes to the mentally and physically challenged (and even those should be limited: having Down’s Syndrome, for instance, is not a free pass to massacre people, any more than is someone’s religion).

Where everyone is equal, where everything is equitable. Where women and gays have equal rights, where someone’s belief doesn’t fuck up my (or anyone else’s) life that doesn’t believe likewise.

It’s too much to ask, I realize that. Our species, we’re pretty amazing critters when we’re not being idiots.

I hope that we’re drawing to the end of the Age Of Tribalism. That someday, people can live in peace not fear, where poverty is gone, and we as a species use reason as a tool, where being intellectual is acceptable and not a disease.

The old explanations are just that: old. We were born in sin, fucked up from the start, that’s a terrible justification. Who would do that to a child, let alone a nascent species, except some terrible psychopath with too much time on his (imaginary) hands.

I say there is no sin, only responsibility. We are responsible to and for one another. Because there is no Allah, Yahweh, Brahma, Jesus, or any other daft deity looking out for us. We are on our own. It is the weak mind that looks for external excuses or validation: there is no fate or destiny outside of what we forge for ourselves. We are like swords, our wills hammering out our purpose on the anvil of reality.

Remember this: we are alone, but not to each other. Be responsible. Be exceptional. Be good, be safe, but not at another’s expense if it can be helped.

But take no shit from anyone – because there’s limits to everything, even the universe. Prompt no harm, cause no harm, but don’t allow harm to come to you.

Till the next post then.

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Homophobes Gone Bonkers: Kim Davis Is Wagging The God (Whoops, I Mean Dog)

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Jesse Helms and Newt Gingrich were shaking hands congratulating themselves on the introduction of an antigay bill in Congress.  If it passes, they won't be able to shake hands, because it will then be illegal for a prick to touch an asshole.  ~Judy Carter

Up until now, I’ve kept my big yap shut about the latest ‘salvo’ from the religious right, mostly because it’s…well, sad and ridiculous.

It says a lot, however, about how damaged our society is, that anyone would cheer for some homophobe’s ‘belief’ rather than be outraged that such a two-faced hypocrite hasn’t been fired for her refusal to do her job.

And this latest little bit of news…well, it’s pathetic.

Kim Davis Sought Support From Lawmakers Months Before Marriage Equality Decision

If there is anyone left in the world who views the Kim Davis as a simple county clerk standing up to the might of the United States government for the love of God and the U.S. Constitution, this article should dispel those notions.

From Vice News:

Five months before the Supreme Court's landmark decision declaring same-sex marriage legal in all states, Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk in Kentucky who was jailed last month for defying a federal judge's order to issue same-sex marriage licenses, wrote to state lawmakers asking them to back legislation that would exempt her and other county clerks from having to grant anyone a marriage license.

Davis sent the letter to legislators about two weeks after she took office. In it, she sought support for "possible" legislation "that would give county clerks the option to exempt themselves" from issuing marriage licenses. She wanted clerks to have the option to not only refuse licenses to same-sex couples, but to refuse them to "all parties, as to not discriminate anyone."...

"I can not ask my deputies to issue or be a party to 'the implementation of a contentious societal philosophy change' (per Florida clerk with same views) if I myself would not," the 49-year-old county clerk wrote to dozens of lawmakers. "I know the deadline is close for presentation of bills on the floor, but in light of the Supreme Court's decision to look at this in April, I feel it imparitive [sic] that we be ready to stand with our uncompromising convictions, holding strong to our morals."

Davis' communications prove that not only was her protest premeditated, she was aware of the possibility that she might have to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples before she took the job. She spent the months leading up to the marriage equality decision gathering support from lawmakers for her push against Gov. Steven Beshear and her own constituents. When she didn't get what she wanted as quickly as she wanted it, she took the nuclear option of unilaterally denying people marriage licenses. We've all seen the fallout of that.

In addition, Davis asked lawmakers for a clear exemption to deny anyone a marriage license, whether they were part of a same-sex couple or otherwise. This is not a "reasonable accommodation", this is a carte blanche for a civil servant to not do one of the key aspects of her job while still pulling down a hefty salary.

This is not a story of David and Goliath. This is a low-rent House of Cards meets reality TV culture in which political machinations are used to make a nationwide spectacle.

It’s enough to turn anyone into a hardened, jaded cynic. The entire event orchestrated well in advance, cloaked to look like a spontaneous ejaculation of faith.

I suppose Christians have to have it that way, but there are better means of foreplay, self or otherwise.

Oh, and the bunch of them plagiarists:

Survivor Condemn Mike Huckabee, Kim Davis for 'Eye of the Tiger' Usage

So they stole a popular song that WAS NOT public domain (them thar Fox viewers, ain’t none too keen on doing homework), and they bore false witness.

They broke their own rules. Wish that was shocking. But, putting impossible constraints on human nature, that is what the religious do.

Yeesh. Some salvo. More like a sprinkler. And it doesn’t help that Davis actually lied about her meeting with the Pope.

People shouldn’t make rules they can’t keep. How does this keep escaping them? All this does is confirm something I already knew: that intelligence is most definitely NOT a criterion in natural selection.

Till the next post, then.

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More On The Madness Of Muslims: Who Cares Where The Beef Is

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

It’s a sad day in the 21st century, when something this ridiculous and trite leads to tragedy:

Muslim man beaten to death over rumours he had eaten beef in India

Mohammad Akhlaq was attacked by around 100 people and despite being taken to hospital, police said "his life could not be saved"

A 50-year-old Muslim man was beaten to death over rumours he had eaten beef, a taboo in India, a Hindu-majority nation.

Mohammad Akhlaq was dragged from his house on the outskirts of the capital and attacked by around 100 people on Monday night, a police officer told AFP.

"When our team reached the spot a crowd was there outside his house. They (police) managed to rescue him and take him to the hospital, but his life could not be saved," said senior police superintendent Kiran S.

Indian police said on Wednesday they had arrested six people and "deployed additional personnel to contain any further repercussions".

Mr Akhlaq's 22-year-old son was also seriously injured in the attack and was in intensive care at a nearby hospital.

Killing cows is banned in many states of India, a majority-Hindu country that also has sizeable Muslim, Christian and Buddhist minorities.

In March, the state of Maharashtra toughened its ban to make even possessing beef illegal, a move seen by religious minorities as a sign of the growing power of hardline Hindus since nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi came to power.

The rumours that the family had eaten beef began when a calf was reported missing in Dadri village, 22 miles from New Delhi.

"An announcement about the family consuming beef was made at a temple, after which the mob descended on the man's house," said Kiran.

The Indian Express quoted Mr Akhlaq's daughter Sajida as saying the family had mutton in the fridge and not beef.

"They accused us of keeping cow meat, broke down our doors and started beating my father and brother. My father was dragged outside and beaten with bricks," she told the daily.

Horrible. Wish it was unbelievable but over the last decade of watching religious crazies do all sorts of maniacal acts, this is not exclusive to Islam. Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, the list goes on. The vast collective cognitive dissonance of our species may very well cost us our existence. The hairy-eyed psychopaths, the imams, the priests, the ministers, are going to lead us to another extinction event, and all because none of them can agree on an epistemology or an afterlife.

And all of them seem to lust for blood and fire, to purge the other, twisted tribalism declaring supremacy and demanding subjugation.

I for one will never submit. Fear is their weapon – I will not live in fear. Intimidation is their tool – I will not be intimidated. Terror is their objective – I skin my teeth back and growl at it.

I am infidel. I am kafir. And proud of it. There is no afterlife. So I will live this one as it is all we have.  And all the charlatans of history shall not convince me otherwise.

Till the next post then.

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