Sim-O

From D-Notice:

From Daily Kos, on the on-going fallout from the passing of the homophobic Mormon-supported and funded Proposition 8 in California:

As you know, Mormons have a practice of converting dead people from other religions into Mormons through a practice known as posthumous baptism. Ordinarily, this might just seem a silly act of disrespect towards the individual’s personal beliefs and convictions.

However, the Mormons have made an overt effort to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims. That is not merely silly and disrespectful, that is superfluously offensive. An agreement between Jews and Mormons limited the practice thirteen years ago. But the Mormons returned to the practice recently.

Well, then of course, many of us rightly took offense for the heavy Mormon influence during the Prop 8 vote in California. Well, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I am converting dead Mormons into homosexuals.

My first Conversion is Joseph Smith.

That’s a fantastic idea!

No other argument against Obama can fundamentally change the way people feel about him deep down inside, EXCEPT, proof that precisely the way they feel about him deep down inside is because of Obama’s own deception and use of hidden hypnosis.

source

Laugh? I nearly shat!

Via

A City of London Reverend has suggested that gay people should have a health warning tattooed on their arses.
Apparently it was satirical.
BBC:

[The Rev Peter] Mullen said: “I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion.

“What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality.”

What I have against vicars is the militant preaching of religion especially around Christmas when you get stigmatised for being a miserable bastard (or you could say, seen through the bullshit), forced to endure fucking carol singers whenever a sortie into town is needed or encourage to give up something for lent or countless other occasions the god botherers use to shove the almighty down your throat.

I’m not exactly a fan of the Pride marches, myself. But if the organisers get the relevant permissions etc, go for it. I don’t need to shout about my heterosexuality, but then I’m not being told I’m not normal all the time. At least not because of my sexuality.

Via

I’ve just read this post by Dave Cross about the Royal Society’s ex-Director of Education, Michael Reiss , being labelled a creationist and hounded out of his position within the Royal Society because of his comments regarding the need for teachers to be given better training to be able to discuss and counter creationist arguments in the classroom.

And now, three weeks later, a national newspaper is calling him a creationist.

The article in question is this one by Harry Kroto. I didn’t read the article as, well I couldn’t be bothered really, but went straight to the comments.
That is where I found this little nugget of wisdom:
JK47 (a CiF commentor):

The plethora of more-or-less incompatible religious concepts that mankind has invented from Creationism and intelligent design to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Scientology, Hinduism, Shinto, Shamanism etc, are all basically indistinguishable, from the freethinkers perspective.

You forget Atheism, as it is also another concept of mankind (for how can it be a natural state?) that is also indistinguishable from all those ideologies. It has a militant belief that there is no God, an organised following and the acceptance of a set of values that cannot be questioned.

Wrong!
I do not who wrote the bit AJ47 is quoting but I don’t reckon atheism got forgotten.
Atheism is not a concept of mankind, it the natural state. God and everything that surrounds the myth of god is manmade. If believing in god was how the human mind starts off, then why do ‘we’ have to teach about religion? Why do we have to introduce the idea of a god or superior being to our offspring? Why do children have so much trouble grasping the idea of a being or beings (thousands in the case of Hinduism) that are everywhere, controlling everything yet cannot themselves be seen or heard? Why do children have so many questions when, if religion is so natural, it shoudl be an easy concept to pick up?

The natural state is to be inquisitive, to want to find out, learn more. About everything.
Religion is shut off to finding the truth, even if it proved god existed.

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. Q.E.D.”

“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

No matter how open or comfortable a particular brand of god is with science looking into atoms or buggering about with genes, there will always be a point where it will not go beyond. Not because of any reasoned arguement, although one may be put forward as a proxy or as well as, but because of dogma. Either because the holy book explicitly forbids it, or because it will insult god or because the men of cloth will lose their authority and their income. That will be it.
On the other hand, science will keep going. Every now and then a particular path of research may slow or stop for a little while because of the precautionary principle or the uncomfortable subject matter, but only until a compromise that is acceptable to both the scientists and the wider community on how to proceed is reached. The point is, nothing is taboo.

There are atheists that will catagorically state that god doesn’t exist, but what do they know? They are just the flip side to the religious people who catgorically state that there is. But most athiests, and that is pure conjecture as I have nothing to back it up, are of the ‘middle ground’, that they don’t believe in god, but if there was proof that god existed then they would accept it (what other option is there?).

The last bit of AJ47s’ comment is just complete rubbish, “an organised following” with a set of values “that cannot be questioned”.
What utter bollocks.
Where is this Church of the Unbeliever, where do we go to praise the microscope? How many people do you know that gather together on a weekly basis to sing songs of thanks to the LHC?
What is this set of values that all atheists’ adhere to? Are they listed somewhere? Who says atheists must follow them? The Grand Council of Atheists, I presume?
Questioning stuff is the whole point of atheism. Asking why, and not taking anyones word for it unless they have proof.

Of course, that is just my view, other atheist may differ. That’s the beauty of it.

Heresy Corner:

Creationism doesn’t come on its own. In that respect at least Michael Reiss was right: it’s part of an entire world view. It is merely one part of a much larger structure of fundamentalist belief. Belief in the literal truth of the Bible underpins it, of course: but so, too, does the whole scheme of salvation. Jesus died for the sins of mankind, goes the theory. This belief entails others: for example, that mankind is in a state of sin. Sin exists because of the Fall: Adam and Eve sinned, and that Original Sin has been transmitted to all succeeding generations. No Adam and Eve, no Garden of Eden, no Original Sin: no need for Jesus. Similarly with the “young earth”. Given that the creation, fall and redemption of man is (according to traditional doctrine) the whole point of the universe, then the idea that it is around 15 billion years old, whereas modern human beings have been around for about one hundred and fifty thousandth of that time, leads to problems of scale. Of course God, who can do all things, could have spent those billions of years twiddling his divine thumbs waiting for man to arrive; but contemplating the immensities of time and space tends to make the traditional religious narrative seem rather parochial.

Flat Earthers.

Believers that the Earth is flat. Not round, sorry spherical, but flat. Most don’t believe the bit about it being carried on the back of four elephants, on a turtle. That would be ridiculous.

What’s prompted this post was this article on the BBC site:

Mr Davis [a flat earther] now believes “the Earth is flat and horizontally infinite – it stretches horizontally forever”.

“And it is at least 9,000 kilometres deep”, he adds.

James McIntyre, a British-based moderator of a discussion website theflatearthsociety.org, has a slightly different take. “The Earth is, more or less, a disc,” he states. “Obviously it isn’t perfectly flat thanks to geological phenomena like hills and valleys. It is around 24,900 miles in diameter.

Mr Davis, is a 25 year old computer scientist, originally from Canada. Not that that has anything to do with it. But being a scientist Mr Davis is in the position to know good science when he sees it.
One Question Mr Davis: Does the Earth stretch to infinity (And Beyond!) in all directions or just left to right? Either way, how come one can go in a straight line and then end up where one started from, as apposed to never being seen again? If the Earth stretches too infinity (And Beyond!) in all horizontal directions, you do realize that it would create a barrier in the universe? Nothing would be able to get past us without making an almighty thump. Sorry that was more than one question.

Mr McIntyre. We’re not told what he does for a living. I have a picture of a gent that makes his own bitter, I don’t know why.
James McIntyre is what I would call a ‘moderate’ Flat Earther, compared to Mr Davis’ ‘radical’ flatness, thanks to the view that the Earth is round in one aspect, but flat in the other. The North pole is in the middle of the disc and the southern pole is aaaalll the way round the outside. Not so much a pole, more a ring.
Mr McIntyre: If the Earth is a flat disc, you should be able to see the edge and fly off the edge and take pictures and everything. It ain’t going to be hard in this day and age to get proof yerself without relying on the whispering government paid liars that are pretty much the whole of the worlds respectable scientific community.
Charter an aircraft and fly to the outer edges of the planet and have a peek, take some pictures, maybe even some video. Maybe then, maybe you might be taken seriously.
BTW: Make sure you take more than your poxy mobile phone to take the pictures and video with. You don’t want to be laughed at like them weird UFO people, do you?

Look at this, classic conspiracy theory logic

Q: “What is the motive behind this conspiracy?”

A: The motive is unknown although it is probably money

Q: “If you’re not sure about the motive, why do you say there is a conspiracy?”

A: Well it’s quite simple really; if the earth is in fact flat, then the governments must be lying when they say it isn’t.

That makes sense. If something is, and someone knowing what is is, says it isn’t, they are lying.
But why do these people say the Earth is flat?

Q: “The government could not pull off the conspiracy successfully”

A: Actually, they could.

The answer links to this post on the same forum where the poster reckons (by the accurate method of plucking figures out of his arse) it would take about $47,000,000 a year to keep the 45 key members of the conspiracy and a few ‘Ice Wall’ guards happy to keep the secret.

Q: “How are the world governments organized enough to carry out this conspiracy?”

A: They only appear to be disorganized to make the conspiracy seem implausible.

The US government couldn’t sort out Hurricane Katrina, never mind work with their nemesis, The Soviets, to keep everyone thinking we live on a ball, not a frisbee.

Q: Why hasn’t this site been shut down by the government?

A: Doing so would prove that the government is hiding something.

So they’re probably being watched though, to make sure they’re not gonna hurt themselves or others.

It’s great this place, have a look and a laugh.

[[image:jesusandmo-reply.jpg:Jesus and Mo:center:0]]

New York Times:

After asserting their right to annoy in defiance of a government ban, Australian protesters received Federal Court backing today. The court, in rejecting a recently adopted regulation against any acts of “annoyance” at an event headlined by Pope Benedict XVI, made this key ruling, according to The Sydney Morning Herald:

There was “no intelligible boundary” on what “causes annoyance”.

So one man’s irritant, as the saying goes, is another man’s principled opposition to Vatican policies on sex and women’s rights.

[[image:wedding_rings.png:Wedding rings:left:0]]BBC:

A marriage registrar was harassed for refusing to conduct same-sex ceremonies, a tribunal has ruled.

Lillian Ladele, who said the civil partnership ceremonies went against her Christian faith, hailed the decision as a “victory for religious liberty”.

The tribunal ruled that Miss Ladele was discriminated against on grounds of religious beliefs and was harassed.

Islington council said it was “disappointed” and was considering an appeal against the ruling

So, someone who doesn’t want to be discriminated against for her religious beliefs discriminates against a couple for their sexual orientation.
Bit of a quandry this one.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Google News[[image:women_bishops_vatican.jpg:Smug Vatican:center:0]]

Regret? My arse! Rattys’ rubbing his hands together with glee at the thought of all those traditional [bigotted] Christians running back to the ‘one true faith’.