Pope visits Africa, reaffirms ban on condoms – CNN.com

Pope visits Africa, reaffirms ban on condoms – CNN.com.

Can you believe this?  In sub-Saharan Africa, the Pope had the balls to assert that condom use was somehow sinful?  OK, so let the whole colony die of AIDS.  I suppose its OK if they pray the rosary, say their hail marys and our fathers, and get sprinkled with some holy water.  I wonder if all the pedophile priests also follow the condom ban.

Are these guys this out of touch?  Are they this clueless?

Why is Benedict’s assertion any different than the Jihadists saying “go kill someone.”  After all, he’s telling an infected population to infect each other.

Oh, I forgot – we’re humans and we’re smarter than that.  That’s because the catholic church taught us that fucking is bad… that our urges – the same as any other mammal, reptile, bird, fish or fucking amoeba – are somehow wrong.

Religion is poison – drink from it and you’ll die an untimely death… and still wind up in the same cold, cold ground that I will.  Benedict is an idiot.  Period.

America Is Becoming Less Christian, Less Religious

ABC News: America Is Becoming Less Christian, Less Religious.

I know that some will think that this is a shame but I, for one, am celebrating the good news!  Maybe religion will, once and for all, get out of our laboratories and schools.

Why is this happening?  I can venture a guess.  Unlike past crises, where the holy could easily blame the secular for the trials and tribulations, this crisis came of age during a religious renaissance (fundamentalism in all religions has grown dramatically over the past 30 years).  Clearly, becoming more holy didn’t avert the crisis – in many ways it may have made it worse.

There are religious wars all over the world right now.  In past years, the religious wars tended to happen in minor states that, frankly, no one cared about.  But now, the US is involved in one – our Crusade against radical Islam.  And, gee, religious wars kill just as many, cost just as much (maybe even more)  and are just as horrific as secular ones.

So its no wonder that, this time, we’re turning our back on orthodoxy.  It’s about time!

Let’s Apply Scientific Principals to Religion!

Now that we seem to finally peeling the cold, dead hands of religion away from Science (see Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics), I have a suggestion.

Let’s apply science to religion for a while and see what we find out.

• Water to wine?  Fail.
• Bread to flesh?  Fail.
• Tongues? No – Gibberish.  Fail.
• Voodoo Dolls?  Fail.
• Jihad?  No, suicide silly.  Fail.
• Shabbas goy?  Jeeze… Fail.
• No work on Shabbas?  Instead, the elevator stops itself?  Fail.

Turns out that most religious bullsh*t doesn’t stand the test of science any better than science stands the test of religion.  But…

• If I want to get to the moon next week, I’m voting for science.
• If I want my cancer cured, I’m voting for science.
• If I want to win a war, I’m voting for science.
• If I want someone to read this post, I’m voting for science.

Me, I’ll put my faith in something that shows results, not something that shows intolerance, stupidity and lies.

Science Wins.

Catholic Church Excommunicates 9 Yr Old Who Had Abortion But Not The Father That Raped Her

Religion really is a sick phenomenon… I hope she gave the cardinals the finger…

And to anyone who says “its not the religion, its the people in it,” I ask the question – what else is religion but the people in it?

Catholic Church Excommunicates 9 Yr Old Who Had Abortion But Not The Father That Raped Her.

Jesus the mean

Southern christians, in their own eyes carrying out the lords work, call into question the whole concept of Jesus. If they are, in fact, following jesus, then jesus must have been a pretty mean-spirited, nasty guy.

After all, that is the way that southern christians act. Fortunately, if they’re right that the bible has any truth – which I doubt – then they will be first in line to burn in hell – where they belong.

Why the Religious Right will burn in it’s own self-described Hell

Frankly, I’m sick of the religious right’s attempt to interject itself and control the behavior of those who aren’t affiliated with it. The “Yes on Prop 8″ campaign is a perfect example. Prop 8 – which attempts to institutionalize discrimination against gay couples – is “christiandom’s” (and I use little letters and quotes intentionally) to turn us into a fundamentalist christian nation.

In this case, the bad actors are the LDS (Mormons) and the Catholic Church. They should be ashamed of themselves for supporting this institutionalized discrimination. If being christian means hating with “christian love” those different from you – then something is definitely f*cked up.

But should we be surprised? Fundamentalists (christians, jews, muslims) have, for a long time, replaced the word “hate” with the word “love.” Thus, they kill to save you “because they love you.” Mormons baptize the dead – people who didn’t necessarily want to be baptized – “because they love you.” They kill because “they love you” or in Jesus’, Mohammed’s or God’s name. No, this is institutionalized hatred, plain and simple.

This country will burn in its own self-created hell if we keep following these pretenders to truth. It has already begun, and I expect it will continue. Unfortunately, we may all be damned.

The wall between church and state must be made taller and be fortified, not weakened by these false prophets.

China & the US

OK… so China just launched a manned space flight – and we’re arguing whether dinosaurs were part of the food chain during Adam and Eve’s time…

I can’t tell if America is experiencing a Cultural Revolution but our capitalist Great Leap Forward in deregulation has certainly been a disaster…

The Party of God

Does the Party of God (the GOP) really think that we’re that dumb?  I’m listening to Orrin Hatch qvell over this trailer-trash VP candidate.

McCain isn’t “change.”  Palin isn’t “change.”  They’re all tools of the right-wing nutcase fundamentalists.  I hope that their god comes quickly and scoops them up and takes them to the next life… someone needs to.

The Party of God – the American Taliban!

The Trailer Trash VP

OK… Sarah Palin’s kid is pregnant… Trigger couldn’t be her kid – why, because she’s already knocked up!

Oh, wait, weren’t these folks from Juneau the same folks who hated the movie Juno?

Palin can just govern from the double-wide… as she drives all all to hell in a handbasket.

Face it, Jesus isn’t going to save us from this comedy of errors.

Why is Obama Black?

Obama is the first “black” presidential candidate.  At least that is what the press, the various campaigns, etc., are saying.  Also, Barack does more identify with his black roots than his white roots.

But here is the rub.  Barack is as black as he is white.  His mom was white, his dad was black.  He should be “grey.”

And there is the problem with the underlying racism in our society.  Racism that may (or may almost) prevent Mr. Obama from winning the presidency over a tired, cranky, old white guy who should be spending his time in an RV in Del Ray.  

A person can be white (e.g., both parents white), or something else.  The something else is never white.  It is Asian, Black, Jewish, Hispanic, Indian (US and Asian), etc.  The “impurity” is the problem

And the bigger problem is that we look at it as an impurity.

Face it, America.  We’re a racist, homophobic, xenophobic society.  We have a national religion – unaffiliated fundamentalist christianity.  

Maybe Jesus will save us – but I doubt it.  We still measure a man or woman’s worth by their race, sexual preference, religion, etc.  Jesus and god – ok, I don’t believe in either – aren’t going to bother with us as long as we buy into this crap.

Yahoo vs. Wall Street

OK… so now Yahoo is taking all sorts of heat for wanting to remain independent of Microsoft’s grip.  Is it so true that the highest form of corporate existence is to be acquired by a bigger company?

While we’re all familiar with smaller fish getting eaten by bigger fish and smaller animals falling prey to larger animals, it isn’t clear to me that being so consumed is the highest purpose of each animal.  If so, then there would have to be something at the end of it all, eating the big fish… and I doubt that humanity is it.

This leads me to an alternative theory of god – one where god is the next bigger evolutionary creature.  God’s purpose is to consume us, just like we consume fish and animals, who consume other fish and animals.  Could that be it?  We’re just a link in god’s food chain?

Ohhh…. that’s scary

I’m watching Fox News – now we have a boogie man… “Black Liberation Theology.”  They had some minister, Rob Shenck, talking about how it is “out of the mainstream” and even “advocates violence” … ohhh… scary…. and maybe even touches on, get this, Marxism.

Can you say “inquisition?”  War in Iraq?  War in many places?  War friggin everywhere?

Lets see… christianity was used to keep blacks down… to enslave them.  To kill Jews.  To kill Indians.  To kill Muslims.  So what’s so different about this?

Frankly, if a community is being violently oppressed – then what’s wrong with a little violence to stop it?

How else are we going to stop these f*cking right-wing nut jobs?  The folks who are using this war in Iraq to oppress the American middle class?  Are we the last group to stand silently and take it up the ass?  Maybe someone really does need to stand up and say “enough” and have something behind it.

EE

USA Today

I’ve been traveling a lot recently.  Traveling gives me the opportunity to do things that I don’t often get to do in my coastal megapolis – including reading USA Today.

I particularly like the letters to the editor – and particularly when they touch on religion.  One recent letter talked about how an editorial “offended god.”  What, god called him up and said “you’re offending me!”?  Yeah, right.

And also last week, on Glen Beck (one of the most useless wastes of satellite bandwidth), some guy was talking about how the end times are near.  How this shit gets on CNN is beyond me!

OK… so, we don’t need to worry about the war, the recession or the environment.  The End Times are Nigh… so, in the inimitable words of Alfred E. Newman, “What, Me Worry?”

Jeremiah Wright – is he right?

I’m reading with interest the controversy over Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright.  Much of the controversy seems to be whether he is “anti-American” or racist.  I think not.

First, let me say that I am neither black nor Christian.  I don’t come from either of those traditions, nor do I embrace any religious tradition (in fact, I am a non-believer).  But, I do think that we, as a nation, have deluded ourselves on several major issues – issues that Rev. Wright points out (with much criticism).

1) The US commits terrorism.  What is terrorism?  Why is it different from our acts?  Does anyone think that our mortal enemies would have crashed passenger jetliners into buildings if they had B-52’s?  Of course not.  They would have sat there at a comfortable 45,000 feet pushing buttons and dropping tons of bombs.  That’s what we do to them.  Why is our action justified and theirs not?  I simply don’t understand.

2) The US committed sins against blacks.  Yes.  This is obvious.  It still does.  Duh.

3) The government has conspired to keep the black community down.  Duh, again…  of course they have.

This stuff is obvious.  The problem is that no one wants to hear it.  That’s it.

EE

Shake that Booty in the Name of the Lord

OK… so I’m listening to Carribean Gospel Radio on iTunes and this song comes on with a chorus of “Shake that Booty in the Name of the Lord.”  This is the way that religion, if it has any value at all, should exist.  To free up the inner soul, the inner emotion – not to constrain.

Note that religion to me has little, if anything, to do with actual social mores.  I, for one, am a reasonably good person (with a few faults, but greed and avarace aren’t part of it).  My family are all good people, too.  We do it without religion (yes, my children are being brought up without religious structure).   My spouse is a believer, but I am not.

But then again, I don’t identify with biblical suffering.  My bush never burned.  I never hung on any cross. I didn’t have to slay my firstborn. This stuff has little relevance, in my mind, to the modern world.

What does have relevance is the possibility of waking up long-sleeping parts of me, the parts that do respond to group emotions, the parts that do want to feel a sense of community, the parts that want to “Shake My Booty” – maybe not in the name of the lord, but shake it anyhow.

That is, if my back goes back in

Intelligent Design 42, Divinity 0

I have always found intelligent design to be a fascinating theory.  Of course, I recognize that it is a subterfuge for creationists and I am, by no means, a creationist.  That being said, what I love about the theory is where it begins – after the determination of who the “creator” is – allowing pretty much any intelligent being to be the originator of life as we know it.

In the Los Angeles Times, on April 18, there was a really interesting Op Ed piece by Richard Dawkins on intelligent design.  The link can be found here.  In the piece, Prof. Dawkins asserts that the proponents of intelligent design are intellectually dishonest – because they, and everyone else, knows that “god” is the creators.  Prof. Dawkins then goes on to say:

“Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their “space aliens” political ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes intelligent design’s best shot.” 

I have long said that intelligent design, when combined with Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” provides the closest thing to truth that we have seen on this planet so far.  Prof. Dawkins, in his excellent piece, gives academic credence to my position.

I would take the kind professor’s position a step farther, however, and point to the fact that intelligent design’s simple assertion, while not answering the question, “Is there a god,” renders the inquiry rather meaningless.  Whether there is or not, whether it was a complex intelligence or a simple set of coincidences, the quest, itself, becomes meaningless and a waste of human capital.

Think about it – a world where we would be forced to acknowledge that we kill and maim, not in gods name, but simply because we choose to.  A world where we recognize that “the future is now” and that we better start doing something about it.  A world where salvation comes solely from our own acts – not from a pope, a rabbi, a mullah or a priest.  

Maybe then we will stop wasting our Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays justifying our cruel, greedy and violent behavior of the prior week – instead, we’d simply have to live with it – and with ourselves.   Maybe then peace would have a chance.