Monday Morning Quotes: Bill Hicks

"How do I know the Bible isn't the word of God? Well if it was the word of God it would be clear and easy to understand...considering God was the creator of LANGUAGE!"

“A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It's like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.”

“I love the Pope, I love seeing him in his Pope-Mobile, his three feet of bullet proof plexi-glass. That's faith in action folks! You know he's got God on his side.”

“You ever noticed how people who believe in Creationism look really unevolved? You ever noticed that? Eyes real close together, eyebrow ridges, big furry hands and feet. "I believe God created me in one day" Yeah, looks like He rushed it.”

“You believe the world's 12 thousand years old? "That's right." Okay I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready? "Uh huh." Dinosaurs. You know the world's 12 thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, they existed in that time, you'd think it would have been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point. "And lo Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus...with a splinter in his paw. And O the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big fucking lizard, Lord!' But Jesus was unafraid and he took the splinter from the brontosaurus's paw and the big lizard became his friend.”

“People ask me what I think about that woman priest thing. What, a woman priest? Women priests. Great, great. Now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to.”

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is mearly energy condensed through a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, life is only a dream and we are the imaginations of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.”



Screw this...just watch the videos in the Bill Hicks tag.

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Friday Link Dump 10/28/11

Mean Ol' Atheists Discussing the inherent confrontation in “coming out atheist.” Make sure to read Greta Christina's great article linked within.

Your Gods Don't Exist I had to put this here.

Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating

Celestial Camouflage Neat!

Dear America this is how the rest if the world views your measurement system Hey rest of world,  we know it doesn’t make sense either. Do you know how many times I title the Friday Link Dump and wonder to myself: “Why does the month go before the day?“

Mid-Week Rant: Christopher Hitchens on Atheist Nihilism

How to Speak Republican Useful translations such as “Scientist: A person who employs a rigorous system of observation, experiment, measurement, and verification to perpetuate his Godless left-wing agenda.”

Otherwise known as “facts.“

The Republicans' War on Science and Reason I wonder why?

So the populace won’t know any better when they are about to get fucked. GOP Candidates Declare War on Judicial Branch

Preacher's Daughter: What Evangelical Christians Mean When They Say... They really have no idea what Secular Humanism is.

For example: The Establishment Of Secular Humanism

Sunday Morning Hate: Mark Driscoll

Astronomers discover complex organic matter in the universe Life just got easier.

A baby solar system holds thousands of oceans worth of water ...and easier.

Monday Morning Quotes: Penn Jillette

Coffee linked to reduced risk of common skin cancer Then I must be immune to skin cancer. That’s how that works.

Why are most people right-handed? You know what they say? “Left-hand of the devil.” They are EVIL! Just like Adam.

Orangutan populations develop different cultures just like humans That’s crazy! I mean, like, what a coincidence. Amirite?

A Christian Overreaction to An Atheist Group’s Existence Typical. Religious belief just may be the greatest meme in human culture. It protects itself with a vengeance. The mere mention of non-belief sends people into fits. If you actually challenge their beliefs they scream that you’re a bigot and you are persecuting them. The whole concept of religion survives via indignation.

Harvey Insists LGBT Christians And Allies Should Leave Christianity I...uhh...I agree with her! However, I am going to go out on a limb and guess it’s not for the same reasons.

Insane Religious Bigotry brought to you by Linda Harvey Same loon as above.

Pat Buchanan: American Jews Made "Collective Decision" To Abort Themselves Out Of Existence Do any of you watch Rachel Maddow? Lawrence O’Donnell? Anything on MSNBC? I don’t. Why? Because they give this asshole a paycheck. They are just as corporate media as the rest.

Pakistan: The New Radicals: Ali Abbas travels around Pakistan tackling fanaticism, but can he make a difference?

The End of Harold Camping

Morality: Can't Have It Both Ways

Slavery: A 21st Century Evil I can’t believe that a whole program dedicated to this is even still necessary.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Unless you’re celebrating Jesusween. In which case...well...sorry.

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TAM Panel - Our Future in Space

Featuring Phil Plait, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Pamela Gay, and Lawrence Krauss.



TAM Panel - Our Future in Space from JREF on Vimeo.

Mid-Week Rant: Christopher Hitchens on Atheist Nilhilism

via DoctorOfDisbelief

Insane Religious Bigotry brought to you by Linda Harvey

I know I must sound like a broken record, but it all comes down to religion. That is the only reason to hate homosexuals. Now the usual reply to that statement is that not all believers believe that it's bad and not all of them hate. Of course that is true, but only in spite of their religion. How much of the scripture (the basis of belief) has to be abandoned before people realize it is simply wrong? All of it.

“‎Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident” Sam Harris

At the risk of sounding like them...these people and their beliefs are poisonous. The Culture Wars are only getting started.

Monday Morning Quotes ~ Penn Jillette

“If every trace of every single religion were wiped out and nothing were passsed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.”

“Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.”

“The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”

“What I have a problem with is not so much religion or god, but faith. When you say you believe something in your heart and therefore you can act on it, you have completely justified the 9/11 bombers. You have justified Charlie Manson. If it's true for you, why isn't it true for them? Why are you different? If you say "I believe there's an all-powerful force of love in the universe that connects us all, and I have no evidence of that but I believe it in my heart," then it's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that Sharon Tate deserves to die. It's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that you need to fly planes into buildings for Allah.”

“I believe that there is no God. I’m beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do. You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word “elephant” includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?”

“Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around”

“Once you've condoned faith in general, you've condoned any crazy shit done because of faith.”

“It's not arrogant to say that you can't figure out the answers to the universe with your internal faith. It's not arrogant to know that there's no omniscient, omnipotent prime mover in the universe who loves you personally. It's not sad to feel that life and the love of your real friends and family is more than enough to make life worth living. Isn't it much sadder to feel that there is a more important love required than the love of the people who have chosen to spend their limited time with you?”

“Nobody that has seen a baby born can believe in god for a second. When you see your child born, and the panic, and the amount of technology that is saving the life of the two people you love most in the world, when you see how much stainless steel and money it takes to fight off the fact that god wants both those people dead, no one, no one can look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say there's a god, because I'll tell ya, if we were squatting in the woods, the two people I love most would be dead. There's just no way around that. If I were in charge, no way. We need technology to fight against nature; nature so wants us dead. Nature is trying to kill us.” 

NSFW

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Sunday Morning Hate: Mark Driscoll

I recently saw this post on Unreasonable Faith about Mark Driscoll; a slick-media, megachurch preacher from Seattle, Washington. I would post the video of the sermon, but for some reason the church decided to remove it.

… [In order to be a real Christian] you need to know who the real God is, and how the real God feels. Some of you … God hates you. Some of you, God is sick of you. God is frustrated with you. God is wearied by you. God has suffered long enough with you. He doesn’t think you’re cute. He doesn’t think it’s funny. He doesn’t think your excuse is “meritous” [meritorious]. He doesn’t care if you compare yourself to someone worse than you, He hates them too. God hates, right now, personally, objectively hates some of you. He has had enough …

Omnibenevolence is a lie. The concept of God’s “perfect love”...is a myth. Why? It has nothing to do with God because “He” doesn’t exist. It has everything to do with humans. We created these deities. They are the beliefs and cultures of the specific believers projected onto this supernatural parent figure while reflecting the attitudes and needs of the people creating them. This is an old and simple argument that people have had for centuries about other gods, but they somehow neglected to look in the mirror. There are many Christian Gods because there are many Christian sects with many different concepts of how their God operates and exists. Think about the differences between a liberal God of peace, love and acceptance versus a conservative god of wrath, judgement, fire, and brimstone.

Oh I forgot...all those other Christians aren’t real Christians.


Here’s another clip from the sermon that they didn’t see fit to remove...yet.
Mmmm....the Wrath of God. Can’t you feel the love?

Morality: Can't Have It Both Ways

via  DarkMatter2525

Objective Morality vs. Christianity

via NonStampCollector

WE'RE ALIVE!!

Mountains are still majestic.
Oceans are still blue (not red with the blood of the godless).
Stars have not fallen from the sky. Technically there is no "down" in space so the falling was really unlikely anyway. If the stars were to just move toward Earth, we would be incinerated by our own Sun before the other stars got here. But I digress.
Birds are still singing.
Children are still laughing all over the world. Well...except for the thousands of children that are starving RIGHT NOW that could have received food, clean water and medical care with the money that was donated to this asshole and his little narcissism experiment.

IT'S HERE!

The Tribulation is upon us!

Any minute now...

People who look just like you and I, and have identical beliefs will be lifted bodily to Heaven when Jesus returns.

Everybody else is pretty fucked.

Friday Link Dump 10/21/11

The God Box A great post by Adam.

Everything in Moderation? Maybe Not*

6 Ideas More Convincing Than Christianity, Islam, and Judaism

Is This Your Brain On God? There is a boatload of information here. Great reading.


*GASP!* Creationism is myth? NO!

Atheism is the “new cool”? Ya dig?

BBC documentar​y exposes 50-year scandal of baby traffickin​g by the Catholic church in Spain The Catholic Church is in no way an objectively moral institution. I look forward to its demise.

Bishop Indicted; Charge Is Failing to Report Abuse MOAR!

Priest Says Catholics Must Oppose Politician​s Who Don't Oppose "Intrinsic​ally Evil" Homosexual​ity As opposed to intrinsically evil pedophilia covered up and ignored by the Church hierarchy for generations if not centuries?  We need an OccupyVatican movement and I am not kidding. Oh hey...Occupy the Vatican

I honestly did not know that existed until after I typed it and figured I should google it.

Pale Blue Dots: Iconic Images of Earth From Space

This Remarkable Thing philhellenes video from earlier this year.

Batman Says ‘Raise My Taxes’ as Occupy Movement Comes to Comics

Cafeteria Libertarianism: Where the GOP Goes to Snack “Paul, despite his reputation as a hard-line maverick, picks and chooses the liberties he supports just as much as the rest of the GOP.”

Monday Morning Quotes: Ricky Gervais “I don't go after any particular religious group. I look at the absurdity of some beliefs. I don't think there's anything scary about this, these are facts to me. When a fundamentalist's belief is that the Earth is 5000 years old, that's ludicrous. It's 4.6 billion years. That should be taught as strict a truth as two and two are four. I don't want to offend anyone but sometimes I feel as if I'm talking to a 25-year-old child who believes in the tooth fairy. I've got to go: 'There's no such thing. Listen to yourself.’”

Coolest kid? Coolest kid.

Kirk Cameron’s birthday party looks fun Finally, a Filmdrunk post relevant to this site. Everyone should read Filmdrunk.

Mid-Week Rant: Jim Gaffigan vs. Offended Christian

Ancient 'paint factory' unearthed

ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS Just need to sneak this in here...

Why women leave science (and what’s being done about it)

Announcing The Clergy Project - Support for pastors and priests leaving the pulpit

Protesters unite outside Classic Center to protest ‘hate messages’ from conservative preacher Mark Driscoll Driscoll will be the subject of this weekend’s Sunday Morning Hate. Stay tuned.

Hubble survey carries out a dark matter census

Nearly All Vertebrate​s, Including Us, Descended From a Creature With An Electromag​netic Sixth Sense

Sean Hannity and Fox News Have A Transference Problem

Saudi Women Receive Husbands' Explicit Permission To Celebrate Right To Vote

The above article could easily not be satire.

Too bad this isn’t. O’Reilly Gives Anti-Gay Group The Horror Story It's Always Wanted

Sunday Morning Hate ~ "The Jewish Political Action Committee

Does the Universe Have a Purpose?
by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Not Sure. Anyone who expresses a more definitive response to the question is claiming access to knowledge not based on empirical foundations. This remarkably persistent way of thinking, common to most religions and some branches of philosophy, has failed badly in past efforts to understand, and thereby predict the operations of the universe and our place within it.

To assert that the universe has a purpose implies the universe has intent. And intent implies a desired outcome. But who would do the desiring? And what would a desired outcome be? That carbon-based life is inevitable? Or that sentient primates are life’s neurological pinnacle? Are answers to these questions even possible without expressing a profound bias of human sentiment? Of course humans were not around to ask these questions for 99.9999% of cosmic history. So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.

And if a further purpose of the universe was to create a fertile cradle for life, then our cosmic environment has got an odd way of showing it. Life on Earth, during more than 3.5 billion years of existence, has been persistently assaulted by natural sources of mayhem, death, and destruction. Ecological devastation exacted by volcanoes, climate change, earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, pestilence, and especially killer asteroids have left extinct 99.9% of all species that have ever lived here.

How about human life itself? If you are religious, you might declare that the purpose of life is to serve God. But if you’re one of the 100 billion bacteria living and working in a single centimeter of our lower intestine (rivaling, by the way, the total number of humans who have ever been born) you would give an entirely different answer. You might instead say that the purpose of human life is to provide you with a dark, but idyllic, anaerobic habitat of fecal matter.

So in the absence of human hubris, and after we filter out the delusional assessments it promotes within us, the universe looks more and more random. Whenever events that are purported to occur in our best interest are as numerous as other events that would just as soon kill us, then intent is hard, if not impossible, to assert. So while I cannot claim to know for sure whether or not the universe has a purpose, the case against it is strong, and visible to anyone who sees the universe as it is rather than as they wish it to be.

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