Thursday, September 25, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Religious Billboard causes Uproar.
Billboard urges questioning of religion
I think this is a great sign. It tells people to take a close look at their religion and be sure that they're doing the right thing with it. And honestly, if the sign converts you to agnosticism or athiesm, you had no faith to begin with.
One commenter stated "but with no religion, there are no morals." This is false. There are hundreds of religions, most which seem to share some moral code. These religions are geographically diverse and some are even hard to reach. This tells me that moral codes are a part of being human, and is often woven through religion, but not created by religion. And what kind of warped moral thought is it, when one is only being good to avoid divine retribution? No. I want people to be moral out of their own being, not because God tells them to.
In other news, I found this interesting picture floating around the interwebs:
Other than the F bomb, I really don't understand the complaints that it gets.
First of all, it is just a humorous depiction of something that Jesus didn't do. The absurdity alone is what makes it funny.
But then, one could argue that there is a deeper meaning. Just think, Jesus was the Son of God. What if he did say "Screw your sins, I'm getting outta here?" He could have. He could have easily just ripped himself off the cross, smote down the romans and left.
But he didn't.
So this image simply reminds a Christian what Jesus did not do, and that was, Jesus did not take the cowards way out.
So instead of being offended by this image, look at it and be grateful.
People need to lighten up. That's part of the problem with religion. Most of the religious people are so uptight that they can't take a joke.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein
J Kuhl Signing Off
I think this is a great sign. It tells people to take a close look at their religion and be sure that they're doing the right thing with it. And honestly, if the sign converts you to agnosticism or athiesm, you had no faith to begin with.
One commenter stated "but with no religion, there are no morals." This is false. There are hundreds of religions, most which seem to share some moral code. These religions are geographically diverse and some are even hard to reach. This tells me that moral codes are a part of being human, and is often woven through religion, but not created by religion. And what kind of warped moral thought is it, when one is only being good to avoid divine retribution? No. I want people to be moral out of their own being, not because God tells them to.
In other news, I found this interesting picture floating around the interwebs:
Other than the F bomb, I really don't understand the complaints that it gets.First of all, it is just a humorous depiction of something that Jesus didn't do. The absurdity alone is what makes it funny.
But then, one could argue that there is a deeper meaning. Just think, Jesus was the Son of God. What if he did say "Screw your sins, I'm getting outta here?" He could have. He could have easily just ripped himself off the cross, smote down the romans and left.
But he didn't.
So this image simply reminds a Christian what Jesus did not do, and that was, Jesus did not take the cowards way out.
So instead of being offended by this image, look at it and be grateful.
People need to lighten up. That's part of the problem with religion. Most of the religious people are so uptight that they can't take a joke.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein
J Kuhl Signing Off
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Islam, Religion of Peace (TM)
Looking through the articles listed on Fark.com, I came across this:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21985,24368284-662,00.html
Islamic fundies are thinking about banning the use of bikinis, forcing women to wear more modest swimwear on the beaches.
Now it may be because I'm a male, but I don't see the harm in bikinis. They cover the important parts after all.
I bring this up because one person made this comment:
Islam: The fear that someone, somewhere, is happy.
Looking at the current situation in the world with the Islamic nations, this seems to be the case. Look at everything they've ever done.
1. Discriminated women. God forbid women be happy and pursue their dreams to become doctors or scientists. God forbid they walk out in the streets and reveal (GASP) an ankle or their face. I find it amusing that they pretend that women don't have the capability to be successful, when right next door they have Israel about to be lead by a woman for a second time (thats two more than the liberal USA). And around them, the civilized nations in Europe and North America, women are free to pursue their dreams and are just as successful as men.
2. Iran's ayatollahs have banned simple pleasures like rock music and dancing. Throwing a party and having a good time, it appears, is a sin. People should be super serious and pray to Allah all the time and have no other enjoyments.
3. The bikini issue in Bali. Apparently the tourist trade in Indonesia can suffer. Its one of their few sources of income, but hey, as long as the Muslims are happy right?
So what gets into Islamofascists that gets them so ornery any time someone is happy? I just don't understand why they seem to have a hard time with just enjoying life and letting people live it. Perhaps if they'd join the 21st century with the rest of us, they'd realize happy people aren't really that bad. And perhaps they'll find out that if they can be civil and stop being so belligerent to the western nations that we'd be happy to be friends with them and help them out.
But instead, they'd rather execute women who accidently show an ankle and send suicide bombers at people who just want a fair democracy. The United States of America suffers a bit from bible-thumping baptists who make the same complaints that the fundementalist islamics do, but we get the pleasure of ignoring them. Unfortunately, the fundies control life in most muslim countries and get quite upset whenever someone is happy.
I don't think I'll ever understand why religion drives people to do insane things. Yet another reason why religion needs to go.
J Kuhl Signing Off
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21985,24368284-662,00.html
Islamic fundies are thinking about banning the use of bikinis, forcing women to wear more modest swimwear on the beaches.
Now it may be because I'm a male, but I don't see the harm in bikinis. They cover the important parts after all.
I bring this up because one person made this comment:
Islam: The fear that someone, somewhere, is happy.
Looking at the current situation in the world with the Islamic nations, this seems to be the case. Look at everything they've ever done.
1. Discriminated women. God forbid women be happy and pursue their dreams to become doctors or scientists. God forbid they walk out in the streets and reveal (GASP) an ankle or their face. I find it amusing that they pretend that women don't have the capability to be successful, when right next door they have Israel about to be lead by a woman for a second time (thats two more than the liberal USA). And around them, the civilized nations in Europe and North America, women are free to pursue their dreams and are just as successful as men.
2. Iran's ayatollahs have banned simple pleasures like rock music and dancing. Throwing a party and having a good time, it appears, is a sin. People should be super serious and pray to Allah all the time and have no other enjoyments.
3. The bikini issue in Bali. Apparently the tourist trade in Indonesia can suffer. Its one of their few sources of income, but hey, as long as the Muslims are happy right?
So what gets into Islamofascists that gets them so ornery any time someone is happy? I just don't understand why they seem to have a hard time with just enjoying life and letting people live it. Perhaps if they'd join the 21st century with the rest of us, they'd realize happy people aren't really that bad. And perhaps they'll find out that if they can be civil and stop being so belligerent to the western nations that we'd be happy to be friends with them and help them out.
But instead, they'd rather execute women who accidently show an ankle and send suicide bombers at people who just want a fair democracy. The United States of America suffers a bit from bible-thumping baptists who make the same complaints that the fundementalist islamics do, but we get the pleasure of ignoring them. Unfortunately, the fundies control life in most muslim countries and get quite upset whenever someone is happy.
I don't think I'll ever understand why religion drives people to do insane things. Yet another reason why religion needs to go.
J Kuhl Signing Off
Friday, September 19, 2008
It is about time for religious fervor to end.
We live in a world dominated by free thought and scientific innovation. Religion is an antiquated thing from the past. Religion frequently ignores scientific reason for the sake of dogma, in the face of overwhelming evidence. Religion ignores freedom of speech and cries out for the censorship of "blasphemous books" (like the Potter series), so long as they can still speak their hypocritical viewpoint. Religion demands that it place its stories in science classes, without providing evidence or providing room for the other religions with ID stories. Religion leads people to kil other people simply because those other people believe in a different invisible sky-daddy.
I guess this is why I've become so cynical about religion and practically fell off the agnostic fence on the athiest side of things (but I'm clinging to the edge with my fingers.)
It is everywhere in the news. Sarah Palin herself claims to be appointed by God and is an advocate of the 'theory' of creationism being taught in a science class.
A christian woman cried out in a town who named their football team "the Diablos." Next thing you know, they changed the team's name, so they don't offend the poor christ-fearing woman.
I love how these hypocrites demand that other beliefs are banned, but their beliefs should be pushed on other people. Baptists wanted Harry Potter banned because of the witchcraft. Don't Wiccans and practicers of black magic have as much of a right to have their beliefs on bookshelves. I'm offended by the bible, they should ban that. It is only fair, they want to ban Harry Potter because it offends them, so I want the bible to go. It offends me.
This can be further illustrated by the mock religion, Pastafarianism, which is belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastafarianism). If Christians are going to force science classes to teach Genesis, then they also need to teach my religious viewpoint as well. I believe that a giant monster made of spaghetti invented the world (and pasta,) science teachers must teach that point of view as well or they are playing favorites with the Christians. But advocates of ID in science classes never say anything about other religions being included.
Lets look at the whole "my magical sky daddy is better than your magical sky daddy" debate that has been raging since mankind invented religion. We've been warring over what other people believe in for so damn long that its just getting stupid. I understand a nation going to war because it needs resources or going to war because they were attacked, but going to war because "he believes in something different than me" is asinine, especially now that we live in a world that is, for the most part, secular and religiously tolerant (at least the developed nations). And then the real problem is, all the religions believe that they are right and the other guy is wrong, so who's right?
Religious people are always shoving their crap down the throats of other people. I joined a facebook group called "1,000,000 strong get the original facebook back," which was a group that was formed to protest the forced change of the facebook layout which most people don't like. There was a post by some guy claiming that Thiesm was more rational than Athiesm. And no matter your thoughts on that claim, that argument was so obviously a christian pushing his beliefs on people. Otherwise, he'd've posted it in a group that was centered around religion, not around Facebook's layout. And the claim itself is foolish because Thiests claim there is a god without empirical evidence and then try to tell the rest of us that the world was created in 7 days and is 6000 years old, damn all the fossils and astronomical, scientific, evidence that the world is 4,000,000,000 years old in a 25 billion year old universe.
The universe was created some 13 billion years ago. Scientists have studied this and have found that their findings all point to some sort of Big Bang that initiated this universe. All matter came from an initial point of singularity. They know this because they know the universe is expanding and that expansion can be defined mathematically and through physics, thus they can work backwards and find out what happened 13 billion years ago. All scientific, empirical, evidence points to the fact that there was an explosion, a Big Bang, in which all matter was formed. How did it explode? Scientists don't know.
But the point is, the thiests do not support their beliefs with empirical evidence, and then they go and try to push it on us and call it "science."
There was a cartoon I saw somewhere that I can't find. It was a two-panel cartoon. The first panel was labeled "Scientific Reasoning." It showed two men. The first man says, I have a baseball. The second one replies, "prove it." The first man pulls out his baseball.
The second panel was labeled "Religious Reasoning." Again, two men. The first man says, "I have a baseball." The second one replies, "prove it." The first man shouts, "YOU CAN'T PROVE THAT I DON'T."
We could also look at the middle east where the nation of Israel struggles to exist simply because muslim extremists can't stand the fact that someone, who believes in the same god that they do, worships him in a different way.
I wonder when the muslims will ever grow up and stop being children.
My whole point is, have faith in whatever religious system you chose, but keep it out of science and don't push it on other people. Faith is a personal thing and if John Doe wants to believe in a flying spaghetti monster, thats his perogative, don't hold it against him. Your religion isn't the only one, which is why there is no religion in schools. If they do have religion in schools, they better be teaching all the major religions. Heck, if it wasn't unrealistic, I'd say they better be teaching ALL the religions.
My magical skydaddy is better than your magical sky daddy.
J Kuhl Signing Off
I guess this is why I've become so cynical about religion and practically fell off the agnostic fence on the athiest side of things (but I'm clinging to the edge with my fingers.)
It is everywhere in the news. Sarah Palin herself claims to be appointed by God and is an advocate of the 'theory' of creationism being taught in a science class.
A christian woman cried out in a town who named their football team "the Diablos." Next thing you know, they changed the team's name, so they don't offend the poor christ-fearing woman.
I love how these hypocrites demand that other beliefs are banned, but their beliefs should be pushed on other people. Baptists wanted Harry Potter banned because of the witchcraft. Don't Wiccans and practicers of black magic have as much of a right to have their beliefs on bookshelves. I'm offended by the bible, they should ban that. It is only fair, they want to ban Harry Potter because it offends them, so I want the bible to go. It offends me.
This can be further illustrated by the mock religion, Pastafarianism, which is belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastafarianism). If Christians are going to force science classes to teach Genesis, then they also need to teach my religious viewpoint as well. I believe that a giant monster made of spaghetti invented the world (and pasta,) science teachers must teach that point of view as well or they are playing favorites with the Christians. But advocates of ID in science classes never say anything about other religions being included.
Lets look at the whole "my magical sky daddy is better than your magical sky daddy" debate that has been raging since mankind invented religion. We've been warring over what other people believe in for so damn long that its just getting stupid. I understand a nation going to war because it needs resources or going to war because they were attacked, but going to war because "he believes in something different than me" is asinine, especially now that we live in a world that is, for the most part, secular and religiously tolerant (at least the developed nations). And then the real problem is, all the religions believe that they are right and the other guy is wrong, so who's right?
Religious people are always shoving their crap down the throats of other people. I joined a facebook group called "1,000,000 strong get the original facebook back," which was a group that was formed to protest the forced change of the facebook layout which most people don't like. There was a post by some guy claiming that Thiesm was more rational than Athiesm. And no matter your thoughts on that claim, that argument was so obviously a christian pushing his beliefs on people. Otherwise, he'd've posted it in a group that was centered around religion, not around Facebook's layout. And the claim itself is foolish because Thiests claim there is a god without empirical evidence and then try to tell the rest of us that the world was created in 7 days and is 6000 years old, damn all the fossils and astronomical, scientific, evidence that the world is 4,000,000,000 years old in a 25 billion year old universe.
The universe was created some 13 billion years ago. Scientists have studied this and have found that their findings all point to some sort of Big Bang that initiated this universe. All matter came from an initial point of singularity. They know this because they know the universe is expanding and that expansion can be defined mathematically and through physics, thus they can work backwards and find out what happened 13 billion years ago. All scientific, empirical, evidence points to the fact that there was an explosion, a Big Bang, in which all matter was formed. How did it explode? Scientists don't know.
But the point is, the thiests do not support their beliefs with empirical evidence, and then they go and try to push it on us and call it "science."
There was a cartoon I saw somewhere that I can't find. It was a two-panel cartoon. The first panel was labeled "Scientific Reasoning." It showed two men. The first man says, I have a baseball. The second one replies, "prove it." The first man pulls out his baseball.
The second panel was labeled "Religious Reasoning." Again, two men. The first man says, "I have a baseball." The second one replies, "prove it." The first man shouts, "YOU CAN'T PROVE THAT I DON'T."
We could also look at the middle east where the nation of Israel struggles to exist simply because muslim extremists can't stand the fact that someone, who believes in the same god that they do, worships him in a different way.
I wonder when the muslims will ever grow up and stop being children.
My whole point is, have faith in whatever religious system you chose, but keep it out of science and don't push it on other people. Faith is a personal thing and if John Doe wants to believe in a flying spaghetti monster, thats his perogative, don't hold it against him. Your religion isn't the only one, which is why there is no religion in schools. If they do have religion in schools, they better be teaching all the major religions. Heck, if it wasn't unrealistic, I'd say they better be teaching ALL the religions.
My magical skydaddy is better than your magical sky daddy.
J Kuhl Signing Off
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Everyone is a Winner.
Give me a break.
In today's society, I have heard asinine tales of parents removing winning and losing from Little League baseball because it "hurt their children's self esteem."
Give me a break.
Winning and losing is a part of life. Competitive sports helps teach kids how to deal with winning and losing in a mature manner and if parents can't teach their kids how to place nice and still win and lose, then they aren't very good parents.
Children first of all, are susceptible to loss. Everyone has seen a five year old cry when he loses a game. Its a part of maturity. The five year old cries because he didn't want to lose and doesn't know how to handle it. If a parent removes losing from games, where will the child learn how to handle losing? Out in the real world where losing can often mean financial disaster or worse? Is he going to cry when he's 26 and got turned down for a job position? Sports need to have competition and parents need to teach their children how to lose. Bruce Wayne's father asked him in Batman Begins, "Why do we fall Bruce?" and Bruce would answer, "So we can learn to get up again." Parents need to stop coddling their kids and teach them about loss. Loss is a part of life and children will have to mature in order to learn to deal with it properly.
Children are also often bad winners. Winning often leads to bullying when the winning team taunts the losing team and mocks them. However, again, this is a fault of parenting, not a fault of competition. The parents need to be there and not jeer along with their kids but scold them and teach them to treat their opponents with respect, whether they are winning or losing. Letting children win gives children an opportunity to boost their own self esteem and at the same time gives parents an opportunity to teach their children to win fairly and respectfully.
Competition is not a bad thing as some terrible parents claim that it is. It gives children lessons about winning and losing and maturity that they will need when they leave the house in 15-18 years.
So please, cut out the bull**** and let the kids win and lose in Little League.
In other news, Palin is a bear-hating, creationist douche.
J Kuhl Signing Off
In today's society, I have heard asinine tales of parents removing winning and losing from Little League baseball because it "hurt their children's self esteem."
Give me a break.
Winning and losing is a part of life. Competitive sports helps teach kids how to deal with winning and losing in a mature manner and if parents can't teach their kids how to place nice and still win and lose, then they aren't very good parents.
Children first of all, are susceptible to loss. Everyone has seen a five year old cry when he loses a game. Its a part of maturity. The five year old cries because he didn't want to lose and doesn't know how to handle it. If a parent removes losing from games, where will the child learn how to handle losing? Out in the real world where losing can often mean financial disaster or worse? Is he going to cry when he's 26 and got turned down for a job position? Sports need to have competition and parents need to teach their children how to lose. Bruce Wayne's father asked him in Batman Begins, "Why do we fall Bruce?" and Bruce would answer, "So we can learn to get up again." Parents need to stop coddling their kids and teach them about loss. Loss is a part of life and children will have to mature in order to learn to deal with it properly.
Children are also often bad winners. Winning often leads to bullying when the winning team taunts the losing team and mocks them. However, again, this is a fault of parenting, not a fault of competition. The parents need to be there and not jeer along with their kids but scold them and teach them to treat their opponents with respect, whether they are winning or losing. Letting children win gives children an opportunity to boost their own self esteem and at the same time gives parents an opportunity to teach their children to win fairly and respectfully.
Competition is not a bad thing as some terrible parents claim that it is. It gives children lessons about winning and losing and maturity that they will need when they leave the house in 15-18 years.
So please, cut out the bull**** and let the kids win and lose in Little League.
In other news, Palin is a bear-hating, creationist douche.
J Kuhl Signing Off
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
