Category Archives: atheism
Looking at the current relationship of religion to government I am returning to Jefferson:
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Perhaps we could have on our coins “In Jefferson We Trust”… or adapt the Pledge of Allegiance to “One Nation, under the ideas of Jefferson, with liberty and justice for all.”
Let’s also look at how religious differences world wide are working against us. I don’t think control of the Muslim Brotherhood is in our purview… but having extreme right Baptist preachers pushing anti-Muslim sentiments worldwide is bound to cause an extreme response.
Related articles
- Romney ratchets ups God rhetoric (tydicea.newsvine.com)
- Adams vs. Jefferson: The Birth of Negative Campaigning in the U.S. (mentalfloss.com)
- Conservative Congressman Blasts Bachmann’s Anti-Muslim Allegations, Stands Up For Religious Liberty (thinkprogress.org)
- Recalling Revisionist History (kennysideshow.blogspot.com)
- ‘Historian’ David Barton’s book on Thomas Jefferson pulled from stores (rawstory.com)
- President Taqiyya misrepresents “Jefferson’s quran” at White House iftar dinner (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)
- Thomas Jefferson Asks: Liberty or Economy? (powerorliberty.wordpress.com)
Bill Nye the Science Guy says don’t teach your kids Creationism.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Scientist and children’s television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters.
“I say to the grownups, ‘If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve observed in the universe that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it,’” said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series “Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
If I were a professional educator, I would give Bill Nye my thanks for coming out with this video:
Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. Creationism is not.
Related articles
- Bill Nye: Please don’t teach your kids creationism, because it is crazy (rawstory.com)
- Bill Nye Believes One Day the Creationism Theory Won’t Exist (fox4kc.com)
- Bill Nye: Americans who believe in Creationism hold the rest of us back (dangerousminds.net)
- Bill Nye “The Science Guy” Slams Creationism (wreg.com)
- Bill Nye the Science Guy says creationism not good for kids (vancouverdesi.com)
- Bill Nye to Creationists: Save Your Children! (thehollywoodgossip.com)
- Bill Nye Blasts Creationism (sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com)
Boy Chased By Priest in Underwear Saved by Saintly Neighbors
This frightening piece from Cafe Mom. Why stories like this are popping up more frequently leads me to suspect religion even more…
This story almost sounds like a parody, like some twisted SNL skit, but unfortunately, it’s real. Around midnight last Sunday, some people were out in their yard, wrapping up a barbecue, when a 12-year-old b
oy came barrelling down the street, begging for help, saying that a man was chasing him. A few moments later, a man did, in fact, appear in his maroon underwear, no less, trying to get the boy to come back with him. Heather Rodriguez and her brother-in-law knew better than to hand over a scared, shaking boy to a suspicious man in his underwear, and decided to get the cops involved. It’s a good thing they did, too, because the “suspicious man” who was chasing the boy was a priest who had just allegedly sexually abused the pre-teen on an air mattress in his house.
Related articles
- Near-naked priest chases 12-year-old boy (freethinker.co.uk)
- Priest in his underwear chased 12-year-old boy down neighborhood streets after the boy ran from abuse (dvorak.org)
- Speedo Wearing Priest Seen Chasing Boy Down Street After Alleged Molestation (dreamindemon.com)
- OREGON: Catholic Priest In His Underwear Chases Boy Down Street After Abuse (joemygod.blogspot.com)
- Boy told sister: “Father Angel touched me in my privates,” court affidavit said (oregonlive.com)
- Police: Boy says Woodburn priest fondled him, took pics (kgw.com)
- Collared: “Father Angel” Arrested After Reportedly Chasing A 12-Year-Old Boy Down Street In His Underwear (jonathanturley.org)
AFA News Director Says Liberal Churches, Media Share Responsibility for Colorado Shooting
From Right Wing Watch:
Fred Jackson, American Family Association
Fred Jackson, the American Family Association’s news director, while discussing the Colorado movie theater shooting today said that liberal Christian churches and liberal media helped contribute to violent incidents by supposedly deemphasizing the fear of God and the Bible.
During AFA Today, Jackson had on as his guest Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries to discuss his column on the AFA’s OneNewsNow blaming the shooting on a waning fear of God and Hell, and blamed the American Civil Liberties Union for destroying the public school system by supposedly forbidding students from reading the Bible. “You wonder why all these terrible things are happening to us when there is no fear of God,” Newcombe said.
Jackson maintained that unlike in the communities of forty years ago, liberals in the media and churches, along with movies and the internet, have “have come together to give us these kinds of incidents.”
Later in the program, Jackson and co-host Teddy James of AFA Journal said the shooting is a sign of God’s judgment for the failings of the public education system and liberal, mainline Protestant churches that affirm gays and lesbians.
Maybe you understand why I have so little respect for right wing Christianity. What mystifies me is that there are people who believe this bullshit.
Related articles
- Evangelical radio host: ‘Tax the atheists who don’t go to church’ (rawstory.com)
- Lawrence O’Donnell Pokes Fun at AFA’s Buster Wilson for Mulling Google Boycott (rightwingwatch.org)
- A prayerful response to the Colorado shootings (prayerfullivingnewsblog.wordpress.com)
- AFA Blames Gays For Penn States’ Coverup Of Sandusky Crimes (lezgetreal.com)
- AFA Wants To Boycott Google. Good Luck With That, Fellas! (queerty.com)
Why I will never eat at Chick-fil-A…
Because of it’s management’s consistent push of fundamentalist Christianity upon it’s customers, whether they are Jews, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or atheists like me, I have stayed as far away from Chick-fil-A as I could. If I were starving I would still avoid it. Restaurants should be concerned with making food and not making converts.
Recently, the President of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy, came out as radically anti-gay… from opposition to gay marriage as well as opposition to gay employees. Does McDonalds do this? Burger King? Boston Market? Well, no.
Let me recommend that you avoid these guys, too. If you really feel a need to eat at the Rush Limbaugh of fast foods, just think about how every buck you spend there is supporting an ignorant society.
Related articles
- Chick-Fil-A Faces Gay Marriage Backlash on Twitter, Facebook (mashable.com)
- Chick-fil-a Faces Fury Over Gay Marriage Stance (judgementofamerica.wordpress.com)
- Is Chick-fil-A Anti-Gay? ‘Guilty As Charged’ Says Its President (patheos.com)
- Chick-fil-A goes public with opposition to gay marriage (marketday.msnbc.msn.com)
- Mayor Menino on Chick-fil-A: Stuff it (bostonherald.com)
- The President Of Chick-Fil-A Thinks Gay Marriage Is Inviting God’s Judgment (buzzfeed.com)
- Chick-Fil-A’s anti-gay stance sparks online outrage (with poll) (vancouversun.com)
- The Left’s War On Chick-Fil-A (VIDEO) (radio.foxnews.com)
- Chick-Fil-A Admits To Supporting Hate Groups (queerlandia.com)
Quote of the Day – Good Question
If we were made in God’s image, why aren’t we invisible?
I haven’t thought of this before… but it certainly has a solid assumption.
Quote by a Crazy Christian – His solution? Vote for Jesus!
Televangelist Bill Keller (said by some to be the most popular televangelist in America), is adamant that a vote for either Obama or Romney is a vote for Satan, resulting in condemning the voter to a life in Hell. Ordinarily, one could say to any American voter that this guy is completely insane. However, we don’t seem to be living in ordinary times.
Keller became an extreme, conservative Christian while serving a prison term as an insider trader in the stock market. Upon getting out, he went to Liberty University under the tutelage and right wing influence of the late Jerry Falwell. Like Falwell, he doesn’t separate religion from politics.
Here’s what Keller has stated on television about Obama and Romney:
“A Christian is faced with a difficult dilemma this November. It is literally Satan flipping a two-headed coin with his head on both sides. How can a Christian in good conscience vote for President Obama, who has proven to be the most pro-baby killing, pro-radical homosexual, pro-enemy of Israel President in our nation’s history.”
“On the other hand, how can a Christian in good conscience vote for Mitt Romney, a 5th generation member and priest of the Satanic Mormon cult. His Presidency would give his cult the mainstream acceptance they have always wanted since being founded 200 years ago by a documented con-artist, racist, pedophile, polygamist, and murderer named Joseph Smith. Conservative estimates are that Romney’s cult will add at least 1 million converts in the US alone. For a Christian, that means 1 million souls who will buy into a false Gospel and burn in hell for all eternity!”
Keller’s solution for his followers is a denial of government altogether – vote for Jesus:
“Jesus will never get elected, but if we can get a million people writing in the name ‘Jesus’, it is not only going to impact the election, it is going to make a statement that Christians aren’t going to just take whoever they are offered anymore.”
Here’s what I think: getting people to vote for Jesus makes them disown their identity as Americans. It also gives an advantage to Romney, since many Christian organizations are recognizing Mormons as Christians, despite what Bill Keller says, and a vote for Jesus would most likely to be a vote against our first black president.
Religion should not be part of our government and wasn’t intended to be by the Founding Fathers. Sarah Palin has raised the same issue… and she is just as wrong:
Frankly, I’d agree with John Adams before I’d consider the religious misdirection of Keller and Palin.
And you?
Related articles
- J.C. For President! (patheos.com)
- Keller: ‘Write in the Name of Jesus for President’ (secularnewsdaily.com)
- Liberty University Here We Come (godshammer.wordpress.com)
- Pat Robertson: Vote Romney because ‘you don’t have Jesus running’ (rawstory.com)
- Obama’s Gayloed & Romney’s Rewarded: Both Satanic to Evangelicals (bilerico.com)
- Christians should repent and vote for Ron Paul, says pastor (jeenyuscorner.com)
- Mormonvoices Explains Mormons Are Christians, Just Not Evangelicals (prweb.com)
Choices, choices… the Religious Right or the Rights of Women?
Here’s what I base my choice on:
The Religious Right’s agenda is not about being good to each other, showing forgiveness, sharing prayer or believing that all men are created equal. It’s about being utter idiots.
Can we Pleeeez keep the damned Church away from the State?
David Barton, is a Republican Party activist, pentecostal preacher and fast-talking, self-promoting, self-taught, self-proclaimed historian who is miseducating millions of Americans about U.S. history and 
the Constitution.
Barton has been profitably peddling a distorted “Christian nation” version of American history to conservative religious audiences for the past two decades. His books and videos denouncing church-state separation have been repeatedly debunked by respected historians, but that hasn’t kept Barton from becoming a folk hero for many in the Religious Right. His eagerness to help elect Republicans has won him gratitude and support from national as well as state and local GOP leaders. Former senator Sam Brownback, now the governor of Kansas, has said that Barton’s research
“provides the philosophical underpinning for a lot of the Republican effort in the country today – bringing God back into the public square.”
David Barton seems to have discovered the scientific principle of testing your theories. He has actually developed a thesis and he says he could go a lot of places with it. I’m sure you can imagine most of those places he is going.
Here, see what you think about Barton’s new thesis:
Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a study between those that are on welfare and see how much and how often they read the Bible. You know, if Booker T. Washington is right that Christianity and reading the Bible increases your desires and therefore your ability for hard work; if we take that as an axiom, does that mean that the people who are getting government assistance spend nearly no time in the Bible, therefore have no desire, and therefore no ability for hard work? I could go a lot of places with this. I would love to see this proven out in some kind of sociological study, but it makes perfect sense
So you welfare collectors would all be successful workers if you only read the Bible! I bet folks like me who get Social Security (for which we worked our whole careers contributing to) but don’t read the Bible are on the same social bottom.
Think about how much more successful a Mitt Romney is, since he has The Book Of Mormon as well as the Bible.
Related articles
- The Tendentious David Barton (scottpaeth.typepad.com)
- Conservative Preacher Says People Are On Welfare Because They Don’t Read The Bible (alan.com)
- Why the Man Who Wrote ‘The Jefferson Lies’ Is A Right-Wing Liar Who’s Enabled By The Media (crooksandliars.com)
- David Barton’s version of ‘verbatim’ (maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com)
- David Barton Lies Shamelessly on the Daily Show (littlegreenfootballs.com)
- David Barton’s Jefferson — Sightings (Martin Marty) (bobcornwall.com)
- Taking a look at “The Jefferson Lies” (viewfrommiddleclass.wordpress.com)
Science vs. God – America is becoming ignorant.
Gallup has released the results of a national poll on science, and unfortunately, modern biology didn’t fare well:
“Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.”
In fact, only 15% believed in evolution with God playing no part in everything (ie: the major premise of modern science.)
Here in America we used to have a competitive edge in science… now we are falling way behind competing countries. We need to start taking science seriously again – ignorance costs far too much. Results such as those of the Gallup poll should serve as a wake-up call.
Neil deGrasse Tyson gave a lecture a few years ago on the “philosophy of ignorance,” in which he said a lack of appreciation for basic scientific principles will hurt America’s scientific output, which has traditionally been the nation’s largest economic engine.
“If nonscience works its way into the science classroom, it marks … the beginning of the end of the economic strength this country has known,” Tyson said.
If you care about American economic competitiveness you have to care about science.
Related articles
- Gallup Poll: 46% of Americans Are Creationists (patheos.com)
- Gallup: Most Americans Did Not Evolve (towleroad.com)
- Evolution acceptance still flatlined in America (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
- Creationism harms America: Religion breeds ignorance (examiner.com)
- Almost Half Of Americans Still Believe In Creationism (businessinsider.com)
- The Neil DeGrasse Tyson Book You Should Give To All Your Friends [Book Review] (io9.com)
- Neil deGrasse Tyson defending science (redglitterx.wordpress.com)
- The Tide Comes in… (duh) (anolistollis.wordpress.com)
- Must watch: Neil deGrasse Tyson Discusses the Link Between Space and Culture [Video] (io9.com)
- Neil deGrasse Tyson: Atheist or Agnostic? (bigthink.com)
- Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why Astrophysics Makes the Most Sense (this8bitlife.com)
A frightening story from the Religious Right:
Thank you to WarIsACrime.org for making us aware of this. Part of the article as follows:
How Christian fundamentalists plan to teach genocide to schoolchildren
By davidswanson
The story of Saul and the Amalekites has been used to justify genocide throughout the ages. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the GuardianThe Bible has thousands of passages that may serve as the basis for instruction and inspiration. Not all of them are appropriate in all circumstances.
The story of Saul and the Amalekites is a case in point. It’s not a pretty story, and it is often used by people who don’t intend to do pretty things. In the book of 1 Samuel (15:3), God said to Saul:
“Now go, attack the Amalekites, and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
Saul dutifully exterminated the women, the children, the babies and all of the men – but then he spared the king. He also saved some of the tastier looking calves and lambs. God was furious with him for his failure to finish the job.
The story of the Amalekites has been used to justify genocide throughout the ages. According to Pennsylvania State University Professor Philip Jenkins, a contributing editor for the American Conservative, the Puritans used this passage when they wanted to get rid of the Native American tribes. Catholics used it against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics. “In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu preachers invoked King Saul‘s memory to justify the total slaughter of their Tutsi neighbors,” writes Jenkins in his 2011 book, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses (HarperCollins).
This fall, more than 100,000 American public school children, ranging in age from four to 12, are scheduled to receive instruction in the lessons of Saul and the Amalekites in the comfort of their own public school classrooms. The instruction, which features in the second week of a weekly “Bible study” course, will come from the Good News Club, an after-school program sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). The aim of the CEF is to convert young children to a fundamentalist form of the Christian faith and recruit their peers to the club.
(read the rest HERE.)
—
And yet, we can look at Muslims and see them responsible for acts like those in Syria and other places where women and children are killed… or look at the same kind of crimes in Guatemala a couple of years ago (The report on Dos Erres by This American Life comes to mind) and you’ll see what is almost an acceptance by the US Government (unless we are doing something that is invisible.)
Religion… the danger of extreme belief,,, rises to confront the world on a regular basis. Will we allow such a rise in our schools?
Related articles
- Are Christian Fundamentalists Teaching Genocide in Our Schools? (alternet.org)
- Christian fundamentalist “Good News Club” promotes genocide of nonbelievers in public schools (secularnewsdaily.com)
- [Update] How Christian fundamentalists plan to teach genocide to schoolchildren – Katherine Stewart – The Guardian (richarddawkins.net)
- Compassion Or The Cold Steel: A Case Study Of Old Testament Violence (bburleson.wordpress.com)
North Carolina Pastor: Pen In ‘All The Lesbians And Queers’ With An Electrified Fence, Wait For Them To ‘Die Out’
What is it that gives Religion the kind of Clowns that North Carolina does?
North Carolinians voted to alter the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage… why? They were largely moved by fear-tactics fueled by far right religious groups bent on punishing lesbians and gay men. The vote also makes North Carolina, as The New York Times notes, the last state in the South to marginalize gay people with a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Now we have a North Carolina Pastor with a kind of “leper colony” proposal to end the problem of gays and gay marriage. He’s Charles Worley, and he proposed this to his wrapt congregation this week:
“I figured a way out — a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. But I couldn’t get it passed through Congress. Build a great big large fence, 150 or 100 miles long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. Feed ‘em, and– And you know what? In a few years they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce.”
Don’t you just admire the logic of that? You KNOW the Bible‘s “agin’ it”… here’s Worley’s speech:
Victoria Lamb Hatch, who I have quoted in this blog before, made a fine summary statement on Worley’s little diatribe:
Does this mentally arthritic idiot know that the vast majority of gay people are born to straight people? Does he know that penning up gay people and waiting for them to die out won’t solve his “problem” because straight people will just continue birthing gay babies? Does he know that anyone who “can’t reproduce” would die out anyway, penned up or not?
Does he know that he’s a hateful, evil person who isn’t earning God‘s favor with comments like these?
I guess Victoria doesn’t realize it, but torturing the gay/lesbian community is where all the FUN is. Right?
Related articles
- North Carolina Pastor: Trap Gays and Lesbians Behind Electrified Fences (theatlanticwire.com)
- North Carolina Pastor: Pen In ‘All The Lesbians And Queers’ With An Electrified Fence, Wait For Them To ‘Die Out’ (thinkprogress.org)
- Pastor Worley has plan to get rid of ‘lesbians and queers’ (piedtype.com)
- Pastor: Let’s Put ‘Queers’ in Pens Until They Die (ktrh.com)
- American Taliban: Pastor Worley and How To Solve The “Homosexual Problem” (jonathanturley.org)
- Hating For Jesus: NC Pastor Charles Worley (scotteriology.wordpress.com)
- NC Pastor Wants To Build Electrified Fence To Contain, Starve And Ultimately Kill Gays: VIDEO (towleroad.com)
- Pastor Who Called For Gays And Lesbians To Be Put In Electrified Pen And Killed Off Faces Backlash (huffingtonpost.com)
- Outrage Brews Over Pastor’s Sermon on Homosexuals and Electrified Fences (fox8.com)
- HATE SPEECH: North Carolina Pastor Offers Final Solution to Homosexual Problem: Electrified Concentration Camps (alexprocesso.wordpress.com)
What in Hell is wrong with people?
Mokele-mbembe
I found this one in Doubtful News:
Stephen McCullah needed to raise $26,700 by May 11 in order to secure enough funds through Kickstarter.com to, well, kickstart his expedition to the Republic of Congo to hunt a reported living dinosaur.
When the deadline arrived, the 21-year-old adventurer and Missouri native had received pledges totaling nearly $29,000.
He’s now packing his bags and a powerful tranquilizer rifle — to bring down a possible dinosaur during what he has dubbed the Newmac Expedition.
McCullah said that his team will end up at the southern tip of Lake Tele, where mokele-mbembe have been reported. The Newmac explorers will set up camp at the village of a pygmy tribe.
For the remainder of their three-month stay, and as long as there are no health or safety issues intervening, the men will set out every day with a variety of special cameras, searching for new species, large or small, including canine-sized tarantulas.
McCullah and his associate are established Creationists, I suppose hoping to cling to the Creationist line that the Earth is around 6,000 years old and men and dinosaurs lived togather (the would have HAD to.)
That they were funded through Kickstarter leaves me in doubt about the ethical nature of that organization… with the knowledge that KS takes 5% of the $26,700 for listing it. Making money on unintelligent people is much too easy in the U.S.A.
A cartoon, however, to explain why dinosaurs are not here now for these people:
Related articles
- Dinosaur hunters secure funds for expedition (dailystar.com.lb)
- Hunt for Live Dinos in Africa (foxnews.com)
- A Young Man From Missouri Is Using Kickstarter To Fund An African Dinosaur Hunt (businessinsider.com)
- Did people and dinosaurs live at the same time? (articles4friends.com)
- Feedback: Dinosaurs Living with People – The Biblical Worldview – Answers in Genesis (leesbird.com)
Religion vs. The Constitution – why are we even debating this?
Do you remember Jefferson’s ideal that “all men are created equal” and have “certain unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” Right… it’s in the Declaration of Independence… the document upon which our democracy has been constructed.
More than half the population, however, faces discrimination every day in every aspect of their lives and do not enjoy equal rights.
Republicans do not embrace equal rights for all Americans… their drive to subject women to inequality and discrimination is only matched by their punitive actions to restrict gays from marrying or even having a civil union with the partner they love..
President Obama, in his historic announcement on Wednesday that he supports gay marriage, defines himself as a true advocate for equal rights for all Americans.
The opposition to gay marriage is based solely in religious dogma, and by legislating against same-sex marriage, Republicans are sanctioning religious discrimination laws that are, at the least, unconstitutional. Republicans claim that not following the Christian prohibition on homosexuality threatens 
traditional marriage, destroys children, and will lead to America’s demise, but they have no evidence to support any of their claims.
Conservative republicans’ media outlets, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, advocate this inequality and discrimination and emboldens homophobic Americans to renounce the rights of all citizens for gays. Giving the gay community the right to marry is not only about ending social discrimination, it also means the end of financial penalties for being gay…for instance, the ability to have “married status” on federal income tax returns.
Is our freedom for all Americans? For some Americans? Fort rich Americans? For Religious Americans? – I hope it is for EVERYONE and no backsies.
Related articles
- Another Time In History (catsnjammer64.wordpress.com)
- Moran Applauds President’s Support of Gay Marriage (arlnow.com)
- Should America legalise gay marriage? (4l2012.wordpress.com)
- Bill Donohue: ‘I Want The Law To Discriminate’ Against Same-Sex Couples (thinkprogress.org)
- Utahns weigh in on Obama support for same-sex marriage ()
- Unions Back Obama’s Stand for Marriage Equality (talkingunion.wordpress.com)
- Obama criticizes Romney as ‘backwards on equality’ (onlineathens.com)
- Daily Show traces the evolution of Fox’s same sex marriage talking points (rawstory.com)
- Poll: O.C. Democrats favor federal gay marriage (totalbuzz.ocregister.com)
As long as there are people who believe the unreal, we will have a hard time progressing into the future…
Here is an article from The Texas Observer that caught my attention. I’ll give you part of it here, but it is much, much longer and I encourage you to read it. If you scratch your head with wonder, then you are just like me:
In the beginning, God created dinosaurs and humans, and they walked together in Texas.
At least, according to many people in Glen Rose.
The small town about 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth is home to some of the best-preserved dinosaur tracks in the world; it’s also a heavily Christian community where many locals interpret the book of Genesis literally.
Their belief is bolstered by a phenomenon in the riverbed. Alongside the dinosaur tracks are what resident R.C. McFall and others call “man tracks”—tangible proof of biblical creation accounts and a refutation of the theory of evolution.
McFall walks along the Paluxy River, careful not to place his cowboy boot in a dinosaur track. Muddy water fills the fossilized footprints embedded in this rocky ledge.
“There’s a track right there,” he says in a deep Texas drawl, pointing. “That hole is where my dad dug one out.”
If the river weren’t up, McFall explains, we’d see man tracks just a few feet away, in the same strata of rock as the dinosaur tracks.
The 113-million-year-old dinosaur tracks, first discovered in 1909, are an important part of Glen Rose’s livelihood, bringing thousands of visitors a year to attractions like Dinosaur Valley State Park and Dinosaur World. The town’s tourist industry, accounting for $23 million in annual revenue, was built largely on the jaw-dropping fact that fossils this old are still present today. Visitors can park their trailers at the Jurassic RV Park (the tracks actually date to the Cretaceous period) or stay at the Glen Rose Inn & Suites, where the sign features a cartoon dinosaur.
“The dinosaurs are what drive us,” says Billy Huckaby, executive director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Glen Rose. “You can’t develop a town of 2,000 into this kind of tourism revenue unless you’ve got something really special to promote.”
Tourist literature describes the tracks as millions of years old, but not everyone buys the science.
“I believe in the Bible,” McFall says. “I don’t believe the world’s over 6,000 or 7,000 years old. Course, everybody’s got their own interpretation.”
Go HERE for the rest of the article.
Related articles
- Remind me to Never Visit the town of Glen Rose, Texas (educationclearinghouse.wordpress.com)
- Tracking Creation In Glen Rose | Robyn Ross | Texas Observer | 09 April 2012 (texasobserver.org)
- Quote of the Day (chiefwritingwolf.com)
- Top 5 Lies Taught By Accelerated Christian Education (leavingfundamentalism.wordpress.com)
- When Jesus Was a Dinosaur Cowboy (bigthink.com)
- The varieties of disbelief (economist.com)
- Human Footprints and Dinosaur Tracks – On The Moon? (kenneturner.wordpress.com)
- Andrew Sullivan gets all militant about religion and creationism! (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
- Which Came Last, Dinosaur or Egg? (abcnews.go.com)
Famous Atheists (Courtesy of Boing Boing)
From top left: Mark Twain, Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, Keira Knightley, Stephen Hawking, Bill Maher, John Lennon, Ricky Gervais, Julianne Moore, Keanu Reeves, Bill Shatner, Johnny Depp, Janeane Garofalo, James Cameron, Billy Joel, Jack Nicholson, John Malkovich, Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Richard Branson, Sir Ian McKellan, Albert Einstein, Brad Pitt, Daniel Radcliffe, Jodie Foster, Hugh Laurie, Lance Armstrong, George Carlin, Morgan Freeman, Fred Armisen, Angelina Jolie, Gene Wilder, Penn Jillette, Teller, Dylan Moran, Patton Oswalt, Seth Green, Norm MacDonald, Eddie Izzard, Cillian Murphy, Jeremy Clarkson, and George Clooney.
Hey… they left me out. Not famous enough?
Researching Robert G. Ingersoll
I have become fascinated by the life and work of Robert G. Ingersoll (1833 – 1899), Civil War Colonel, friend of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, nationally known lecturer on many topics, lawyer and, if he had not been an avowed non-believer, he could have been President of the United States.
He was known as “The Great Agnostic” and was an early, and liberal, Republican who was a supporter of civil rights, women’s rights and freedom from religion long before the intellects of the mid to late 20th Century.
I’ll be posting transcripts of his speeches and other writings on the Robert G. Ingersoll page I have established on this blog.
Enjoy.
Who does God prefer? Kind atheists?
Actual photo, from the Rose City Park United Methodist Church, in Portland, Oregon.
The sign got a mention in Larry Bingham's column in The Oregonian, and he says it's making more headlines.
The Rose City Park United Methodist Church minister's recent sign, which says "God Prefers Kind Atheists over Hateful Christians" is making headlines all over the place.
Related articles
- Atheists: The God Haters! (firstcapricorn.wordpress.com)
- Do Christians believe in atheists? UBC study finds believers distrust atheists as much as rapists (ahmadiyyamuslimtimes.wordpress.com)
- Exactly (doubleplusundead.com)
- Top Ten Benfits of Being an Atheist (uglicoyote.wordpress.com)
- Passover and Easter: Great fun for atheists (dangeroustalk.net)
Good Morning, America. Time to get back to our roots…
… and to me that starts with dropping “In God We Trust“ and returning to “e pluribus unum” (Out of Many, One) as our official motto (I’ve been thinking about this all night – 
even in one very bad dream – since posting the last night’s quote from Mark Karlin.)
It was adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782, although not as an official motto but what came to be considered, de facto, the basic statement of the USA. It is on the official Seal of the United States.
“In God We Trust,” in this era of the Religious Right separating itself from any compromise position with the center or the left, is meaningless. What do we trust in God for? That He would allow one side to corrupt the country in His name? If we don’t get back to unifying the many, we will no longer have control of the basics of daily life.
OK… I’m an atheist, as I’ve pointed out many times on this blog. The religious connection with politics, in general, leaves me both appalled and extremely worried. Even if I had a belief that was in line with the other 80% of Americans, I would be upset about single sects pushing their beliefs on everyone else. This is not American…not the American Way.
Show me a candidate that can finish a speech without acknowledging a blessing from their own God, and I will show you someone who is more reliant 
on what he or she CAN DO by him- or herself, with the united population…the one out of many. That, to me, is worth voting for.
Related articles
- Quote to End the Week – We are doing a Bang (Bang) Up Job (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
- What E Pluribus Unum Means (todayifoundout.com)
- Air Farce: Religious Right Allies Complain about Removal of ‘God’ from Military Motto (secularnewsdaily.com)
- In God We Trust (sixpointnineme.wordpress.com)
- Teddy Roosevelt: ‘In God We Trust’ on Money is ‘Sacrilege’ (patheos.com)
With this quote, I thee wed…
Who is joining hands with all the truly religious in America by following the last three or four decades of political history?
Guess..
Look at every race that’s been run over the past forty, thirty years, and you will see a divide between George Bush and Al Gore, between George Bush and John Kerry, between John McCain and Barack Obama, between people who go to church and people who don’t … We are the party that believe in values.
Got it?
Yeah, it’s Rick Santorum from a WLW radio show last Friday.
Deborah Brancheau over at RestoringTruthiness.org has an article: Rick Santorum to Abraham Lincoln: Oh You Infidel! that sums up the situation of the values party nicely.
Related articles
- Rick Santorum’s Republican math (dailykos.com)
- Rick Santorum: All For Me, Not For Thee Or Charity (crooksandliars.com)
- Rick Santorum Makes the Bizarre Promise to Never Speak the Name of Any Former President [Rick Santorum] (jezebel.com)
- Look At Rick Santorum’s Inbox (huffingtonpost.com)
- 31 Rick Santorum Quotes That Prove He Would Be A Destructive President | Addicting Info (tribuneofthepeople.com)
Quote of the Weekend… did you hear Santorum on TV?
Commenting on the relationship between Church and State, Santorum said this while referencing John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech:
“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up. What kind of country do we live in where only people of non-faith can come in the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up. And that should make every American [throw up].
“I don’t believe in an America where the separation between church and state is absolute.”
That was not what Kennedy said or meant. Here’s JFK‘s statement:
“I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant
nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source — where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials — and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”
According to Kennedy: “The Constitution is very clear” on the separation of Church and State.
If this doesn’t show why we should keep Santorum as far as possible from this office then nothing does.
Culture Wars…
We are entering another month of the ongoing political culture wars next week, without really looking at the concerns of jobs, economics, climate change or any of 
the other real problems that need to be addressed.
Tuesday will be the Michigan and Arizona primaries, so the TV pundits are focusing on those states and in so doing are revealing some new cultural phenomena. For instance, in Arizona they are considering a new law that bans college teachers from cursing but allows students to carry guns. Got that? Gun violence good, language violence bad? And then… what is a naughty enough word to get a teacher fired? Will they be listed in the law?
The biggest insertion of cultural conflict into the process is, of course, religion. Between candidates who have been spoken to by God and encouraged to run, to major religious groups protesting established birth control legislation but supporting the penetration of vaginas to discourage abortions, the promotion of religion over secular politics is frightening… and disgusting.
These politicians are ready to scrap what we know of the scientific proof for climate change in order to promote more industries that pollute the air (listen to the righties cheer) or to ignore what is necessary to reduce the unbelievable growth of population. Don’t they see what is going on here?
I turn to the world of intellectual comedy to backup my views of religion, science and atheism (a belief area that I belong to… but like most atheists don’t try to inflict my beliefs on other people using the replacement of secular law.) Here’s Eddie Izzard:
Even if you don’t agree with Eddie (or me), I hope you were at least entertained… and will think about how to get away from the culture wars and back to solving our real problems.
(BTW, Eddie Izzard will soon be appearing in a new version of Treasure Island playing Long John Silver. Can’t wait.)
Related articles
- Girl Scouts: The Culture Wars’ Tiniest Soldiers [Girl Scouts] (jezebel.com)
- Forget Jobs, 2012 Is About a Culture War and War With Iran (usnews.com)
- Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science (bfreenews.com)
- Culture War 2.0 or Same Old War? (atheistrev.com)
- Will Culture Wars be Focus of Tonight’s Debate? (politicalwire.com)
- Climate Change Hoax Has Apparently Become Part Of The Culture War (usapartisan.com)
- On the rise of culture war politics (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
- Contraceptives, religious freedom: Are we in a new culture war? (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
(Stupid) Quote of the Day
Climate Change is…
“an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for
government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life…
“When you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth; by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate — this is all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government.”
-Rick Santorum speaking in Colorado
In his article in TPM on Santorum’s little speech, Sahil Kapur also put this in:
But lest you believe Santorum’s thinking is hitherto unseen in the GOP. Rep. John Shimkus, in a 2009 congressional hearing, cited the Book of Genesis as evidence that climate change is a hoax, pointing out that God promised Noah that man won’t destroy the Earth. Shimkus was subsequently rewarded with the Chairmanship of the powerful Energy & Commerce subcommittee on the environment.
Don’t you love the Religious Right? Isn’t the Book of Genesis the one that never explains where all the other people beyond Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel come from? And there’s a talking snake.
Related articles
- Keep that Santorum out of our science (freethoughtblogs.com)
- Is Rick Santorum a Pagan? (legalplanet.wordpress.com)
- Guest Post: Rick Santorum and Climate Change (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
- Conservation Hawks Founder: “If Climate Change Isn’t Real, I’ll Give You My Beretta” (thinkprogress.org)
- Weather vs. Climate (theresponsibilitypolice.wordpress.com)
- The Problem with Rick Santorum’s Holy War (ideas.time.com)
- Rick Santorum defends remarks on Barack Obama’s faith – Boston Herald (news.bostonherald.com)
- The Sick Mind of Rick Santorum (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
- Theology On The Brain (duanegraham.wordpress.com)
- Rick Santorum Defends Controversial Obama Christianity Remarks [VIDEO] (ibtimes.com)
- Santorum clarifies ‘theology’ remark (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
A quote for the day… another view of the Religion conflict
When did the 1st Amendment change from basically saying that you can practice whatever religion you want and you won’t be burned at the stake as a heretic and we’re not going to form or recognize a national religion like the Church of England? When did it change to “everyone everywhere has to do what a bunch of old catholics in funny hats wants, because otherwise it hurts their feelings?” And why does it only apply to certain religions?
- John Cole at Balloon Juice.
I’m not sure what the government is ready to do for non-religionists (like me). My thought is that they would be totally unconcerned with the beliefs of atheists (like the belief that women should control their own lives and have the absolute right to protect their bodies and maintain their reproductive activities… or reject them entirely.)
If you listened to the Republicans (mostly male) at C-PAC in their comments on opposition to birth control and abortion or maintenance of some religious beliefs applicable to EVERYONE, then you know who people like me can’t help to support and vote for.
Related articles
- My religion is to kill your religion (skydancingblog.com)
- Getting on My Catholic High Horse (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
- Oh, My Pop-Culture Jesus! (ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com)
- Atheism ~ Is it a religion? (himalayanatheist.wordpress.com)
- Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy: Newt Gingrich Stands Up For ‘Our Religions’ (huffingtonpost.com)
- Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton: review (telegraph.co.uk)
- Personal Responsibility – Overlooked By Religion (redpoppy71.wordpress.com)
- Does the Catholic Church have an obligation to change its stance on traditional beliefs? (intentious.com)
