Blogs to Follow

I know many of my followers run blogs of their own, and I try to follow as many of them as I can but sometimes I just miss some. So if you're following my blog and you want me to follow yours, then post the URL in the comments.

Here's the list of blogs I'm already following. Please check to see if yours is already listed.

Why We Fight

I have noticed quite a few messages in the comments to my posts lately. Some people seem to think the billboards such as "You Know It's A MYTH" or "You Know They're All SCAMS" are dickish and are making atheists look bad. Some even scowled at me for calling people delusional for believing that God created people in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Why? Because it's disrespectful. In my humble opinion though, respect should never be automatic. Respect is to be earned, and when people believe something beyond all rational and logical meaning in the face of contradicting evidence, it IS a delusion, and it deserves NO respect. It's the God damn definition of delusion.

Why do we fight? Why do we to tell people they are myths and scams and put it up on billboards? It's because we live in a society where religious beliefs are so heavily respected that they aren't questioned, and they are often pushed into our laws and our lives without consequences.

Why so many anti-Christian messages? Am I just butthurt against Christianity instead of religion in general? The reason for this is because in our society, Christianity rules supreme, and is often not held to the same standards as any other religion. It is favored in so many cases where, if replaced by a different religious act, would be heavily attacked. A recent example of this would be Tim Tebow. In University he would wear references to bible verses on his face...

Once he graduated, the NCAA ended up banning eye-billboards.

Now, Tebow is a professional football player for the Denver Broncos. But since the NFL already bans eye-black messages, he has to figure out a different way to send his Christian bat-signal… and it looks like he found it!

Is he breaking the rules? Looks like it:

… NFL and NCAA rules forbid players from marking their uniforms…
…
The rule covers the helmet, jersey, pants, shoes, tape, wristbands, and headbands. No writing on any part of the body. Before each game uniform reps — former NFL players — prowl the sidelines looking for violators. When the teams go back into the locker room before the game starts, they are given a list of players who are in violation of the rule.
If they come out for the kickoff without removing the writing, they will be fined. According to Johnny Rembert, the uniform rep in Jacksonville and a 10-year NFL veteran, fines start at $5,000.

As far as I can tell, Tebow has been issued no fine. However, Kenny Britt of the Tennessee Titans was fined $5,000 because the towel attached to his uniform said “#10 VY” — a tribute to Vince Young. Britt accepted the fine and removed the towel for the second half of the game. Why is the NFL letting Tebow’s violation slide? How much do you want to bet if someone had "There is no God" written on their wrist, they'd be hit with that fine the moment someone spotted it on their HDTV. This is what we so often see in our little world. Christianity is accepted where everything else is strictly forbidden.

What else? Is that all I have? Some NFL guy writing on his wrist? That's a pretty weak argument, maybe people just didn't notice it or just didn't care because it's such a little thing it's not worth fighting over. Well I was reading the Chicago Tribune and I saw this letter-to-the-editor from Ed Leighton:

Eighteen months after graduating from a public high school, I had a chance encounter with Mr. Clark, my old guidance counselor. In what might have been a fishing expedition, he asked me who my most influential teacher was.
“Mr. Eitmueller,” I replied.
He then asked if it had anything to do with Christianity. It did.
I was a teenager in the ’70s and had succumbed to many of its temptations. As a student of Mr. Eitmueller, he was well-aware of the resulting changes in me, and it seems, of my potential. When he told me I’d be receiving a failing grade in his class, I asked if there was anything that could be done (you know, to fix that).
There was. If I agreed to read the Gospel of John that summer, he would agree to elevate my failing grade to passing.
Certain I had just made a great deal, I walked away quite pleased with myself.
As agreed, he passed me.
As agreed, I read the Gospel of John. By summer’s end, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.

Just imagine if Eitmueller had suggested reading any book about atheism…

Better yet, imagine a public school teacher telling a child who failed the class that he would change the grade to passing, but only if the student read the Koran.

There would have been an uproar then. The teacher would have been severely reprimanded if not suspended or fired. There would be an uproar now. Every Christian Right group would rightfully be after that teacher. Every administrator at that school would be inundated with emails calling for their heads.

But because it’s a story about Christianity, it gets a complete pass. Everything’s ok. The teacher is a role model. The letter makes it into the Sunday edition of the Tribune.

Anyone want to make a bet that the Illinois Family Institute has nothing to say about this story? How about any Religious Right group? Any church? Of course not. They want more exchanges like this to happen.

Christians also fight the hardest to get their beliefs into schools and laws. They come up with a pseudoscience and even though it's denied by the entire scientific community, they demand it gets equal treatment and be taught alongside evolution in schools. Don't believe me? Oklahoma State Senator Josh Brecheen wants to introduce a bill next year that will hamper the teaching of evolution:

Senator Brecheen says children should be given all the facts when it comes to evolution.
…

The senator says he supports having creationism — the belief that God created the world without evolution — taught in public schools.
“You either remove both or you put both in,” he said.
In an op-ed he wrote last week, Brecheen called evolution, “a religion,” and says there are serious flaws in the theory that students ought to know.
“The main fallacy with Darwinian theory,” he argued, “is the sudden appearance at about 540 million years [ago] of fossil records. It’s like a guy standing at the chalkboard and saying okay here’s an atom [and then writing] question mark, question mark, human — here we are. But its fact, and there’s zero evidence to back it up.”

 What he's talking about is  the Cambrian Explosion, which has already been explained before...

Even the major universities have come out against this idiocy:

Oklahoma’s major universities including OU and OSU all agree that evolution is the best science and that alternatives such as creationism should not be taught in public schools.

This is what Brecheen wrote in an op-ed last week:

One of the bills I will file this year may be dismissed as inferior by “intellectuals” so I wanted to devote particular time in discussing it’s merits… I’m talking about the religion of evolution. Yes, it is a religion. The religion of evolution requires as much faith as the belief in a loving God,

As PZ Meyers wrote in an op-ed about this, "It's not a promising beginning when you're discussing a scientific topic and immediately dismiss intellectuals." If you would like to see all the fallacies in this man's statement about teaching Creationism in school, check out PZ Meyers' article, where he breaks it all down.

The faculty of Southeastern Oklahoma State University are covering their eyes in shame right now, since apparently this creationist-cliche-spewing plagiarist and professional imbecile managed to successfully graduate from their institution.

I would like if we could all just get along, if we could just do what's right for humanity instead of what's right for furthering our ideology. I ask that secularism be promoted so that nobody's ideology is favored. If we could do that, there would be no reason for billboards telling everyone that the nativity is a myth. People could believe what they want and keep it to themselves and live however they want. But when those illogical beliefs start to hurt our society, or individuals, then it's time to take off the kid gloves and get serious. Religious ideology should be treated the same as any other harmful ideology, such as homeopathy. Get serious and stop pandering to ignorant people. This is why we have to remind people that we live in reality, not a fairytale. This is why we fight.

Happy Holidays

It's been a fantastic Winter. I don't know about you guys, but I've had a great Christmas. Just chillin back with my girl and enjoying some fine campaign in front of my new 32" LCD. Thanks to all you guys and gals who helped pay for it ;]

The Importance of Failure

Today I'm taking a break from the usual posting of religious people doing something ridiculous. This video is really very entertaining and makes for a great life lesson. It's a bit long (45 minutes) but it's absolutely worth watching. If you're busy, you should come back to this later and watch it entirely.

During The Amazing Meeting 7 (in 2009), Adam Savage from Mythbusters spoke about the importance of his failures and how they shaped him. JREF has now put the video online:



On a side note, my blog has reached 666 followers! I give thanks to all my fellow heathens.

NASA Scientists Discover Arsenic Life Form

NASA has discovered a new life form, a bacteria called GFAJ-1 that is unlike anything currently living in planet Earth. It's capable of using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything.
NASA is saying that this is "life as we do not know it". The reason is that all life on Earth is made of six components: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.
That was true until today. In a surprising revelation, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her team have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today, working differently than the rest of the organisms in the planet. Instead of using phosphorus, the newly discovered microorganism—called GFAJ-1 and found in Mono Lake, California—uses the poisonous arsenic for its building blocks. Arsenic is an element poisonous to every other living creature in the planet except for a few specialized microscopic creatures.



According to Wolfe-Simon, they knew that "some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new—building parts of itself out of arsenic." The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding organisms in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth. Like NASA's Ed Weiler says: "The definition of life has just expanded."

Talking at the NASA conference, Wolfe-Simon said that the important thing in their study is that this breaks our ideas on how life can be created and grow, pointing out that scientists will now be looking for new types of organisms and metabolism that not only uses arsenic, but other elements as well. She says that she's working on a few possibilities herself.
NASA's geobiologist Pamela Conrad thinks that the discovery is huge and "phenomenal," comparing it to the Star Trek episode in which the Enterprise crew finds Horta, a silicon-based alien life form that can't be detected with tricorders because it wasn't carbon-based. It's like saying that we may be looking for new life in the wrong places with the wrong methods. Indeed, NASA tweeted that this discovery "will change how we search for life elsewhere in the Universe."



I don't know about you but I've not been so excited about bacteria since my STD tests came back clean. And that's without counting yesterday's announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor a trillion Earths, dramatically increasing our chances of finding extraterrestrial life.

A Glimpse Inside the Fish Bowl

Father John Trigilio has recently expressed outrage. The release of US internal diplomatic messages by Wikileaks is treasonous!

Yes.
Well.

It can't be Assange who is treasonous since treason is an action taken against one's own legitimate government. The man who runs Wikileaks is Australian.
That rules him out.

We could lay the charge against whichever American released the documents to Wikileaks, of course, but therein lies the rub.

Can we assume everything our government does is legitimate?
In other words, are there occasions when government action should be brought to the attention of the world?

I am thinking of the numerous examples of US government sponsored testing of radioactive and biological agents on various sub-populations within US borders, the testing of these agents against American citizens. Would it have been treasonous to release that kind of information, even though that information release would destabilize a particular President or government party?

Or, try another question.
Was it treasonous to reveal who was behind the Watergate break-in?

You may argue that the President and his cohorts broke the laws, and therefore it was right to reveal their activities.
OK.
But now we are into a matter of judgement, for in order to make that assessment, we must, in some sense, be both trial judge and jury in order to determine what should be released and what should not. And isn't a citizen who acts as both trial judge and jury breaking the law, assuming guilt before a trial, etc.?

Notice, I'm not arguing against the idea that each of us must act as trial judge and jury in such a situation. I think that's a laudable thing for everyone to do.

Whenever a leak like this happens, it happens because someone feels the information being released should be more widely known in order to prevent some abuse. Whether that judgement is correct may be open to question, but that is generally the motive which drives the leak (it may also be the case that the person releasing the information is being paid to do so, which definitely would be treason, but let us assume the higher motives).

How to Change Blogger Icon

I know most of my readers are blogspotters too, as I visit many of your blogs. A few blogs I've visited have something really neat that sets your blog apart from the rest. It's a customized  icon / favicon. It's that little icon in the address bar and tab that comes right before the url or blog title. This article will explain about how to change your blog icon, from the default Blogger icon to your own custom icon. I have used this method myself so I am sure it will work for you as well.

Recently, I had changed my tab icon of my blogger site. It used to be a common blogger icon which is an orange square with the white letter B inside it. I changed it into my custom made icon of two linking Cs similar to my banner. If you are interested in doing the same, here are the steps to do it:

1. Prepare an image, can be JPG or PNG format. I suggest PNG format because its size will be smaller by a 4:1 ratio. It means that a 10 Kb JPG image will be a 2.5 Kb in PNG format. Also make sure the size is small like 20 x 20 pixels or less, so the file will be smaller in size and won't make your blog loads slower.

If it's difficult for you to edit a small image, you can make a bigger one first, like 200 x 200 pixels or more, and after finish, you can skew it smaller. Microsoft Paint can do it for you easily.

2. Upload the image to an image hosting service, like the free Tinypic. Then, obtain the direct link to your image for the next step.

3. Add the underlined tags to your template. To access it, click "edit html" in "layout" section. Put them in head section, between "title" tag and "b:skin" tag. If you face difficulties in finding the tag, just use the find tool in your browser. In Mozilla Firefox, the shortcut is ctrl+f. If you use another browsers, apply with adaptation.

<title><data:blog.pagetitle>
<link href='put the direct URL of your image here' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>
<b:skin>

Save and done!

Pompous Theist

I couldn't find anything to write about, so here's some Pompous Theist for you.

Civilization V Divides Religion And Science

I already made a post below about the new game, Civilization V, but I think this deserves a post of its own.

After starting to play this game 2 things really intrigued me.
1. They've removed the individual religions that were a crucial part of Civ IV.
2. They've replaced Civics with Social Policies. There are 10 of them, and the 2 that I really like are Piety and Rationalism.

Piety represents your civlization's devotion to religion and Rationalism represents your civlization's devotion to science. These 2 Social Policies cannot be used at the same time. So the creators of Civilization V are basically saying that your civilization is either religious or rational. Haha, Fantastic!

Civilization V

I've been waiting for this game for so long!

Say hello to my little friend. His name is Giant Death Robot

awwwwwesome.
ALL NEW FEATURES:
A new hex-based gameplay grid opens up exciting new combat and build strategies.
City States become a new resource in your diplomatic battleground. An improved diplomacy system allows you to negotiate with fully interactive leaders.
Custom music scores and orchestral recordings give Civ V the level of polish and quality you expect from the series.
BELIEVABLE WORLD: Ultra realistic graphics showcase lush landscapes for you to explore, battle over and claim as your own. Art deco influences abound in the menus and icons in the most well-designed Civ ever developed.

Irrational Table Of Nonsense

Hurry for Pseudoscience!

Mindfuck

Oh shiiii

Big Fish

This is one massive fish...

It was so large that it took 10 grown men to hold it up for the photo shoot.

“It was so thick around the middle, you couldn’t get your arms around it,” said Calderone.

Officially, it measured 11 feet, three inches, or 3.4 metres — the length of a compact car. And it likely weighed more than 700 pounds, or 320 kilograms, based on its girth.

This monster sturgeon was reeled in on the shore of Mission, British Columbia, Canada. As a native to the Fraser Valley, I can verify this thing IS real, and almost as shocking as all those damn feet that kept showing up on our shores from 2007-2009

Xbox Live

I can deal with the children screaming and breathing into the mic.

I can deal with the teamkillers fucking everything up just for the fun of it.

I can deal with the pissy hardcore gamers who think they're 1337 because they don't use autoaim.

I can deal with the lag that shifts me 5 feet to the left when I'm trying to shoot an enemy.

I can deal with the campers who want to sit in one spot and collect easy kills.

I can deal with the griefers who chase after you for no particular reason when you aren't looking fo a fight.

I can deal with the assholes who vent their frustrations out by trash talking everyone else on a mic.

What I can't deal with is the self-righteous preachers who won't shut the fuck up about God or the Bible until everyone they come in contact with is converted.
Xbox Live is for gaming, not proselytizing. Do everyone a favor and keep that shit in your church. If people feel lost in the world and are looking for answers, they will come to you. Don't go out of your way to meet people and shove religion down their throats.

If you have Xbox Live, send HOMETHEATER BOY a message and let him know he's sick offensive scum. Thank you.

Dear Pope

Rapper Dan Bull knows the Pope is visiting his hometown in the UK soon, so he wrote him a welcome letter.


Pretty funny stuff.

Some Lawls

Sorry guys. I can't really find an interesting story to post about, so just enjoy these instead.

Meet Terry Jones

Terry Jones is a simple man.
Terry Jones wears a .40-caliber pistal strapped to his hip.
Terry Jones is a Reverend.
Terry Jones owns 200 Korans
Terry Jones has admitted not having read a single one.
Terry Jones wants to burn them.
Terry Jones doesn't have a permit for such an event.
Terry Jones has received over 100 death threats.
Terry Jones will send a message to radical extremist Muslims.
Terry Jones...

...Can brush his handlebar mustache against my gooch.

PROTIP: Don't call it an "INTERNATIONAL" event if YOU are the only one doing it.
btw, I actually support this idea. I think the more religious texts we can burn, the better. It would be awesome if Atheists would show up to the event in large numbers and start tossing all sorts of religious holy books into the bonfire. But as a Christian, Terry Jones is a hypocritical douche.

To Preachers

Religious People

A Good Idea

Some Lulz For Atheists

Anyone Else Excited?

House Season 7 September 20th

Dexter Season 5 September 26th

Idiot of the Week

Technically, this may not count as an idiot of the week because it has apparently been happening for the past year and not simply this week. But I found out about it this week, so there you go.

The owner of a South Carolina gas station has set his pumps so that the following message appears whenever people use them:

One nation under god and if you don't like it. Leave!

What a great American! Believe like I do, or get the hell out. The video below will explain how much all the customers like this message, agree with this message, and see absolutely nothing wrong with this message.



Christian bigotry: Good for business in South Carolina.

Having Some Lulz

Newspaper Clippings

Here's some funny newspaper clippings I found.

Payback

One evening last week, my girlfriend and I were getting into bed.

Well, the passion starts to heat up, and she eventually says, "I don't feel like it, I just want you to hold me."

I said, "WHAT??!! What was that?!"

So she says the words that every boyfriend on the planet dreads to hear...

"You're just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man."

She responded to my puzzled look by saying, "can't you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?"

Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to sleep.

If You Open Your Mind Too Much...

Here's a great little song about psychics, astrology, homeopathy, and the afterlife.

My New Computer

Check out the new computer I bought online.

$$458.92 (Canadian) [$543.24 after shipping and taxes]
AMD Athlon II X4 635 Propus 2.9GHz
2GB Kingston DDR3 1333MHz
Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5
Western Digital 500GB SATA II HDD
LG 22X DVD RW w/ Lightscribe +- Dual Layer
500 Watt Generic Power Supply

Tim Minchin Tourette Syndrome Poetry

I laugh so hard every time I watch this...

What did you call me?

Dumbest Controversy In History Of Mankind

 

Atheists and Anger

I want to talk about atheists and anger.
This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.
But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:
1. Why atheists are angry;
2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;
And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.
So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.

*****

Important Questions

I lawl'd hard at these.

 Its stuff like this that makes being a customer service operator worth all the crap you put up with.

Who Wears It Better?

Megan Fox on the left, her step son on the right.

What kind of weird relationship do they have? Does she just go into her step son's bedroom and pick up his clothing off the floor and throw it on?

Lulzy

HEY YOU

FOCUS MOTHERFUCKER!
Amp's the shit. I just drank 3 of these.

Missing Cat

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.15am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Poster

Hi
I opened the screen door yesterday and my cat got out and has been missing since then so I was wondering if you are not to busy you could make a poster for me. It has to be A4 and I will photocopy it and put it around my suburb this afternoon.



This is the only photo of her I have she answers to the name Missy and is black and white and about 8 months old. missing on Harper street and my phone number.
Thanks Shan.  

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.26am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Poster

Dear Shannon,
That is shocking news. Luckily I was sitting down when I read your email and not half way up a ladder or tree. How are you holding up? I am surprised you managed to attend work at all what with thinking about Missy out there cold, frightened and alone... possibly lying on the side of the road, her back legs squashed by a vehicle, calling out "Shannon, where are you?" Although I have two clients expecting completed work this afternoon, I will, of course, drop everything and do whatever it takes to facilitate the speedy return of Missy.
Regards, David.

James Randi Overdoses During Speech

Here is James Randi at TED, talking about homeopathic medication. During his speech, he swallows a whopping 32 tablets of homeopathic sleeping pills.

Hello Billy

South Park creators at TAM5

The creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, appeared at The Amazing Meeting 5 a few years ago. JREF had offered the video of their talk (really a Q&A session) on DVD before, but they just released it for free to the public, so here you go — the intro is from Penn Jillette:

Trey Parker & Matt Stone - SouthPark Creators from JREF on Vimeo.

I LOVE THESE BLOGS

Here's the blogs I'm currently following. I suggest you follow them too (because they are run by some real cool cats)

First Post

Hope this CATS IN THE CRADLE WITH THE SILVER SPOON.


edited: because you don't talk about 'it'