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Hawking says there is no need for a god!

The Telegraph in the UK quotes Stephen Hawking saying "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going." His new book to be released this month is titled The Grand Design.

 

Wow! The blogs are singing! One of England's greatest minds has just told the world there is no reason for a God. Everyone is now blubbering all over themselves that there must be a reason for the universe. Why else would we be here?

 

I, for one, have been quite happy for many years in the knowledge that we are just one big happy accident and there is no purpose for the universe except that which we make of it.

 

So, we no longer have an excuse to do nothing while waiting to be saved from our own mistakes and laziness by a sky daddy. Go out and live your lives and enjoy what you have. You will cease to exist one day and the universe will keep on being -- until it is not. Should it cease to exist one day, we will not know, since we won't exist either.

 

 

My God's better than your God

I'm struggling to understand how people twist their minds into pretzels so that they can continue to believe the nonsense they believe. One example is the recent debates over the construction of an Islamic center a couple blocks from the World Trade Center site known as Ground Zero. It seems that some people believe their God is more deserving than other Gods to have special worship centers close to supposedly hallowed ground.

From what I can tell, some Christians are claiming that their god is better than the Muslim god. I'm really confused because I grew up as a Catholic, and I was taught that the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims all believed in the same god, but the major difference was the relationship of this guy named Jesus to the three religions.

Maybe that was just my simplistic take as I was being indoctrinated, but that still sticks with me today. If that Is the case, then what are these imbeciles fighting about? When you get right down to it, if there was a god, I'm sure he/she would have taken care of deciding long ago which of the Big Three was supreme. Since that hasn't happened, I'm guessing that there are no gods and that these three groups are just after power and control over other people to make them feel like they have a purpose in life. Since without God, there is no purpose, right?

Funny that it's the atheists who seem to have a better idea of what we should be doing with our lives than any of the god chasers. I'm all for shipping all the faithful from the three religions to some desert somewhere and letting them spend the rest of their lives in an all out smack-down. Winner takes all -- of the desert anyway. That would clean out the rest of the earth for those of us who just want to get on with our lives and enjoy the world around us while we exist.

The winners of the smack down would be able to pray to their god for sustenance in the desert and be able to smugly look down their noses at the rest of us -- while they died of thirst and hunger.

Oh well, I guess that is just too much to hope for.

Obama's Faith? Who Cares?

I'm really getting tired of the press lately running stories (often prompted by right-wing political motives) about the American public's doubts about Obama's faith. I really don't care what he believes so long as he continues to leave it out of the public sphere. Whether he believes in fairies, leprechauns, unicorns, or vampires -- I don't care. Just be sure he keeps it to himself and make decisions based on rational, evidence-based processes.

 

The Constitution Article 6 says there should be not any religious test for public office. So, who cares about Obama's religion except those who would undermine the US Constitution for their own purposes. I sincerely doubt that Christian fundamentalists care about the Constitution any more than the Islamic reactionaries in Iran care about how we feel about their country. If they had it their way, we would be a religious monarchy today in the US led by some wacko Christian fundamentalist (who I'm sure would want for nothing, including his mistress to go along with his wife.)

 

Religious people tend to be very hypocritical, especially those who publicly proclaim their religiosity. Give me a declared atheist as President so I can have some confidence that at least his or her decisions are not affected by imaginary spirits whispering in his or her ear.

The President was right about the mosque near ground zero

The Republicans and the religious zealots are having a field day with the President's remarks about the rights of religious organizations to build places of worship on private property. The crazies demand that the Government stop the plans for the mosque. This is a private property in a dilapidated, abandoned area of Manhattan. There is nothing there. Now we have private citizens who want to renovate the area and put up a house of worship for their religion -- not far from two Catholic facilities I might add.

 

So, we now have Republicans stirring up a false controversy about the appropriateness of a Muslim mosque within several blocks of the World Trade Center site. It's funny that the religious fundies have been screaming discrimination and a "war against Christianity", yet they turn around and declare war on another faith! What a bunch of hypocrites.

 

The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." How can people claim to support the Constitution if they propose that the Government restrict the freedom of a religion to build a place of worship on private property in accordance with local zoning and building codes?

 

The president's remarks simply echoed support for this fundamental right.

 

As an atheist, I am offended when a Christian megachurch is contstructed in a prominent place in our city. Yet, it is their right, and I defend that right as an American citizen.

 

The clear message here is not whether this is a proper location for a Muslim facility, rather, it is that this demonstrates why we need a solid separation of church and state, and that religion continues to be a divisive force in our country and around the world.

 

We don't need more religion, we need less religion. Help stop the crazies!!!!

Sharron Angle, another wacko who wants to run the country

NPR news, from Associated Press, reports that Sharron Angle [emphasized text mine]

... who has called for dissolving some federal agencies and shifting their powers to states, including the Department of Education, warned of growing dependency on Washington. "We know that once we have a majority that are dependent upon the government, we will lose our freedom," she said. "That's the next stage. Our Founders warned against this."

What???!!! How do we know this? Where does that come from?

The only people losing freedom would be us:

• She wants to completely prohibit abortion
• She wants to prevent gays from marrying
• She wants to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance

How is this freedom? Sharron Angle believes this is more freedom, not less? I'd be really afraid that someone with such a ridiculous perspective on human life could actually make it through a primary election and be nominated for one of the highest offices in our country.

"The Lord shows me daily where he wants me to walk," she said.

Really? He talks to you? Did you get that on your Blackberry or does he appear in your bedroom with a PowerPoint presentation explaining his latest edicts? How can anyone take a person like this seriously?

... Angle said, "We're at war in this country, for our freedom, our culture, for our liberty, our Constitution."

Yes, we are at war in this country -- with insane, delusional, fairy-worshippers who want to make everyone else as insane as them. It just won't do if only they are insane. They have to force everyone else to accept their insanity, too. If she wins her Senate race, I don't give our civilization much chance of surviving past this century.

Supreme Court and Roe vs. Wade

When President Obama nominated Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, much discussion ensued regarding her position on abortion rights. I am a strong supporter of the right of choice for women. I don't believe the states or the Federal Government should restrict abortion. The primary objection to abortion is based on religious beliefs and is therefore not relevant to the discussion. Unfortunately, religion still drives much of our lawmaking despite the First Amendment restriction on establishment.

The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ...". That's pretty clear to me, yet the basic premise for restricting abortions is driven by a religious belief that a soul is placed into a fertilized egg at conception and is therefore a miniature human being.

I'm not going to debate the ridiculousness of that thought, but instead I will address the role of the Supreme Court in the abortion debate.

From a strict constructionist perspective, there is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees the right to abortion. The same could be said of many other rights we enjoy. The Constitution was intended as a framework to guide decision-making and lawmaking, but was never expected to be a comprehensive set of guidelines to cover all possible situations. Thus, the need for a body to interpret the Constitution whenever issues of intent are involved.

The right to abortion, and for that matter, any decision about one's own body, should rest with the individual and not with society. As long as what one does with one's own body does not physically harm another, society has no right to restrict what one does with one's own body. Abortion is an example of this. An embryo is not a person, just as an egg is not a chicken.

Taking this concept to the next level, I believe we need an amendment to the Constitution that guarantees all citizens the right to self-determination of anything having to do with their own body without interference from society. Not only would that allow women to choose to have an abortion, but it would also allow people to decide when to die.

It is not for society to control my body. That is my right, and mine alone.

Supporting the effort against the Irish blasphemy law

Europe News  posted this listing of twenty-five potentially blasphemous statements by well-know persons. The posting was in support of the Irish atheists organization that originally posted them. Their site doesn't seem to be available, so Europe News mirrored them. In support of the movement against such stupidity as anti-blasphemy laws, I am posting these statements here.

List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland
1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: "Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of "whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: "May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: "Also it has another name - The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy - he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: "Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: "And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: "While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: "Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: "I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being "a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: "In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: "If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine - but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good - and cares about any of it - to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: "The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: "I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: "Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: "Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: "He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: "Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: "So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that "it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a "character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that "the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that "anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that "reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: "There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: "You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: "(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: "Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: "They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: "Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: "Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: "We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.