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Welcome readers to our next semi-regular feature here at DWR. The last Sunday Featurette was called the Sunday Creationist Smackdown and was geared toward providing a basis for succinctly arguing down the creationist god-babble one encounters on the Internet. The focus of this feature will be different.
The authors of this blog are in agreement that all religions are primarily an authoritarian, misogynistic,dehumanizing , regressive (really too many adjectives to list, but you get the idea) feature of societies. In a better world, religion and magical belief would be marginalized and placed in the dustbin of history to be used as a learning opportunity on how not to structure human society.
The Internet has allowed for a great deal of critical examination and refutation of religious dogma. The more rational inquiry there is into the rotten edifice of religion, the sooner it can be brought down and brought to heel allowing humanity to further progress into the 21st century without the delusional impediments religion brings to the table.
This video is the story of one woman’s trek into hell, sponsored by Allah and Islam. Her offence, being a woman for one, and secondly having the audacity not to wear a veil in public. Apologists say that Islam is a religion of peace, to which I say, where is this woman’s peace? Where is her dignity? Islam, like christianity is misogynistic, totalitarian and filled with xenophobia and hate. When it spills into the light we can see exactly how ugly “keeping the faith” is…
Let the first DWR Religious Disservice begin now!
Trigger warning for violence and rape.
Mother Jones has an article and photo essay about the women self-immolating in Afghanistan reaffirming the utter lack of misogyny (funny how that correlates with religious belief) present in religiously deluded societies.
The furour brought about by threatening to burn the koran has made it all the way to youtube as Thunderf00t has recently had to deal with assertions he is ‘bigot’ and endorses genocide for the nations of Islam. Of course, he was misconstrued and most likely misunderstood by the people in question. The key part of Thunderf00t’s message is simply this: We cannot take a step back from our rights to free speech (a cornerstone of civilized society)when they cause a violent reaction in the Islamic world. It is they who have the erroneous expectation that they have the right to apply their religious laws to the rest of the world. Once the centre of learning and advanced civilization the nations of Islam allowed the radical fundamentalists to plunge their world into a backward state of being resembling the Dark Ages (thank you christianity) of old.
When I rail against religion is precisely because of its threat to modernity and civilization. Religious thought is antithetical to most human rights, free speech and progress.
Thunderf00t comes to similar conclusions in his video, but of course multi modally thanks to the wonder known as youtube.
The infidels are swarming in the middle east. Measures must be taken to combat this outbreak of critical thought and rationality. Fortunately brothers (any sisters present get out now, double shame if you’re not barefoot and burqa’d) action is being taken.
“CAIRO – Egypt’s most prominent democracy advocate accused President Hosni Mubarak’s government Saturday of posting Facebook photos of his daughter in swimsuits and at events where alcohol was served in an attempt to discredit him.
Keep your eyes on this 'atheist'!
Mohammed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.N. nuclear chief, was quoted in the independent Al-Dustour newspaper as saying the government is “waging a campaign of sheer lies” by using the photos to portray him and his family as nonbelievers — a politically damaging accusation in an increasingly conservative Muslim country.
We have the infidels, women in public with bathing suits and even a greater sin, dare I say it? Alcohol. Warm up your stoning arms people.
“The more than 30 photos were posted under the title: “Secrets of 
the ElBaradei family.” Some show his daughter in swimsuits at the beach and sitting at events in front of what appeared to be bottles of alcohol. Drinking is forbidden in Islam and conservative Muslims would generally consider a woman appearing publicly in a bathing suit to be immodest.”
The scandal. It is shocking. Truly shocking.
“ElBaradei has drawn the government’s anger with a campaign he started early this year boldly calling for electoral reform and constitutional amendments that would allow a credible candidate to challenge the ruling party in next year’s presidential election.
Respected internationally and untouched by the corruption tainting much of Egypt’s regime, ElBaradei brought together a coalition of young activists and opposition groups to push for change.”
Yes! We shall smear this activist for opposing our regime. There may be a few rotten apples in the barrel of the Egyptian government, overall we are a transparent, open democracy.
“The Facebook site also says his daughter is married to a Christian and shows an image of what it purports is her real profile from the social networking site listing her religious status as agnostic.
The Facebook site also accuses ElBaradei himself of being an atheist and of seeking to deceive Egyptians by touring mosques and being photographed praying.”
The forces of freedom in action.
We saved the best for last a double hit! ElBaradei’s daughter is married to a Christian and ElBaradei himself is an atheist!
Checkmate brothers! We have ferreted out this unbeliever in our midst, he claims he wants responsible government by the people, but we have exposed him. He wants to take our gods away and we all know the sinful immorality that will follow once that happens.
Never fear though brothers we shall keep reason safely at arms length! Allah Ackbar!
I often worry about attacking straw men. When positing my arguments against a position, I often wonder is this position I’m attacking really the best the other side has to offer? Surely there must be a more educated and reasonable version of this put forth by someone who’s actually an expert in the field. I am confronted with feelings of disappointment rather than vindication when it turns out the “less refined” argument I am debating against actually encapsulates everything their experts have to back them up.
This disappointment gripped me thoroughly as I read an article by columnist and best selling author, Reza Aslan. The article is posted here. In it, Aslan speaks out against “the new atheism” and its heroes, Harris, Hitchens, Denett, and Dawkins. One would hope that a distinguished writer like Aslan would be able to display the best that the religious and their apologists has to offer, especially as this is the exact topic with which Aslan has acquired his writing accolades. But where I hoped to find well thought out and more in depth reasoning, I found only the same weak arguments delivered with a slightly better vocabulary and smoother writing style than the unknowns I’d been debating with previously. But, as I do still want to avoid any chance of straw-manning, here is my reply to Reza Aslan, champion writer for the anti-secularists. Sit tight, its a doozy.
Aslan starts by talking about a bus-board that reads ‘THERE’S PROBABLY NO GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE’ saying that he
laughed, amused that atheists in the UK were miming propaganda techniques perfected by evangelical groups.
My objection to this comparison is two-fold. First, he is making use of a type of ad hominem known as the ‘you too’ fallacy. Theists engage in this fallacy relentlessly as they seem quite happy to rebound any criticism of religion and use it on science. Atheists are just as stubborn in their beliefs as theists are. Science requires as much faith as religion does. Atheists use as much propaganda as evangelicals do. These ‘you too’ statements are fallacious because they depend on where the objection is coming from, not on what the objection is; even if theists were correct in saying that non-theists are guilty of the same logical flaws, it doesn’t mean that theists get a free pass to engage in those flaws.
Which leads me to my second objection, that non-theists are NOT valid objects of the ‘you too’ defense, even if it weren’t fallacious. Aslan figures that a bus ad is equivalent to evangelical propaganda? One: Bus ads are universally used by organizations of a multitude of platforms from cancer research foundations to community events to the sale of cookies. It isn’t fair to suddenly consider this medium a condemnation worthy strategy the moment a secularists to uses it.
Two: Even if bus ads are propaganda, theists employ much more dastardly methods. There are no atheist camps where children are scared/scarred with threats of eternal torture if they believe in a god. There are no weekly gatherings where atheists sing repetitive songs about the non-existence of gods and how the only reason that any good in the world exists is because of this deistic absence. There are no atheists on street corners or on tv crying that if one is a believer it is impossible for that person to act in a moral fashion and further, the believer is evil and deserves some cosmic punishment, if only such a thing existed.
If you engage in a ‘you too’ fallacy, but the subject on which you use it is not, in fact, also doing it, what you have done is admitted that what you are doing is wrong as well as shown that you are unable to accept responsibility for this wrong doing and must resort to some Fruedian projection in order to cover up your own shortcomings.
I have only covered the first two introductory paragraphs and there is more intellectual dishonesty, misrepresentation, and flat out wrongness than I would allow from even wayward trolls that happen to slime across my posts. Surely this poster boy for religious apologetics can do better than this. Surely that multitude of perverse sophistry was just a mis-step, the rest of the article will be full of good solid….ohhhh fiddlesticks… Read the rest of this entry »
You would think the international laughter echoing through the halls directed at poor befuddled Pakistan would been a large enough hint for other countries to avoid looking foolish. I was wrong.
“Bangladesh has blocked social networking website Facebook over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad and “obnoxious” images of the Muslim-majority country’s leaders, officials say.”
Take that! We will take down facebook to preserve the honour of our omnipotent sky-daddy who is all powerful and all kno… wait… Apparently ‘Mo can’t do squat to a measly collection electronic of 0’s and 1’s on a facebook page. Perhaps the Mighty GOD of ISLAM is all powerful except when it comes to facebook (reasonable actually, even Superman had his Kryptonite) .
“The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) said the site was blocked on Saturday because cartoons of the Prophet “hurt the religious sentiments of the country’s Muslim population”.
“Some links in the site also contained obnoxious images of our leaders, including the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and the leader of the opposition,” Hasan Mahmud Delwar, BTRC’s acting chairman, told the AFP news agency.
The move comes a week after Pakistani authorities banned access to Facebook for similar reasons. They also blocked the video website YouTube and 1,200 web pages over a row about “blasphemous” content on the internet.
Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.
Delwar said Facebook would be re-opened once Bangladesh had permanently blocked the offending pages.”
Not to write the same story, but wow guys, do your really think blocking facebook is going to save your pathetic delusion of a religion from the forces of rationality?
“Drawing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad is an attack on Islam and is extremely humiliating for Islam,” Hemayet Uddin, a Dhaka protest organiser, told thousands of cheering supporters.
You know what? Good. Show your opposition to Freedom and Reason. Show us how your particular religious delusion treats reasonable criticism. I say: Good for free speech, good for rationality, good for all the people who possess enough intellectual capacity to see your religion for what it is: a ludicrous, mendacious fantasy that ultimately hurts and impoverishes your society. Feel free to ignore modernity and progress. Happily flush your society down the batshite-crazy-swirly commode known as religion, just do not be surprised when we laugh at you.
Underage? Mo' says: "It's a go!" I'm holy after all!
Here we go, I would hate to miss such an important day. Oh bring the righteous fury my delusional Islam friends.
Prodding of the delusional aside. Have a great day.
*Edit* – Feel free to post your pictures in the comments sections or leave links to where you have made your homage to Mo. :)
-The Arbourist.
If you have not been keeping up with the ytube drama that is going on with Thunderfoot and his tangle with Islam I suggest you check out his channel as the smack is being laid down with great alacrity.
Wow a double video post. Crazy, I know, but you really cannot have one without the other. The following is the more scary and less funny of the two.
This is the basis for a good deal of the argumentation in Sam Harris’s The End of Faith. The facet that I wish to point out that is that so called “moderates” of any religion are still responsible for what the crazy whack-a-loons do as they are part of a bullshite system of delusional belief that propagates an irrational view of the world.
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