You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Religion’ tag.
It is funny how often this claim comes up when engaging with the godbaggy crowd. You would think, seeing the historical record of authoritarian rule, that blindly following the dictates would not be a celebrated accomplishment. Potholer54 takes a hard look at this claim and provides a solid factual argument against the idea that because atheists have no ooga-booga to prostrate ourselves to, we are immoral.
One way to tell your position is full of shite? The amount of mental gymnastics required to make it sound coherent and palatable to someone else. Care to guess where christianity fits into the picture? Let DarkMatter2525 give you a clue:
Spend some time thinking if you have the god-bug – Would a caring god do these sorts of things? Why should my allegiance be to such a horrible entity? I know my atheist readers have already answered this question, but then we can also answer the same sorts of questions. Why do you behave as you do in a godless universe? Where do you get your morality from?
I have done a few ‘Hero of the Day’ posts and I have a few more on the way. The recipients have done great work spreading important information, rallying against injustice, educating us masses, and have been generally awesome. But today’s hero is special. On top of those usual achievements, she’s done it all while personally facing off against one of the leading threats to civilization as we know it. Oh, and she’s only 15.
The Taliban, with its “all powerful god”, is threatened by literate females. So much so, it will use brutal violence, murder, torture, and arson to enforce its view that girls should not be allowed in schools. What else would you expect from the “religion of peace”?
Malala Yousafzai, from the Swat district of Pakistan, however, does not agree. With aspirations of becoming a doctor or a politician, Malala is a strong advocate for gender equality, especially for equal access to education. Like many other girls in Swat, Malala has risked her life to attend classes against the wishes of the Taliban. At the same time, she was also doing something extraordinary. Malala, using a pseudonym, started blogging for the BBC, reporting to the world what it was like to be an ordinary child under the Taliban as it destroyed schools and forbade girls from attending the ones they hadn’t destroyed yet.
Adam B. Ellick from the New York Times made a documentary called Class Dismissed profiling Malala, her activism, and the difficulties and dangers for girls wanting to go to school.
Since the documentary, Malala’s has kept on advocating for girl’s education, growing in influence and visibility. This earned her and her father numerous death threats from the Taliban. Undeterred, Malala kept working for equal education opportunities.
On October 9th, 2012, the Taliban tried to make good on its threats. To preserve the glory of Islam an Allah, Malala was shot in the head.
Now recovering in a UK hospital, Malala isn’t done yet. Her message and story are spreading and the world is taking note.
Tarek Fatah, from Toronto, started a petition on change.org to nominate Malala for a Nobel Peace Prize. The response has been tremendous. The Prime Minister and the leaders of all of our major parties have unanimously endorsed this petition. If you haven’t done so already, please sign as well.
In the west we’ve had huge media organizations cower and retreat when islamist extremists raised their hate filled voices. In Swat, a 15 year old girl stood directly against the guns, bombs, soldiers, and machetes wielded by the worst of brutal zealots, just outside her door.
The Latin translation:
Am I to believe those were the acts of a loving God? A just God? A wise God? To hell with Your punishments! I was Your servant on Earth – I spread Your word and did Your work. To hell with your punishments! To hell with You!”
In this space we often decry religion for what it is: toxically delusional buffoonery that still has the gall to raise its putrid head in the light of the 21st century. Here at DWR we regularly delve into the myriad of topics relating to how religion poisons everything it touches and the shite secular rational people have to clean up once the clown-cars rev up and zoom away.
Religion supports patriarchy and thus by definition is anti-woman, the religious right does not want women to have bodily autonomy – the sooner they own that and hopefully reject that retrograde dark-middle-aged bullshite the more relevant to people that think they will become. Religion promotes hatred, sectarian and otherwise with magical beliefs that just happen to support bigotry and racism.
Racism, bigotry, misogyny and, oh hey, lets not forget anti-science and anti-intellectualism because using your faculties to explore the world around you is a sin of the highest order. If you’ve been following the Sunday Disservice, you know that all of the above and more is what we rally against in our fight for a society that uses a evidence based decision making model, not one based on unreliable, crusty mythological scriptures written for a different time and a different people.
We now get a snap shot of what the people in power could be like if religion would just sit the frak down and let rational progressive society do the work necessary to carry us to the next century. I realize this is a repost, but damn if I couldn’t watch this 20 more times and hope for time when it could actually happen.
My workshoppe of elves occasionally sends me content of the awesome variety. I share this atheist tidbit with you today. :)
Religious magic comes in so many wacky flavours. The Religious Antagonist interviews people who have found their senses and can give us an inside look at the belly of the beast.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…