Atheists can’t run christian country
…at least according to the opinion of Betty McCoy, who sent the following letter to the The Herald-Dispatch:James Tracy, Atheists Can’t Run Christian Country… | AnAtheist.Net, Jan 2009
You should read the whole article.
So many faults in Betty’s letter it’s hard to know where to start. She managed to generate a few comments, inlcuding one from me using vjacks Common Absurdities post.
2 Comments | 
atheism | 
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Posted by ozatheist
Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) has blocked another 1203 websites from being accessed by their citizens. The official reason from the Thai government blocking these websites is because of “lese majeste” (criticising the King). You can view the list of websites on the wikileaks site.
So whats’ this got to do Australia or atheism?
Well (as most of you probably know by now) Senator Conroy and his buddies in the Labor Party are attempting to introduce ISP level internet filtering in Australia (see No Clean Feed links in the side bar). Whilst a lot of the hype about this has centered on the porn aspect of the filtering, the more worrying aspect is the possible bans on web sites deemed “inappropriate”. With no explanation of what “inappropriate” sites might be, this leaves a huge hole for the government of the day to just ban sites that they don’t like for whatever reason. Because the blacklist is, supposedly, unavailable to the general public ( I say supposedly because all you need to do is look at the wikileaks site to see how despite bans these lists can be released to the general populace) you won’t even know what has been blacklisted.
So what has this to do with atheism I hear you ask? Well how many atheist blogs are critical of the government? I’d hazard a guess nearly all of them have been at one stage, I know I have on many occasions. Separation of church and state, government wasting money on religious activities (C-WYD anyone?), taxpayers money being wasted on religion and religious schools and the list goes on. We already have sedition laws in this country, brought in by the previous draconian Liberal government, which can get you locked up if you speak out against the government. Even though these are about to be overhauled by the current government it has demonstrates how easy it is for the government of the day to bring in restrictive laws if they don’t want people speaking out against them. So the government doesn’t like what you wrote on your blog? Blog goes on the blacklist, never to be viewed by an Australian again. Think that’s not too big a problem? Government notices incoming links to your site, so all those get banned, and so it goes on until no atheists are able to speak out against the injustices of the government.
A wild fantasy, over-hyped conspiracy theory? Perhaps, but what would stop the government bringing in “lese majeste PM interwebs” (criticising Rudd on a blog), if they have virtually unlimited capability to ban web sites deemed inappropriate?
Whilst checking some details for this post I noticed that the governments (pathetic excuse for a) blog has now been closed, see the Thanks and so long… link. Of note the American President - Elect has got a blog, which despite the fact you can’t comment on each blog entry they do at least have a seperate section where you can comment on specific topics - see the Open Government section in the side bar. Importantly the site looks like a blog. It will be interesting to see if Obama keeps this going after his inauguration in 14 days. Perhaps our hopeless government and their useless blog programmers could ask Obama and his team for some tips?
1 Comment | 
atheism, atheist, internet censorship, internet filter | Tagged: atheism, atheist, internet censorship, internet filter | 
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Posted by ozatheist
7 January 2009
Happy Christmas to all my Serbian Orthodox Christian friends who celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar.
I don’t actually have any Serbian Orthodox Christian friends, that I know of, but was informed of this version of Christmas yesterday. So thought I’d inform others who may be unaware (and could probably care less 
).
Additionally the Serbs celebrate New Year late as well, so happy New Year for the 13th of January.
Must be quite confusing for the Serbs?
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Serb, christmas | Tagged: christmas, Serb | 
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Posted by ozatheist
The Quote:
Organised religion is like organised crime; it preys on peoples’ weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate. Mike Hermann
The Qutbite:
A sect/variation of Muslim that believes sinners have to be punished in this lifetime (not the ‘afterlife’). Their main aim is to rid the world of sin and have everyone following the word of god. Of course this means following the Islamic word of god and therefore everyone who doesn’t is a sinner and needs to be eradicated.
Not surprisingly Osama bin Laden is a follower of the Qutbite tradition.
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above snippets from “The Heathens Guide to World Religions”, book review in progress
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2 Comments | Muslim, atheism, islam | Tagged: islam, Muslim, quote, qutbite | Permalink
Posted by ozatheist
The Islamic community plans to build a Muslim-only housing development and recreation centre as part of a $10 million complex in Rivervale. from The West Australian
look out Protium and TTE, you’ve got new neighbours. LOL
Now I don’t know if it’s just me, but building an anything only enclave doesn’t sound like a very inclusive idea. However, the spokesman for the Islamic Council of WA thinks differently:
Mr Ghauri rejected claims the housing would further isolate sectors of the Muslim community from mainstream society, claiming the venue would be used to teach Islamic youth how to become good Australian citizens.
or teach Islamic youth how to be good terrorists and suicide bombers. oops did I just say that out loud?
Though I’m not the only one who thinks this might not be such a great idea.
Ethnic Communities Council president Ramdas Sankaran supported the development of a Muslim recreation hall but said a separate housing complex for any religious or ethnic group was a “deplorable” idea because it undermined social cohesion and promoted segregation.
So what do you think? Integration or Segregation?
9 Comments | Muslim, islam | Tagged: islam, Muslim, Perth, WA | Permalink
Posted by ozatheist
Don’t worry folks, I’m only studying bits of it to verify something I just read.
subtitled “bonking for god”
sub-subtitled “make up your freakin’ mind god!”
Gen 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them,
Fair enough, god’s made man and woman and they’ve started to procreate. I’m also guessing sons were born as well, but they are not of much interest at this stage, as we shall soon see.
Gen 6:2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.
So if I read this right, gods sons (angels?) took a fancy to all the good looking daughters of the mere mortal men and took them as wives (whether they liked it or not by the looks of things). Of note in the Good News Bible (GNB) the verse is as follows:
some of the heavenly beings saw that these young women were beautiful, so they took the ones they liked
Nothing about marriage here, just pure bonk fest by the sounds of it. Hey being a son of god has to have some perks.
By the way I thought god only ever had one son? But these passages indicate he’s got lots?
Gen 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not strive with man for ever, for that he also is flesh: yet shall his days be an hundred and twenty years.
So we could all have lived for ever but god decided that we couldn’t be immortal like him, so he set a time limit - maximum 120 years.
Gen 6:4 The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty men which were of old, the men of renown.
Nephilim - for those that don’t know (I didn’t), are the children of angels and humans (see bonk fest in Gen 6.2 and 6.4). The Nephilim are also called Giants in some versions of the Bible, GNB and King James version (KJV) to name a couple. So the angels bonk the earthly women and they have ‘giant’ babies, ooohh that could be painful.
Gen 6:5 And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
So the story takes a major turn here, we’ve been discussing how the “sons of god” (angels) have been ‘getting it on’ with all the good looking human women. Having ‘giant’ babies who turn out to be “heroes of renown”; and god thinks the humans are being wicked? What the heck were they doing wrong, poor blokes had to suffer for second best after the angels took all the good looking women. Wouldn’t blame them if they were a tad upset and got a bit uppity.
Gen 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
So after going to all the trouble of making man and women, knowing full well that they’d procreate and have fun, he decides he’s made a mistake? He decides that ‘man’ is wicked and he gets upset that there are so many of them; but he thinks his ’sons’ are nice guys? God doesn’t strike me as much of an ‘all knowing god’ like some people profess him to be. So god regrets making man, and then we get to the flood…
Well here endeth the lesson
6 Comments | Bible Study, atheism, atheist, bible, christianity, god, religion, sex | Tagged: bible, god, religion | Permalink
Posted by ozatheist
The BBC documentary “Foolproof Equations for a Perfect Life” was broadcast last night on SBS TV. This documentary, by Garth Sundrem, attempts to show how mathematics can be used to help make rational decisions about all aspects of our lives. Even how to get a date. now where are my old maths books?
Whilst somewhat light hearted and lightweight the documentary did show how the brain can be easily tricked and how, no matter how rational we think we are, we are still prone to make irrational decisions sometimes.
I liked the segment where he got people to meet someone new and just before they met this person they were given either a hot or cold drink to hold. All the people who held the hot drink thought the new person was a nice guy and they would probably employ him. The cold drink holders either didn’t like the new person or were ambivalent towards him. Yes it was a very small sample size and not a very scientific experiment, but if I’m ever looking for a new job I’ll try and get the interviewers to hold a hot cup of coffee first.
Another interesting section was the topic of “loss aversion” where even though we stand to gain more than we would lose, our fear of loss prevents us. They demonstrated this by presenting people with money in two different ways and then asking them to gamble of not. The people who ‘thought’ they were making a loss gambled, even though they had already made as much money as the people who hadn’t ‘made a loss’ . You can see this section of the documentary here.
There are more sections of the documentary on the above link or supposedly you can find the whole documentary in five parts on youtube.
Scientific Blogging also has a nice write up on this documentary.
Overall, interesting and a bit of fun, but not to be taken too seriously. As Garth says himself in the comments on the above link:
Of course it’s pseudoscience! Didn’t you get the joke? It’s funny, when I give book talks, my best audience is mathematicians with a sense of humor and my worst audience is mathematicians without…
To modify an equation from the comments on Garth’s blog:
A + (B+B(n+1) ) + C = D
Where:
A = me,
B = Bourbon (or Beer, or whatever your favourite tipple is),
C = Chocolate, and
D = Depressed lonely person
I’m sure there a few of us who live that equation?
3 Comments | life, mathematics | Tagged: life, mathematics, rational | Permalink
Posted by ozatheist
I wasn’t going to bother blogging today, but when I heard this headline on the news, I knew I had to say something.
In the Pope’s annual Christmas speech he stated that:
… saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. from ABC News
Reading between the lines the Pope seems to be inferring that if nothing is done to stop them ‘teh gays’ will take over the world, and humanity will then fade away. Well unless everyone on the planet suddenly becomes homosexual, and I for one am not about to (sorry guys, LOL), I don’t think we have anything to worry about.
I think I can confidently state that heterosexuals are as likely to become homosexual as homosexuals are to become heterosexual. I don’t think the Pope realises that your sexuality is not something you choose. Just because you legalise homosexuality, and give the GLBT community all the same rights and privileges as everyone else, it will not suddenly cause everyone to decide to become gay.
Quite rightly gay groups and activists have labelled the Pope’s comments as irresponsible and unacceptable.
Even one of Australia’s Catholic Bishops has criticised the Pope’s comments.
Happy Christmas Pope, you twat.
10 Comments | GLBT, atheism, gay and lesbian, pope | Tagged: christmas, gay, homosexuality, pope | Permalink
Posted by ozatheist
Because most people are stupid. Well, that’s the inference I get from Senator Conroy’s response to my comment on the governments website.
Some while back the government opened their pathetic excuse for a blog where people could respond to the ISP Filtering debacle [side note: there are now 768 comments on his ‘blog’, I wonder how many others Conroy responded to?) . I left two comments and Senator Conroy has responded to one of them.
Whatever happened to parents being responsible for what their children view? The government has already provided a PC based filtering system, which only about 3% of households took up. Which, to me, just goes to show most parents don’t care about filtering anyway.
Posted by OzAtheist / 10 Dec 2008 10:21am / Permalink
Conroy’s response:
The previous Government’s Protecting Australian Families Online strategy focused on providing families with PC-level filtering software. However, despite an $84.8 million government program and $15.5 million in advertising, only about two per cent of households with dependent children are using a filter. Unfortunately, many parents do not have the technical skills or knowledge to install and manage PC-level filters. ISP-level filtering could provide important protection for those families with limited technical expertise.
We understand that ISP filtering is not a ’silver bullet’ for this purpose. However, in conjunction with the Government’s numerous other initiatives in this area, we believe it can make an important contribution to protecting children online.
Stephen Conroy
Which I think is a cop out. It is obvious that parents are just not bothered with filtering, they are too stupid or both. Either way filtering everyone is hardly an appropriate response.
The government has already spent over $100M on previous filters that have proved a complete flop, why spend more? Are the children really in that much trouble on the net? From some reports in the media, chat programs such as messenger pose more of a threat than children just accidently stumbling upon porn on the net. From what I’ve heard Conroy’s filter won’t protect children on chat programs. Really why is he bothering?
Interesting Conroy’s own admission that the filtering is “not a ‘silver bullet’”, this is a bit of a departure from early statements he made.
Hat Tip to Sean for finding the response, and letting me know about it via twitter. What you aren’t on twitter?
6 Comments | China, censorship, freedom of speech, internet, internet censorship, internet filter, no clean feed, paedophile, porn | Permalink
Posted by ozatheist
Sometimes a picture with words says more than just a picture.
Some Christmas greetings and words of wisdom:
or more to the point, how up-tight and stupid the religious are. LOL
BWAHAHA, I’m not sorry.
luv the speech bubble
now that’s more like what this time of year is really all about
don’t tell the littlies
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one last one that has nothing to do with Christmas, I just like it, then again I’m a bit weird like that
wonder what the question is **snerk**
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Have a nice holiday people, I’m on leave for the next two weeks, but I’ll still be blogging.
Hat Tip to Tracey Treasure, via Vamp, for finding the wrongcards site (where all these pics were ripped from), why not send one to friends, I know I did.
9 Comments | atheism, humor, humour | Tagged: ecard, humor, humour | Permalink
Posted by ozatheist
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