Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Why I Don't Hate God...

If you're like me, then you're a non-theist who's tired of being told that you "hate God."  Obviously, I can't hate God, because God isn't real (if you're religious and reading this blog, please substitute "because I don't believe in god" for "because God isn't real" in that last sentence, for the sake of argument). 

Bernard Schweizer has come along to save the day with his book called "Hating God:  The Untold Story Of Misotheism."  Schweiser makes the distinction between the Atheist (who says there is no god) and the Misotheist (believes that God is loathful and not deserving of worship).  I'm not sure why it has to be an entire book, but I bet it's really interesting.   

South Dakota Putting A Target On Abortion Doctors?

This isn't fooling anybody, and anyone who supports this bill in its current language either has an agenda, or is completely stupid.  The bill deals with defining "justifiable homicide," or when it's not against the law to kill a person.

"Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person, if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great personal injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished."

Supporters of the bill argue that it's aimed at people who intend to "illegally" kill an unborn baby, and they argue that abortion in South Dakota is legal, therefore this isn't intended to protect abortion doctor killers.  However, the bill clearly states "if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, OR to do some great personal injury..."  Hmmmm, what other way is there to "harm an unborn baby" other than by committing a felony to do so?  Maybe to abort the baby?  Obviously, the language of this bill protects people who kill abortion doctors.  Whether or not this could stand up as a defense is secondary.  The issue is that somebody could actually murder an abortion doctor with the idea that they'll be immune to punishment because of this bill.  This is seriously socially irresponsible. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Christian Superstition Means Support For Mubarak

Here's a great article on Glenn Beck's 180 turn on supporting Democracy in the Middle East.  It's pretty hypocritical to me that anyone associated to the Tea Party, which claims to desire "revolution" in this country in order to pursue "freedom" and a "return to our constitution" (ie: stop having to pay taxes) would oppose another nation whose people are in the process of real revolution because their freedoms are genuinely trivialized, and their constitution has been altered to the whims of an autocratic ruler.  That's right Tea Party, this is what a real revolution looks like.

But it makes perfect sense if you look at how Fundamentalist Christians view the Middle East.  Egypt has been viewed as friendly towards Israel, and Christians believe that we must support Israel at all cost, or we risk being on the wrong side of the battle of Armaggedon.  Therefore we must support Egypt, else Israel could fall into the hands of Islamic radicals who'd join forces with Iran to oust God's chosen people.  It's all in the book of Revelations.  John Hagee, one of the biggest blow hards of all pro-Israel-at-all-costs Fundamentalist Christians recently posted an update on his website that includes this quote (in big, fat, appropriate John Hagee caps):  "REMEMBER THIS; THE DAY AMERICA FAILS TO HELP ISRAEL IN ITS DAY OF TROUBLE IS THE DAY GOD ALMIGHTY WILL SEND AMERICA A DAY OF TROUBLE AND NO ONE WILL COME TO OUR AID."  No doubt, much of the rhetoric you will hear in support of Mubarak (or in opposition to the protestors) stems from this same Christian idea. 

It is a precarious situation, and there is a real possibility that Egypt could become an Islamic theocracy, but would that be worse for the people of Egypt than their current situation?  Many of them don't seem to think so.

The bottom line is that Mubarak has grossly abused his power and the people of Egypt aren't taking it laying down any longer.  Mubarak has announced that he will not run for President again, but that isn't enough for the people of Egypt, and why should it be?  They do not trust the election system, and they aren't dumb enough to think the game will have changed simply by the President letting his term expire.  A presidential candidate from an opposition party was jailed in 2005 after contesting the questionable election results.  It's pretty obvious that the system itself needs to be scrapped to prevent this sort of corruption in the future.  How can anybody oppose a revolution under these circumstances?    

Obviously, I'm not in support of an Islamic theocracy.  I hope the people of Egypt opt for democracy, but I realistically cannot expect them to.  Not when their crooked president has misrepresented democracy to his people for 30 years.