I’ve not talked about this subject before. I have been trying to think of how to say what I feel. Well, the Amazing Atheist has now said it for me.
“sometimes, stupid ideas win!”
Please watch, enjoy and share your comments below.
NOTE: (NSFW)
Glenn Beck’s rally was large, vague, moist, and undirected—the Waterworld of white self-pity.
By Christopher Hitchens
In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It’s not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be. The clue, surely, is furnished by the remainder of the speeches, which deny racial feeling so monotonously and vehemently as to draw attention.
This video shows the IQ of the people at the rally.
Google knows all!
Richard Dawkins discusses the creation of Meme on NPR. 
It’s a little segment and Dawkins only shows up in the first minute or two. However, it does give the history of the word Meme. Something every skeptic should know. Enjoy!
Please read the full artical in the New York Times.
There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.
This is stuff you need to know. And you need to share it. After you read the full story in the New York Times (link above) you need to read this story in the New Yorker. The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
Many of the ideas propounded in the 1980 campaign presaged the Tea Party movement. Ed Clark told The Nation that libertarians were getting ready to stage “a very big tea party,” because people were “sick to death” of taxes. The Libertarian Party platform called for the abolition of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., as well as of federal regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Energy. The Party wanted to end Social Security, minimum-wage laws, gun control, and all personal and corporate income taxes; it proposed the legalization of prostitution, recreational drugs, and suicide. Government should be reduced to only one function: the protection of individual rights. William F. Buckley, Jr., a more traditional conservative, called the movement “Anarcho-Totalitarianism.”
Here is another sample for the New Yorker.
fter the 1980 election, Charles and David Koch receded from the public arena. But they poured more than a hundred million dollars into dozens of seemingly independent organizations. Tax records indicate that in 2008 the three main Koch family foundations gave money to thirty-four political and policy organizations, three of which they founded, and several of which they direct. The Kochs and their company have given additional millions to political campaigns, advocacy groups, and lobbyists. The family’s subterranean financial role has fuelled suspicion on the left; Lee Fang, of the liberal blog ThinkProgress, has called the Kochs “the billionaires behind the hate.”
Only the Kochs know precisely how much they have spent on politics. Public tax records show that between 1998 and 2008 the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation spent more than forty-eight million dollars. The Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is controlled by Charles Koch and his wife, along with two company employees and an accountant, spent more than twenty-eight million. The David H. Koch Charitable Foundation spent more than a hundred and twenty million. Meanwhile, since 1998 Koch Industries has spent more than fifty million dollars on lobbying. Separately, the company’s political-action committee, KochPAC, has donated some eight million dollars to political campaigns, more than eighty per cent of it to Republicans. So far in 2010, Koch Industries leads all other energy companies in political contributions, as it has since 2006. In addition, during the past dozen years the Kochs and other family members have personally spent more than two million dollars on political contributions. In the second quarter of 2010, David Koch was the biggest individual contributor to the Republican Governors Association, with a million-dollar donation. Other gifts by the Kochs may be untraceable; federal tax law permits anonymous personal donations to politically active nonprofit groups.
This is very sad.
Shortly before 3 a.m. Friday, on the 119th anniversary of the Bostian Bridge train tragedy and at about the same time, between 10 and 12 ghost hunters were on that approximately 300-foot long span.
They were hoping to hear the sounds of the crash, and perhaps see something.
Instead, a real Norfolk-Southern train — three engines and one car — turned the corner as it headed east to Statesville, about 35 miles north of Charlotte, authorities said.
The terrified “amateur ghost watchers” ran away, back toward Statesville, trying to cover the nearly 150 feet to safety, said Iredell County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Darren Campbell.
All but two made it.
They found a train alright!
I need your ideas on how to protect kids from a former spouse that has gone into a new fundie religion. NOTE: This is not my family, all is well – yeah!
Names and other information are changed to protect the innocent. I will use gender neutral names because it’s not about sex.
I have a friend; let’s call him or her “Pat”. Pat used to be married to Sam. They got divorced a couple of years ago and spend almost equal time with the two kids – Riley (8) and Payton (12). Everything was going well, until Sam joined a new church. It’s one of those hard core fundie churches. They read their version of the bible literally and tell you what you have to do all of the time. Sam is now spending a lot of time trying to get the kids to join in the madness.
Pat does not want the kids to thinks the same way Sam does and is not sure how to stop it.
Here are the suggestions that I have made. Please let me know if you have any ideas to add.
1) Don’t say that Sam is stupid of batshit crazy. This may encourage to kids to pick a side. If you are the one calling names – it may not be your side.
2) DO NOT under estimate the power of the fundie church program to suck the kids into the madness. You must take action and help the kids.
3) Expose the kids to other religions. Take them to different churches when you have them on Sunday. I suggested UU, Jewish, Islam, Methodist, Catholic etc…
4) Introduce the kids to optical illusion. Classic stuff as well as videos by Richard Wiseman.
5) Buy some magic tricks. Teach them that things are not always what they appear to be.
6) Listen to Letting Go of gOd by Julia Sweeney.
7) Watch Religulous (maybe too much for young viewers?)
8 ) Rent any movies you can find about Greek and Roman mythology.
9) Encourage the kids to ask questions – lots of questions.
10) Teach them about science and the scientific method. Watch shows like “Evolution” and “The Universe”. Make sure they know how the world really works before Sam explains it fundie style.
Do you have any other ideas?
Canadian Pastor John Van Sloten finds gOd in Metallica. He noticed that his congregation was shrinking and there were few young people. So he started talking about pop culture. He then went see Metallica live and he was hooked.
When Metallica played their rock ballad “Nothing Else Matters,” Van Sloten noticed that the venue seemed suddenly church-like, and he knew he had to preach about Metallica.
Was it just a moving experience that was shared by the entire community or was it gOd speaking to him? I guess he was so moved that he wrote a book about it.
Unlike some of those books, “The Day Metallica Came to Church” gets motivation from pop culture, and the author says some are not so comfortable with that.
Well, at least we can see Metallica! Van Sloten seems to think he can here gOd through Metallica.
Despite Van Sloten’s idea of God speaking through everything, contradictions seem to arise, considering several of Metallica’s members (and other subjects of his preaching) are non-Christian or non-religious altogether
Hmmm…. Maybe gOd is telling Van Sloten to become an atheist!