Zombie's blog
Why Do Atheists Argue?
Submitted by Zombie on January 8, 2008 - 3:37pm.A good response to the question can be found here.
I argue because I care about people, because it saddens me to see people frittering away a good portion of their very short time on earth in pursuit of pointless things, like worshipping and praying to a malicious supernatural entity, e.g. the Abrahamic God. Think of how many things you could otherwise be using that time for, things that would actually be helping to make this a better world to live in.
The entire article is a good read, I suggest everyone go there and take a look at it.
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The weaker sex?
Submitted by Zombie on January 8, 2008 - 3:30pm.I don't know why this would be, perhaps because the lot of women in much of the world is much worse than mens?
Women who stop being religiously active are three times more likely to suffer generalized anxiety disorder than women who have always been religiously active, researchers report.
In contrast, the researchers found that men who stopped being religiously active were less likely to suffer major depression than men who had always been religiously active.
Funny as "hell"
Submitted by Zombie on January 8, 2008 - 3:17pm.I`m sure this has been posted somewhere before, but i still think its worth a chuckle.
Quote: Top 10 Signs You’re a Fundamentalist Christian
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
9 - You feel insulted and “dehumanized” when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the “atrocities” attributed to Allah, but you don’t even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in “Exodus” and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in “Joshua” including women, children, and trees!
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
Top 10 Signs You’re a Fundamentalist Christian
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
9 - You feel insulted and “dehumanized” when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the “atrocities” attributed to Allah, but you don’t even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in “Exodus” and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in “Joshua” including women, children, and trees!
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
The gospel of money
Submitted by Zombie on January 8, 2008 - 1:06am.And they say atheists have no morals?
They make no apologies for the way they spend their salaries, speaking fees, CD and book royalties and "love offerings," lavish gifts of cash and jewelry.
I don`t really have much to add to this post, it pretty much speaks for itself, although I doubt anyone with a brain could be suprised. 
Canadian series on faith and religion
Submitted by Zombie on January 7, 2008 - 12:32pm.The CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for those who don`t know, is doing a series on religion.
[Quote]
In this series on CBC Radio and CBCNews.ca, we explore the question "Where is God today?" - as wide and narrow, and as public and personal as that is.
Commentators, religious thinkers and ordinary Canadians give their thoughts. We invite you to read their experiences and share your stories.
[/Quote]
I encourage any and everybody to add their comments and post their experiences regarding religion. There are a lot of good links there, mostly but not exclusively dealing with Canada. For those of you who complain about the American media, I encourage you to checkout how another country does it. :D
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Vandalized
Submitted by Zombie on January 7, 2008 - 2:47am.This doesn't surprise me in the least, in fact, the only thing that does is that it hasn't been firebombed yet.
The vandals first struck on Dec. 2 or 3, after the ornamented tree had been raised on Dec. 1 at the Chester County Courthouse lawn.
By Dec. 30, there had been four attacks against the Tree of Knowledge, a 22-foot evergreen sponsored by the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia.
Please note, that the christian display was never attacked apparently.
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Secularists on the march?
Submitted by Zombie on January 6, 2008 - 9:30pm.An interesting newspaper column I rang across today.
(Quote)Which is why a new word has suddenly entered this year’s political lexicon: “secular.” As in, “secular Republicans,” or, more generally, “secular voters.” Non-moonbats, in other words. For the GOP, it means voters for whom snakes are not part of their Sunday-morning religious services. For the Democrats, it means voters who don’t believe that 9/11 was a Bush-Cheney-Halliburton plot.(/Quote)
This actually gives me something that I haven't had in a long time regarding American politics, hope. Could it be that American political discourse will reverse from the extremists of both sides shouting at one another? Time can only tell.Huckobama Nation!
Submitted by Zombie on January 5, 2008 - 4:27pm.For the mostly American readers of this site, I thought a few of you might find what other countries are saying about the two frontrunners in your presidential race.
"Oh, this is going to be one long, excruciating journey, a U.S. election that promises to take us deep into the Heart of Dumbness. We're already mostly there."
And
"Both men wear their religions on their sleeves, either of the religious right or the religious left, or some motley amalgam of the two. Essentially, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama speak the same language, the language of the Huckobama Nation.
The religious invocations of both men make Stephen Harper (The Canadian Prime Minister) look like an agnostic. And the religious line between the two is hard to find without a decoding manual. Mr. Obama's Web notes on "faith" are triple the length of Mr. Huckabee's, and make essentially the same points, although with much greater power and eloquence. What is the difference between Mr. Huckabee's defence of First Amendment religious freedom ("Our nation was birthed in a spirit of faith-- not a prescriptive faith telling us how or whether to believe, but acknowledging a providence.
Cats > Clergy
Submitted by Zombie on January 4, 2008 - 9:45pm.An interesting study was posted today, interesting to me anyway.
(Quote) People recently bereaved gain greater comfort from their pets than they do from their priest or spiritual adviser, a new study suggests.(/Quote)
Another benefit, I have never heard of a cat or a dog sexually molesting a child, unlike some clergy members I could name.
Fyi, I will be taking over publishing the RRS newsletter that Jack Hellfiend used to do, starting this monday. 
Blog 2.0
Submitted by Zombie on January 3, 2008 - 9:14pm.Hello everyone once again. After chatting with sapient, I decided to go a different route with this blog.
Instead of a bunch of links to various articles, which would be better in a newsletter format. We decided to pick one story in the news and comment on it. So here it is, in a recent issue of the economist they posted this article, linked here, in which they said.
"But another failing of the irreligious movement has been its tendency, frequently, to pick the wrong fights. Keeping the Ten Commandments out of an Alabama courthouse is one thing. But attacking a Christmas nativity scene on public property does more harm than good. Such secular crusades allow Christians—after all, the overwhelming majority of the country—to feel under attack, and even to declare that they are on the defensive in a “War on Christmas”. When a liberal federal court in California struck the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, religious conservatives rallied. Atheists might be tactically wise to accept the overwhelming majority’s comfort with such “ceremonial deism”.
