Palin Wants Bible as Basis for U.S. Law

Please, someone stop the madness that is this nitwit, Christian fundamentalist, posing as an educated and viable candidate for any leadership post outside of PTA President!!

An Atheist public policy group today sharply criticized remarks by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who appeared on the Bill O'Reilly Factor Thursday night and called for U.S. law to be based on the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Palin, who was the Republican candidate for Vice President in 2008, is reportedly considering a run for the White House in 2012 or beyond.

During her interview, Palin gushed: "I think we should keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant," adding, "They´re quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments."

Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists said that Palin's remarks displayed a breathtaking lack of knowledge about the evolution of law and American history. "If we didn't know better, we might conclude that Sarah Palin's 'education' was somehow carried out in Texas using textbooks that the Texas Board of Education is now trying to fabricate."

"Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are not based on the Bible; and the Founders, some of whom were religious, nevertheless advocated separation between government and religion. In fact, Thomas Jefferson wrote in an official letter as President of the need for a 'wall of separation' between church and state. Jefferson also wrote explicitly about the falsehood that our laws are based on the Ten Commandments."

Buckner noted that key documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence do not refer to the Judeo-Christian Bible or to a particular religious view. As he said, "The Constitution, our basic charter, is historically noteworthy because, for the first time in human history a significant governing charter was issued that did not invoke any deities or supernatural authority at all. It is declared in the name of 'We the people,' not in the name of Jesus or Allah or Buddha. Ms. Palin, the United States has never been a theocracy--and now would be a terrible time to change that."

Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director for American Atheists, said that Palin's poorly-informed comments were a signal that her future campaigns "may end up playing the 'religion card' in order to win votes."

"Palin and her allies on the religious right will continue to capitalize on wedge-issues like the role of religion in American society, even if means grievously distorting our nation's history," said Silverman.

Quote of the Day:

"In the formation of the American government...it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of the heavens."

--John Adams

Dawkins Responds to Tired Argument Against Secular Morality

I'm including the following video from The Thinking Atheist also since it nicely piggybacks on Dawkins.



Quotes of the Day:

"If your Bible is an argument for the degradation of woman, and the abuse by whipping little children, I advise you to put it away and use your common sense instead."

--Lucy Colman

You Can't Trust Science

Just a very cool video from The Thinking Atheist comparing the accomplishments of science vs religion. This seems to be an appropriate follow-up to yesterday's Creationist propoganda video.



Quote of the Day:

"It often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again....I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

--Carl Sagan

Creationist Propoganda for Children Caught on Camera

This video shows just how far creationists will go to indoctrinate their children into a culture of ignorance and innoculate their children against the realities and promise of science.



My 9-year-old happened to be watching this with me and even he couldn't help offering condemnations of the ignorance of the adults and refutations to the poor kids demonstrating the effectiveness of their brainwashing session. In the end, he said he just felt sorry for them. I think I would too, except for the fact that these same children will one day vote.

Below, check out one company attempting to level the playing field a bit.



Quote of the Day:

"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a higher answer--but none exists."

--Stephen Jay Gould

The Internet: Where Religions Come to Die

Here is an interesting video to which even Mr. Dawkins gives his personal seal of approval.

When Religious Sensitivity Trumps Freedom of Expression

After garnering a large number of hits on YouTube, this video was apparently removed due to 'inappropriate content.' I have chosen to post it here and allow you to decide for yourself. Click on the link below to view.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ca861703b8/religion-from-danny?rel=player

Similarly, Comedy Central recently censored the latest episode of South Park, which depicted the prophet Mohammed in a bear suit, due to not-so-veiled threats to the lives of the cartoon's creators from a U.S. based radical Islamic group called Revolution Muslim. What is going on here? Jon Stewart and The Daily Show address the issue in a more sober than usual, yet typically irreverant fashion.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-22-2010/south-park-death-threats

Quotes of the Day:

"You know, that's why our enemy is so frightening--they have no humor. This is a group of people who wandered the desert for thousands and thousands of years and never ran into a knock-knock joke."

--Lewis Black


"There is no room for play in Islam....It is deadly serious about everything."

--Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

A Godless Heathen's Guide to Morality: Introduction

Lately I've come across numerous arguments by theists in books, articles, blogs, forums, and videos stating the belief that one cannot be a moral person without a biblical foundation/grounding. In fact, it would seem that the world as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket thanks to the increasing number of freethinkers who reject not only Judeo-Christian biblical morality, but all standards of morality fundamentally based on religious dogma.

It really does make one wonder whether the people propogating this morality myth have ever actually read the "code" upon which their sense of morality is supposedly based. Even if they have read it and do possess more than a passing familiarity with it, I can't help wondering further exactly how they managed to come to the conclusion that the morality outlined in their particular holy book is not just the "best" standard, but should be the "universal" standard. Let's examine them here.

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image.
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neightbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.

Sam Harris, who is more eloquent by far than I, addressed this problem of considering the 10 Commandments as the best guide to morality in his Letter to to a Christian Nation (pp 20-22). He wrote:

The first four of these injunctions have nothing whatsoever to do with morality. As stated, they forbid the practice of any non-Judeo-Christian faith (like Hinduism), most religious art, utterances like 'God damn it!,' and any ordinary work on the Sabbath--all under penalty of death.

Commandments 5 through 9 do address morality, though it is questionable how many human beings ever honored their parents or abstained from committing murder, adultery, theft, or perjury because of them...And what are we to make of the fact that, in bringing his treatise to a close, the creator of our universe could think of no human concerns more pressing and durable than the coveting of servants and livestock?

Mr. Harris then goes on to issue a small challenge.

If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures.

Now, I am certainly no scholar when it comes to world religions, but a couple of weeks ago, I took a crack at creating my own set of "Atheist Commandments" (with a little help from Richard Dawkins). In future posts I will go into more detail with each one, and if anyone has suggestions for things I missed, feel free to let me know.

Quote of the Day:

(In a study involving hypothetical moral dilemmas)
"There were no statistically significant differences between subjects with or without religious backgrounds....Like other psychological faculties of the mind, including language and mathematics, [it appears that] we are endowed with a moral faculty that guides our intuitive judgments of right and wrong....It is our own nature, not God, that is the source of our morality."

--Peter Singer