Witness

Divine Irony:

The Resistance: Seculars Stand Up and Speak Out

Greta Christina at Free Inquiry says This Is Not A Drill and concludes:

We are skeptics, so we need to face reality. We are humanists, so we need to take action when human beings are in danger. We of all people do not want to be the ones standing in the rubble when it’s over, insisting to anyone who will listen that we didn’t know.

Intelligence

Divine Irony:

(Source: uumans)

Thankful for the ACLU

And the Freedom From Religion Foundation.  And proud, loud, courageous Freethinkers like Bennie L. Hart.

Because a state that issues "In god We Trust" license plates at no extra change to any random motherfucking freakazoid has no standing to refuse a far less offensive and obnoxious specialty plate to a follower of reason and freethought.

Bruce Schreiner at the AP:

An atheist's request to say "IM GOD" on his license plate was denied by the state of Kentucky, which said it might distract other drivers, could spark confrontations and would be in bad taste.

Bennie L. Hart says that by driving around with the "IM GOD" message, he simply wants to spread his views about religion — that it's impossible to disprove anyone's claim to being "God."

Besides, Hart says, he had the same plate for a dozen years when he lived in Ohio, without causing any problems.

Hart sued Kentucky's transportation secretary, Greg Thomas, on Tuesday on free speech grounds, asking a federal judge in Frankfort to strike down some Kentucky laws and rules for personalized plates.

"Under the First Amendment, government officials do not have the authority to censor messages simply because they dislike them," said William Sharp, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which helped file the lawsuit. "And in this instance, personalized license plates are a form of individual speech equally deserving of First Amendment protection."

State Transportation Cabinet spokesman Ryan Watts said the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Hart, who moved to Kenton County in northern Kentucky in February, intends to reapply for the "IM GOD" plate, his suit says.

When Hart was first turned down in March for the "IM GOD" plate, an administrative branch manager for Kentucky's Division of Motor Vehicle Licensing cited state law and regulations forbidding vulgar or obscene personalized plates, the suit says. That characterization is "demeaning" to Hart and his views and amounts to censorship, the suit says.

"I simply want the same opportunity to select a personal message for my license plate, just as any other driver," Hart said in an ACLU release Tuesday. "There is nothing 'obscene or vulgar' about my view that religious beliefs are subject to individual interpretation."

Right now, the ACLU is the only thing standing between us and the Republic of Gilead. Donate today.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article116478218.html#storylink=cpy

Why Conservatives Are Better Than Liberals

Logic, that's why.

Read and enjoy.

Via Pharyngula.

The Popularity of Cults

Divine Irony:

Freethought Is Not Free Speech

Don't confuse them.

PZ Myers:

Freethought is “a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, revelation, or other dogma”, and as I’ve said repeatedly, it is not a pointless label for thinking whatever you want (everyone gets to do that, whether you’re a hidebound Catholic or Islamist, or an atheist scientist). So I’m a little skeptical when someone confuses freethought with freedom to think any damn thing.

Whose Slave Are You?

Divine Irony:




(Source: withoutgods)

The Fatally Wrong Way to Defend Secular Public Schools

Tri-County Freethinkers, you're doing it wrong.

Parents in Casey County, Kentucky reportedly pulled their children from school after an atheist group was allowed to distribute literature at three local schools, the Danville Advocate-Messenger reported.

“Our attendance was probably not as good as it normally is,” Liberty Elementary Principal Boyd Harris was quoted as saying. “We feel like there may be some connection there.”

The books were delivered by the Tri-County Freethinkers on March 28, after the group successfully petitioned county officials for the right to distribute their material in a manner similar to a Christian group, the Gideons.

However, the Advocate-Messenger reported that a group of local parents entered Jones Park Elementary demanding to see where copies of the Freethinkers’ book, Humanism, What’s That?: A Book for Curious Kids would be displayed. Some parents and children also reportedly followed group members Torey Glassmeyer and Jim G. Helton as they delivered the books.

“We’re here to defend God and his glory,” one anonymous woman was quoted as saying.

Helton told the Advocate-Messenger that he was not surprised by the heightened scrutiny from residents, saying it has also led others to come to them anonymously out of fear of reprisal.

“With the Gideons it’s like playing Whack-a-Mole,” He was quoted as saying. “They come in and they get shut down. It will be interesting to see what the school’s response will be next year. When people complained about the Gideons coming in, they blew it off.”

Tri-County Freethinkers, I'm going to tell you some things that I'm sure you already know, but that you are pretending to have forgotten in the hopes of earning some free media.

Which I am giving you (a tiny bit) in hopes of preventing other Kentucky Freethinkers from making your mistakes.

First, the fastest, most effective and most permanent way to create Freethinkers, particularly the atheist variety, is to saturate their spongy little child minds in bibble. Bibble morning, bibble noon, bibble night. Make the little fuckers memorize it. When they ask questions, spare not the rod but demand silence and unquestioning obedience.

By puberty, they're Atheist Warriors for Life.

Second: stooping to the level of the Gideons? Really? These are people who think that the hidden existence of a book of Bronze Age mythology in a closed drawer is going to stop people from fucking. People who came to that room for the sole and specific purpose of fucking and who have no reason to open that drawer or remove a book of myths from it and start reading. While they're fucking.

Dust bunnies are smarter than Gideons.

Third, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the one prohibiting Congress from  establishing a state religion, the one that in combination with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment bars government employees - like, you know, school teachers - from lending government endorsement to any religion. Unfortunately, it does not prevent any random third party from dumping piles of its propaganda on already overburdened public institutions.

But when you demand equal time for freethought, you accomplish two fatally stupid mistakes:

• You lend support to the motherfuckers who deride and undermine freethought by insisting that atheism, secularism, humanism and science are religions, and 
• You condone the false concept that religion belongs in any public institution outside of museums and classes teaching "Causes of Human Misery."

Stop playing the game by freakazoid rules, Tri-County Freethinkers. Stop lending them credibility. Publicize what the freakazoids are doing, then point and laugh.  Because that's what works.

Ridicule.

Liberty From Attack

ummagumma.co

Free Thinking in Kentucky

Personally, being attacked for being an atheist doesn't bother me as much as the liberal xians who insist that atheism is just the far end of the "religious spectrum" and if we just gave god a chance we'd see the light.

Give me a hate-spewing freakazoid any day. They know an enemy when they see one.

John Cheves at the Herald:

At least one group wasn't praying Saturday for a University of Kentucky football win.

The first Kentucky Freethought Convention, held at UK, drew more than 250 atheists, agnostics, humanists and other religious skeptics from around the state. They heard lectures on the value of teaching evolution in schools, the perils of religious proselytizing in the military, why ex-pastors should promote atheism and other topics guaranteed to bring many Thanksgiving dinners to a screeching halt.

They also came for companionship. Several attendees said that simply identifying oneself as atheist can infuriate Christians.

"Some terribly angry and threatening emails" resulted from a billboard erected last month at New Circle and Nicholasville roads that read "Don't believe in God? Join the club," said Clay Maney, spokesman for the Humanist Forum of Central Kentucky, which helped organize Saturday's event.

"We are in some quarters hated," Maney said. "I'm not sure I understand that. We're not out there knocking on your doors, we're not handing our literature to your children, we're not trying to pass laws promoting our views, we're not trying to convert you. But people seem to feel terribly threatened by us."

As well they should. Religion of any stripe is anti-thought, anti-reason, anti-reality, anti-freedom, anti-facts and anti-humanity. A world that values human thought, human morality and human freedom must eliminate religion.

For freethinkers to deny that fact is a betrayal of freethought.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/10/06/2362668/religious-skeptics-gather-at-kentucky.html#storylink=cpy

Demonstrate Reason: Reject Prayer

It's the National Day of Reason, and boy do we ever need it.

PZ Myers:

Obama is getting everything wrong lately. First he declares 1 May to be Loyalty Day, in which we are to pledge allegiance to the flag; what a horror. To me, May Day will always be International Workers’ Day. It is not a day to pledge blind obedience to authority, but the exact opposite. But of course, Barack Obama, corporate tool, would want to subvert that.

And he also wants us to kowtow to nonexistent deities today, by going along with this horrible right-wing notion of a national Day of Prayer. Fuck that noise. Today is the National Day of Reason, and I will bend no knee to ghostly vapors, nor will I beg any gods for favors, ever.

No Gods, No Masters!

That should be the theme for this time of year, our Atheist Spring. It’s also fitting that that slogan was the product of the International Workers of the World, and was adopted by early feminists.

If we do not strike the fetters off ourselves we shall be knocked about until we forget the fetters. To our society apologists, and to their plausible excuses for modern impression, the only adequate answer is — we have done with your civilization and your gods. We will organize society in such a way as to make it certain for all to live in comfort and leisure without bartering their affections or their convictions. Let us turn a deaf ear to the trumpet-tongued liars clamoring for Protection, Patriotism, Prisons, Police, Workhouses, and Large Families. Leave them to vomit their own filth and let us take the good things mother earth daily offers unheeded, to us her children.

Things haven’t changed much since Sanger wrote that in 1914.

Naked Public Atheism in Louisville

Sniff! I'm so proud.

Janelle MacDonald at WAVE 3 Louisville:

The Louisville Coalition of Reason's billboard sits on one of the busiest stretches of I-65 in Louisville, right by the Kentucky Exposition Center. It says "Don't believe in God? You are not alone."

Ed Hensley of Louisville CoR says it has been in the works since January. Its purpose, he says, is to educate.

"We wish to be accepted by the community as they perhaps accept other people that they work with, that they are friends with, that they play sports with who are perhaps a different religion to accept us in the same manner," said Hensley.

But in a city with such a strong faith-based community, Hensley says he does expect some backlash.

"Some people are offended merely by our existence," Hensley said, "and so matter what we do those people will be offended."

"It's a disturbing sign, or at least potentially disturbing sign," said Fr. Elias Henritzy, a Roman Catholic priest.

Fr. Henritzy, a Dominican priest at Saint Louis Bertrand Catholic Church in Old Louisville, said he is not offended, but he is troubled by the billboard and what it might do.

"I think God really made us to be close to Him and have His love draw us close to each other more," Fr. Henritzy said. "It's a saddening sign in some ways, if that's the real intent of it to draw people away from God."

"Our answer is not so much what we turn people away from, but what we turn them to," said Hensley, "which is rational thought, evidence based thinking, evidence based belief."

Read the whole thing.

Then find out more about Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers. I never heard of them before today but I love them already.

Last word to Jake:

Have you seen the ‘godless’ billboard on I-65? Everybody is completely freaking out about it. As you know, a billboard has the power to force people to change their beliefs, stop abortion, save the world and make you gay. So you should probably be very afraid.

Commies Trying to Take Over in Nicholasville

This is how the Commies controlled people in Russia and China and North Korea: government employees deciding what people could and could not read, even overruling parents' decisions about their own children.

And it's happening again. Not, as you might think, in some Obama-worshipping socialist hell-hole like San Francisco, but in fine, upstanding, conservative Jessamine County, Kentucky.

It's enough to make Baby Jeebus cry.

(Jessamine County Public Library employee Sharon Cook) removed the book from circulation. She checked it out over and over and over with her library card until a patron of the library, unaware of the circumstances of the book, put a hold on it, asking to be the next in line to check it out.

When Cook went to renew The Black Dossier on Sept. 21, the computer would not allow it because of the hold. Cook used her employee privileges to find out that the patron desiring the book was an 11-year-old girl.

This would not do.

On Sept. 22, Cook told two of her colleagues at the library about her dilemma, and Beth Boisvert made a decision. She would take the book off hold, thus disallowing the child — or the child's parents — ever to see the book.

NAZIS! COMMIES! HUGO CHAVEZ!

Fortunately, the two UnAmericans were quickly fired by the patriotic Library Board. After all, denying American Citizens the freedom to read whatever they want and to decide what their children read - why, that's what the Mooslin Terrists are trying to do!

But instead of celebrating this triumph of Real American Values, a bunch of religious and political fanatics have attacked the loyal, patriotic library board for firing those two commies. They are demanding that the board not only reinstate the two, but change library policy to actually require government control over who gets to read what.

Next Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 3:30 p.m., the Jessamine County Library Board will hear public comment on this vicious attack on the Constitution.

Members of the public who wish to speak at the Nov. 18 meeting will have to sign up on a “speaker list” prior to the meeting. On the list, they will have to record their names, addresses and topics of their comments, as well as designating whether or not they hold a JCPL library card.

The list will be available for sign-up Thursday morning until 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 18 — 15 minutes before the board meeting. In addition to signing up on the list, speakers will have to sign in at the meeting as present. The board decided to allot one hour of time for public comments at the November meeting and to divide that time equally by the number of registered speakers. Individual speakers will have no more than 15 minutes unless the board president grants an extension.

Priority will be given to speakers who are residents of Jessamine County or hold a JCPL library card.

The library opens at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Get there early, get a free JCPS library card, sign up to speak and then pass the time by browsing the shelves for material the fascists don't want you to have.

For the sake of the Founding Fathers, who are spinning in their graves at this attempt to destroy the republican freedoms they fought and died for, don't let Those Who Hate Our Freedoms force censorship on The Children.

Read the whole thing.

Ensuring a Rational Death

As an out, loud and proud atheist with freakazoid relatives, one of my great fears is that my godbot family members will try to turn my eventual death into a last-second conversion victory for their invisible sky wizard. So I think I will borrow from Basava Premand's rationalist living will.

Courtesy PZ Myers:

Basava Premanand is a notable rationalist and publisher of Indian Skeptic magazine, and he is in a hospital dying of cancer as I write this. He is alert and fully aware of his condition, and he knows his death is imminent. He also knows that when he is dead, the contemptible ghouls of spiritualism and faith and desperate dogma will descend on his corpse to try and steal some of his dignity and integrity for their superstitions, and he has responded accordingly by composing a deathbed testimonial.

I, B. Premanand s/o late Sri Basava Prabhu, 80 years of age resident Chettipalayam Road, Podanur, sound of mind though suffering from physical complications caused by metastases in many organs caused by carcinoma of the stomach herein solemnly wish to place on record the following:

I have been closely associated with the rationalist movement from 1975 onwards and have been a rationalist of full conviction since then and continue to be so.
It is common for the purveyors of superstitions and such anti rational forces to start spreading rumors about rationalists turning to god and other supernatural forces at the end of their lives and becoming devotees of gods and god men of various types.

It is also claimed that at times of crises that we staunch rationalists through the major part of our lives, turn to spiritualism and religion.

I wish to clarify that as on today the twentieth of September, 2009 I remain a staunch rationalist and wish to place on record the following:

a. I continue to be a rationalist of full conviction.

b. I do not believe in any supernatural power. All the powers that we encounter are in the realm of nature and nothing exists beyond that.

c. I do not believe in the existence of the soul or rebirth.

d. I have not turned to any religion, god or any sort of spiritual pursuits.

e. When I pass away I shall be leaving only my body which is to be donated to a medical college and no spirit or soul to cause problems for the living.

I want to convey to all that the struggle against the exploitation by god men and so called supernatural forces is a long and hard one but the ultimate victory will be ours.

My very survival has been a challenge to astrologers and their so called “science” of astrology, as they had all predicted that I would die soon after birth and refused to cast a horoscope for me.

I wish to convey to my colleagues of the rationalist movement to continue the work that I have been doing with renewed vigor and that will be the best of tributes for me.

Abhirami Hospital
Podanur (B. Premanand)
Witnessed by: Dr. Maya Prabhu and Suneera

I wish I'd known the man. He's leaving us one small story from what must have been a life of reason, and is dying as a free man, free in thought.

Xian Fanatics At It Again in Kentucky

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled at least twice that posting the Ten Commandments in public spaces is unconstitutional, disallowed and really fucking annoying, the dominionist freakazoids never quit.

The courthouse in Jackson County should have to take down several copies of the Ten Commandments because they are an improper governmental endorsement of religion, a federal lawsuit argues.

The lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and a county resident, Eugene Phillips Jr., seeks a ruling that nine copies of the biblical laws on the courthouse walls in McKee are unconstitutional. It also seeks an injunction ordering the county to take down the copies.

SNIP

(Jackson County Judge-Executive William O.) Smith said he had not seen a copy of the lawsuit but that most county residents would support keeping the Ten Commandments displayed in the courthouse. He said a judge might order the county to remove the Commandments, but "that doesn't mean it's right."

Thank you, Judge Smith, for reminding us that the courtesy title "Judge" given to county execs in Kentucky doesn't hide the lack of legal - or even basic educational - qualifications for the job.

The lawsuit was filed last week. The lawsuit says that Phillips and other ACLU members in Jackson County must use the courthouse to do business such as paying taxes.

When they do, exposure to the Ten Commandments displays is "direct and unwelcome," because the citizens see the copies as a message of religious endorsement by the county, in violation of the First Amendment, the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs say that the First Amendment correctly seeks to protect individual freedom by preventing undue government interference in the exercise of religious beliefs, and by barring the government from favoring one religion over another, or religion over non-religion, the lawsuit says.

The ACLU and a handful of courageous citizens like Eugene Phillips are the only things standing between the secular republic the founders risked their lives to establish and the Dominionist nightmare the freakazoids want to impose.

If you haven't joined the ACLU yet, do it today. Or at least send them a check.

The Great Dissenter: Happy 175th, Robert Ingersoll

Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men -- nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.

-- Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899)
American politician and lecturer known for his adamant support of scientific and humanistic rationalism.

Between the Civil War and end of the 19th century, the biggest celebrity in America was someone virtually unknown today. The most in-demand speaker of the day, who consistently drew audiences of thousands everywhere he spoke, throughout the nation, was not Mark Twain, but Robert G. Ingersoll.

Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism.

SNIP

Ingersoll was most noted as an orator, the most popular of the age, when oratory was public entertainment. He spoke on every subject, from Shakespeare to Reconstruction, but his most popular subjects were agnosticism and the sanctity and refuge of the family. He committed his speeches to memory although they were sometimes more than three hours long. His audiences were said never to be restless.

His radical views on religion, slavery, woman's suffrage, and other issues of the day effectively prevented him from ever pursuing or holding political offices higher than that of state attorney general. Illinois Republicans tried to pressure him into running for governor on the condition that Ingersoll conceal his agnosticism during the campaign, which he refused on the basis that concealing information from the public was immoral.

Many of Ingersoll's speeches advocated freethought and humanism, and often poked fun at religious belief. For this the press often attacked him, but neither his views nor the negative press could stop his rising popularity. At the height of Ingersoll's fame, audiences would pay $1 or more to hear him speak, a giant sum for his day.

Take a few moments Monday to celebrate Ingersoll's birthday by committing to memory Ingersoll's Creed:

Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy is now.
The place to be happy is here.
The way to be happy is to make others so.

Read the best collection of Ingersoll's philosophy in "What's God Got to Do With It: Robert Ingersoll on Free Speech, Honest Talk and the Separation of Church and State."

Read about the enormous positive role of Freethought in American History in Susan Jacoby's essential book.

Read Ingersoll's complete works online.

Read the most complete collection of Ingersoll's quotes.

Find out more, and support the dedicated but underfunded Council on Secular Humanism here.

Get cool Freethinker and Secular Humanism swag here. How can you resist a website named "Evolvefish?"

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.