Human Sacrifice in India

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on another horror committed by someone to appeal to the gods. Rajesh Hembram of India beheaded his 10-year-old granddaughter and mixed her blood with seeds to appeal to the gods for a bountiful harvest. The curse of religious superstition continues its history of bloodshed, both in major wars and on a personal level. Little Bernaka Kandulana has paid with her life for her grandfathers religious beliefs. Whatever evolutionary advantage was gained by beliefs in deities has long been superceded by the suffering and bloodshed it visits upon humanity today.

Truthfulness In Advertising

There are pictures all over the Internet of unintentionally funny or ironic church marquees. This particular photo comes from here, but its message is one they probably didn't mean to convey. However, I cannot disagree with the literal meaning of the sentiment expressed.

It is a fact that to accept something on "faith" means to suspend the requirement for any evidence, and just choose to believe something without, or contrary to, any evidence. Why is that an admirable quality? In all areas of life except in matters of religion, the prevailing opinion is that we reasonably expect there to be credible evidence before something is accepted as true. Faith is just the opposite. So, why would anyone think acceptance of a hypothesis without supporting data is a good quality? What if your doctor, rather than basing his or her treatment on scientific data, told you to put a leech on yourself and rub the intestines of a frog all over your body as treatment for cancer. Would you take it on faith that this is a reasonable course of action?

So yes, reason IS the greatest enemy of faith and the best way to test the truth of a proposition. Thomas Paine wrote,"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other , and I trust I never shall." Or as Mark Twain succinctly wrote, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

So on this day when people around the world have suspended their mental reasoning abilities to believe a man/god came back from the dead; and celebrate the rebirth of the "son" on a day co-opted from pagan religions that celebrated the rebirth of The Sun, and fertility; let's celebrate instead the benefits bestowed upon humanity by reason. Happy Easter!

President Obama Put Humanity Before Dogma

Rejecting the politicization of science, President Obama today fulfilled a campaign promise to overturn the Bush era's ban of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The previous president had forbidden such funding on new stem cell lines based upon the ridiculous religious belief that places the rights of a clump of cells in a petrie dish ahead of the lives of people suffering from a variety of diseases. Embryonic stem cells are capable of forming any type of cell in the body, and such research holds great promise to find cures for a wide spectrum of ailments from spinal cord damage to Parkinson's Disease to Alzheimers. Religion and politics have been the enemy of scientific progress since before the church's misguided persecution of Galileo and Copernicus, and it remains to to this day. We have lost eight precious years. Thankfully, the new President has cast aside the Bush-era restrictions.

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Dobson At It Again

The hatemongers and bigots at Focus on the Family are at it again. Taking up the mantle of the so-called "War on Christmas", the Dobsonites have compiled a list of retailers who they consider to be either "Christmas Friendly", "Christmas Negligent", or "Christmas Offensive". In other words, if the retailers don't use the holiday shopping season to push Christianity on all of their customers, you get put on Dobson's naughty list.

First of all, these idiots don't know or care, that retailers are in business to serve all of their customers. Not all customers celebrate Christmas. What if offensive about wishing customers a happy holiday, regardless of which one they may or may not celebrate?

What is even more amazing is the irony that is lost on these people. Consider the following from their website:

Retailers will be presented with petitions — thanking those that embrace "Christmas," and alerting those that have purged or marginalized "Christmas" that you object to the secularization of Christmas. We hope you will "stand for Christmas" with us and encourage the continued acknowledgement of this historic Christian observance in our culture.

So, in other words, while you are out celebrating the birth of Jesus by running up the credit cards, be sure to piss and moan about stores "secularizing" Christmas. Whatever happened to "love thy neighbor"? In a retail season that promises to be the worst in decades, Dobson is out to throw his substantive weight around the economy, and in effect, punishing even the Christians working at stores on his Christmas Offensive list. Good job, numnuts.

So let's all be sure to support the businesses on Dobson's hit list:

Christmas Negligent

• Barnes & Noble
• Bed, Bath & Beyond
• Best Buy
• Borders
• Circuit City
• Dick's Sporting Goods
• The GAP
• KB Toys
• Kmart
• Toys "R" Us

Christmas Offensive

• American Eagle
• Banana Republic
• Bloomingdale's
• Lane Bryant
• Old Navy
  

Makes me proud that the Lovely Spouse just dropped a few bucks at Lane Bryant over the weekend!

Oh, and by the way, it will be a Christmas to remember for 202 Focus employees, as they are getting laid off by the Dobson machine, just in time for...yes, I'll say it...the holidays!