France Declares Scientology a Fraud, Not Religion

Isn't this a bit link saying the Strawberry ice cream isn't really ice cream?

Link: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/france/120202/france-labels-scientology-business-not-church

In Honor of Black History Month: Ex-Slave Tells Ex-Master to "Shove it"

This is brilliant and really needs minimal comment

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee  

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. 

Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance. I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. 

They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. 

I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire. 

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits. Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson.

Indiana Slouches Toward Idiocy

As was mentioned in an earlier post, the Indiana state senate was scheduled to vote on allowing school districts to require "creationism", aka religious drivel, to be taught in public schools.

They did, and it pasted with 28 out of 50 votes.

Sigh.

I am angry about this but we all know how this will play out.

If it becomes a law, it will be challenged in court, and even if it goes all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, it will be overturned, but not until enormous amounts of cash are spent defending this rediculous and very harmful law.

The Europeans, Chinese and Indians are breathing down America's collective necks in terms of science education. This type of insanity does not help the situation.

Remember this with the 21at century's "Apple" or Facebook" is invented in Bangalore.

On January 31, 2012, the Indiana Senate voted 28-22 in favor of Senate Bill 89. As originally submitted, SB 89 provided, “The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.” On January 30, 2012, however, it was amended in the Senate to provide instead, “The governing body of a school corporation may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Scientology.”

Full Article: http://ncse.com/news/2012/01/indiana-creationism-bill-passes-senate-007182

Keep your Temples; We Have Greater Things

Alain de Botton, wants to build an
Atheist Temple in London.

Alain de Botton has announced plans to construct a 150 foot high temple to atheism in the heart to London.

He claims that it is a terrible thing that many of our most historic and beautiful buildings were constructed for the worship of the religious and that atheism should have the same.

Mr. de Botton has faced criticism from both the atheist community and the believing public.  Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins object to the wasteful use of such funds, "Atheists don't need temples. I think there are better things to spend this kind of money on. If you are going to spend money on atheism you could improve secular education and build non-religious schools which teach rational, skeptical critical thinking."

The defenders of belief use this fraternal disagreement to attack and skewer atheists in general, “I must say that some of my closest friends are atheists, and they are among the cleverest people I've ever known. In fact, they are so wise that they usually steer clear of matters philosophical, concentrating instead on things like politics, art, law or social commentary. Perhaps they tacitly agree with me, though they'll never admit this, that 'atheist philosopher' is an oxymoron. One can be either an atheist or a philosopher, not both.” (Alexander Boot, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2093778/We-temples-atheism-Mr-Botton.html?ito=feeds-newsxml)

And being used as an attack on Dawkins in specific, “The shrill voice of Dawkins is gradually being marginalized by those of no more faith than him, but who nevertheless perceive mystery in humanity and, while not accepting the presence of God in the world, are prepared to face in the same direction as the rest of us and stand in awe and wonder.” (George Pitcher, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2093852/From-Attenborough-Alain-Botton-faithless-rejecting-shrill-atheism-Dawkins.html?ito=feeds-newsxml)

These attacks come from a deep misunderstanding of what atheism it and is not.  It is true that atheism does not need a temple, but that does not mean that atheists do not like to gather to consider the mysteries of the universe or speak of philosophical issues. The deeply insulting idea that atheists can’t be philosophers (the worst insults are seemly always predicated with the phrase “some of my closest friends”) barely needs refutation except to say that even in the early days of the renaissance the leading humanist of the era and one of its greatest thinkers, Conrad Celtes began questioning the existence of a god over 500 years ago.  In fact, one of the first goals of the early humanists, the first true philosopher in Europe sicnce the fall of the dark ages, was to attack scholasticism; the pseudo-philosophical belief that all forms of thought and philosophy could be reduced to a brach of Christian thought.

When one honestly explores the implications of the quest for knowledge and ethics one could just as easily argue more successfully that atheism is part of the ultimate expression of philosophy.  If we agree with American philosopher John Dewey that philosophy is most useful when based on reason, and if we remember that Christian leaders from St. Augustine to Martin Luther, horror shows that they were, realized that reason is the greatest enemy of faith, we can see that philosophy equals reason, but reason does not equal faith. 

To accuse Dr. Dawkins of lacking wonder at the universe simply because he forthrightly and effectively points out the fallacies of the faithful is to also say that Einstein lacked the ability to conceive of the wonderful awesomeness of time and space or that Sagan dismissed the beauty of the cosmos; they held the same views as Dawkins.  Having awe in the face of reality in all of its fierce, order-from-chaos action and the counter-intuitive laws of the physical realm is much stronger than the fear of a capricious god.

Secular schools, public colleges and universities, community volunteer centers, offices of democratic government, modern hospitals, and the like are all temples to secular humanism which is as like atheism to have no difference.  For me, it is the public library that is my temple of choice; a place where at public expense the knowledge of the world, presented without prejudice or comment, is made available to anyone who asks, presented in a peaceful and unobtrusive environment.

So, no, atheists do not need a temple because the modern world is our cathedral.  No facet of modern life is untouched by the values of the atheist; science, reason, equality before the law, and respect for knowledge. We believe the world that we live in can be made better, that people can choose to improve their condition, and the lot of our existence as human beings can be improved; these are the inherent hopes of a people who do not place the responsibility for their decisions on ephemeral sky fathers or believe that some unknown heaven is more important than the well being of people in the here and now.  These are the values and gifts of secular, humanistic atheists.

So, keep your temples; we’ll take the universe.

A Review of "A Universe From Nothing"

From the AVClub:

"With an afterward by Richard Dawkins, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing is solidly in the New Atheism camp, a cosmologist’s version of Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker. Krauss takes several jabs at theologians who insist on fitting science into their preconceived notions of how the universe should work, when they aren’t ignoring science altogether."

Link: http://www.avclub.com/articles/lawrence-m-krauss-a-universe-from-nothing,68195/

The Myth of Jesus

UCF Professor Tells Ignorant Students What Higher Education is Really About

Charles Negy

Charles Negy directly address the impact of students' religious bigotry, small mindedness and irrationality in the college classroom.  Anyone who has ever taught a college class, especially in the humanities, knows that every word he wrote is accurate.

Negy addresses his students in an email and reasonably but sternly takes them to task for wanting university to be like high school and to conform to their pre-conceived notions or beliefs, wanting no challenge to the doctrines instilled by church and parents.

This of course is not what college is for.

The purpose of a university…is to struggle intellectually with some of life’s most difficult topics that might not have one right answer, and try to come to some conclusion what might be “the better answer”…

Link: http://i.imgur.com/6XCBq.png

Charles Negy's webpage: http://www.psych.ucf.edu/faculty_negy.php