8: The Mormon Proposition

Some interesting questions are raised in an up and coming documentary about the Gay Marriage Bill in California and how the people behind the Mormon faith was able to have it removed 6 months later.

Created by several disaffected members of the Mormon Church who are gay, it lays blame for the passage of California’s Proposition 8 squarely upon the Mormon Church. According to the makers of the film, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has spent the last three decades engaged in a vendetta against gays, employing evil “secret combinations” among its members in LDS temples to effect the trashing of gay rights. This venomous film production employs every possible lie to portray the Mormon Church as an oppressive and evil money machine.

I honestly do not understand how people can see homosexual marriage as a threat to anything. They make it to this huge horrible debate, when we should be focusing on much more important things like world poverty and genocide. Its so pathetic.

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Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good

TED Video: We're at a unique moment in history, says UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: we can use today's interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic -- and work together to confront the challenges of poverty, security, climate change and the economy

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown played a key role in shaping the G20 nations' response to the world's financial crisis and has been a powerful advocate for a coordinated global response to problems such as climate change, poverty and social justice.

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The Four Horsemen

You may have heard about this little informal discussion between Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, during which they discuss the level of attacks on them by theists and by their fellow atheists and agnostics.

The so called Four Horsemen of Atheism comprises of two one hour videos and they hit on a number of different topics regarding the reaction to their own books as well as criticisms and common misrepresentations about their ideas.

Anyway, although I know my dad would say, they are just a bunch of pompous, self-righteous cretins I found the videos quite interesting nonetheless:

Video One

Video Two

The Improbability Pump

The following extract is from an Article in The Nation by Jerry A. Coyne:

Imagine for a moment that a large proportion of Americans--let's say half--rejected the "germ theory" of infectious disease. Maladies like swine flu, malaria and AIDS aren't caused by micro-organisms, they claim, but by the displeasure of gods, whom they propitiate by praying, consulting shamans and sacrificing goats. Now, you'd surely find this a national disgrace, for those people would be utterly, unequivocally wrong. Although it's called germ theory, the idea that infections are spread by small creatures is also a fact, supported by mountains of evidence. You don't get malaria unless you carry a specific protozoan parasite. We know how it causes the disease, and we see that when you kill it with drugs, the disease goes away. How, we'd ask, could people ignore all this evidence in favor of baseless superstition?

But that's fiction, right? Well, not entirely, for it applies precisely to another "theory" that is also a fact: the theory of evolution. Over the past quarter-century, poll after poll has revealed that nearly half of all Americans flatly reject evolution, many clinging to the ancient superstition that the earth was created only 6,000 years ago, complete with all existing species. But as Richard Dawkins shows in his splendid new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, the theory of evolution is supported by at least as much evidence as is the germ theory of disease--heaps of it, and from many areas of biology. So why is it contemptible to reject germ theory but socially acceptable to reject evolutionary theory?

One answer is religion. Unlike germ theory, the idea of evolution strikes at the heart of human ego, suggesting that we were not the special object of God's attention but were made by the same blind and mindless process of natural selection that also built ferns, fish and rabbits. Another answer is ignorance: most Americans are simply unaware of the multifarious evidence that makes evolution more than "just a theory," and don't even realize that a scientific theory is far more than idle speculation.

While Dawkins has produced several brilliant books on the marvels of evolution and natural selection, he's never before written at length about the evidence for evolution. The Greatest Show on Earth can be seen as his response to ongoing and nonscientific opposition to evolution. In his previous book, The God Delusion, Dawkins mounted a withering attack on belief that was surely motivated in part by his incessant battles with faith-based creationism. In The Greatest Show on Earth he finally addresses the problem of ignorance, drawing together the diverse evidence for evolution to show that "evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact." Dawkins has two goals here. The first is to change the minds of those who doubt or deny evolution by presenting them with more than 400 pages of scientific evidence. But changing minds is a big job, at least in the United States: in a 2006 Time magazine poll, 64 percent of Americans declared that if science disproved one of their religious beliefs, they'd reject the science in favor of their faith. (The British aren't quite so defiant: one week after its publication, The Greatest Show on Earth debuted at No. 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list.) More realistically, Dawkins hopes to bolster those who already accept evolution but "find themselves inadequately prepared to argue the case." And here he succeeds brilliantly.

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Reviving the Spirit of Rio

Following the near collapse of the UN climate negotiations in December and the seeming paralysis of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in March, the whole idea of solving the world's environmental problems through multilateral negotiations seems to be in crisis. But, argue Maurice Strong and Felix Dodds, another recent development holds out the promise of reversing the trend.

In two years' time, Rio de Janeiro will host another Earth Summit - 20 years after the first.

The idea was proposed in 2007 by Brazil's President Lula da Silva at the UN General Assembly.

It was clear to President Lula and to a growing number of others that the world has changed enormously since 1992, when the world agreed to Agenda 21 - the blueprint for creating a sustainable way of life in the 21st Century.

Rio 2012 could provide much-needed new momentum to international co-operation, not only on environment and sustainable development, but also on the problems that underpin the global financial crisis.

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Australia shelves key emissions trading scheme

The Australian government has put plans for a flagship emissions trading scheme on hold until 2013 at the earliest.

The move comes after the scheme was rejected twice by the Senate, where Prime Minster Kevin Rudd's government does not have a majority.

Mr Rudd, who came to power promising tough climate action, blamed opposition obstruction and slow global progress on emissions cuts for the plan's delay.

Mr Rudd has said climate change is "the moral challenge of our generation"

Australia is one of the highest per capita carbon emitters in the world.

Australia has some of the highest per capita carbon emissions of developed nations.

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Earth from Mars

Above: the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. Photographed by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. (March 8, 2004)

Large Image

Not Even in South Park?

The article below by Ross Douthat of the New York Times has got me thinking about freedoms.

Two months before 9/11, Comedy Central aired an episode of “South Park” entitled “Super Best Friends,” in which the cartoon show’s foul-mouthed urchins sought assistance from an unusual team of superheroes. These particular superfriends were all religious figures: Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Mormonism’s Joseph Smith, Taoism’s Lao-tse — and the Prophet Muhammad, depicted with a turban and a 5 o’clock shadow, and introduced as “the Muslim prophet with the powers of flame.”

That was a more permissive time. You can’t portray Muhammad on American television anymore, as South Park’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, discovered in 2006, when they tried to parody the Danish cartoon controversy — in which unflattering caricatures of the prophet prompted worldwide riots — by scripting another animated appearance for Muhammad. The episode aired, but the cameo itself was blacked out, replaced by an announcement that Comedy Central had refused to show an image of the prophet.

Assembly, Association, Movement, Press, Religion, Speech, Information, Thought

I don't think anyone can deny that a person's freedoms and liberties should be the most important thing to them. Therefore, as well as ensuring our safety and providing basic public services, maintaining those freedoms for every person within our society should be top of any government's list of priorities.

When certain people threaten this principle using intimidation and fear to prevent or scare members of our society from using that freedom, we should all stand up and take note. When people use intimidation and fear to scare people from using that freedom in the name of a God. We should all start to be very concerned.

If some omnipotent being really did create the world in all its splendor and majesty, created all the plants and animals, all the planets, stars and solar systems, do you really think they give a fuck if Trey Parker and Matt Stone make a joke or two about them at their expense!?

In the same way I despise the Fox News in America from instilling fear in its people, I think anyone with an ounce of reason is starting to get very tired of these fear mongering extremist assholes.

If someone told me I couldn't show an image of the Easter Bunny because Santa Claus would be angry and wouldn't give us any presents. Or worse that someone threatened me harm for that same reason, they would be locked up for encroaching on my freedom of thought and speech.

So why are we tolerant of these idiots, solely because they do it in the name of religion.

Hopefully, very soon, we as a society can start to use reason and common sense to stop these pillocks in their tracks.

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National Day of Reason

The following article is in relation to the Pentagon's plan to have a Muslim hating preacher, Franklin Graham, speak on a National Day of Prayer.

It sparked outrage amongst the Muslims working at the Pentagon and he was then pulled Mr Graham from speaking.

Religions are divisive, and there is no such thing as a prayer that's inclusive for all. To honor our members in the service, and to inspire them to act responsibly in difficult situations, perhaps our government should sponsor a National Day of Reason. I may be a bit naïve, but who can be opposed to reason?

The piece asks from very interesting questions.

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Gulf Oil Slick: Visible From Space

Four hundred miles out in space, NASA's Aqua satellite has taken pictures of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. In this image from Sunday, the center of it is about even with the mouth of the Mississippi River. We're told it covers 400 square miles.

Take a look