Nothing ruins a perfectly good night than when a friend calls your activism for secular causes a religion. I was out tonight having a good time with a couple of friends of mine when they both decided to attack the Rational Response Squad and me as being a religious extremist group that is no different than the christian right (they started it). I argued over and over about the fallacies of this argument but to no avail, because as far as their views go, they do not realize that we are not a religion but a group focused on bringing about the realization that religion and belief in god (faith) needs to be held up to the same standards of scrutiny as everything else.

Ok, my yearly rant on valentine's day. If I have to think of one word to describe valentine's day, it would be BULLSHIT, ok..so MAYBE that's two words, but it's the context that matters here.

Capitalist driven holidays such as xmas and valentine's day are exactly the kind of holidays that turn people into sheep. It's the idea that on these "special" strategically designed holidays that we have to worry about giving gifts or expressing love by going to the jewlry store and droppin 1/2 a grand on some diamond necklace that some poor kid in Africa got paid 2 cents an hour to mine. Or worse, that some Cinta Larga Indian in the amazon got slaughtered by some white man who's greed over diamonds has led him to illegaly mine on indian land. It's amazing how capitalism has turned some carbon based mineral into some "precious" jewel. And the irony here is that diamonds are made up of crystalized carbon...usually from organic matter. And those who exploit diamonds (such as religious institutions: Pat Robertsons diamond mines in Africa) are those same ones that tell you the earth is young....well Diamonds take a looooong time to make.. boy can you just see the greedy religoius hypocrisy here? I mean seriously, I think xtian institutions should ban diamond rings, because their existence is simply contrary to xtian beliefs.....BUT...because diamonds make money, it's accepted as being ok. Anyway...So yeah...I don't buy the bullshit. But I digress here.

I have been debating theists on myspace, the rrs, and now even youtube. It is amazing to me that from the most ignorant to the most intellectual (such as the apologists) the theists are always redefining themselves in order to over come the logical fallacies presented to them by the rational thinkers. It's almost as if their religoin is "evolving" and molding itself to fit science's or just even plain rationality's complete annihilation of their arguments. The best is when they use straw men arguments, because it's the only way they can then argue defeat an argument (that they themselves set up). They argue from ignorance and they usually chase red herrings. And when all else fails, they throw the faith card at ya.

I have been writing my two senators since for at least the last 6 years. My two senators from Virgina are Senator Warner and Senator Allen. Allen is up for re-election against democratic challenger Webb. So Warner is an old school republican from the more righteous classical middle of the road conservative thought. Allen is a neocon fuckhead, a mouth piece for george bush's dick. So..I've been writing to both senators constantly about a variety of issues.

Sen. Warner's office has always sent me a reply, agreeing or disagreeing with me, but giving at least some thought and care into his constituents.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here..but...either way.

They say hindsight is always 20/20. Question is, when do we learn from our mistakes? What causes a paradigm shift? What government attrocities are we willing to deny in order to maintain a sense of complacency and comfort.

Those easily misled are those that do not question. The power of the question relies on the ability to critically dissect every thing. Without that power, we can be assured to be led astray and controlled.

It is those of us with the ability to critically analyze; that are able to shift the paradigm, to change things for the better. The critical thinkers see disaster before it comes. That is why us "unpatriotic" rational thinkers, see a huge problem with this country, it's theocratic leanings and the slow change towards a nationalistic police state, governed by fear, guns and god. Change is slow....so that you do not notice. But it takes those with clear vision and critical thinking to analyze and realize..wait a minute...something is wrong in the USA today.

Ok, it's left of larry's rant time.

This administration continues to lie cheat and steal to propagandize an ideology that is completely and foundationally flawed. Their ideology is antithetical to the most foundational ideas of a free democracy and the United States Constitution. Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the great fathers are spinning in their grave.

Why do they do this then? The reason is simple. Money and Power. The ideologies of the neocons reside within a selfish, money driven system that uses religion, corruption, stealing, cheating and even murder to achieve what neocons percieve as the Straussian hegemonic wet dream. I am not communist, however, it is ironic to me that the staunchest neocons will tell me that communism will never work because of human nature's intrinsic inevitablity that it will be corrupted. Well guess what, corruption seems to be the standard in our system of governance and economy. Corruption...human nature....I say stop hiding behind cop outs and straw man arguments. I don't claim to have an answer, but at least be honest with yourselves.

Someone at VCU is obviously watching what I write on here. Don't know how they found it, but....I just thought I'd say hi, oh and join RRS, it's a great place to learn. Keep smilin'. No need to hide in anonymity.

This is my old blog about why I'm an atheist, my perspective. This egotistical theist named Frank..decides to cut and paste it on his blogging account and then decides to "debunk" it. Ironically, his whole diatribe is an ad hominem attack, because he fails to see that this was MY perspective and not necessarily the vews of all atheists. so anyway, I had re-cut and pasted his blog as a comment to my original blog and retorted. If he was a true debater.. he would have left comments here, instead of hiding. So instead of giving this guy's blog site traffic, please post comments here. I think he just wants attention. someone to PLEASE listen to him... (tear.)

Disclaimer: I do not proofread for grammar or spell check my blogs.

First off, atheism is not a set of beliefs or non beliefs. If you study or have studied linguistics, you know that words are used to describe ideas or issues or things. Atheism stems from the word theism, which means; the doctrine or belief in the existence of a God or gods. There is monotheism (the belief in one god), polytheism (the beliefe in many gods), henotheism (stems from heis or henos, which means one. It’s not a synonym for monotheism, even though it has the same etymological meaning.), pantheism (the belief that the universe is god and we have to worship it), and panentheism (A panentheistic belief system is one which says that god interpenetrates every part of nature, but is nevertheless fully distinct from nature); I believe I covered most of them.

disclaimer: I do not proofread when I type in blogs etc..because frankly I don't have time..so if you find grammar errors, misspellings etc..try to bear with me.

It is not only important to fight irrationality; especially in the form of religion, but it is equally important to understand how religion is playing a role in politics today. Religion is obviously and unfortunately a major factor in today's politics, as it has been through out the ages. Modern US politics is dictated by a group of people who we lovingly call neocons. These people share a political ideology that stems from the philosophical politics of Leo Strauss. Neoconservatives have slowly, cunningly and in most cases illegaly gotten a hold of our government mainly through propaganda (in the form of abortion, gay rights etc...i'll explain later on) and religion to get the voters out and to keep the voters pre-occupied with these religious issues.