The Reason Rally

As mass media perpetuates the idea that it would be impossible for an atheist to be elected President, many of us non-believers are ... well, skeptical. There's at least one out of the closet atheist politician in DC who participated in the Reason Rally this past Saturday ... plus the visibility of books like The God Delusion, Letter to a Christian Nation and God is Not Great leads me to think that atheism has gone mainstream.

We are becoming more like Canada and Europe where secularism is the majority view and where Jesus' virgin birth and resurrection are generally considered as ridiculous and irrelevant as the birth of Athenea form Zeus' forehead. 18 % of the population of the United States is either atheist, agnostic or non-religious. That is one fifth of the population. It's also the fastest growing religious demographic, bigger than Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Blacks, Gays ... and MUCH bigger than the Tea Party.

Atheists are no longer the most hated group in the country. According to a recent poll, that medal goes to the Tea Party. Were it for mass media, one would not even imagine that to be the case. Corporate media has a love affair with the Tea Party. It constantly exagerates the importance, prevalence and relevance of their absurd and extremist causes and ideals. The poll cited by the NY Times accentuates the huge gap that exists between actual popular sentiment and the collective discourse, identities and movements that corporate media tries to normalize.

In this video you will find atheist statistics which radically contradict many of the biased ideas that people entertain about the atheist minority. Crime statistics, as well as those related to education, human rights and violence in different societies, as well as between the different states of the US, also echo this data.

For all these reasons, atheists held the Reason Rally, which took place last Saturday, with the purpose of creating more visibility and awareness about the civil rights of atheists, encouraging atheists to come out, and reminding politicians in DC that there is a secular movement and that atheists also vote.

Video: Richard Dawkins at the Reason Rally
Atheists hope to build unity, raise awareness at 'Reason Rally'
Reason Rally: Nonbelievers To Rally For Unbelief In Washington
Unbelievable! Atheists to Rally in Record Numbers

Kony 2012 and the Lord's Resistance Army: Christian Terrorism in Africa

First, an introductory video on the attrocities, what's being done, what the plan is, etc.



But as we dig deeper into who Kony is, we usually hear of the LRA, his organization, where the acronym is always used and thus far, media has failed to shed light on what LRA stands for. It's really embarassing. Kony takes children, abducts them and turns boys into war criminals and girls into sexual slaves. His only purpose is self preservation and ultimately, he wants to create a sovereign state in central Africa that is governed by the 10 Commandments. He claims to be a prophet who derives his authority from God.

WHO IS THE LORD'S RESISTANCE ARMY?

Uganda's piety was widely made visible when, a couple of years back, Uganda tried to pass the 'Kill the Gays Bill'.

Then child sacrifice problems emerged and media again covered it, but with care not to mention the prevalence of Bible-based beliefs among what media made out to look like the so-called 'witches' who were making these child sacrifices, who INVARIABLY, ALWAYS cited the Bible to justify their acts: there was frequent mention of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac when these 'witches' were questioned. We also know that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter in the Bible as a way of thanking God for his victory in war against another tribe. These so called Ugandan 'witches' were Bible-believing murderers just like Kony.

My goal, having learned of Kony's attrocities, is not so much to make him visible and be in solidarity with the Kony 2012 movement but instead to generate awareness of the strain of BIBLE-BASED faith that runs through his crimes and through Uganda's culture of religious savagery and to ensure that the true beliefs of Kony's followers aren't sugar coated by mass media as he gains more visibility.

Please join me in making Kony famous and please do not use the acronym but the full name of his organization: LORD'S RESISTANCE ARMY!!!

Uganda: Lord's Resistance Army

Please enjoy this preview of Shift Change - Putting Democracy to Work.

At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, and growing inequity in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities. Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work is a new documentary (to be released in July, 2012) that highlights worker-owned enterprises in North America and in Mondragon, Spain. The film couldn’t be more timely, as 2012 has been declared by the U.N. as the “International Year of the Cooperative.”
- Mark Dworkin

Worker coops are democratically-run businesses where the workers are also the owners of the means of production. Decisions are made collectively, and the risk as well as the revenue is also spread between all worker-owners.

One Out Of Every Ten Wall Street Employees Is A Psychopath, Say Researchers

I had read once that salespeople tend to suffer from ADD and that Attention Deficit Disorder actually helps them be people-persons and easily influence others in their sales environment, but this is absolutely shocking!

This is not a cynical blog calling Wall Street workers psychopaths, this is the result of research by psychological and social professionals, peer-reviewed and published by the Huffington Post. Here are excerpts from the article:

A clinical psychopath is bright, gregarious and charming, writes DeCovny. He lies easily and often, and may have trouble feeling empathy for other people. He's probably also more willing to take dangerous risks -- either because he doesn't understand the consequences, or because he simply doesn't care.

An appetite for risk can seem like a positive business trait on Wall Street, where big gambles sometimes lead to big rewards ...

At the same time, the fast-moving, high-pressure environment of Wall Street probably compromises the mental health of some of its employees. A recent study found that many young bankers develop alcoholism, insomnia, eating disorders and other stress-related ailments within just a few years on the job.

Stockbrokers have also been shown to experience clinical depression at a rate more than three times as high as the general population.

DeCovny writes that for someone with a "latent" compulsive gambling problem, a job trading stocks can trigger pathological responses that send the person into an escalating pattern of lies, debts and even embezzlement and fraud.

Muslim assaults atheist, Judge dismisses case

According to the CNN blog entitled Judge’s dismissal of atheist's harassment claim against Muslim makes waves,

The judge also scolded Perce, saying he’d been needlessly provocative on an issue sensitive with Muslims.

"You have that right, but you're way outside your bounds of First Amendment rights," Martin said, according to a recording Perce made of the court hearing. "I think our forefathers intended that we use the First Amendment so that we can speak our mind, not to piss off other people and other cultures, which is what you did."

The judge went on to point out that in many Muslim countries, ridiculing Mohammed could warrant the death penalty under Islamic law.

Critics say Martin's lecture shows he used Muslim cultural grounds to excuse a deplorable assault, and failed to defend an atheist's First Amendment rights.

"That's greatly disturbing to people that believe in free speech," said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. "You can say things that are hurtful to others. We hope that you don't, but you most certainly can be protected. People like Thomas Paine spent his entire life ticking off people across the colonies."

Former terrorism prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, writing on the blog of National Review, accused the judge of allowing the Muslim suspect to invoke a "Sharia defense – what he claimed was his obligation to strike out against any insult against the prophet Mohammed."

Atheists.org also issued a blog in response to the attack and the judge's actions, saying

This reeks of those cases we used to read about where a woman is blamed for her own rape because she “was asking for it” by virtue of the clothing she chose to wear, and then having the Judge set the rapist free.

Blaming the victim: religions are pretty good about that. This case does make it feel like atheists, although a much bigger minority than Moslems (atheists are believed to make up about 18 % of US citizenry these days), are one of the few minorities whose freedoms and rights it's okay to violate, who when attacked by religious zealots do not deserve protection from the state and from the law. I should close by citing the First Amendment of the foundational document of the United States of America.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Dolphins formally declared 'non human persons' by scientists

According to the article Experts ask: Should they be treated as humans?:

So dolphins are people. Well, ‘non-human persons’ to be more accurate, and as such they deserve to have the same rights and be protected as humans.

That’s the extraordinary conclusion that scientists came to this week. Their claim — made at the world’s biggest science conference, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver — has been prompted by the latest findings about the amazing abilities of dolphins and whales.

Studies now show that these cetaceans, as they are technically known, possess the next most impressive brains after humans, even ranking above the great apes.

... Each animal has its own signature whistle which it uses to identify or introduce itself — in effect, its own name. Crucially, this indicated a sense of individuality, and of self-awareness.

...Experts believe that within a generation we will have learned to ‘talk’ to dolphins by decoding their clicks, 200 different types of which have already been identified.

Also read: They're so smart we must treat them as 'non human persons' say scientists