I just about fell off my chair when the Globe & Mail’s Tuesday editorial actually suggested that a suitable first task for newly minted Religious Freedom Ambassador Bennett would be an inspection tour of Tibet: Sending the freshly minted ambassador would surely anger China, a major Canadian trading partner. But
Continue readingTag: religion
Dead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice – Religious Loopyness in Pakistan – Let’s Ban Valentine’s Day!
Stop behaving as if you have feelings, because religion! Considering the amount of revenue generated on Valentine’s Day (I’m looking at you 9.99 roses that mysteriously appreciate to 29.99) it can be safely said that Valentine’s Day will never be banned in North America. However, in societies that still give
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: No One Actually Believes in Freedom of Religion
I have to say, the childish credulity of the professionally faithful is kind of amazing. We all knew that the Harper government was creating the Religious Freedoms Office because his religious base would love it. I don’t think until this week that I realized how truly silly they are, how
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The angels were jealous
I always suspected the angels didn’t like us very much. Alltop is an angel of humor.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Countering the Modal Ontological Argument
Philosophy is has been described as the root of all bullshite, and it is a fact that BS can baffle brains. The religiously orientated, faced with an ever increasing secular reality, can and will grasp at all straws in order to make their ooga-booga based reality seem reasonable and not
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice – Biblical Slavery
NonStampCollector enlightens us with the special case of slavery in the bible. Feel the moral goodness flow. A great place to start if you need encouragement to stop drinking the religious Kool-aid. From the video description – Whether you’re a believer or non-believer, when confronting bible slavery, don’t let anyone
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: A Devil Of A Valentine
On the face of it Saint Valentine is a pretty odd fellow, after all how many saints have days promoting procreation named after them? There really is only one other figure who shares such a dichotomy, who like St.Valentine had one of the most holiest of titles yet himself was
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Holy Sit
Kids were getting chemical burns from a toilet seat (and probably desk, for a boy with burned elbows) at an Ottawa area school. Most likely the disinfectant was sprayed on but never properly wiped off and rinsed. One of my concerns with using publish washrooms that have just been cleaned,
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Benedict XVI Was Not a Good Pope
So, the pope is retiring. Even in Canada, which is hardly a Catholic country, this apparently ranks right up there with the fact that Harper’s select senators are pilfering the public purse. Which is a story I’ll return to tomorrow. But today the press and, more importantly, the government media
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Ratinzger quits
As suprising (not) as Joe Ratzinger’s resignation today as Pope Benedict XVI may have been, he did the right thing. The Catholic Church is so dysfunctional that it’ll take years to begin to fix it (and although he was an insider for decades, it got to be too much even
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: The Pope is Quitting
So, the Pope, Benedict (the something number) is quitting. Is he crazy? Probably. Who would quit being a supreme religious world leader unless they were suffering from dementia and are unable to continue? So we have a religious scandal today; now all we need is a big political and sex
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice – Your Point of Contact
I’d like to make the Disservice your point of contact for identifying and mercilessly mocking all of the whigged-out religious tom-foolery that exists out there. The idea that a cloth has the power to cure cancer is ludicrous on its own. Worse, mated with crass commercialism that some churches have
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Religious Disservice – The Transformative Power of Classical Music
A bit of a different tack today on the Sunday Disservice, but I think you’ll like what you see. One of the selling points of religious belief is the “spiritual-transcendental” angle; being a part of something that is bigger than you and yet speaks to you in a very
Continue readingTrashy's World: The danger of religion…
…the harm that Stone Age thinking has done and continues to do. Here is a great article penned by Neil MacDonald, who discusses a new book (Lawrence Wright’s investigative book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief),that looks at Scientology and the power that it can wield in
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Forgery!
Forgery. It’s something that one normally associates with criminals; passing counterfeit bills, scammers, online pirates, people selling fake relics or fake ID. It’s something I would not normally associate with religion. But it’s a significant problem in the book millions … Continue reading →
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Fetus is Not A Person, So Sayeth the Catholic Church
Well. I’m glad to see the Catlicks coming around on an important issue to women and their rights. This is an object lesson for the deluded pro-life movement. Your fetus worshipping is useful for whipping up the frenzy and getting people all frothy, but when serious issues come its time
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Why many professors are atheists: Academe as a secular religious community
Atheists. Agnostics. Freethinkers. Nonbelievers. Nontheists. Humanists.Whatever you want to call them and whatever they Famous atheists, including many career academics. want to call themselves. People who do not believe in God. I describe myself as an agnostic atheist and a secular humanist. For the sake of this article, I will
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Foolish words that still resonate
Foolosopher. What a wonderful word. Not much in use these days, but it ought to be. It is a portmanteau word, first used in English way back in 1549*, according to my copy of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It … Continue reading →
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: A not so progressive inauguration speech
There is a lot of buzz going on, from all sides, that Obama has used his presidential address as some big pivot towards progressivism. The main debate seems to be on whether Obama is just saying some lofty rhetoric, perhaps to try and cement the kind of legacy he hopes for,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice – Creationist Arguments
Enjoy this by the numbers take down of religious tomfoolery. The Thinking Atheist’s video is a wonderful reference for everyone who has to deal whatever happens to be the religious lie of the day. Failing that, one could just dig the groovy ’70′s vibe going on throughout the video. Filed
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