Speaking of which…

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Michael

Speaking of the tendency of believers to avoid responsibility for their actions, Dale Neumann is nearing the end of his trial with the jury currently deliberating.

“If I in a moment of crisis and in a moment of time, I went to anyone else but the Lord, it would not have been favorable to God,” Neumann said.

I wish I could find the better quotes I came across earlier today. Neumann wants to be acquitted of the charges because he really believed in his religion. No, he couldn’t have called a doctor for a relatively simple remedy to the problem. The audacity! That would be an affront to his particular, cultural god. It is merely his deeply held belief which deserves condemnation for being horribly wrong, not him. Christ.

I just hope Wisconsin juries know when they’re getting the wool pulled over their eyes. This guy is a danger to society directly as a result of the (especially) wacky religious views he and many others hold. Prayer does not heal. That is a lie, perhaps a delusion at best.

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Thought of the day

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Michael

“If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?”

~Albert Einstein

And there’s one critical difference in the morality of believers and the morality of non-believers. Believers defer responsibility, at least to some abstract degree, elsewhere. That is not possible in an atheistic system of belief. Responsibility must always fall on the shoulders of man.

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The pride of bigotry

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Michael

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These are some of the wholly ignorant individuals who are seeking to overturn Maine’s same-sex marriage bill before it officially becomes law. They’re actually proud of themselves. It’s gross.

Bob Emrich is a hateful, stupid man. He has absolutely no idea that he’s actually advocating for discrimination against himself. He thinks homosexuality is icky or perverse or just like having sex with a dog or he’s uncomfortable in his own sexuality or he’s just another mook propping up the bible for his own ends (which is easy because that is one of the most morally malleable books ever written) or maybe it’s all of those things. Ultimately, he has no universal justification for denying people the right to marry on the (purely legal) basis of sex/gender. I doubt he’s smart enough to come up with many principled arguments for his beliefs in the first place, but even if he was capable of that, such an argument does not exist for his absurd position.

It’s an utter disgust that people like this are given legitimacy. Why don’t more people just lash into crap like this? Bob Emrich has a lot of bad ideas predicated on a lot of bad bigotry. I hate to be redundant with “bad bigotry” but aside from the grammatical flow, it supports the notion that Emrich doesn’t even understand the true basis for his hatred. He has no idea that through his outright bigoted, hateful views of homosexuals (what did they ever do to anyone?), he is taking legal aim at absolutely everyone. And that’s what this all is: a legal issue. Emrich has no logical basis to be demanding that the state of Maine discriminates against everyone on the basis of what chromosomes they have (again, go here).

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