Many atheists are anti-theism. Many theists are anti-atheist.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Thought of the day | 19 Comments »
Pastor: Stay away from Facebook, married couples
Posted on November 20, 2010 by Michael
A nobody pastor from New Jersey has told married members of his congregation to stop using Facebook. He says the site too often leads to marital trouble.
‘I’ve been in extended counseling with couples with marital problems because of Facebook for the last year and a half.
‘What happens is someone from yesterday surfaces, it leads to conversations and there have been physical meet-ups. The temptation is just too great.’
It isn’t that surprising that religious leaders are struggling with change. It virtually always is religion that stands in the way or at least in opposition to progress. And every time, people eventually realize the strength of change and just brush past religion.
The fact is, Facebook is one of the most important creations of the past decade. It has contributed to the fundamental change in how we interact with each other, and I think it has done so for the overall good. While one of its drawbacks happens to be the use of the system by inept older people, this is also one of its strengths. But take note: when I say “older people”, I’m not simply referring to age. I’m talking about an “old person mindset”. That’s a mindset that dismisses new facts for old tradition. If anything does that, it’s religion. Facebook and other social media have the ability to bring people with old, obsolete perspectives into reality.
But two more points: First, it’s a load of garbage that this nobody has gotten so much attention. Provided that he has no formal training and is merely a Reverend goes to the point Gnu Atheists are always making: we give undue respect to people based upon religion. This guy appears to have absolutely no qualifications for giving marital advice any more than any random scrub does. I want a reason why I should listen to him, not an appeal to unearned respect.
Second, there’s a follow-up story about this nobody pastor.
The Rev. Cedric Miller didn’t need Facebook to be part of an extramarital affair. The pastor who banned Facebook had three-way sex affair.
Miller, 48, who gained national attention this week when he banned his church’s leadership from using Facebook because he said it is a portal to infidelity, had himself engaged in a three-way relationship with his wife and a man a decade ago, according to testimony he gave in a criminal case.
While entertaining, who gives a shit? If there’s anything I despise, it’s this persistent fallacy of dismissing arguments from people who are hypocritical. We have plenty of reasons to dismiss Miller’s points about Facebook. We don’t need to try to ignore his arguments by attacking him personally. Unless we have a reason to think he’s just making it all up and lying, Miller is irrelevant to the strength of the points being made.
Filed under: News, Religions | Tagged: Cedric Miller, Facebook, Living Word Christian Fellowship Church, Neptune, New Jersey, Undue respect | 3 Comments »
The audacity of Republican ‘leadership’
Posted on November 19, 2010 by Michael
The U.S. and Russia have long had a deal – dating to the Cold War, in fact – where they have allowed ground inspections of the other nation’s nuclear arsenal. This helps to ensure the other side doesn’t have a secret buildup happening. This deal adds meaningful weight to reduction treaties. It also contributes to security for both sides – but especially the U.S. – because there is more transparency in terms of where nuclear arms are being sent around the world, if anywhere.
But the Party of No doesn’t really give a shit.
One of President Obama’s top foreign-policy goals suffered a potentially ruinous setback when the Senate’s second-ranking Republican said the U.S. nuclear treaty with Russia should not be considered until next year.
The statement Tuesday by Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) stunned the White House and Democrats, who scrambled to save the pact. It came just days after Obama declared that ratifying the treaty was his top foreign-policy priority for the lame-duck session of Congress.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) needs 67 votes to pass. Because of Democratic losses in the midterm elections, it would be harder to approve next year, requiring at least 14 Republican votes rather than nine now.
Kyl is making a political stand designed purely to embarrass the President. His actions serve no purpose – especially since Obama has already done a little backscratching by committing money to modernizing the country’s nuclear complex already, as requested by Kyl. The toolsac just wants to make a political move.
Kyl, of course, is taking his cues from Sen. Mitch McConnell. You know, that’s the guy who said the Republicans Party’s number one goal over the next two year is to kick Obama out of office? Yeah, that guy. For once a Republican wasn’t bullshitting. This is really their whole plan – do whatever it takes to embarrass the President. And then when the economy starts to recover as a result of natural growth plus all the Democratic policies put in place that have strengthened our country, they will take credit for that. I promise that when we start seeing good growth and shrinking unemployment over the next 18-20 months, the Republicans will start taking credit – despite getting nothing done by being the Party of No.
But let’s not bother to inspect Russia’s shoddy nuclear complex. I’m sure no weapons will end up in the wrong hands. What reason do we have to be distrustful of that nation, anyway?
Filed under: News | Tagged: Foreign policy, Jon Kyl, New START, Nuclear arms, Obama, Party of No, Russia, Toolsac | 3 Comments »
Thought of the day
Posted on November 18, 2010 by Michael
Evolution is to Nazism as gravity is to Nazism.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Nazi, Thought of the day | 2 Comments »
If only I had so much hate mail
Posted on November 18, 2010 by Michael
The time when I know this blog will be successful is when I begin to regularly receive hate mail.
Filed under: Humor | Tagged: Hate mail, Richard Dawkins | Leave a comment »
Pardon for Jim Morrison
Posted on November 18, 2010 by Michael
Florida Governor Charlie Crist is considering giving a pardon to Jim Morrison for a 1969 incident in Miami.
At one point Morrison may or may not have exposed himself to the crowd, leading to his arrest a few days later for indecent exposure. Morrison died before serving his six-month sentence, and a contingent of Doors fans have been lobbying for his posthumous pardoning ever since–which brings us to this week, when outgoing Florida governor Charlie Crist hinted that he may at long last clear Morrison’s name before leaving office.
“Candidly, it’s something that I haven’t given a lot of thought to, but it’s something I’m willing to look into in the time I have left,” Crist told The Hill in a recent interview. “Anything is possible.” The reporter adds that “Crist said he won’t make the decision lightly, noting the many complexities surrounding the 41-year-old case. Numerous sound recordings from the show exist, for example, but Morrison’s defenders say none of the scores of photographs from the show prove the exposure charge.” The reporter quotes Crist as saying, “We would have to look into all of that.”
I love when politicians come down to their final few weeks in office. If they aren’t doing something awesome, they’re at least doing something interesting. That’s the case with Crist. In the end, this isn’t really that important. But it is a nice middle finger to the ultra-conservative bias against that new rock and/or roll music all the kids seemed to like back then.
Filed under: News | Tagged: Charlie Crist, Florida, Jim Morrison, Miami, Pardon, The Doors, Touch Me | 1 Comment »
Oversight board: Maloney unqualified to refer to himself as a doctor
Posted on November 18, 2010 by Michael
As I said in my last post about Christopher Maloney, once I received the Board of Complementary Health Care Providers’ letter concerning Maloney’s review, I would post it here. If someone really wants to see an image of the letter, I can get that, but it’s such a pain so I would rather not.
So here it is. All the bold sections are as they appear in the letter.
Re: Complaint Nos. 2010-ACU-6268 and 6442
Letter of Guidance
Dear Mr. Maloney:
At its meeting on October 29, 2010, the Board of Complementary Health Care Providers voted to dismiss the above-referenced complaints filed against your naturopathic doctor license by Daniel S. Johnson and Michael L. Hawkins, respectively, on the ground that any errors alleged do not rise to the level of a violation of the Board’s laws and Rules. However, the Board voted to issue the following letter of guidance pursuant to 10 M.R.S.A 8003 (5-A)(F). Pursuant to that statute, this letter of guidance “is not a formal proceeding and does not constitute an adverse disciplinary action of any form.” The Board voted to place this letter of guidance in the file for a period of 10 years from the date of this letter. This letter may be accessed and considered by the board in any subsequent, relevant disciplinary action commenced against your license within that time frame.
The letter of guidance is as follows:
The Board cautions you to take care to clearly identify yourself as a “naturopathic doctor” at all times as required pursuant to 32 M.R.S.A. 12521 of the enabling statute which governs your licensure. The unqualified reference to yourself as a “doctor” at points in your website might cause confusion on the part of prospective patients as to the nature of services which you are authorized to perform even though other references therein specify naturopathic services.
I want to reiterate that this letter of guidance is not the imposition of discipline. The purpose of this letter is to educate and reinforce your knowledge in these areas in order to avoid a future situation where a failure to heed this guidance might lead to a disciplinary situation.
Sincerely,
Sarah T. Ackerly
Board Chair
I have no idea who Daniel S. Johnson is or anything about the nature of his complaint. And yes, they still have my middle initial wrong.
As everyone who follows FTSOS knows, my complaint focused on Maloney calling himself a doctor. In fact, while in cahoots with another quack, Maloney got my site shut down for 6 days (and then lied about it, citing a WordPress glitch) on the basis that I said he is not a doctor. It looks like the Board agrees with me at least that it would be unfortunate for someone to confuse what he can offer versus what a real doctor offers. So I will say it again – and now without fear of WordPress shutting me down on the basis of pathetic threats:
Christopher Maloney is not a doctor.
Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: Augusta, Board of Complementary Health Care Providers, Christopher Maloney, Daniel S Johnson, Maine, Naturopathy, Not a doctor, Quack quack quack, Sarah Ackerly | 2 Comments »
Pentagon: Gays? Not a problem.
Posted on November 18, 2010 by Michael
Harry Reid is promising to bring to a vote a repeal on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell soon. The legislation will be contingent on the president and top military commanders certifying that doing so will not harm the effectiveness of the military. And what does an assessment by the Pentagon say about it all?
A draft of the 370-page assessment has found that the ban could be lifted with little harm and that most troops don’t object to the change in personnel policy, according to officials familiar with its findings.
Of course, it isn’t that simple.
But it also found that some troops had serious concerns with repealing the law.
Military officials have warned that even scattered resistance to the change could pose logistical and discipline problems for field commanders.
That is true. But desegregating the military had the same issues. We need to take a pragmatic approach to this. It’s clear that gays ought to have the right to serve the United States of America. No non-bigot doubts that. The question is how doing what’s right will impact our fighting and defending capabilities. The leak of the report indicates that the change in policy isn’t going to be much different from when we finally allowed minorities and whites to fight side by side. The obvious conclusion is that DADT needs to be repealed so that we might better our military with a broader pool of intelligent men and women.
Filed under: News, Rights | Tagged: Don't Ask Don't Tell, Gays, Military, Right | 7 Comments »
Cowardice
Posted on November 17, 2010 by Michael
We all know Jack Hudson. He’s an intellectual coward who hates gays because he’s personally insecure with his own (immature) sexuality. He once texted my cousin several dozen times from several different track phones because of a Facebook tiff. His writing leaves a lot to be desired. He willingly lies about evolution and Hitler (you know, Hitler – the guy who was a Christian creationist). One has to wonder why he doesn’t argue that the theory of gravity leads to V2 rockets. (I’m kidding. It’s obvious that such an argument doesn’t fuel his fundamentally dishonest agenda.) He is confused about his own ideas on what morality is. He will constantly quote from either FTSOS, status updates on the FTSOS Facebook page, or even from random people on that Facebook page. He doesn’t get really simple things. He even believes that Judith Jarvis Thompson’s analysis of the Trolley Problem is an issue of logistics, showing his utter ignorance of philosophy and thought experiments. (This is one of the most risible things he has ever said.) A high percentage of his posts are just responses to FTSOS posts – except, since he is literally the most dishonest person with which I have ever personally interacted, he refuses to cite me as his reference. When (for the nth time) he was called on his aversion to honesty, he continued with his lies and claimed he doesn’t get his cues from me. However, once I listed out at least five posts going back only a month and a half which showed his responses to original posts I was making, he was finally caught by the evidence, causing him to feebly fess up. He is laughably ignorant of biology, refusing to read papers he is dishonestly citing in his posts; this is understandable since he only has a few basic biology courses under his belt from over 20 years ago, not any substantial education in the field. And, best of all, he makes physical threats based upon jokes. I find this one the most entertaining because it reminds me of something a psychology graduate student friend of mine told me. He told me of a counseling session he had with some troubled youths. They asked him, ‘Hey, man, wouldn’t you be offended if someone said somethin’ about yo’ momma?”, referring to “Your Momma” jokes. My friend, being intelligent, of course said he wouldn’t be offended. The jokes are insignificant and without any real meaning. The troubled youths were amazed by this. Apparently vague, unimportant, mild, trivial jokes are really good at offending poorly educated people. And that was the case with Jack when I made a quip about his excessive weight.
You know Michael, I almost never feel compelled to deal with anyone physically, but you are very lucky your puny little bank teller body is in Maine, because i would kick your butt from one side of the room to the other if you said that to my face. Of course you wouldn’t because you are a coward.
For someone who pretends to be morally superior because of his false beliefs, Jack is awfully violent.
I’ve waited to bring up this quote last in all my links because I have linked to it in the past on Jack’s blog. He quickly deleted it. It’s obvious he’s embarrassed by what he said. He ought to be. But the correct, adult response is to just apologize in that case. I did. It isn’t that hard. Being wrong once in awhile or making a mistake here or there is part of being human. But maybe Jack is just trying to emulate the temper tantrums of Jesus, I don’t know.
The reason I’m making this post is simply because of Jack’s penchant for censorship. He’s as linguistically immature as he is sexually immature. He has a habit of deleting any naughty word that shows up where he has editing control. I disagree with him on that because he’s bastardizing not only language but also the intent of other writers. He’s in the wrong. But now he has taken everything up a notch. Not content with deleting individual words he finds offensive, he has taken to deleting absolutely any post I make on his blog. Part of the reason stems from his childishness. Part of the reason stems from the fact that he has never won a single debate in his entire life and it upsets him to get intellectually destroyed so often. Part of the reason stems from the fact that I’m sure he wanted to enjoy me typing out my responses only to find I had wasted my time; he could have just blocked my IP. (Perhaps I should have realized I was wasting my time when I first encountered the guy’s terrible – and fundamentally dishonest – arguments. Or, as he would say, arguements.)
What really makes me sad about all this, though, is that Jack is from Minnesota. I’m not going to hate an entire state because of one foolish liar, but man. It’s the home of PZ Myers and – far, far more importantly – the birthplace of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s a shame he has to be such a black mark on an otherwise fine location.
Filed under: Creationism | Tagged: Jack Hudson | 3 Comments »
For the Sake of Science 