Coffee Party: How We Began

This is great... I hope they succeed.

Them There Atheists Are Haters

Some conservative commentators are accusing the Obama administration of inviting "hate groups" into the White House by holding a meeting with a coalition of secularist and atheist groups.

Officials from the Justice and Health and Human Services departments met Friday with representatives of the Secular Coalition for America, an umbrella group that includes American Atheists and the Council for Secular Humanism. The coalition called it "the first time in history a presidential administration has met for a policy briefing with the American nontheist community."

President Barack Obama was not scheduled to make an appearance at the meeting, nor were any policy changes to be announced, McClatchy news service reported.

But that didn't stop a number of religious conservative groups from attacking the meeting as a sign the president has an anti-religious agenda.

"It is one thing for Administration to meet with groups of varying viewpoints, but it is quite another for a senior official to sit down with activists representing some of the most hate-filled, anti-religious groups in the nation," said Council Nedd, chairman of the religious advocacy group In God We Trust.

You see, just because a group doesn't believe in a mythical sky Daddy they get called names like hate-filled. But many of these religious mother fuckers are more hate-filled than any atheist or humanist I've ever met.

But I guess it is OK for the White House to consult "religious leaders" before a speech to Muslims... or for the president to meet the Dalai Lama... or to meet with prominent religious leaders on torture... or to spend over an hour talking and praying with a group of 20-some leaders of America's diverse religious communities...

No, meeting with the deluded is fine... just don't meet (and not even the president, only members of his staff) with the reasonable.

It makes me angry (if not exactly hate-filled).

It's Obama's Fault I Smacked That Bitch

A conservative talk show host says President Barack Obama is "partly" to blame for a rise in domestic violence because of the deteriorating job situation over the past year -- and because the president has criticized Las Vegas.

In discussion on Fox News about Sen. Harry Reid's comment Monday linking unemployment to growing domestic abuse, James Harris told host Gretchen Carlson:

"If this is all about jobs, we have this massive job loss and ... we have domestic violence problems in Nevada, what we need to do is lay this right at the feet of Obama, who in the last year twice slammed Nevada, slammed Las Vegas, so we can say that this is partly Obama's fault for causing so much job loss in Nevada."

Yes, yes, yes... and while we're at it let's blame the president for the snow in the Northeast, the Colts losing the Super Bowl, and the pimple on your ass.

There will be NO bi-partisan politics as long as the Republicans are out of power and the right wing fringe continue to be lunatics.

Visual Evidence

One year ago tomorrow, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Study Confirms: Atheists Just as Ethical as Churchgoers

The old canard that people who do not believe in a "Supreme Being" are untrustworthy, without morals, and unethical has received yet another rebuke.

According to a new study published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Atheists are "just as ethical as churchgoers," and religion is only one way through which people can manifest a moral code.

Dr. Marc Hauser of Harvard University reported that his research team was investigating the foundations of moral behavior and religion.

"The research suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments," said Hauser.

Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists, said that the study should help dispel one of the many great lies about non-religious Americans.

"Nearly 13% of the US population, according to surveys, have 'no religion'; that's about 40 million people," said Buckner. "Surveys indicate, however, that a near-majority of people would not support an otherwise qualified Atheist candidate for public office and falsely believe that 'there are no Atheists in foxholes.'"

Both perceptions are incorrect. "At least a few TV preachers and other demagogues almost certainly and knowingly encourage these misunderstandings, intentionally lying to shore up their own power and prestige. Atheists are already serving in government, the armed forces,and the professions (even in the clergy); most just don't openly advertise the fact that they have no religious beliefs," added Buckner.

The study is available at http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences.

"...to confer a “Christian” history upon the United States then, isn’t merely annoying — it’s also deeply dishonest."

How Christian were the founders? Who cares?

The most popular story at NYTimes. com this hour focuses on the never-ending story to define the Founding Fathers in religious terms.

The one thing that underlies the entire program of the nation’s Christian conservative activists is, naturally, religion. But it isn’t merely the case that their Christian orientation shapes their opinions on gay marriage, abortion and government spending. More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts. This belief provides what they consider not only a theological but also, ultimately, a judicial grounding to their positions on social questions. When they proclaim that the United States is a “Christian nation,” they are not referring to the percentage of the population that ticks a certain box in a survey or census but to the country’s roots and the intent of the founders.

The narrow answer to the question, of course is that some of the Founders were Christians and some, like Thomas Jefferson, were deists at best, and thus “Christian” only in the sense that Unitarians are Christians — which is to say, not really Christians at all.

The broader answer to the question of whether the Founders were Christians, though, is this: Who cares?

As a thought experiment, let’s consider asking a similar question: How slavery-loving were the Founders? The answer would be about the same; some were, some weren’t — and it doesn’t really matter all that much today. Truth is: The Founding Fathers thought a lot more about slavery than religion in putting together the Constitution: The clause that designates slaves as three-fifths of a person appears in the fifth paragraph of the document. The entire structure of the legislative branch — the bicameral thing — was designed to let slave-owning states feel comfortable the free states wouldn’t run roughshod over them. Religion, meanwhile, makes no appearance until the First Amendment; it’s an important amendment, but — coming four years after the main body of the Constitution had been adopted — a bit of a historical afterthought. And rather than enshrine religion, of course, the First Amendment serves to keep the state and the church out of each other’s ways.

In thinking back to the Founders, too, it’s important to remember that they lived in a much less ecumenical age than we. The Catholics of Maryland probably thought the Puritans of Massachusetts were going to Hell — and vice versa. Connecticut and Rhode Island were, in fact, founded by religious splinter groups that found the Massachusetts colonists too stifling. If the Founding Fathers had sought to enshrine Christianity is the state religion, then, they would’ve had to answer a critical question: Whose Christianity? It’s likely the whole project might’ve died in the cradle.

It’s fair to say, then, that the United States exists because the Founders sidestepped the question. So the project to confer a “Christian” history upon the United States then, isn’t merely annoying — it’s also deeply dishonest.

But still: Who cares? The Founding Fathers should be treated with respect and a bit of reverence, I suppose, but we often seem to be in danger of fetishizing them.

Murray Hill Incorporated is Running for Congress

In honor of the recent Supreme Court decision to remove corporate funding limits in federal elections, a Washington, D.C.-area public relations firm has decided take the ruling to its logical conclusion and run for Congress. "Until now," Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, "corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves." The firm, which prides itself on its progressive agenda and knack for satire, claims to be the first "corporate person" to run for office and has announced plans to run in the Republican primary for Maryland's 8th Congressional District. "The strength of America," the statement continues, "is in the boardrooms, country clubs and Lear jets of America's great corporations. We're saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?"

She's a Jew, No, She's a Christian, Wait, She's Just a Little Girl

The legal wrangling over a three-year-old girl's right to religious freedom caught the attention of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who put his own spin on the case Tuesday.

The O'Reilly Factor broke down the case of Joseph Reyes, a father facing criminal charges and jail time for having his daughter baptized and taking her to church despite a judge's December ruling barring him from doing so. The temporary restraining order, filed by Reyes' estranged Jewish wife, bars Reyes from exposing the couple's daughter to any religion other than Judaism.

So this is the gist of this story. This guy, Reyes, converts to Judaism to marry some gal he fell for. They got married and produced a child. Three years later they have divorced and the guy rethinks his conversion. Magically he is a christian again. And he wants his child to be a christian, too. But the mother says no dice, the child is a Jew. She gets a court order. The father defies it and baptises the child.

What a cluster fuck!

Crazy religious bullshit IMHO.

Stories like this one help to clarify why Richard Dawkins calls religious indoctrination of children a form of child abuse...