An annoying new phrase is being used all over the media and is becoming part of America’s political lexicon. Every time I hear “values voters” uttered, it pisses me off. It’s a phrase invented and used by arrogant social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives. This can be particularly insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their “values” (which most often include bigotry and greed) and everyone else who votes does so without even having values, or at least not “good” values.

[Air America's] “Rachel Maddow breaks down the lowlights from what could be one of the more important developments of the 2008 Presidential Campaign.” [ed note: that should really say "Rachel Maddow points out the most right-wingnuttery of the 2008 Presidential Campaign"]

“Where can you hear the Republican candidates weigh in on important issues such as….”Transvestite Teachers”? Where can you hear a reworked anti-patriotic anthem called “Why Should God Bless America”? Where can you finally catch a glimpse of the right’s elusive dark horse candidate John Cox? Why, the Values Voter Debate, of course”

Rachel Maddow’s Campaign Asylum

Just hoping that people are okay…

Been awhile, y’all. I guess eventually, I just got worn out of the same old godbuggering arguments. Well, okay, just the one- to wit, prove your claims without appealing to an authority that hasn’t been established(the buybull or the gwadhead, itself), without erecting strawmen(say, the inherent amorality of a gwadless philosophy), and without resurrecting tired, old, impotent also-rans like Pascal’s folly, the whole watchmaker garbage, or the false ditrichotomy of “liar, lunatic, or lord”. Is it too much to ask for something new?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact it is, at least from adherents to the colossal, mental and psychological, (evolutionary)stagnation that is monotheism. They might as well believe the earth flat and lipstick that pig up in one color after the other, all variants on some nebulous Intelligent Geometry.

I thought long and hard about what subject to tackle for my first post back but nothing really caught my eye. So, I decided on a potpourri of sorts.

First, by way of Pharyngula, a new book on the horizon by Hector Avalos, the embattled Iowa State U., atheist Professor of Religious Studies, called “The End of Biblical Studies” . I seriously doubt it goes as far as I’d like to- i.e., depositing theology in the same ether as phrenology, astrology, Uri Geller, etc. But I can’t wait to read it.

Next, I dropped in on a couple of our old friends. Dani, the belligerent moron, homeschooler/child abuser, who’s husband may actually be the guy who led Ted Haggard astray with those meth-fueled, gay massages- with their happy endings, is wallowing… …her ignorance, hawking vile stickers and shirts.
While Frank, who I won’t bother linking, is still busy counting imaginary coup on unsuspecting atheists and stapling it to the walls of his headquarters deep in the basement of his mother’s house, all smudged with his day-glo, Cheeto fingerprints.

Finally, I call for godbotherers of every stripe to be fitted with permanent cowbells around their necks. This would insure a couple things; one, that we’d always hear them approaching just in case, that day, their Adult Imaginary Friend told them it was a-okay to stab a nonbeliever in the kidney and, two, that the clanking prefacing everything they said would let us know that whatever eventually spewed forth was unworthy of our attention. I mean, come on. Blind folks got canes and dogs, the deaf talk with their hands, mongoloids look like, well, mongoloids. Shouldn’t there be some way to identify these fuckwits without having to waste the breath of conversation on them. Wait, that might have given the impression that I don’t want to talk with the blind, deaf, or retarded either and that’s just not true. Very Nice!

As an aside, I refuse to refer to Gwad as “Gord” because Gord is short for Gordon and I am Gordon and I can assure you that I exist and that my ego needs no more inflating.

What a total contradiction that statement is! Humans intentionally kill, a god intentionally kills…is there any difference?

If humans intentionally kill other humans, most god believers are the first to say “get a noose!” in the name of “justice”. Hang ‘em high! Electrocute the bastards! Kill the child molesters and murderous scum of society. But then on the other hand, they believe that it is okay for their god to maim and kill even his most faithful in the most horrendous ways.

Here is yet another story about “Gawd’s ways”:

Van carrying Amish crashes on Indiana interstate, killing 5

The grieving family’s statement:

‘All we can believe is that the Lord had his hand on it and that his ways are not our ways,” he said. ”I would not choose this way, but his ways are as far above ours as the heavens are from the earth.”

Therefore, they are saying that killing is okay as long as god does it, and we aren’t to question or complain that he is a murderer, serial klller, torturer, and all around big dick.

I ran across this little ditty, courtesy of Old Earther, Hugh Ross.

And it’s…well, just a touch on the wild side.

Arguably the most hotly debated theory in physics is string theory, the concept that at the core of every fundamental particle resides a tiny string or loop of energy that vibrates in nine different dimensions of space.

Ummm…no, that’s ten to eleven different dimensions. Yeesh, get it right before you spout off.

The significance of string theory is that if it or some other multi-space-dimensional theory of physics accurately describes physical reality, then religions that insist on a doctrinal construct of God and his dealings with humanity demanding no more than the equivalent of the dimensions of length, width, height, and time must be wrong while religions like Christianity whose entire doctrinal system fundamentally requires the equivalent of many extra dimensions could be correct.

Wow, so I guess anyone who’s ever used the Akashic records must be on an equal par? Or howzabout the Hindus, or even the Buddhists?

Apparently not, as the next paragraph demonstrates:

Because Christianity among the world’s religions remains alone in its appeal to the equivalent of many extra dimensions and since humans can only visualize phenomena within the dimensions that they personally experience, the “could be correct” transforms into “the Bible’s words must be uniquely and inerrantly inspired by the One who created the universe.”

Many extra dimensions? Such as? Heaven and hell, and all that malarkey? That’s like, two extra. Unless there’s something I’m missing. Most likely, it’ll be a string of scriptural verses (unsupplied in this article) that simply waffle on poetically about a certain deity, his ‘wonders to behold’.

Any theory as loaded with theological implications as string theory is bound to be controversial. Such controversy should not be interpreted as implying that the theory is lacking in evidence. However, the greater the controversy, the more the need for evidence to overcome doubts about the theory. In that context, it is welcome news that theoretical physicists have demonstrated a seventh confirmation of string theory to complement the six that already exist.

Umm…the theory is lacking in evidence. In fact, most string theorists have no evidence to back up their assertions, because string theory is very lacking in evidence. Any evidence at all.

This seventh confirmation comes from a team of theoretical physicists exploiting a facet of string theory to explain what previously had been mystifying aspects of the Nernst effect (the crosswise flow of heat and charge currents in the presence of a magnetic field) in high-temperature superconductors. Specifically, they demonstrate how the physics of a black hole in negatively curved spacetime that includes an extra dimension of space produces a set of transport equations directly from quantum mechanics field theory that predict certain features of the Nernst effect.

All this is good and fine, but what does it prove, exactly?

String theory was invented to explain how gravity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics could coexist.

Correct.

However, until now, this coexistence could only be outlined in the broadest terms or used tor explain details that could not be directly observed.

Or predicted, or repeated.

By predicting from string theory an effect that can be observed in the world in which we presently live theoretical physicists have provided additional evidence that string theory indeed is the pathway to unify all of physics.

Ummm…this was in relation to the Nernst effect – where’s this ‘additional’ evidence?

Such additional evidence translates into more evidence for the extra- and/or trans-dimensional doctrines that are unique to the Bible among the world’s great holy books.

So here’s the nutshell: here’s this unprovable set of theorems (they’re interesting, I’ll grant you that) that attempt to synchronize the apparent disharmony between gravity, magnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces with relativity and quantum mechanics, and Ross here tries to mesh this with his untestable, unprovable theory (in his case, it’s definition #6 of the word theory) in order to appear scientific.

Like it or not, this is the new battleground. Quantum physics, string theory, the saccharine shepherds will warp science to bring more ‘lost sheep’ into the fold. This is known as the fallacy of the spurious relationship, which is defined as “In statistics, a spurious relationship (or, sometimes, spurious correlation) is a mathematical relationship in which two occurrences have no causal connection, yet it may be inferred that they do, due to a certain third, unseen factor (referred to as a “confounding factor” or “lurking variable“).”

 So gird yourselves for battle, with slide rules as swords and particle accelerators as artillery.

Questions?

Till the next post, then.

msnbc.com / AP headline:

Pedophilia suspect arrested in Thailand — Canadian was targeted in global manhunt; digital images unscrambled

What is he alleged to have done?

Thai authorities issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Neil after determining that he may have sexually abused boys in Thailand, in addition to the dozen Cambodian and Vietnamese boys, some as young as 6, whom Interpol suspects he abused.

How do we know that he’s actually a really fine person, the only kind that’s moral?

Before teaching in Asia, Neil had worked as a chaplain in Canada, counseling teens.

For more proof that religious people are the best people, witness the story of another of God’s blessed servants, one Frederick “Rick” McLean:

According to US Marshals, McLean was a Ministerial Servant in the Jehovah’s Witnesses and was utilizing his position of trust to commit sexual crimes against young girls – some no more than five years old.

As one victim’s parents told AMW, they had no clue that an alleged sexual predator was amongst them — even though church elders had prior knowledge of complaints against McLean from another congregation.

McLean was an experienced outdoorsman and would often take children on overnight camping trips. Police maintain that parents trusted him with their kids because of his almost “fanatical concern” for the kids’ safety.

Authorities say that McLean was confronted a number of times over the years by those he molested, but Jehovah’s Witnesses judicial committees require two witnesses to an event of molestation before taking any kind of disciplinary action. Detectives believe that by moving from one Kingdom Hall congregation to another, McLean was able to keep his crimes mostly hidden for 25 to 30 years, before finally being “outed” to the general public and “disfellowshipped”, or expelled, from the religion.

Boy Scouts’ Rent Hiked Over Gay Ban

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The city has decided that the Boy Scouts chapter here must pay fair-market rent of $200,000 a year for its city-owned headquarters because it refuses to permit gay Scouts.

The organization’s Cradle of Liberty Council, which currently pays $1 a year in rent, must pay the increased amount to remain in its downtown building past May 31, Fairmount Park Commission president Robert N.C. Nix said Wednesday.

City officials say they cannot legally rent taxpayer-owned property for a nominal sum to a private organization that discriminates. The city owns the land and the Beaux Arts building constructed by the Scouts in 1928. [...]

The higher rent money “would have to come from programs. That’s 30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp,” Jubelirer said. “It’s disappointing, and it’s certainly a threat.”

What would you do if someone asked you not to cuss in your city? What if no-cussing was made law?

14-year-old Mckay Hatch formed the No Cussing Club whose motto is “Ya Wanna Hang with Us? Don’t Cuss!” It is McKay’s mission to get his peers and the public to clean up their language. But he isn’t satisfied with just having his club, he wants to force everyone to join it via the legal system.

Boy, 14, Crusades To Make South Pasadena Cuss-Free

(CBS) SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. A junior high school student appealed to South Pasadena officials to make the city a “no cussing zone,” it was reported.

Bothered by the constant use of foul language at his junior high school, 14-year-old McKay Hatch urged South Pasadena officials to consider making the city a “no cussing zone,” KCAL 9 reported.

What started as a five-member organization quickly spread to over 100 members locally and blossomed to over 1,000 members in 32 states and 11 countries, it was reported.

Then there is this story on the same Yahoo news page

Swearing at work ‘boosts team spirit, morale’

So, what the fuck do you think about this? Ooops…(hides from language police)