Thursday, April 28, 2011

Ardent Atheist Podcast

Check out my show,  Ardent Atheist with Emery Emery.

Where reason reigns supreme!

Tune in every Wednesday at 7pm PT 10pm ET for a hot cup of cold reason and pure logic.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ardent-atheist-emery-emery/id421753091

Video: Outrage After Calif. Muslim Removed From Plane (CAIR)

http://youtu.be/l-DbQOVgjNM

Southwest Airlines apologized on Wednesday to a Muslim woman removed from one of the carrier's jets before a flight out of Lindbergh Field, due to concerns about a comment she made while awaiting takeoff.

Irum Abassi, a graduate student at San Diego State University, was wearing an Islamic head scarf when she was told Sunday that she had to leave the plane because a flight attendant considered her "suspicious," Abassi said at a news conference.

The airline expressed regret over the episode, which caused Abassi to miss her 8:15 a.m. flight.

"We sincerely apologize for the customer's inconvenience, and we regret that she was unable to travel as scheduled," the Southwest statement said. "We accommodated her on the next flight to San Jose, and we issued her a travel voucher as a gesture of good will for her inconvenience."

The local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations complained about the woman being taken off the plane.

A crew member thought she heard the woman say, "It's a go" during a cell phone call.

"They weren't even sure what I said," Abassi said, adding that she really said, "I've got to go," because the plane was about to takeoff.

"My question was, `Did I do something wrong?"' she said. "And they said, 'Uh, the flight attendant thinks that you are suspicious."'

According to the airline, Abassi "was asked to deplane so we could talk to her regarding behavior observed prior to takeoff."

"After talking with the customer, we cleared (her) to travel. ... Obviously, the safety and security of our employees and customers is our number one priority at all times, and we have a responsibility to thoroughly investigate any and all potential safety concerns," Southwest stated.

The airline is doing an internal investigation.

A VERY powerful video of a woman fighting back.

Actress on the reality TV show "Big Boss" , which is the Pakistani version of "Big Brother" gets ripped to shreds by Pakistani Clerics for Immoral Behavior which then percolates through the Pakistani Media and their Fundamentalist audiences. Sick of all the vitriol, she stands up to the life-ruining accusations and charges by agreeing to appear on the show "Frontline" with one of the Mullahs as co-guest who wishes to publicly chastise her.
http://youtu.be/hBb2zhezCKM 

Outrage over Muslim woman's Playboy cover - The West Australian

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9270299/outrage-over-muslim-womans-playboy-cover/

If The U.S. Were To Become a ‘Christian Nation’ Would Death Penalties Increase?

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Evil Men

‎"Oh, but that is not God's fault. That is evil men misinterpreting his will." Well if God(s) cannot be trusted to influence the faithful to behave better here on earth, then who want's to spend eternity with any of them? - Bill Goodwin

Australopithecus Sediba could be direct ancestor of Homo

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-australopithecus-sediba-ancestor-homo.html

Stephen Colbert is still re­cov­er­ing from a week­end of Catholi­cism.

‎"Piss Christ" photo smashed - Catholic Vandals Deface Controversial Artwork in “Secular” France

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/4528/the_scandal_of_the_cross

My good friend's little boy was abducted by his father. PLEASE look! If there is ANYTHING you can do - DO IT.

http://www.bringelihome.com/

HITCHENS LOSES HIS VOICE - Message to American Atheists By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS


Message to American Atheists

By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS - AA CONFERENCE, VIA PHARYNGULA 

ORIGINAL LINK:  Added: Friday, 22 April 2011 at 2:08 PM (http://richarddawkins.net/articles/618232-message-to-american-atheists)

Dear fellow-unbelievers,

Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death. Nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. I have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. I hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now I have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition. It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.

Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations.

As the heirs of a secular revolution, American atheists have a special responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution that patrols the boundary between Church and State. This, too, is an honor and a privilege. Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit...) Resolve to build up Mr Jefferson's wall of separation. And don't keep the faith.

Sincerely
Christopher Hitchens