I just found this, it’s a super-low budget animation of one of the bible’s grisly-er stories (pardon the pun).

S o next time a follower of one of the Abrahamic religions goes off about how God loves everyone, ask them why their god feeds children to bears.

And,if you’re into that sort of thing, you can find plenty more examples of lust, murder, pillage, rape, and genocide at evilbible.com, check it out.

Posted: November 30th, 2007 under gods & religion, video.
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So I’ve written a fair bit on this blog about evolution, biology, sociability, and morality (1 2 3). It’s a favorite theme of mine both because of the fact that so many Theists argue that morality can’t exist without God and because I strongly believe that if you want to seriously study natural law the best place to look is nature. So when I found this article on altruism, evolution, and Amoebas I just had to post a link up to it here.

So - a challenge to the godheads who insist that religion is the only viable source of morality - explain to me how it is that single-celled amoebas are willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of the colony? Are there Amoeba missionaries teaching them Christ’s word? Is it hope of eternal reward in some slimy dung-filled afterlife way above the clouds motivating this ultimate act of selflessness? Or is it that evolution makes cooperation among social animals a highly successful group strategy?

Maybe that’s why the Christians are so opposed to the teaching of evolution: because a functional understanding of how the world actually works explains human emotions like love, compassion, selflessness, and other social impulses far better then the Bible ever could.

Posted: November 29th, 2007 under gods & religion, science and history.
Comments: none

I’ve ben reading a lot of Orwell lately, fits my mood. He’s at once cynical and hopeful, optimistic and realistic. It might surprise some of you that George Orwell, a writer best known to american readers for his book Animal Farm (a metaphorical indictment of the Soviet Union), was a life-long socialist and actually fought with the UGT in the Spanish Civil war. The UGT, of course, was an independent (ie: not aligned with the Bolsheviks) Socialist labor union that was roughly allied with the Anarchosyndicalis C.N.T. and fielded one of the several different militias that fought in what was essentially a 5-way civil war that pitted a rough alliance of anarchists, socialists, left-nationalist basque separatists, and  communists against fascists, as well as pitting all of the above against eachother to various degrees. I’d love to get a bit deeper into the history but I’ll save my analysis of that particular bloodbath for another post because I’ve already wandered way off topic. In the meantime, if you’re interested, I’d recomend checking out the book Orwell wrote about his experiences in Spain. It’s called Homage to Catalonia and you can read it for free online. Did I mention that I fucking love the internet?

anyway.

So I’ve been reading a lot of Orwell. He Rocks. And I found this beautiful indictment of the concept of Heaven and “infinite happiness” in one of his essays called “Why Socialists Don’t Believe in Fun.” Read more »

Posted: November 28th, 2007 under gods & religion.
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I just found this great article on mutual aid, new orleans, hurrican katrina, and random other related topics that I wanted to post up and share with ya’ll. it’s by Anya Kamenetz and you can find it on Reality sandwich. enjoy!

http://realitysandwich.com/node/482 

Posted: November 26th, 2007 under community, culture war.
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If you can watch this, see what is being done in your name, and keep on talking about what a free country this is and how “national security” trumps human rights, you’ve officially forfeited your own humanity. Yes Hillary Clinton, I’m talking to you. Torture is a crime, it violates every natural law and a lot of man-made laws to boot, and people who use it or advocate it are the only people I can think of who deserve to experience it.

Read more »

Posted: November 23rd, 2007 under culture war, politrix, video.
Comments: 1