Gargantuan Endeavor

I want to start a website that gathers under one roof as many atheist, skeptic, agnostic, secular humanist and freethought blogs that I can possibly find. To bring the atheosphere to a nexus point.

I envision that this site will connect bloggers and help them to discover and aggregate information that circulates through the atheosphere. But this is not the ultimate goal I have in mind. I would also like to  create a massive database with statistics on all these blogs. Site traffic, post ranking, post frequency, comment frequency, etc.

I'd also have the site scour blog postings for external links to news articles for trending topics. The site would also have aggregation capability within specific (almost limitless) categories and topics. An "atheist blog search engine". Resources for bloggers on technical issues with their blogs; like notifying a blogger if their RSS/Atom feed is not parsing correctly.

Yes, I am aware of the multitude of other sites that do things similarly but not one I can think of that does them all. Sadly, I haven't the expertise in conducting such an endeavor. I've only just recently started reading up on PHP so I'm an absolute complete noob in this regard. But I want to build the site from scratch and I am completely lost except for conceptualization. Maybe it's time to go back to school.

Posted via web from irreligious

Atheist Teacher Burns Effigy of Darwin Into Students Arm

Sounds ridiculous right? Well, it is. It's a false headline.

However, this one isn't: Ohio Teacher In Hot Water For Burning Cross Into Skin of Students

Now, I've been aware of and been following this story for some time now. But it got me thinking...

I challenge, CHALLENGE anybody to dig up a story of a non-believing/atheist teacher doing something similar.

You see, it's stories like this that don't really help me to get away from beating up on straw men. People like this make it so easy to stereotype Christians as wackos and nutters. And then of course there's the True Scotsman argument that gets thrown around. The argument that I despise with my entire being..."Oh, but he's not a TRUE Christian!" Bullshit. This teacher reads the same bible as every other Christian on the planet.

More searching reveals that John Freshwater attends Trinity Assembly of God in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Which has "16 Fundamental Truths" of what they believe including speaking in tongues. Pentecostal. Why am I not surprised? *sigh*

I believe John Freshwater's teaching license should be revoked indefinitely.

And atheists are irrational!?

More...

• Science teacher can't recall Lego lesson

Posted via web from irreligious

My Contempt for Priests and the Movie; The Exorcist:

My disdain for the catholic church and Christian catholic priests, began in earnest at age 10, after hearing my grandmother tell me the stories of children, including her own younger brothers, of being raped and molested at the hands of catholic priests in Canada, where she grew- up. And of the stories of Indian children, who were stolen from their tribes and parents, and forced to live in catholic orphanages, where they were beaten and raped, and forbidden to speak in their own native language; she told me about, a little ten year old Indian boy, who was stripped naked, then tied to a post on the playground, in the snow, and in subfreezing whether, for speaking in his own native language, and encouraging other Indian children, to do the same. This child was later beaten and raped; and two weeks later, he was found dead, laying naked in the snow, as an example for the other children, of what would happen to them, for being rebellious to “God’s” work.

At about age 11, I heard about the release of the movie The Exorcist. The catholic church and the pope himself, started protesting this movie and trying to block its release. After that was unsuccessful; they started telling their ignorant followers, not to go and see the movie, saying: the mere act of watching this movie would make them vulnerable to the “devil,” and subject to “demon” attacks.

That next year when the opening day rolled around; I couldn’t wait to go see it – so my little 12 year old heathen ass, and two of my little heathen friends; headed off to the theater to see it. We found an older guy to get us in, took seats and started watching the movie. The first ¾ of the movie was pretty boring; but when the “devil” started kicking the shit out of the priests fucking asses; my friends and I went nuts. We were all rolling on the floor laughing; I laughed so hard, I almost wet my pants! Other people started leaving – some running out of the theater. A black Christian woman, who had brought her two children to see the movie; then asks us why we found this part of the movie so funny, I told her it was because I didn’t believe in god(s), the devil or jesus, and I hate priests, and moreover, it’s just a movie. She then got in my face, and demanded my phone number and the name of my mom; so she could tell her how I was acting. We all told this ignorant Christian to fuck off, and then moved to another part of the theater.

Over the years, the movie The Exorcist has become my all time favored. Here are the scenes I like the most:

Being Vegan

Well, I guess this is my first post on Posterous about being vegan.

We as citizens are subject to the market influence of agri-business. Sure, I am too. I'm not saying I am immune to the clenched fist of this nefarious industry as it extends into every pore of our dietary lifestyles, yet I try to abstain from consuming any animal or animal by-product wherever I can. I even look at clothing labels to make sure nothing is leather or made from wool. Once in while I may flub something and assume that a product is "animal friendly" and continue on through the check-out and later find that I was an idiot and didn't read the label. In all actuality I am not a true vegan but I try my damnedest.

However, how can we really know something that we purchase is "animal friendly" unless we abstain from the whole consumer marketplace? By which we actually produce our own cotton and our own garden veggies? To be self-sustaining? I for one would, on one point, wholeheartedly endorse such endeavors. But we are inundated with an environment that espouses a lax consumerism by which people just don't care where their "stuff" comes from. I must emphasize "don't care", because we really don't care even on second thought. There really is a "third thought".

So, as a society, on the second point we can't possibly alienate agri-business. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that agri-business, as it stands now, is anywhere but ethical; but that market forces dictate that consumers "get what they want". Therefore we change things by voting with our wallets and pocketbooks.

Posted via web from irreligious