Expelling The Myths About "Equal Time" In The Academia

In recent weeks (or months), the religious right have reveled in the release of their propaganda-driven, religiously-slanted film, "Expelled", which, chief amongst its issues, talks about the lack of democratic principles exhibited by the upper echelons of the academia. In such cases, religion again feigns the role of the abused housewife, constantly and consistently whining about how pious, religious folks (Creation "scientists", in this case, if they should be considered as anything but scientists) are being persecuted for making a committed stand for their own professed religion.

The sheer economic and emancipation afforded by democratic nations, in contrast with communist regimes, had ensured that democracy got the upper hand during the post WWII cold wars: With its promise of freedom and human rights, democracy is rightly heralded as the chief beacon of the new era.

That said, the right to choose cannot be exerted in certain facets of society, as I shall attempt to illustrate.

The Importance of Truth in The Education System

In developed and developing nations, education is of paramount importance: Not only does education provide a stable base of blue and white collars for a developed or fledging economy, it is also the cornerstone of intellectual excellence.

Facts must be thought as facts, myths as myths, and so on. It is sheer humbug, for example, to teach science students that the Loch Ness monster exists, or some imaginary deity pulls the strings of its earthly minions, because such ideas cannot survive the hypothesis of science, or measure up to any other yardsticks which constitute "truth".

Trying to whitewash the Nazi's crimes to students in a history class by proclaiming that the Holocaust is nothing more than Jewish propaganda designed to hoodwink the soft-hearted Jewish sympathizers would be stretching the story too far, for anyone who proclaims such profound nonsense must be able to commit himself or herself to provide a mountain of evidence to refute the tons of documented evidence of Hitler's gruesome gulag camps, built with the insidious purpose of eliminating the Jewish and other supposedly "inferior" races.

Facts and evidences cannot be distorted to look truthful: The truth, be it a paragon of virtue, or the sheer depravity of evil, depraved minds, must be presented as nothing other than the truth.

Since education workers are in the business of educating the young, it is imperative that they cannot be swayed by public opinion: Any deviation from facts and truths must be presented unambiguously, and being vested with such responsibilities, secular teaching staffs should be obligated to become the bastion of truth, not chicanery and tomfoolery, in dispensing their services.
Science: Not The Right Institution For Democracy

Like Education, Science is not in the demeaning business of blind indoctrination: While Creationists are attempting to destroy Science from within by introducing the "Let the parents decide what is to be taught" horse shit, the unbridled truth is that facts and truth are not democratic ideals: Any scientific idea, no matter how rational or absurd, must be validated by the golden sickle of proof.

Expelling Nonsensical, Religious Bullshit From the Academia

Scientists, such as the infamous Michael Behe, have the temerity to introduce Creationist ideas into the Scientific community (Behe was infamously proven wrong when he claimed that the flagellum couldn't be reduced into simpler, molecular parts): Fine, let them dish out their most absurd claims in their quest for a invisible deity in the sky, but do not expect a single ounce of sympathy from the rest of the Scientific community when these morons find themselves being stonewalled by their own universities (Behe has since been disowned by his own institution, Lehigh University) and ignored by respectable, scientific publications.

After all, when you start playing with the worms, you will be treated like a worm.

The Wests fascination with the Dalai Lama

by Larro

Everybody has probably heard by now the turmoil going on in Tibet, right? If you don't follow the Olympic torch relay and don't follow international news then I guess you probably haven't heard.

Seems there's been some riots targeted at Han and Chinese sympathetic businesses, etc. Sometime within the last couple months.

Now, this post isn't about the riots. It's about His Holiness. The Supreme Spiritual Leader of the Tibetan people and all of Tibetan Buddhism. He is purported to be an incarnation of the Buddha himself. This post is also about how we in the West seem enamored of His Holiness.

Think about it. It's a theocracy! One god-man makes the rules for all his people. There are some Tibetans who are seeking independence as a republic (which in my opinion is the more rational thing to do than pine over a displaced god-king).

So why are we in the West so sympathetic to this shyster. Even if he believes he is [an] incarnate Buddha; I don't. It's a double standard to support a theocratic regime in the Dalai Lama when we demonize a theocratic regime in Tehran.

So what is it about the Dalai Lama that we in the West feel so sympathetic for him? Because he's peaceful? Maybe. A theocratic regime that poses no threat to our Western interests is a-okay so long as they lie down and be pacified. If not then we can sing along with John McCain: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran".

Maybe it's because so many people are enamored of their religious leaders (you know, their pastors, reverends, priests, etc) that they feel that these same fools should lead us politically. That we in the West long for a leader of faith. That's really fucked up, but I would wager it's not too far off the mark.

Interfaith Dialogue Rears Its Ugly Head

King Abdullah Dips Hands into Muddled Waters, Advocates Inter-faith Dialogs

Quite sometime back in 2007, I wrote about the sinister reasons (link here) behind inter-faith dialogs and why, as a religiously-slanted mafia session, religious leaders could, in reality, be using just such a political and public platform to propagate their freedom hating, gay-bashing and atheist-killing activities.

On hindsight, I was kind of shocked at my particular clairvoyance with regards to this religiously-inspired phenomenon, even though I couldn't have foretold or predicted that besides the blundering Tony Blair, even the King of Saudi Arabia has wheeled himself into this increasingly massive, driven propaganda which, on the surface, looks like a harmless tea party between, bishops, imams and the pork-eating infidels.

Saudi Arabia Leader Calls for Interfaith Dialogue

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called for a dialogue among monotheistic religions Monday, marking a first for the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.

"I ask representatives of all the monotheistic religions to meet with their brothers in faith," Abdullah told delegates to a seminar on "Dialogue Among Civilizations between Japan and the Islamic World," according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

“If God wills it, we will then meet with our brothers from other religions, including those of the Torah and the Gospel... to come up with ways to safeguard humanity," he added.

Abdullah said the country’s top clerics have given him approval to pursue his idea and that he plans to get the opinion of Muslim leaders from other countries.

According to SPA, the Saudi king also intends to address the United Nations on the subject.

"We have lost sincerity, morals, fidelity and attachment to our religions and to humanity," Abdullah said Monday, deploring "the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world – a frightening phenomenon that all religions must confront and vanquish."

Vanquishing Secular Humanism In Favor of Theocracy and Human Rights Abuse?

As a sectarian religion, Islam is perversely myopic in a way that all Judaism-inspired faiths share: These religions harbor the same, unabashed animosity against all forms of religions, plus ideas that do not fit into their respective religious world views.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, in which our indefatigable Saudi King, Abdullah, rules as a hereditary king, I honestly can't even begin to fathom how humanity even exists in his misogynistic kingdom, unless, of course, his version of "humanity" doesn't quite fit into our evil, secular, and yes, demon-inspired "humanity" of secular folks.

Consider this:

1. The Basic Law of Government (Adopted in 1992) in the oil-rich monarchy mandates that only the first king, Abd Al Aziz Al Saud, and his sons and grandsons to be legitimate rulers of the kingdom.

2. The Quran is the Constitution of Saudi Arabia (Hence, the stoning of women and so on.)

3. According to The Economist's Democracy Index (2007), the opulent Saudi government is the 9th most authoritarian regime in the world. Not bad, considering that the evil, Godless commies in China lie a full 21 places behind. Makes you wonder why the Bush Administration is cuddling up to the rich oil barons, eh? If anything else, it certainly isn't because of the House of Saud's impeccable human rights record!

4. Women are banned from appearing in almost all forms of public life: Women are banned from driving, and a severe, misogynistic apartheid against women meant that widespread discrimination against women that the average Bedouin woman can hardly expect herself to find a decent job in a male-dominated workforce, not to mention the fact that women should only be seen in drab, ugly, Martian-styled fashion known as burkhas, as mandated by the sick and depraved House of Saud.

5. According to Amnesty International, other archaic, ancient tortures, such as flogging, are employed on a variety of "criminals", ranging from dissenters to "inappropriate behavior", in accordance to the strict (and strange) tenets of Islam.

But Mr Abdullah doesn't speak from statistics: He doesn't want to dabble in the specifics! He simply equates his obnoxiously theocratic, abusive regime as the standard barometer for humanity!

& finally, of course, he reviews his true intentions: Atheism, in the little warped mind of this despotic monarch, is a "frightening phenomenon that all must confront and vanquish". That kind of explains why every time a secular newspaper, say in Denmark, begins to publish photos of Muhammad with his bomb-laden turbans, these car-burning, riotous folks of Islam tend to start going amok and incinerate the latest Danish pastry they can lay their filthy hands upon. In their religious ecstasy to get rid of all that is hedonistic, King Abdullah has given us a sneak preview of the insecurities and the siege mentality employed by religious leaders and rioters alike: Any encroachment of their archaic, stone age belief system is a direct threat to their sensibilities, lifestyle and finally, their Deity in question.

Interfaith Dialogs: A Great Pretense to Spread Bigotry On a Grandiose Scale

It is difficult for secular folks like myself not to feel skeptical when reading bigoted propaganda and other religious nonsense: It seems, at this point of time, that certain sections of the Islamic community feel disenchanted enough to petition for patch-up alliance, clobbered together in the hope that secular humanism and other more rational-thinking philosophies can be quashed under the sheer weight of religious tyranny.

The sheer hypocrisy of such gatherings aside, we might just be witnessing a backlash against the rising secularism in a global setting, and the burkha-obsessed Saudi King is practically feeling the heat (with or without the burkha) of those evil, pork munching infidels.

-"It is the inevitable effect of religion on public policy that makes it a matter of public concern. Advocates of religiosity extol the virtues or moral habits that religion is supposed to instill in us. But we should be equally concerned with the intellectual habits it discourages."

Wendy Kaminer