Many, if not most, God believers must realize that their god will not protect them since they go so far as wanting to allow concealed handguns in their sanctuaries. They go to doctors when they are sick, they go to counselors when they are depressed, they turn to human assistance when disaster happens. And now they want to be allowed to carry concealed weapons to protect themselves in “God’s house”.

Guns in church bill dies in Arkansas Senate panel

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A state Senate panel has rejected a bill that would allow concealed handguns in Arkansas churches, a proposal that divided religious leaders.

*snip*

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Beverly Pyle, R-Cedarville, told the panel after the vote that she may try again with the proposal.

“This is not a gun question, it is a question of religious freedom,” Pyle said.

What? A question of “religious freedom”?! Why don’t these reporters every ask the questions that would put these idiots on the spot? Why didn’t someone ask “why don’t you trust your god to protect you?” and see what their answer is?

Fortunately, there are those who can think rationally and though they don’t ask the question about “where is your god?”, they legally reject the nonsense that guns are somehow a religious right.

State Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, said she didn’t see the need for the bill.

“I don’t know of any church where the carrying of guns is a sacred belief intrinsic to the doctrine of that church, like the holding of communion might be,” Madison said.

The video link can be found here.

One more step back in the right direction — slow but sure…

In recent days, I’ve gotten a couple of bits of bad news so have been too bummed to blog lately. One of those pieces of news is that a long-time friend of mine was diagnosed with lung cancer and had to have part of her lung removed. The doctors say they got it all, but she has been going through terrible pain and a difficult recovery. This friend, who became a fundie Xian about ten years after our friendship started, has stated in her online journal that her god has given her this “cross to bear” and is “walking with her” and “holding her hand” every step of the way and all that other melodramatic stuff that Xians love to use.

She seems to be handling it well, and is very motivated to get back to normal again, so I would never tell her that she is full of it, not now anyway. I would never kick out the crutch that is keeping her afloat during such a terribly difficult time while she is struggling to overcome and survive.

What I keep to myself, however, is the question “how the hell people can believe their god gives them terrible illnesses, injuries and tragedies as sadistic burdens they must bear in order for this god to walk beside them as they are on their journey to healing?” It would be like a mother or father intentionally breaking the leg of their child so they can lovingly nurse that child back to health! Ludicrous! Sounds like the movie Baby Jane. But this is what my friend believes, that god gives you these “crosses” as “burdens of his love”.

I have often heard Xians say that “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” Those of us who have stopped to analyze the things Xians say understand how this statement implies that this god is some kind of torturer who sadistically brings pain and suffering on his creatures to get them to be closer to him, or some other “purpose”…and all-the-while they already are devout believers in him. Also, wouldn’t an omniscient, all-power god already know who is a “True Believer” and who is not?

While I will support my friend via encouraging and cheerful emails, I just cannot bring myself to continue reading her blog where all of her posts are stories about the challenges this god asshole is putting on her, and messages from her sheeple friends who write the same crap, that she is strong enough to endure what her god is putting on her.

I found THIS on a Xian website “Good News Ministries”:

To serve Jesus, we must follow Him. Where did He go? To the cross! We’ve grown up with the illusion that happiness comes from being right and protecting ourselves from hurts and from crucifixion. To find true happiness in troubled relationships, we must allow these people to crucify us. It doesn’t make sense in the world’s view, but Jesus showed us from the cross that it makes perfect sense from the perspective of love. He said: Stop fighting AND offer no resistance.

Creepy, isn’t it? Their goal is to get the suffering and downhearted to believe that resistance is futile.

The other bit of news is that an extended family member is getting divorced. The young couple who are getting divorced have never been particularly religious even though they were pressured to get married by fundie family members, one who happens to be a youth pastor. The announcement of divorce first sent shock and grief throughout even our extended family since this couple seemed to be happy and settled. Now that the dust has settled a bit…a week or so, family members are doing what they can to be supportive, however, the fundies are zeroing in for the “kill” since they come hovering around during or after a crisis in hopes of using that sad or difficult time to convert people. They have even convinced this person to fly to that remote Alaskan island to spend some time…(”surround and drown” time!) Get ‘em when they’re down. While I am sure that they will also be of some real human support, they have a bigger goal in mind and you and I know what that is.

I have had that happen even to myself during my hospital stays in recent years. Xians swoop on in with their god crap, hoping to suck another into the god delusion by convincing them that they need the crutch of an imaginary friend instead of simply friends and family being there for them as human beings. That’s who is there to help in reality, anyway.

In the spirit of the recent BUS SCANDALS…

Students standing up for atheism: The days of laissez-faire atheism are over, and young, thoughtful, student atheists are in a tricky position. They are forced to stand up for their beliefs

All this leads me to wonder about the future for student atheists. Most of my life I have enjoyed what you might call laissez-faire atheism – just not believing in God, thinking that people who do are daft, and leaving them to it. It seemed that ignoring religion was much the best way of letting it fade quietly away. Sadly I think the days of laissez-faire atheism are over, and young, thoughtful, student atheists are in a tricky position. Christianity and Islam seem ever more at odds with each other. Islamic groups claim to have the right not be offended. Some even demand to have their repulsively repressive and unfair Sharia laws respected here. So we need students who care about freedom of speech, freedom of thought, intellectual honesty, open inquiry, or sexual equality to speak up. But what is going to happen when they get clobbered? Few unbelievers are natural extremists or looking for a fight, but now they are being forced, by events occurring all over the world, to stand up for their unbelief. And if the events at Warwick and Leeds are anything to go by they are going to suffer abuse, threats and even harm. Will they – should they – fight back, or should they turn the other cheek? It’s one thing to be brave because you believe that one day God will send you to heaven, and rather different to suffer because you don’t believe in any God. And the last thing we need is another warring faction in the rotten war of ideas caused by religious differences. [...] We need people who don’t believe in God to show that you can be moral and good without religion, and to criticise the worse excesses of religious repression and dogma. I hope they won’t suffer more abuse but if they do I trust that their natural moral principles, not derived from any God or from any ancient book, will help them behave better than their God-fearing persecutors.

I mean, christ, if you can’t speak up on a goddam college campus, then we’re really screwed.

Interesting episode of House, M.D..

I hardly watch any TV, but I’m guessing I should still be surprised that any American pop-show would deal with this stuff at all.

Kudos? Coincidence? Hmmmm…

(Click on the pic to go to the site.)

I received this in an email:

Utah State Senator Chris Buttars has gone on record for the following remarks:

Utah State Senator Chris Buttars recently called the LGBT community “probably the greatest threat to America…I know of.”

He went on to spew a series of vile insults including:

• Lesbian and gay relationships are “abominations.”
• LGBT people are moving America “toward a society that has no morals.”
• LGBT people will “destroy the foundation of American society.”

I looked up this ignorant old fuck, and well, the flurry of xenophobia is enough to make a person ill.

Buttars has sponsored legislation banning gay straight alliances in public schools, has introduced a resolution urging companies to have their employees say “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” to customers, as well as an Intelligent Design Bill. Buttars has sponsored legislation to fund drug treatment programs, supports raising the minimum wage and assisting child crime victims.

During the 2006 General Session of the 56th Utah State Legislature Buttars sponsored S.B. 96, an Intelligent Design Bill. The bill would have forced instructors to teach students that evolution is a controversial theory and counter the theory with that of Creationists, using the term “Divine Design” . The New York Times called the bill “Anti-Darwin” and critics have pointed to Buttars’ words “Divine Design” as evidence for its religious undertow. The bill failed.

[snip]

During a debate of a school-funding bill on the floor of the State Senate in February 2008, the bill’s sponsor compared the bill to the baby involved in the Biblical story of King Solomon. Buttars responded saying, “This baby is black, I’ll tell you. This is a dark, ugly thing.” Buttars apologized for a remark on the State Senate floor,^[12] saying, “I got a little carried away, and I made a comment that I think a lot of people could take as racist. I certainly did not mean that in any way, but it was wrong and could easily be taken in just that way. I apologize to anyone who took offense.”^[13] In an interview, Buttars said, “We live in a very, very sensitive world. Although what I said had literally nothing in my mind to do with a human being at all — we were talking about an ugly bill — I made a statement that could be easily misinterpreted, and it was.”

Yeah, I don’t think so, Butterball.

Buttars has been outspoken on issues dealing with homosexuality, and co-sponsored Utah Constitutional Amendment 3 with Utah Boys Ranch colleague LaVar Christensen, which defined marriage in Utah as consisting “only of the legal union between a man and a woman.” Buttars criticized the domestic partnership executive order signed by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. Buttars also introduced legislation that would ban gay clubs and gay-straight alliances in public schools. In 2008 Salt Lake City’s newly elected Mayor Ralph Becker introduced a domestic partnership registry that was unanimously approved by the City Council. On February 11, 2008 Buttars introduced a counter bill, SB0267, designed to prevent cities or counties from operating any kind of domestic partnership registry, alleging such registries would violate Utah Constitutional Amendment 3’s ban on same-sex marriage and domestic unions. Buttars became the subject of even more criticism on February 17, 2009, when in an interview with KTVX reporter Reed Cowan he compared homosexuals to radical Muslims and claimed that the gay rights movement is “the greatest threat to America”. Buttars might be headed for trouble after these last remarks with the Senate vowing to “deal with Buttars publicly” for his anti-gay statements. On February 20, 2009 he was removed as chairman and member from the Judicial Standing Committee due to these remarks.

Senator Butterball is emblematic of the old guard, the good old boys who require the status to remain perfectly quo. The ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ days are something they yearn to return, unaware that

1. The good old days weren’t always so good (as per Billy Joel), and
2. ‘Turning the clock back’ is a metaphor, not a literal event, and can only be done during Daylight Savings Time.

Butterball is considered something of a crazy lunatic by the Huffington Post, but in this regard, we have raging homophobes all over – from Rick Warren to the Reverend Don Wildmon of the execrable AFA, there’s a long standing tradition of homophobia from the elephant shitters on the right wing. (Let’s never mind that a large percentile of these ‘family values’ sycophants have electrified the headlines over the last decade with gay behavior).

This is (and has been for some time) a specific bugaboo of mine – because when you tell a specific group of people that they aren’t allowed specific rights that are accorded to everyone else…there’s a very specific word that defines that act:

DISCRIMINATION.

And while we’re all aware of the fundamental definition of the term civil rights, it bears repeating:

The rights belonging to an individual by virtue of citizenship, especially the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and by subsequent acts of Congress, including civil liberties, due process, equal protection of the laws, and freedom from discrimination.

Till the next post, then.

This is new on thursday Feb. 19 2009

Nanotechnology researchers say they have achieved a breakthrough that could fit the contents of 250 DVDs on a coin-sized surface and might also have implications for displays and solar cells.

The scientists, from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, discovered a way to make certain kinds of molecules line up in perfect arrays over relatively large areas. The results of their work will appear Friday in the journal Science, according to a UC Berkeley press release. One of the researchers said the technology might be commercialized in less than 10 years, if industry is motivated.

The rest of that article can be found here.

I found this when looking for other information that had nothing to do with Nano tech. Yet the idea still provides background for the basis of why research is so important. Regardless of whether or not any remedies/products will result from such research. In fact that is the reason to do research. I’m certain that we have millions if not Billions of ways that do not yield results yet eventually something comes from research all of it’s own.

Here is another research idea that should be brought up when people are denying the value and merit of research.

Business Activity: On average, in fiscal year 2007, each dollar of NIH funding generated more than twice as much in state economic output. That is, an overall investment of $22.846 billion from NIH generated a total of $50.537 billion in new state business activity in the form of increased output of goods and services.
Business activity generated per dollar of NIH funding ranged from $2.49 (Texas) to $1.66 (South Dakota).
The 10 states that generated the most economic activity per dollar of NIH funding were Texas ($2.49), Illinois ($2.43), California ($2.40), Georgia ($2.36), Colorado ($2.34), Pennsylvania ($2.32), Tennessee ($2.32), Utah ($2.30) Ohio ($2.29), and New Jersey ($2.26).
In fiscal year 2007, every $1 million that NIH invested generated $2.21 million in new state business activity.

That article is found here;

All of this came from the American Research website. And just to give you some comparisons on relative dollar amounts spent in the U.S. each year on a wide variety of items. Here is the relative cost on these items and how that translates into funding dollars.

This post is in response to the politicians who have been stalling scientific reasearch for strictly political reasons. So if you get the chance then please send them a letter or email regarding this. We need it.