A “Godless Campus Crusade for Christ,”

This month at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a select group of students will show their humanitarian spirit by participating in the Bleedin’ Heathens Blood Drive. On February 12, they will eat cake to celebrate Darwin Day, and earlier this year, they performed “de-baptism” ceremonies to celebrate Blasphemy Day, attended a War on Christmas Party, and set up Hug An Atheist and Ask An Atheist booths in the campus quad.

These activities and more are organized by the Illini Secular Student Alliance (ISSA), one of 394 student groups that are affiliated with the national Secular Student Alliance (SSA). “We brand ourselves as a safe place and community for students who are not religious,” says Derek Miller, a junior at Illini and president of the ISSA.
Secular groups on college campuses are proliferating. The Ohio-based Secular Student Alliance, which a USA Today writer once called a “Godless Campus Crusade for Christ,” incorporated as a nonprofit in 2001. By 2007, 80 campus groups had affiliated with them, 100 by 2008, 174 by 2009, and today there are 394 SSA student groups on campuses across the country. “We have been seeing rapid growth in the past couple of years, and it shows no sign of slowing down,” says Jesse Galef, communications director at SSA. “It used to be that we would go to campuses and encourage students to pass out flyers. Now, the students are coming to us almost faster than we can keep up with.”
The Secular Student Alliance provides its affiliate groups with support and materials, including banners, pins, and informational materials with titles like What Is An Atheist?, a brochure with cheerful graphics and information about the identities of secularists, including “non-theist,” “freethinker,” and “humanist.”

Oddly enough, in the geography of on-campus student groups, atheist organizations fit within the category of faith-based groups like the Campus Crusade For Christ, which recently (and controversially) changed its name to Cru. At Stanford University, the Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics (AHA!) register with the Office For Religious Life, just like Cru, and are a member of Stanford Associated Religions.
“There are a lot of parallels with religious groups on campus,” says Ron Sanders, Cru’s missional team leader at Stanford.

“They have weekly meetings similar to ours, and give one another support, and they do social justice projects on campus and in the communities… I don’t know that they aren’t a faith group. They don’t have a faith in God, or in revelation or something like that, but they have faith in reason and in science, as I understand it, as a guide for human flourishing.”

“I don’t think it’s unfair to say that groups like Cru are our cultural opponents,” says Galef at SSA. “It comes down to which values we’re promoting. We are promoting values of critical thinking and acceptance.”
Conflicting values on campus have led to unsavory events. Last year at Salisbury University in Maryland, the Atheist Society took offense when Cru students chalked a verse from the Bible: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is not one who does good.” This led to a chalking counter-offensive, which escalated but ended peacefully. In 2010, secular student groups at the University of Illinois and other Midwestern schools drew controversy when they chalked images of Muhammad. After the fallout, this event led to interfaith conversations, followed by friendship and cooperation with the Muslim Student Association. They have since hosted events together and convened for pizza and board games.
“We really encourage interfaith activities,” says Sarah Kaiser, field organizer at the Center For Inquiry, an international organization that promotes “science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.” As a student, Kaiser was member of the Secular Alliance at the University of Indiana. Her group raised money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society through a “Send An Atheist To Church” tabling event. The atheists put out cups for each of the campus’ religious groups, and whichever cup raised the most money determined which church the atheists would attend as an interfaith educational activity.
The Muslim Student Union’s cup received the most donations, so the atheists attended mosque.
The Unstoppable Secular Students
The Secular Student Alliance is essentially a support network for the autonomous atheist, agnostic, and humanist student groups that choose to be its affiliates. The rapid growth of the SSA is analogue to the general growth of the American secular movement. Atheist groups were once fringe organizations that didn’t get along. That began to change around 2007, on the heels of bestselling books from atheist authors like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Suddenly, the movement had leaders, a sense of direction and a common purpose. Today, the Secular Coalition For America is an umbrella lobbyist group for a number of once-competing groups, including American Atheists, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the American Humanist Association.
These “adult” organizations support the growth of campus groups. American Atheists offers scholarships to student activists, noting that “special attention is given to those students who show activism specifically in their schools.” The American Humanist Association provides support to campus groups, as does the Richard Dawkins Foundation and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Increasingly, students who are active in SSA groups continue with the movement after college. “The dynamic of being in a [secular] college student group translates so well into national advocacy and lobbying,” says Kelly Damerow, research and advocacy manager at the Secular Coalition For America.
The Center For Inquiry, like the Secular Student Alliance, has college campus group affiliates. “Groups can co-affiliate, and most affiliate with both of us,” says Kaiser. Cody Hashman, also a field organizer at the Center For Inquiry, says many campus activities focus on activism training. “We give them advice on how to implement activism campaigns, resources on service projects, and help with putting on book tours for non-religious authors,” Hashman says. “Every summer we have a leadership conference where we train students on how to organize their group, manage volunteers, how to talk to the media, how to send a press release, how to make posters.”
National organizations, particularly the Secular Coalition For America, are primarily concerned with lobbying in Washington over First Amendment church/state and freedom of religion (and of non-religion) issues. But the anti-religious (or “antitheist”) thread within the secular movement is difficult to ignore and implicit in the names of some of the organizations, such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Foundation Beyond Belief, and, of course, the Pastafarians, an atheist group worshipping under the parody Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Skeptics and Atheists Network at East Tennessee State University rather pointedly calls itself S.A.N.E.
“We do a lot of interfaith activities if they align with our humanist values, but the one thing we never compromise on is our right and responsibility to criticize bad ideas,” says Miller at ISSA. “When you assume a supernatural world, that is a train of thought that does not have a basis. When you start from that, you will automatically lead yourself to a bad idea.”
A recent SSA presentation entitled “The Unstoppable Secular Students” compared SSA to Cru. Cru takes in $500 million a year, while SSA takes in $998,000; Cru has three paid staff members per 1 campus group, while SSA has 78 campus groups per 1 adult organizer. And yet Cru is growing at a rate of 16 per cent while SSA is growing at a rate of 116 per cent. The presentation concludes:

“Cru has a massively larger budget, the majority of the U.S. population to draw from (76% Christian), an organized political voting bloc to give them politicians and laws and supreme court justices in their favor. But they are losing in the cultural war. The secular students are winning, and they are unstoppable!”

This hawkish stance is understandable in light of Cru’s rather unilateral mission statement: “Win, build, and send Christ-centered multiplying disciples who launch spiritual movements.” No doubt many student secular groups hope to find those freshman questioning their faith and prevent them from becoming multiplying disciples. “As the secular students clear up misconceptions about what it means to be secular, I feel that more students will leave their faith,” says Galef.
Most campus groups are more concerned with strengthening the community, visibility, and tolerance of secularists than engaging in the cultural war. Hashman at the Center For Inquiry says that some students come from homes and communities where they have to hide their secular identity, and secular student groups become an important community for them. “It has now become more acceptable for people to state that they are questioning or no longer religious” says Hashman. “We are dedicated to free inquiry and freedom of expression, and that can come off as abrasive, but we believe it necessary for a free and democratic society.”

In the past few years, the number of affiliated student secular organizations has increased more than threefold By Katherine Don

Life is the result of our choices  non_believers_taking_college_campuses_by_storm_

How do you explain drone killings? -With post-Orwellian “Newspeak”

John Brennan’s confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee struck many observers as a small but significant step in the direction of openness, a chink in the armor of secrecy that the last two presidential administrations have erected around the “war on terror.” Maybe that will turn out to be correct, and the incoming CIA director – the principal architect of President Obama’s drone war, and until recently a defender of rendition and “enhanced interrogation” – will launch a new era of transparency in Langley. While we wait for that, would you like to see this bridge I've got for sale in Brooklyn?

Indeed, watching the Brennan hearing, and then struggling through the troubling Justice Department “white paper” spelling out the legal justification for the drone killings of American citizens (which was recently acquired and released by NBC News), left me with quite a different feeling. In large part, this was the feeling that our government’s imperial creep continues uninterrupted, that most people simply don’t care (irrespective of their supposed political views) and that almost everyone involved in this charade, especially those of us in the media who are supposed to serve as the watchdogs, has agreed to ignore the most obvious and glaring questions.

Beyond all that, and to a large extent underlying it, there is also the post-Orwellian creep of our language, and of all public discourse, towards emptiness. What Orwell described was a phenomenon distinct to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, the abrupt replacement of ordinary language with a propagandistic and bureaucratic Newspeak designed to make ideological resistance impossible. In the electoral dictatorship now developing in the United States – and no, that isn't a contradiction in terms – you can find sterling examples of such Newspeak and doublethink. But the most prominent American version, which I’m calling post-Orwellian, is subtler: Ordinary words whose meanings seem clear enough on the surface, such as “war” or “enemy” or “self-defense” or “imminent” (not to mention the ever-fraught “terrorism”) turn out not to mean anything at all, or to be legalistic terms of art with endlessly expansive frames of reference.

If this is starting to sound too much like a graduate seminar in literary theory, let’s remember that the real subject here is an amorphous 12-year war conducted largely in secret by two presidential administrations from opposing parties. Its result, if not its true purpose, has been the creation of an invisible and unaccountable national-security state apparatus and the consolidation of immense and unprecedented power in the executive branch. If the Bush administration claimed the right to detain and torture anyone it wanted to at “black sites” in insalubrious parts of the world, the Obama administration has arguably gone even further, claiming the right to kill anyone anywhere whom it deems to be an enemy combatant, including United States citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son, with long-range drone strikes piloted from afar.

Historians, political scientists and policy analysts will be hashing out the rights and wrongs of these issues for years to come, and there’s no denying that one reason we elect presidents is to entrust them with decisions that cannot realistically be made in public. But the combination of imperial creep and linguistic creep, and the reflexive America-first jingoism of almost all public discourse, even among so-called liberals, makes it difficult even to ask certain kinds of questions without seeming dim or embarrassing. Why, for instance, does the United States, and only the United States, possess the authority to treat the entire developing world as a war zone and rain high-tech death from above on villages in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and other places so classified we don’t know about them yet? (Some sources suggest that upwards of 3,000 alleged al-Qaeda militants have been killed by drone strikes in those places during Obama’s presidency, along with several hundred civilians.)

I suppose to some people the answer seems self-evident, and I don’t want to sound hopelessly naive: Yes, the U.S. is the world’s only military superpower at the moment, yada yada. But, seriously, try to imagine what would happen if the Chinese or the Iranians started routinely blowing up people they didn’t like in countries thousands of miles away, randomly killing civilians by the dozens along the way. Every senator on that committee would give birth to multiple litters of kittens, call for the launching of World War III, and immediately pass laws granting the president unlimited war powers into the indefinite future. (OK, they already did that, pretty much.) The rhetoric of American exceptionalism, and in particular the idea that American military force is indispensable to world order and no longer needs to respect old-fashioned ideas about national sovereignty or what a war is or how we define the enemy – none of that is ever questioned, or even comes up.

A long time ago in a different context, Joan Didion observed that the reporter’s job was to “observe the observable.” What I observed on Thursday was that Brennan’s appearance before the committee, and his garrulous New Jerseyite act, made for effective political theater, but that its effectiveness had more to do with the semiotics of the event than with what was actually said. (I’m definitely never playing cards for money with that guy.) Specifically, the hearing was a show of faux-deference to legislative authority by an emissary from the imperial palace, which left the senators almost cravenly grateful for a few scraps of information and noncommittal promises of future cooperation. (I didn't register which Republican senator used up his time by chatting about Chris Christie and complimenting Brennan’s wife.) Sure, a few of them complained, but everybody in that room understood that once Brennan is confirmed, the committee will be lucky to get a Hallmark card out of him next Christmas.

Brennan gave a cool performance, in both the ordinary sense and the Marshall McLuhan sense, and remained unflappable in the face of “hot” Code Pink protesters who disrupted the proceedings, calling him a war criminal and listing the names of children killed by drones. While the protesters rapidly became part of the spectacle’s colorful background, Brennan stuck to the leading role of a grownup who understands the nature of reality when others do not. You could even say he was there to define reality, an ultimate exercise in imperial power. Sounding eerily like Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara circa 1969, Brennan calmly explained that many of us misunderstood the CIA’s good intentions, and failed to appreciate “the care we take, the agony we go through, to make sure we do not have any collateral injuries and deaths.”

In fairness, we heard a few extraordinary things said about topics that are almost never discussed in open congressional session. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., almost the only Senate Democrat willing to criticize President Obama on civil liberties, told Brennan, “Every American has the right to know when their government believes it’s allowed to kill them.” (The director-designate did not respond directly.) Newly elected Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, suggested that the CIA’s drone-targeting decisions should be subject to judicial review, as espionage warrants are. King’s Maine colleague Susan Collins, arguably the Senate’s last moderate Republican, actually challenged the effectiveness, if not the underlying morality, of the drone war: “If the cancer of al-Qaeda is metastasizing, do we need a new treatment?”


Life is the result of our choiceshttp://current.com/community/94045474_how-do-you-explain-drone-killings-with-post-orwellian-newspeak.htm

What do you use as a moral guide?

“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” 
― Albert Einstein

"Life is the result of our choices" Brava

James Baldwin: Who is the Nigger?

"We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed."

-James Baldwin

Life is the result of our choices

The World needs more Art---It would transform US!!!

Amazing and very artistic!


Life is the result of our choices

Fuck the South: a Funny and accurate rant

"Fuck the South. Fuck 'em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep.

And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The AuthenticAmerica. Really?

Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? 

They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead.

 Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?

No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" dickheads. Fuck off.

Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a shithole," we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, "It’s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

Let’s talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It’s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that’s just someaberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, theBible Belt is doing its fucking part.

But two guys making out is going to fucking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we fucking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're fucking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us fucking Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous assholes? No, you're too busyerecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the fucking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, assholes.

Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.

And no, you can't have your fucking convention in New York next time. Fuck off."

-Anonymous 

http://www.fuckthesouth.com/








Life is the result of our choices

A Tale of Two Realities: Fact vs. Belief

A Tale of Two Realities: Fact vs. Belief

By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson

It has struck me more and more lately how discussions about politics with conservative acquaintances become debates between belief and fact. To some extent it seems Republicans (and Tea Partiers) confuse the two. For example, you will hear things like, “do you believe in evolution?” Evolution is science; it is not something you believe in because science isn’t about belief. It’s about demonstrable facts. You can believe in creationism, but you can’t believe in evolution. You either accept the facts or you deny them and hide behind unassailable belief.

Birtherism is another issue that comes down to facts vs. belief. A conservative relative of mine says there is reason to doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States. No, there is no reason to believe any such thing. The facts are there – birth announcement, birth certificate, etc. But birthers chose to disbelieve the evidence.  You can pile the evidence up but none of it will matter because it’s not an issue of provable, demonstrable fact; it’s an issue of belief.

The same can be said of a great many other important issues of our age, including climate change, American history (the Christian nation myth), Sharia law, the “homosexual agenda” etc. These are all debates fueled by belief, not fact. There is evidence of climate change but this is ignored. There is no evidence of either “creeping” Sharia law or a homosexual agenda, yet these are almost issues of faith for conservatives. The evidence is again irrelevant.

To the extent evidence or fact enter into any discussion with conservatives in all likelihood the “facts” are invented, the science (to use their own favorite expression) “junk” and any history is revised to suit the needs of the moment.

Liberals and progressives pride themselves on their Enlightenment rationalism, but the Republican Party has become more and more the party of Protestant fundamentalism, a party of belief, in the process divorcing itself from reality and the facts that bolster that reality in favor of invented realities. Al Franken told the Republicans that they’re not entitled to their own facts, but this is exactly what Republicans feel they are entitled to.

Where does that leave our political debates? We can’t look for the situation to get any better; it won’t. The forces of reaction only grow stronger as the pressures upon them increase. And they are desperate. That they are not entirely divorced from the Einsteinium universe is shown by their realization that prayer alone won’t bring the change their belief system insists it must.

Sarah Palin spoke for the lunatic fringe of superstition when she promised in 2008 that “God” would make the right choice for America on Election Day. God apparently chose Obama and they seem to realize they can’t afford to let God make that choice again. Consequently, they are taking the choice out of God’s hands and also out of the people’s hands by making it impossible for Obama to be a two-term president through legislation.

As tests of faith go, Gods Own Party has been proven dismally tepid at best. God might tell Michele Bachmann to run for office but apparently he got the memo that he’s not entitled to a vote, even if his followers did not.

In 2008 rationalism prevailed. 2010 was dangerously close to a full victory for superstition; a two-year campaign of fear and disinformation bore fruit with Republican control of the U.S. House and several state legislatures. What seemed like a disaster at the time has proven to be a gift to the reeling forces of rationalism as Americans have been treated for the first time with the fruits of Republican misrule in Wisconsin, Michigan, and elsewhere. The American voter has for the first time been presented with proof of what America would look like after a Republican victory on Election Day 2012.

Real fear, not the manufactured fear of Republican scare-mongers, was the result. Beliefs that reality is a certain way, belief that your own beliefs trump laws of nature have been proven spectacularly false. All the reason and rationality in the world could not trump belief in a debate, but when given a chance, Republicans provided their own proof of the nihilistic nature of their policies. They made our arguments for us, and are making them still. The mainstream media does what it can on their behalf by declining to show the most egregious examples of public outrage, thus shielding believers from unpalatable facts but in this modern technological age, this age of social networking, the truth has a way of getting out.  Why do you think they hate net neutrality so much?

Remember, this is not a clash between the forces of big and small government. This is a clash between two different ideas about big government, one that places controls on corporations and one that places controls on uteri. Don’t fool yourself that a vote for Republican or Tea Party candidates is a vote for small government. They want big government, a big government backing up their social agenda and protecting corporate interests.

The sad truth is that true believers won’t be persuaded even by the evidence of their eyes. Their beliefs call for certain things to be true and they will insist upon this manufactured reality no matter what. There will always be something wrong with that birth certificate. The flow charts and graphs that demonstrate the facts of Democratic vs. Republican economic policies for the past half-century will continue to be meaningless. Democrats will always be the racists even while the Republicans are drawing their watermelon patches around the White House and singing Barack the Magic Negro. It’s the reality they prefer.

And in some ways, the asylum seems a more fitting abode for them than Capitol or White House. That is, after all, what we do with people who divorce themselves too strongly from reality. But this is an entire political party; an entire religion. How does America cope with an epidemic of insanity affecting a quarter or more of its citizens? Election Day 2008’s shock treatment didn’t work and it is unlikely that another treatment in 2012 will have a different result. It will only confirm their fear and paranoia. And what will we do when that quarter of the population, well-armed as it is, decides to take matters into their own hands and tries to force God’s hand?

What happens when the essential disagreement between reason and belief comes to a head? Election Day 2012 may save America from superstition but that may only signal the beginning of our problems when the well-armed minority that believes itself to be a majority decides that only a left-wing coup could have put Barack Obama into the White House for a second term and who believe, despite all the unwanted facts to the contrary, that he will take their guns away. They already believe that he is not one of us, neither American, white (synonymous with American for this group), or Christian (also synonymous with American). They believe, because they have been told, that President Obama wants to destroy America. What happens when these well-armed believers decide it’s up to them to save it?

a-tale-of-two-realities-fact-vs-belief

Life is the result of our choices
- Brava

A friend blogger describes his perfect GOD:

While having a discussion about the Fairness Doctrine Act and Fox News at Current.com; a friend blogger answered to a remark I made; he described his idea of a perfect God and I am honored to share... :D

"My God isn't a God of Hate - He would care more about people then profit- 

My God would care less about the sex of the person you love, but would be more concern that you know how to love. 

My God would not seek war to prove his man hood, but seek knowledge for peace. 

My God would not allow his people to sleep in the streets, due to lack of income, mental illnesses, or drug addiction.

My God's followers would make sure homeless did not exist. 

My God would not like FOX NEWS.

My God would be actually fair and balanced."

                                                                                                --Dravenlee77

Life is the result of our choices

Richard Dawkins vs Bill O'Reilly or Science Vs Jesus

Censorship of a Textbook to remove Evolution


My father, M.E. Ensminger, known to generations of agriculture students as “Doc E,” wrote more than 30 books, mostly in the field of livestock science. In the late 1970s I was working for a class action litigation unit inside of New Jersey state government when he asked me about a situation involving his rights as an author. His book, Horses and Horsemanship, was under consideration by the Texas textbook adoption committee, which at that time selected books to be used in high school and public higher education classes in the state. Once a textbook was selected, it had to be the primary textbook for any class taught on the subject.

The book got the approval of the committee with one condition. A short chapter on the evolution of horses had to be deleted. The publisher was okay with this, since adoption by the committee would mean thousands in sales every year for the multi-year period the adoption would be in effect. The publisher would take out the offending chapter, reset the table of contents, and delete the index reference to evolution. (They would not repaginate because, in a pre-word processing era, that would involve too many expenses in adjusting the index and internal cross-references.)

My father refused to allow the special edition. He was, however, willing to allow the teacher’s manual to exclude mention of evolution or the chapter, because (1) the manual was to be written by someone else, and (2) he regarded teachers’ manuals as something for teachers “too lazy to read the textbook they’re teaching from,” in his words.

After some additional lobbying by the publisher, the committee accepted the book provided the teacher’s manual made no mention of evolution. Royalties from Texas were substantial for many years.

I have to emphasize that my father did not see this as a dispute between science and religion. In fact, he saw it as a dispute between religion and religion. He found no conflict between evolution and his deeply held religious beliefs. He was offended that the adoption committee was trying to modify a book he had spent two years writing, and which had already gone through several revisions and editions and was considered by many to be the best book on equine agricultural science ever written, in order to push its religious perspective above his.

I don’t know if it’s true but my father (who died in 1998) believed that he had the only agricultural textbook ever adopted by Texas with a favorable reference to evolution.



-John Ensminger

http://richarddawkins.net/foundation_articles/2012/8/23/censorship-of-a-textbook


Life is the result of our choicesRichard Dawkins-vs-Bill O'reilly or Science-vs-Jesus

New study declares Love a disease; medication may be available

Doctors from the University of Allopath have announced that Love is a disease. It is characterized by abnormal heart rhythms, sweating, impaired brain function, incoherent speech patterns and loss of sleep, among other signs. Thanks to this pioneeringwork fromresearchers sponsored by the leading drug firm Pferck, researchers have learned that love is a common biochemical disorder affecting both men and women of all ages.

Fortunately, it is treatable with prescription drugs. A new drug, Miserexa, combines beta blockers and antidepressants to alleviate thesymptomsof Love. This drug slows the heart and helpspatientsfeel detached from reality, counteracting the unhealthy neediness of Love.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the newdrugthis week. In a press conference, chief FDA drug approvalscientistDr. B. Fuddle said, "We are declaring war on Love, and doing everything in our power to eradicate Love from the world."

The market for Miserexa is expected to reach six billion dollars annually. "Love has reachedepidemicproportions," explained a public relations representative of Pferk. "If we do not act immediately to thwart the spread of thisdisease, Love will run rampant, and we will be facing an epidemic of Love in the world."

Health researchers first became aware of the disease after being alerted to symptoms of Love by the psychiatry community, which has been instrumental in the detection and aggressive treatment of this dangerous condition with brain-alteringdrugs. "We were seeing it in an alarming number of patients," explained onepsychiatrist, "and it was causing untold suffering in their lives. Fortunately, the condition can now be chemically corrected."

Further study revealed that Love is highly contagious. It can apparently spread from one person to another, although the mechanism of transmission is currently unknown (scientists suspect it may be spread ontoilet seatsand doorknobs). Love also spreads easily from mother to child, especially in newborns. Interestingly, Love has no effect on landlords and corporate CEOs, who seem to possess some unknown immunity to the disease.

Given the expanding threat of this disease,doctorsstress it is important that all adults get screened for Love as soon as possible. Hospitals and clinics are now setting up Lovescreeningprograms in the hopes of catching the disease early and treating it aggressively with targetedpharmaceuticals. "Nearly half the population may now be suffering from Love," said Dr. Fuddle, "and we estimate more than 90% of the carriers are currently going without treatment. It is important that we provide screenings and treatment on a population-wide basis."

If Love is not detected and treated in its early stages, it can advance to the point where the only solution is surgery. In such severe cases of Love, skilled surgeons perform a cardiectomy (a surgical removal of the heart). The procedure is risky, and many patients have died on the operating table, but many more have been successfully saved from the ravages of Love by the skillful blade of a compassionate surgeon.

The American Misery Association (AMA), whose mission is to find the cure for Love, is working hard to help educate the general public to watch for early signs of Love. People are urged to conduct a Love self-examination in the privacy of their own homes, and to watch out for the classic symptoms of Love: racing pulse, sweaty palms, inability to speak in coherent sentences, or confusion around certain attractive individuals. People are also taught how to avoid giving Love to others -- an importantstepin halting the spread of this disease.

If you suspect that you or someone you tolerate might be suffering from Love, don't wait. Treatable is available. Don't let Loved ones suffer any longer.

This press release is brought to you by Pferck, where today's rip-off drug prices fund tomorrow's profit miracles.

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

Life is the result of our choices-Brava

The End of Poverty?

Life is the result of our choices

Spiritually Unfit Soldiers FORCED to see Chaplains, to get “born again”

BY JUSTIN GRIFFITH

just received this chilling letter from a Soldier who recently took the mandatory Soldier Fitness Tracker test, shared to me with permission, from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). The name has been withheld out of fear, but I’m assured that this matter is being worked very hard.



[note: emphasis mine, and I broke it into paragraphs, as the email communication garbled the formatting.]

Before I tell you, Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF of my total outrage at the U.S. Army for grading me as a “Spiritual Fitness failure”, I will tell you a few things about myself. My name is (name withheld) and I am an enlisted soldier with the rank of (rank withheld) in the United States Army stationed at Ft. (military installation withheld). I am in my early-to-mid twenties. I have been deployed downrange into Iraq and Afghanistan 6 times. I will deploy again for my 7th time very soon; to Afghanistan and more combat. All of my deployments have been very heavy combat assignments. I have been wounded 4 times including traumatic brain injury. I have earned the Combat Action Badge, the Bronze Star and multiple Purple Hearts. I have fought in hand-to hand- combat and killed and wounded more than a few “enemy combatants.”

M[y] religion? I was born a Methodist and guess I still am one. I’m not very religious but consider myself to be a Christian. I don’t go to chapel services that often although I go every now and then. I can’t stand the chaplains as most of them are trying to always get me and my friends to “commit to Christ” and be far more religious as well as they try to get more and more soldiers to get more and more soldiers to be the same type of “committed Christian”. I cannot count the number of times that these chaplains and my own chain of command has described this war we fight as a religious one against the Muslims and their “false, evil and violent” religion. I am a Christian and therefore neither an agnostic nor an atheist though many of my fellow soldiers are such. Now to the point. I, and everyone else who is enlisted in my company, was ORDERED by my Battalion Commander to take the GAT’s Spiritual Fitness Test not very long ago. Let me make this CLEAR, we were all ORDERD to take it.

After we did, our unit’s First Sgt. individually asked us all how we did on the test. There was NO “anonymity” at all. None of us were ever told that we did NOT have to take this Spiritual Fitness Test nor that we did NOT have to tell our FIrst Sgt. what our results were. A bunch of us “failed” the SFT and when we told that to our First Sgt., per his disclosure order, he further ordered us to make immediate appointments with the chaplains so that we would not “kill ourselves on his watch”. None of us wanted to do it but we were scared. None of us wanted to get in the shits with our First Sgt. who can and will make life miserable for anyone who might have said no to him.

They keep saying that this is all to stop us soldiers from killing ourselves but THIS degrading SFT “failure” only makes it worse. Two of my battle buddies who I KNOW are thinking of ending it all were a million times worse off after failing this SFT and being called a “spiritual failure” and then ordered to go see the chaplains. I felt like a total coward for not standing up to my First Sgt. but I did what he told me to do. I was scared to tell him no.

So I went to see the chaplain. When this chaplain told me that I failed the SFT because it was “Jesus’ way of personally knocking on my door as an invitation for me to come to Him as a born again ‘REAL’ Christian” so that I could be saved and not burn forever in Hell for rejecting him, I thought of 3 things. First, I thought of the fact that I was already born a Christian and did not need to be born again. Second, I thought of my battle buddy (name and rank withheld) who took a bullet for me in his face during the Battle of (name of Iraqi battle withheld) and that he was the same kind of Christian as me and this chaplain is telling me that my battle buddy (name and rank withheld) is burning in hell for all time. Third, I thought how I wanted to blow that fucking chaplain’s head right off.

Thank you, Mr. Weinstein and MRFF for listening and standing up. A bunch of us saw you on MSNBC. We also read about the enlisted guy at Ft. Bragg. Please tell Sgt. Griffith at Fort Bragg that he speaks for many of us who can’t handle the consequences if we spoke out. We have all read the letter you sent to tell the Army to stop this Spiritual Fitness Test. It cheered us up alot because that making us take that test is WRONG and using it to send us to the chaplains against our will is also WRONG. Please tell your lawyers at that big law firm company not to forget about those of us who want to speak up and thank them all but cannot. (Name, rank, combat MOS, military unit, military installation withheld)



Whoever this Soldier is, my heart and thoughts go out to him/her. I’m going to print out that letter and keep it in my ACU pocket as a reminder of the real suffering that is happening when the lines of the Separation of Church and State are blurred. The inspirational letter is bittersweet, it sheds light on the fact that there are real-life consequences from all over the globe, that are quite frightening. I’d love to encourage the author to join with us and let him/her know that there is real solidarity to be had with MRFF’s support. This soldier has my utmost gratitude for speaking out, even anonymously, and sharing his/her story.

If I could say just one thing to this soldier, it would be this: “Telling your story is a courageous thing to do. You are setting the example for others to follow, and together we can fix this problem. Spirituality is a private matter, and your story is a supreme example of why this is true. Thank you for sharing this, and please encourage all of the other soldiers who were also in your situation to come forward and share their experiences. MRFF will be there for you.”

I think it’s time to give up the (Holy) ghost. Spiritual Fitness = Religion. You can’t make this mandatory.



Life is the result of our choices

Brava :D

Libertarian Freedom

-By my Blogger friend SANDYBERMAN@current.com

They don't CARE, Bill.... no more than any cultist would be willing to concede that the object of their devotion is nothing more than a "Elmer Gantry" or a "Lonesome Rhodes"..

They are blind to the fact that "E Pluribus Unem" does NOT mean "every man for himself".

• 
The problem with "Paulistas" ("libertarians”, "laissez faire capitalists”, “Teabaggers", “Objectivists", “Austrian Schoolers”, “Chicago Schoolers”, “Friedmanites” or whatever they deem to call themselves today)... is that they hinge their personal philosophies on the rantings of a lunatic-fringe Congressman from Texas (guess WHO) and a fifth rate novelist who's putrid worldview is anathema to every concept of civil society.

• They seem to think that civilization ends at the threshold of this "free market", which is just a another cynical euphemism for "jungle law". 
  


• They constantly reap the benefits provided them but refuse to be responsible enough to actually contribute to them, leeching off of the very system that affords them the opportunities to enrich themselves, while ironically accusing the least amongst us of doing the same. 
  


• They feel that those who might not have been as lucky as they (or as callous) should fend for themselves and be relegated to a life of illness, poverty and wretchedness simply because they are too avaricious to do their part as members of society.. to do their duties as Americans. 
 

• When it comes down to it, it's really is just about greed, nothing more, nothing less, and their flaccid insistence and phony attempts at loftiness.. that their 'philosophies' are a "moral" or "political" or even an "ideological" stand is merely a way for them to shrink from their own shame, that is, if they are still capable of such. 

  

• They are the dictionary definition of malignant narcissism, and they are only fooling themselves.

So here is my admonition to them all...

• You agree with the Koch Brothers and object to the concept of contributing to pay those hard workers who support us all??

• You don’t feel that you should pay your fair share as a member of this society???

FINE!

• Stay off the roads that our taxes contributed to, don't use electricity you can't generate yourself, don't go to the hospital, don't call the police, don't call the fire department, don't watch television.

• If you have kids (god forbid) don't send them to public schools (or really any schools for that matter) because they may get teachers who were educated at public and state universities.

• Don't go to art museums, don't walk on public sidewalks, don't use telephones, don't expect potable water to come out of your tap unless you got it from your own well, don't ever seek protection in a court of law.

• Enforce your own contracts... and while you're at it, dig your own sewers as well.

• In general, stand on your own.

• I don't want people like you to have anything to do with a single thing that the rest of us helped pay for.

• You only get to use whatever minuscule bit your own taxes might pay for, which reminds me, whatever you have in the bank, be sure to sign a waiver exempting you from being able to collect whatever portion of your money is insured by the FDIC.

• Grow your own food and raise your own beef and poultry so that you don't have to depend on the USDA to assure that you won't be poisoned, make your own medicines as well, because the USDA has to approve those, too.

• In other words, you ‘rugged individualists’... you"Ron Paul Libertarians"... put your ideology where your mouths are and stand 'tall'... ON YOUR OWN.

• I mean REALLY stand on your own... just like you incessantly preach that everyone else do.

• Otherwise, just shut the fuck up.


Life is the result of our choices

Blaving Social Network, like a Twitter Voice

Blaving Social Network, like a Twitter Voice Life is the result of our choices

YouTube - ‪UFOs Appear Over Phoenix Sandstorm On CNN! July 6, 2011‬‏

YouTube - ‪UFOs Appear Over Phoenix Sandstorm On CNN! July 6, 2011‬‏ Life is the result of our choices

My friend the Spanish Poet Isabel Serrato

Armonía-

Persigo la armonía,

me despojo de lo innecesario.

Translation to English

Harmony

I 

Follow  my Harmony

by  letting go

of the 

unnecessary

Isa-Poetisa

**** Life is the result of our choices

Is Consumption Our Nation's Ticking Bomb?

Before the industrial revolution humans only consumed what they needed, we planted, hunted, and fished for our own food. There was a respect for our planet and a sense of responsibility for our environment. Unfortunately, after much advancement in technology and discoveries, everything we consume comes from corporations, the superstores, internet, and supermarkets. Because we just buy the final product, we do not bother to think or even ask; where did this product come from? How many people were involved in the production and distribution of this product?

We spend our lives asking for more and disregarding our fellow man and the environment. Many nations are leaving their footprint of destruction and consumption without any knowledge of the consequences. Selfish leaders carelessly eliminate regulations and our country is no exception. 

According to research, United States’ footprint is one of the largest in our planet. Our waste and consumption has become obscene and insensitive. We may ask; “Why have we become so selfish and gross?” There are many factors involved in the outcome of our behaviors. United States citizens are contributing tremendously to the destruction of our planet and allowing being influence by others.

Americans buy and consume because some type of influence, from TV, Radio, advertisement, propaganda, friends, family, culture of entitlement, to the internet where people now imitate other consumers. According to experts, by the time a high school student leaves school, he or she would have watched 350,000.00 TV commercials”. We are programmed for life to be part of an over-consuming life style. 

It is very disturbing to come to the realization that our government is not protecting our youth and has not been doing their job for a very long time. The Government eliminates regulations allowing corporations to implant our brain with advertisement and false propaganda and the idea of how necessary it is to shop in order to be happy. 

Furthermore, politicians only use the environment when campaigning or as a rhetoric. It is apparent that we definitely need food, shelter, water, transportation, clothing, medicine, and many other necessary products for our daily lives. However, we over buy and over compensate with “beautiful things”. The idea is “If I have a bigger car and a better house that means I must be better” Our values are becoming contradictory, while we proclaim to be a democratic society we are slaves of our own greed. We should start looking in to our heart and question our priorities. 

It is the duty of the people to protest, complain, and be involved in all of the decisions and regulations that affects our selves and the world around us. Our planet is very large, for that reason we most think of the consequences of our destructive behavior and act accordingly. We are part of this beautiful planet Earth and it does not matter our background, heritage, language, race, color, gender, etc…

It is important that we all unite for the most important cause affecting our lives. We must change the linear society of extraction, production, consumption, and waste. We are in a planet that functions in circles and it must be protected. 

We must take our government from the hands of greedy corporations and start a national campaign of re-education and information. The consequences are developing in front of our eyes and we should act we a sense of urgency. The future is near and the time is ticking. Tick-tock-tick-tock 

Brava 


References: 
The Overspent America by, Julie B. Schort. (Book)
The Ecology of Commerce by, Paul Hawken. (Book)
The Story of Stuff by, Annie Leonard. (Video)
Linear Society by, Paul Connect. (Video)
World watch Institute. (Article transforming culture Blogs)
Life is the result of our choices