[+/-] Happy "Use Telepathy to Communicate with the Invisible Sky Daddy" Day

Today, May 1st, is the National Day Of Prayer, a day designated by the United States Congress as a day when all Americans regardless of faith are asked to come together and pray in their own way. "Regardless of faith" here means "in keeping with the Judeo-Christian tradition," for if you volunteer to help out with events in your area, you're only welcome if you sign the following: A volunteer must be an evangelical Christian who has a personal relationship with Christ. I acknowledge that I am working for the Lord Jesus Christ and the furthering of His Work on earth and agree to perform my work with the highest standard of Christian faith.

In other words, you are not welcome if you are a Jew, Muslim, Catholic, Mormon, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Pagan or Wiccan.

You know what these groups should do? Donate blood. Seriously.

A few years ago the National Day of Reason was founded to counter this nonsense. It purposefully falls on the same date as the National Day of Prayer. The goal of this effort is to celebrate reason - a concept all Americans can support - and to raise public awareness about the persistent threat to religious liberty posed by government intrusion into the private sphere of worship.

Please join we nontheistic Americans (including freethinkers, humanists, atheists, agnostics, and deists), along with many traditionally religious allies who view such government-sanctioned sectarianism as unduly exclusionary, in giving blood today.

[+/-] T-Rex DNA shows bird lineage

It turns out that T-Rex was just a big chicken. Of course, Jesus probably planted that DNA evidence to test the faith of nonbelievers.

[+/-] Even gawd hates xtian rock

It's true. I hope the victims quickly heal from their injuries and see the light of rationality.

[+/-] Study: Bush officials lied 935 times

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations finds that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

My initial reaction to reading the study: "Only 935?" Snarky, yes, but honestly it was my first thought.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both. Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

[+/-] What would MLK say if he were a nonbeliever?

Yesterday I reread the text of Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail and realized that it has application toward today's public debates over religion. My edits are [like this]:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the [religious] moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the [Atheist's] great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the [Christian fundamentalist] or the [Islamic fanatic], but the [religious] moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of [writing and suing for enforcement of your rights]"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the [nonbeliever] to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the [religious] moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the [religious] moderate would understand that the present tension [between believers and nonbelievers] is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the [nonbeliever] passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent [writing and free speech] are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Richard Dawkins has made the case that religious moderates make the world safe for fundamentalists, by promoting faith as a virtue and by enforcing an overly pious respect for religion.

If you doubt the comparison, consider that:

• Where once blacks were prohibited from holding public office, atheists still are.
• Where once blacks were considered second class citizens, atheists still are.
• Where employment discrimination against blacks once was the norm, it is still common to discriminate against nonbelievers.
• Hate crimes are committed against nonbelivers, not just against ethnic minorities.

[+/-] Happy Religious Freedom Day

Happy Religious Freedom Day

[+/-] Sensitive Guantánamo Bay manual leaked

Wired reports:

A never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002....

"What strikes me is the level of detail for handling all kind of situations, from admission to barbers and burials," says Jamil Dakwar, advocacy director of the ACLU's Human Rights program. Dakwar was in Guantánamo last week for a military-commission hearing....

Dakwar sees hints of Abu Ghraib in a section instructing guards to use dogs to intimidate prisoners. He also raises concerns over a section on the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, which indicates that some prisoners were hidden from Red Cross representatives.

This manual directly confirms charges made more than three years ago by the Red Cross.

[+/-] Wear a Guy Fawkes mask on Election Day

Good evening, America. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine: the security, the familiar, the tranquility, repetition. I enjoy them as much as anyone. But in the spirit of mourning over the death of Habeas Corpus, I thought we could mark this occasion by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.

And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance, crusades and torture. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. They promised you order, they promised you peace, and all they demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Tonight I seek to end that silence to remind this country of what it has forgotten: that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.

So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow this election day to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to vote beside me wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, and together we shall give them an Election Day next November that shall never, ever be forgot.

[This is a repost from last year, but still a good idea.]