A friendly message from your friendly Christians (and from the creators of the creationism museum)
If you don’t matter to God, you don’t matter to ANYBODY!
Posted in Religion on April 14, 2009 by Thomas NiklPosted in Religion on March 29, 2009 by Thomas Nikl
If Atheists Ruled the World
More Christian Fun (in the form of Atheist’s quoting real quotes from Christian web forums)
Posted in Religion on March 29, 2009 by Thomas Nikl
The Atheist Delusion
Please do enjoy some Christian Satire.
Some Truths About Guantanamo Bay (by Lawrence Wilkerson)
Posted in Republicans on March 18, 2009 by Thomas NiklI thought this article was a really good read on Gitmo, Torture, and Cheney. Here are some snippets:
The second dimension that is largely unreported is that several in the U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.
In addition, it has never come to my attention in any persuasive way–from classified information or otherwise–that any intelligence of significance was gained from any of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay other than from the handful of undisputed ring leaders and their companions, clearly no more than a dozen or two of the detainees, and even their alleged contribution of hard, actionable intelligence is intensely disputed in the relevant communities such as intelligence and law enforcement.
This is perhaps the most astounding truth of all, carefully masked by men such as Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney in their loud rhetoric–continuing even now in the case of Cheney–about future attacks thwarted, resurgent terrorists, the indisputable need for torture and harsh interrogation and for secret prisons and places such as GITMO.
As to twisted logic: “Cheney said at least 61 of the inmates who were released from Guantanamo (sic) during the Bush administration…have gone back into the business of being terrorists.” So, the fact that the Bush administration was so incompetent that it released 61 terrorists, is a valid criticism of the Obama administration? Or was this supposed to be an indication of what percentage of the still-detained men would likely turn to terrorism if released in future? Or was this a revelation that men kept in detention such as those at GITMO–even innocent men–would become terrorists if released because of the harsh treatment meted out to them at GITMO? Seven years in jail as an innocent man might do that for me. Hard to tell.
Bush’s Torture Intelligence
Posted in Republicans on March 16, 2009 by Thomas Nikl“I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop…. I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent…wasted a lot of their time and led to several false red-alerts being placed in the US,”
- Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, one of the high-value terrorists tortured by president George W. Bush, to the ICRC.
I hate to say it… but this is the argument many people make against torture, including John McCain, that it’s basically a waste of time. And I know, personally, if I were being tortured, I would tell you anything you wanted to know. ANYTHING. And if you thought I was the head honcho of Al Qaeda, you’d probably spend a lot of time looking into what I was saying.
I am not defending Khaled SheikhMohammed or anything he has said or done… but this makes perfect sense to me, just as things former Nazi’s have said make perfect sense to me. You don’t have to like someone, or agree with someone, to believe that some of the words that come out of their mouth harbor truth.
Republicans may have to rethink their Ayn Rand boner (part II- Religion)
Posted in Religion, Republicans on March 13, 2009 by Thomas NiklI am really starting to like Ayn Rand and I have not even read Atlas Shrugged yet. Whether I support her economic philisophies is yet to be seen, but so far, she’s spot on with abortion and religion! And this is the person who the GOP is now turning into a demigod? Nice. Here’s Rand on religion:
…if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking…. the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind. [Atlas Shrugged]
Playboy: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?
Ayn Rand: Qua religion, no – in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very – how should I say it? – dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith. [Playboy interview with Ayn Rand]
The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind.
To rest one’s case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one’s enemies- that one has no rational arguments to offer.
Republican’s may have to rethink their Ayn Rand boner (part I- Abortion)
Posted in Religion, Republicans on March 13, 2009 by Thomas NiklBob Cesca points out Ayn Rand’s thoughts on abortion
An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?
["Of Living Death," published in The Objectivist newsletter, 1968]
Sean Hannity – A Christian’s Christian
Posted in Religion, Republicans on March 12, 2009 by Thomas Nikl“If we capture an enemy combatant in the battlefield — or we can use Osama bin Laden — who may have information about a pending attack. You know what, I don’t have any problem taking his head sticking it underwater and scaring the living daylights out of him and making him think we’re drowning him, and I’m a Christian,”
- Sean Hannity.
I think you need to review some of your core Christian values.
Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican) by Frank Schaeffer
Posted in Republicans on March 10, 2009 by Thomas NiklA great read – check it out here. Please do enjoy some exerpts:
In the mid 1980s I left the Religious Right, after I realized just how very anti-American they are, (the theme I explore in my book Crazy For God). They wanted America to fail in order to prove they were right about America’s “moral decline.” Soon after McCain lost in 2000 I re-registered as an independent in disgust with W. Bush. But I still respected many Republicans. Not today.
Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today’s wholly negative Republican Party. And can you picture the gentlemanly and always polite Ronald Reagan, endorsing a radio hate-jock slob who crudely mocked a man with Parkinson’s and who now says he wants an American president to fail?!
President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm he inherited
When your new leader Rush Limbaugh calls for President Obama to fail he’s calling for more flag-draped coffins. Limbaugh is the new “Hanoi Jane.”
You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.
Seriously, it’s a great five minute read. Enjoy!
Nancy Reagan: “I’m very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research”
Posted in Religion, Republicans on March 9, 2009 by Thomas Nikl
Nancy Reagan, wife of late President Ronald Reagan – Republican Demigod – has praised Obama’s lifting of Stem Cell Research Grant restrictions. So there is at least one sane person on the GOP aisle. She said:
“I’m very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research,” she wrote in a statement released shortly after Obama reversed the Bush administration limits. “These new rules will now make it possible for scientists to move forward. I urge researchers to make use of the opportunities that are available to them and to do all they can to fulfill the promise that stem cell research offers.”
