God - The Abuser

Over at Dan the Debunker's blog, I read this little exchange in the 'Ignotheists' post;


Dr. Mabuse: "Is "lying for Christ" a valid reason for lying?"

Dan: "Maybe. Is it a valid reason to lie to save a woman from an abusive husband?"


I couldn't help but think that Dan is comparing Christ to an abusive husband.

There are plenty of similarities there, I must admit, though I'm sure Dan didn't mean it this way.



God: He wouldn't send you to Hell if He didn't love you so Damned much!

EDIT: Dan has since explained that he does NOT see Christ/God as an abusive husband; just thought I'd clear that up.

What is Shared Space?

Shared Space is a philosophy of movement made famous by the late Hans Monderman, a pioneer in the field of transportation and urban design.

The basic premise is that modern attempts at controlling traffic behaviour through the use of signage, barriers, signals, lights and other instructions are counter-productive and, in fact, lead to people feeling paying less attention to what they are doing - this results in more accidents, more delay and the death of the street as a place.

The alternative is to remove the signs, make no distinction between street spaces and allow users to navigate the space based on eye contact and common sense.

Of course, this mainly applies in areas where auto usage is fairly low, but is surprisingly effective on busy streets too.

The following links are good places to learn about these things:

Wiki - Shared Space

Shared Space.org

Naked Streets


Streets used to be places where people interacted, where lives were lived and the heart of the community was found. Now we have roads and all they do is get us from A to B. Shared Space is a way of reclaiming the streets and finding a balance that does not favour one mode (cars) over any other.

Anyway, that's what Shared Space is.

Cheers,

Atheism IS a religion...and so is not stamp collecting!

You heard it here first:

Dan said;

"If this group of 'stamp-collecting is stupid, so I don't do it' crowd gather and organize themselves and promote their 'agenda'....then yes they are now a religion or belief system."

There you have it people. Not collecting stamps is a religion, if you encourage others not to collect stamps too. Brilliant.

The contortions some people are willing to twist themselves up in to avoid being wrong on some things are amazing.

I'm actually pretty stunned

Is atheism a religion?

No.






That was easy.




Now where's my copy of the Holy God Delusion? Ah, here it is;
"Our Dawkins, who art in England; Richard be thy name.
Thy book-sales come, thy talks be fun; on television and the radio.
Give us this day our daily blog, on Pharyngula and Raytractors; as we ridicule those who post comments against us.

R'Amen"

Raytractors

I just wanted to put up a post of support for the Raytractors Revolution - Atheist Central is something of a ghost town these days (and it's only 4 days into the strike).

Good work guys

Religious Inequity

One of the questions I never see answered by Christian (or an other) apologists is that of inequity.

Off the top of my head:

1. Where you're born determines your cultural and historic background and will, inevitably, shape the decisions you make
   
2. Who your parents are is a key factor in how you develop and what ideologies you are exposed to (some people have no parents and so honouring thy father & mother is a cinch)
   
3. When you live becomes a factor if you're a pre-conquistador South American and the Christian God is the right one or you're living today and Quetzalcoatl is the Supreme Being
4. What sins you commit is, apparently, irrelevant according to Mr. Comfort, so wishing you had your mate's iPod is as bad as genocide
5. What age you die at determines how much time you had to hear the correct message
6. The determination of Missionaries will determine whether you hear the Gospel or not for many people
7. What your mental capacity is will determine your ability to comprehend the arguments for and against various gods
8. Infinate punishment for finite transgressions
9. The sins of the father being passed on to the nth generation
10. Being turned off from religion because of fundies

Ok, there's 10 inequities in the Christian faith. Without invoking God's mysterious 'Plan' and bearing in mind that everyone has free will, how can God apply the same laws to everyone equally in such an unequal world?

First Post

As always, the first post of a new blog has to say something about how "I'm busy and I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute..." - which is true.

There is no real reason for me to have this blog, other than an experiment to see what all the fuss is about and it'll help me manage the blogs I do visit.

If you are the one person in the world who has read this text; say 'hi' because you are unique.

Ok, I'm off to think of something interesting to say in the future.

Regards,