Religious freedom on the brink | Secular News Daily

More of the_idiocy, I feel a little rude and somewhat intolerant continually berating the religious…but we just want to be left alone. Can’t they just stay the fuck out of our lives and our politics. I don’t go to their churches, no one is talking about disallowing personal belief in sky daddy’s,…

Religious freedom on the brink | Secular News Daily.

| Moral Morass: Religious Right Groups Love To Judge Your Ethics – But How Are Their Own?

| Moral Morass: Religious Right Groups Love To Judge Your Ethics – But How Are Their Own?.

How to confuse a moral compass : Nature News & Comment

This is the second piece of research in this vein I have read today. How to manipulate people 101. Both came from within the, if not discredited, dubious, psychology faculties.

So, people study how to manipulate people to get them to comply with their wishes. Hot tip, they lag about 5000 years behind religion, or perhaps it’s merely an extension of religious doctrine.

Regardless, to judge moral conformity one must have a founding, if  unstated, premise as to what constitutes moral, or preferred,  behaviour.

It would seem that the behavioural rationalists didn’t die out with Skinner, merely co-opted psychology is support of an authoritarian dogma as a tool of social control.

As an ‘ology’ psych continues to conflate ideology and behavioural reformation.

Of course the prospect that behavioual modification is achieved through education and self awareness seems alien to these people.

How to confuse a moral compass : Nature News & Comment.

Christian End-Time Fantasies Endanger Us All

http://www.politicususa.com/christian-end-time-fantasies-endanger.html#comment-209826

How Thousands of Clandestine Operatives Are Fueling a Shadow War | Alternet

How Thousands of Clandestine Operatives Are Fueling a Shadow War | Alternet.

Masculinity and Mass Violence | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches

Masculinity and Mass Violence | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches.

Why Are Secular Businesses Claiming Religious Rights? – Wendy Kaminer – The Atlantic

Oh yay…the continuing development of a theocratic legislature.

 

“His ruling is an initial salvo in what may well be prolonged litigation, but it represents an ominous legal trend: Religious freedom is morphing into religious power. If the rights of diverse employees in a secular enterprise are subject to the beliefs of their employers, then religious people will not simply be laws unto themselves; they’ll determine, in part, laws governing the rest of us.”

via http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/15/i-for-one-welcome-our-new-holy-corporate-overlords/

via Why Are Secular Businesses Claiming Religious Rights? – Wendy Kaminer – The Atlantic.

Right-Wing Rhetoric Heats Up, As Talk of Nazis Enters the Conversation | Alternet

“if we don’t really use all our bullets now, we will have no fight five years from now. It’ll be over. This it. We’ve got to die on this hill. Most people say, oh no, this isn’t serious enough. Its just this little issue. But it’s the millimeter… its that line that we cross. I’m sorry to say that I see these parallels. I really wish I didn’t.”

via Right-Wing Rhetoric Heats Up, As Talk of Nazis Enters the Conversation | Alternet.

The Catholic Idea of Dignity and the Fantasy of Perfection « Choice in Dying

This is what makes the new atheism new. We are not prepared to remain silent when idiots like Njue speak out so absurdly for their religious ideals, ideals which harm and imprison people in a conceptual bondage that only words can break. So we must use our words, and seek to free those who are still immured within the boundaries of ancient superstitions. And the first to be freed must be the women, because of all those imprisoned by religion, the bars on women’s cages are the most resistant to the acids of criticism, and it is men who keep them locked and double-locked — men like the bishops of Kenya, who can think of no other way to defend human dignity, than to perpetuate women’s slavery to biology on the palpably absurd grounds that the use of contraceptives is to abuse human dignity in one’s own person.

via The Catholic Idea of Dignity and the Fantasy of Perfection « Choice in Dying.

Irrational Rationalists | The Crommunist Manifesto

Who’s who in the community? An important question when considering group cohesion going forward. Moreover, as I remain convinced that there are some ‘spiritual warriors’ among the hoi poli of atheist/secularist/humanist,… movement who exist merely as a divisive force. I think, much of the misogynistic hype, of the last year or so, was fermented by just such people. Perhaps I’m wrong.

Irrational Rationalists | The Crommunist Manifesto.

The US Christian Right is Pushing Anti-Gay, Anti-Women Policies Abroad | Alternet

…the work of the Christian Right is distinctly a neocolonial venture.

via The US Christian Right is Pushing Anti-Gay, Anti-Women Policies Abroad | Alternet.

| Rev. Sam Rodriguez: Team Romney and the Religious Right’s Hispanic Pied Piper

| Rev. Sam Rodriguez: Team Romney and the Religious Right’s Hispanic Pied Piper.

This German circumcision ban is an affront to Jewish and Muslim identity | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian

This German circumcision ban is an affront to Jewish and Muslim identity | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian.

| General Nuttiness: FRC Hires Islam-Bashing Ex-Army Officer For Top Position

| General Nuttiness: FRC Hires Islam-Bashing Ex-Army Officer For Top Position.

Apache HTTP Server Test Page powered by CentOS

Oooh, that’s changed. Shine, another KONY me thinks.

Apache HTTP Server Test Page powered by CentOS.

Right-wing Europe is getting scary « The Daily News Brief

Right-wing Europe is getting scary « The Daily News Brief.

The religious supply chain

I want to buy a table. Lets assume that table is to be crafted from a single tree. The tree is harvested from a land owners property and sold for $100. Being a good churchman the farmer, like the rest of the supply chain in this example, tithes 10% or ten dollars.

The tree is transported to the mill at a cost of $20, two dollars is tithed. At the mill (given materials make up 40% of cost, labour 50% and profit 10%) the $120 tree is converted to timber a labour cost of $150 is added of which $15 is tithed total of $270 to which a 10% margin is added, $27 of which $3 (ish) is tithed. The timber goes to market at $297.

The woodworker buys the timber to be used in the manufacture of the table. It is transported  for $20, two dollars is tithed. Arriving at the factory at a total cost of $317 the craftsperson starts work adding $396 dollars of labour of which $40 (ish) is tithed. Cost $713 to which a 10% margin is added, $71 and another $7 is tithed.

A furniture shop buys the table for $784, it is transported for $20, a $2 tithe is paid. The furniture shop adds a labour cost of $784, from which $78 is tithed, totaling $1568 to which a 10% margin is added $157 of which $16 (ish) is tithed. The table is put on display with a price tag of $1745 (including transport ($20) and another $2 tithe). +10% GST (goods and services tax)

Total tithe: $10+$2+$15+$3+$2+$40+$7+$2+$78+$16+$2=$177

To make it fair, the non religious should be GST exempt!

That, my friends, is prosperity gospel. A 10.14% church tax on everything from the religious supply chain. I’m an atheist and I object!

Our economy in Australia is roughly $1trillion. 22.5% of Australians are non religious so, assuming proportionate representation within the supply chain, 77.5% of our economy is religious. That is the religious economy here is valued at $775billion. the religious tax component of this is (10.5%) $81.375 billion (untaxed, direct transfer to churches) add the $30billion our ostensibly secular government hands over and there is good reason to be angry.

It is clearly time to tax the churches.

Know who you are buying from!

Six Reasons We Can’t Change The Future Without Progressive Religion | | AlterNet

Just more apologist batshittery, I’ll call it bullshit.

Six Reasons We Can’t Change The Future Without Progressive Religion | | AlterNet.

Become like little children? « Recovering Agnostic

Become like little children? « Recovering Agnostic.

Christian Patriarchy: Fear, fear, FEAR

Christian Patriarchy: Fear, fear, FEAR.