proudtobegodfree: It certainly wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

proudtobegodfree:

It certainly wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

(Source: yesimanatheist)

eximago: howimetyourpadre: msnbc: NYT:  CRANSTON, R.I. — She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years. Image: Gretchen Ertl / The New York Times People like her annoy the shit out of me. They weren’t forcing her to pray, she didn’t even have to acknowlege it was there but she goes and gets her panties up her ass and ruins a school tradition and takes away something that the people it was directed to found comfort and solace in. Same with the people who want to take “in god we trust” off the money, leave it alone, no ones forcing you to look at it. Leave it alone, I am so sick of hearing about stupid lawsuits like this.  Heavy sigh… As Jessica has stated, anyone who goes to that school and has to see that prayer everyday and isn’t a Christian gets to see that her school is a Christian one. The administration are Christians. Her fellow students are Christians. They get to see the prayer and be reminded constantly that they’re not the same as the rest of the school and that they’re ideas, beliefs, and passions aren’t welcome there— they’re not welcome there. It is her school too. A public school. That is, a school that’s funded by the government. By tax payers. The school broke the law when it put it up 49 years ago, and the “tradition” should never have started. It’s unconstitutional to have the prayer up which is exactly why she won the case. Public schools are not the places for religious ritual in any form. If those kids who are heartbroken to see a prayer go, then they can go to a religious private school that doesn’t use tax payer dollars and have all the prayer they want.

eximago:

howimetyourpadre:

msnbc:

NYT: 

CRANSTON, R.I. — She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

Image: Gretchen Ertl / The New York Times

People like her annoy the shit out of me. They weren’t forcing her to pray, she didn’t even have to acknowlege it was there but she goes and gets her panties up her ass and ruins a school tradition and takes away something that the people it was directed to found comfort and solace in. Same with the people who want to take “in god we trust” off the money, leave it alone, no ones forcing you to look at it. Leave it alone, I am so sick of hearing about stupid lawsuits like this. 

Heavy sigh…

As Jessica has stated, anyone who goes to that school and has to see that prayer everyday and isn’t a Christian gets to see that her school is a Christian one. The administration are Christians. Her fellow students are Christians. They get to see the prayer and be reminded constantly that they’re not the same as the rest of the school and that they’re ideas, beliefs, and passions aren’t welcome there— they’re not welcome there. It is her school too. A public school. That is, a school that’s funded by the government. By tax payers. The school broke the law when it put it up 49 years ago, and the “tradition” should never have started. It’s unconstitutional to have the prayer up which is exactly why she won the case.

Public schools are not the places for religious ritual in any form. If those kids who are heartbroken to see a prayer go, then they can go to a religious private school that doesn’t use tax payer dollars and have all the prayer they want.

reasonablysunny: waffleguppies: bessonnitsa: panadonia: This sign pisses me off. Just because I can live without religion I’m gonna end up like Stalin? Wow…just wow My question is, when will they have a billboard up with all the people who have done evil in the name of God?  Btw, I’m not claiming to be atheist, nor am I claiming to be a Christian.   So by this logic, I’m going to end up like Stalin, or even worse, Hitler? Yeah, sorry Alabama, not gonna scare me into religion. Stalin imagined a world with no religion.Stalin caused the deaths of millions of people.Therefore all atheists are mass-murderers. This is a brilliant example of affirming the consequent, a piece of fallacy employed worldwide with people who replaced their brains with cream cheese shortly before joining the advertisement industry. It’s a great tactic because it creates ominous and dramatic statements that worry people who aren’t that used to critical thinking, while proving to everyone who is that you shouldn’t have been let loose with a crayon, let alone a sixty-foot billboard. It’s an utter fallacy to say that the actions of one atheist prove atheism is evil. It’s also an utter fallacy to say that the actions of one religious person prove religion is evil. Religious people and atheists make these sorts of statements, sell books predicating this sort of argument, and it’s udder twaddle. It particularly bothers me - and I am a Christian, I should mention - when Christians say these sorts of things, as if a world filled with Christians would automatically be a functioning utopia. But of course that’s utter twaddle, too. For one thing, there are entire books of the Bible, written within the first hundred years of the church’s existence, written about (among other things) the need to resolve disputes among believers, not just about theological issues - we’re talking lawsuits and affairs, here. And in the gospels, the disciples were still bickering like schoolgirls while Jesus was around, while he was standing, like, ten feet away. The whole experience of my life indicates that the problem with any community, no matter what the ideas it was founded on, boils down to people. People are just people. And even though I believe that God can and does change people, I don’t know anybody He’s ever made perfect, and that includes Christian authors. As my friend Jon to me once, when I was complaining about church, “Of course Christians are what’s wrong with the church! Who did you think it was going to be, Christ?” It is indeed not necessarily right to say that the actions of one religious person prove religion is evil. But to prove that a person did evil things because of religion is an entirely different matter.  Stalin did evil things not because he was an atheist. We can’t say the same for Religion and the Crusades, though. Or 9/11. Or most hate crimes against the LGBTQ community, etc. 

reasonablysunny:

waffleguppies:

bessonnitsa:

panadonia:

This sign pisses me off. Just because I can live without religion I’m gonna end up like Stalin? Wow…just wow

My question is, when will they have a billboard up with all the people who have done evil in the name of God? 

Btw, I’m not claiming to be atheist, nor am I claiming to be a Christian.  

So by this logic, I’m going to end up like Stalin, or even worse, Hitler? Yeah, sorry Alabama, not gonna scare me into religion.

Stalin imagined a world with no religion.
Stalin caused the deaths of millions of people.
Therefore all atheists are mass-murderers.

This is a brilliant example of affirming the consequent, a piece of fallacy employed worldwide with people who replaced their brains with cream cheese shortly before joining the advertisement industry. It’s a great tactic because it creates ominous and dramatic statements that worry people who aren’t that used to critical thinking, while proving to everyone who is that you shouldn’t have been let loose with a crayon, let alone a sixty-foot billboard.

It’s an utter fallacy to say that the actions of one atheist prove atheism is evil. It’s also an utter fallacy to say that the actions of one religious person prove religion is evil. Religious people and atheists make these sorts of statements, sell books predicating this sort of argument, and it’s udder twaddle.

It particularly bothers me - and I am a Christian, I should mention - when Christians say these sorts of things, as if a world filled with Christians would automatically be a functioning utopia. But of course that’s utter twaddle, too. For one thing, there are entire books of the Bible, written within the first hundred years of the church’s existence, written about (among other things) the need to resolve disputes among believers, not just about theological issues - we’re talking lawsuits and affairs, here. And in the gospels, the disciples were still bickering like schoolgirls while Jesus was around, while he was standing, like, ten feet away.

The whole experience of my life indicates that the problem with any community, no matter what the ideas it was founded on, boils down to people. People are just people. And even though I believe that God can and does change people, I don’t know anybody He’s ever made perfect, and that includes Christian authors.

As my friend Jon to me once, when I was complaining about church, “Of course Christians are what’s wrong with the church! Who did you think it was going to be, Christ?”

It is indeed not necessarily right to say that the actions of one religious person prove religion is evil. But to prove that a person did evil things because of religion is an entirely different matter. 

Stalin did evil things not because he was an atheist.

We can’t say the same for Religion and the Crusades, though. Or 9/11. Or most hate crimes against the LGBTQ community, etc.