Global leaders call for a major shift to decriminalize drugs

I'm not a drug user, but this makes me happy from a sociological perspective. The decriminalization of drugs is going to rape the "gansta" thug culture. Crime in the inner-cities will go down drastsically, most crime is CAUSED by drugs being illegal (creating a black market). I'm a strong believer that drug addicts should be treated, not thrown into prison...which only exasperates their rebellious nature. Doing meth, heroin, cocaine, etc. are dangerous as hell, but so is jumping over a bunch of cars on a motorcycle. That isn't to compare the two, but both are dangerous, and both being illegal or not, would still occur. If being a daredevil was made illegal, it would become the forbidden fruit for the rebellious, and more would probably engage in that behavior. The same is said for why many teenagers drink alcohol, i.e. alcohol is the forbidden fruit for them. Decriminalizing drugs will remove the problem of drug dealers and the forbidden fruit aspect of drug-use. With drug dealers out of the picture, you wont have some asshole pushing drugs onto kids. Another benefit to the decriminalization of drugs is that a drug-users will be more likely to seek after help, without worrying about the consequences of doing so. Just my two cents :)

Dangerous drug-use is a medical and sociological problem, not a criminal problem.  

ItchiroCannotDie: "Why aren't YOU angry at God?" (video + response)

I've often wondered this myself. But then I think: When a threatening person is present, people tend to get angry or submissive. Christians are submissive out of fear, and many admit it; e.g. "I have the fear of God in me". Christians are afraid to hate God because they believe they can read their mind. Perhaps some people are "atheists" to 'get back at God'....but those people aren't true atheists (for obvious reasons). For a long time, as a Christian, I wanted it to be true, and I was looking for any possible way to justify my belief logically— fortunately I wasn't able to. A good Christian goes with the flow, a bad one questions their beliefs....and many bad Christians end up turning to atheism because of it. 

Feel sorry for atheists?

Many people feel sorry for atheists. For me, this is ironic as hell (npi), because I actually feel sorry for believers. Whenever I see a believer confronted with opposing views, they always seem to have that 'deer in the headlights look' in their eyes. For example, my sophomore year at college I remember that very look in a biology class when the teacher talked about evolution (and he made little jabs at creationism). I also feel sorry for believers because I believe they are missing out on a lot, that their beliefs instill fear, fear for the sake of the controlling religion. Anyways, this post isn't going to be that particularly long, but what do you think? Should atheists feel sorry for believers in this way? Why should believers feel sorry for atheists?

In reality, I don't think many believers (if any) actually feel sorry for atheists; they say that they feel sorry for atheists as a way of putting them down without directly attacking them. 

My first run-in with an atheist as a child

If you follow this blog, then you know that I used to be a Christian. This story is set back in middle school, in the gym locker room. Everyone was a Christian, or so we thought. For me, I didn't really grasp that there were non-Christians, at least in the United States. It turns out, we had an atheist amongst us in gym class. Once we found this out, rumors started to spread that he worshiped the devil and that when a cross touched his forehead it burnt it. At the time, I believed this atheist (and all atheists) was pure evil, and I didn't want anything to do with him (afraid that the evil inside of him would rub off on me). The kid was troubled, so it wasn't hard for us to associate him with evil; but what is interesting is how we associated atheists with being Satan worshipers, almost reflexively. It's hard to pin down specific memories (this was a long long time ago), but I remember that the common narrative of the time, at least in my community, was that atheists were evil. Obviously the association with atheists and Satan worshipers is still commonly made today, but not nearly as often, which really reflects the social progress atheists have made over the years. Yes, of course many children even today would believe atheists are devil worshipers, but this is probably only typical of those few children who are still indoctrinated (church attendance is much lower than it was 15-20 years ago).

Moral of the story - You don't know how wrong you are until you do....isn't that obvious? Well, it wasn't at the time. Us kids shouldn't have alienated that atheist kid—but, unfortunately we didn't know better—we weren't open to the possibility that we could be wrong. For those that are wondering, no, the atheist kid wasn't beat-up or anything like that, and we didn't harp on him for that long.

In short, don't hate a person because of the beliefs they possess, unless those beliefs motivate them to harm others. 

"The times they are a changin'" -Bob Dylan

Ironic spam in my blog's email

In my blog's email (atheistpnet@yahoo(dot)com) there was this highly ironic spam.

(Dear Truly God sent)


Please excuse this humble email if it offends your sensibilities, but I have
no other means to contact you. I cannot talk on the telephone, so I did a
search for your email address, which I found on the international business
directorate email data search. I am Mrs Barbara Brown, 52 years old woman, A
Christian widow who is dying of oesophageal cancers.


Recently, My Doctor told me that I would not last for the period of Seven
Months due to cancer problem, Yes I have been touched by God to donate an
amount of money Inherited from my late husband Smith Brown to you for the
good work of God on Charity" People in the Street and Helping the Orphanage
which my husband derived this money from his vast Estates and Investment in
capital market, I decided to WILL/donate the sum of USD$8.5 Million to you 30
Percent of the total money is for your personal use While 70% of the money
will go to charity" people in the street and helping the orphanage.
I will give you the contact of Bank Manager for the releasing of the specific
amount, my personal Referrence Number Law/WILL/ 9834520012. I will appreciate
your utmost honest in this matter until the task is accomplished as I don't
want anything that will jeopardize my last wish.
With Regards,
Mrs. Barbara Brown


The funny thing about all of this is that this is exactly the way religions work: They make big promises in an attempt to screw people over. Whoever sent me this bogus email would love nothing more than to suck my bank account dry. I would be willing to bet that the person that made this email is not an atheist. Not saying all atheists are perfect, but statistically it is much more likely that that is the case. This is a great metaphor, and sadly, many gullible people, like with religion, buy into the scam, and are sucked dry spiritually and financially by someone making big empty promises. I would be curious as to know the % of believers that fall for email scams vs. atheists; in other words, how many atheists fall for these scams vs. believers. 

No-one created everything (an atheist's response to GodLowDown)

"The big bang must require an external, transcendent cause"

Why? His argument, in reality, does nothing to prove the existence of anything.

"because logically the cause of the Big Bang must transcend the elements of the known universe, which includes space-time"

Why only the "known universe"? And why do these things need to have been created by intelligent forces? Do we even know that energy can be created? What if energy is eternal? What if over time, energy created its own complexity; because that is essentially what we are talking about here...complexity is what makes a human a human, not the physical matter itself. We don't know the exact process responsible for all of this, and that is exactly where it ends. Darkness is darkness, theists call it "God", atheists call it "unknown". Theists pretend to understand things they can't, and this closes them off to marveling and thinking about the big questions. Atheists are free to think about the big questions openly, theists are free to think "God did it".

Apparently words can do things, underlying the word 'God' is a bunch of smoke and mirrors...nothing about this supposed being is actually known, NOTHING! GodLowDown claims that God doesn't need a cause, blah blah. The universe needs a cause, but God doesn't, right...Again, nothing is known about this God, if such a thing exists, it would have to be very complex, and would have to had come about by SOME process (otherwise God wouldn't exist). God is magical, and magic and ignorance go together so nicely (it gives the human worldview some stability and euphoria). It is much more logically coherent to believe that intelligence came about from the unintelligent evolution of self-replicating patterns (not just biological). Playing the devil's advocate, let's say that God does exist, how does this guy know that God doesn't have a creator? All his video proved is how warped theist logic is. Atheists will always win the debate until the existence of God is proven (which, I believe, won't happen for another eternity or two). Atheists are claiming that God doesn't exists, and theists are unable to prove that God does exist. Atheists win by default, and both sides know it, they just love argue. Theists like GodLowDown need to study up on the concept of faith, and understand that it is not about proving anything.

Atheist: "How did all this complexity come about?"

Theist: "Oh God did it"

Atheist: "How can you possibly know that?"

Theist: "How else can we explain this complexity?"

Atheist: "How can we explain an unknown with another unknown?"

Theist: "With God"

Atheist's inner-monologue: "I'm sure glad my crib wasn't pained with lead paint"

Theist's inner-monologue: "And another atheist defeated, I'm so great"

Impossible to worship God

In this post I'm going to argue that even if atheists are wrong, and God does exist, it is impossible to worship him—and such a thing might as well not even be labeled 'God'. To clarify, there is zero evidence that God exists, only strong evidence to suggest that humans would personify their ignorance—as they do with all things they don't understand—such as when they get angry at inanimate objects like cars and computers (but that's neither here nor there).  

I believe that God is impossible to worship, this is because what God is and where God is located is unknown. Fortunately (for them) theists do not see the problem with this. But think about it, how can a being be a target of worship without at least some information regarding the actual being being available—any sort of description of physiology or at the very least, location. How is it possible to know what it is that you are worshiping if you don't at least have some information about this being? Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. worship the actions of a god and have no information about the actual being. The problem here is that they are getting ahead of themselves: the being must first be known of in order to give it credit for doing something...in other words, how can we know A is responsible for doing B when we can't know if A even exists? Wouldn't it logically make more sense to first prove that A exists? The point here is that God is impossible to worship, what is actually worshiped is an idea. Do theists deny that when they talk about God they are thinking? i.e. that thoughts are occurring? That if they got a nasty enough head-injury they wouldn't even know what the word 'God' means? Anyways, the point here is that theists worship ideas, that it is truly impossible to worship God (regardless if He exists or not).

I'm surprised more atheists don't utilize this type of argument more often. While theistic arguments are/have been demolished, it seems that this, philosophically, gets at the core of the issue.