The Half Baked Lunatic

Many years ago, a neighbor of mine had a miscarriage after trying to get pregnant, unsuccessfully, for many years. It was very hard for me to see her go through such a terrible time. She was distraught.  I was upset.  Her husband was trying very hard to comfort her, and kept telling her “it was the will of god”. He didn’t know what else to say. Statistically, over 30% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage before the end of the third month, what’s medically known as a “spontaneous abortion.”  The number might even be higher, there is substantial evidence which says that many women don’t even realize they are pregnant if the miscarriage occurs about the time their next period is due.  Usually, a woman just assumes she is “late” by a few weeks.  The body just decides there is something wrong, and the pregnancy is terminated on the spot. So here’s my point. There are many who believe that all life is sacred, and that abortion is a sin, yet a “spontaneous aborti... [More]

How’s that for a title to a blog post?  So what do you think ... does the pope believe in god? Seriously.  The one thing we can be sure of is that the pope believes in power, influence, control, politics – and huge amounts of wealth.  And he gets all of those things by making sure that OTHERS believe that there is a god. It’s a great system – the church has countless laborers all across the globe who have embraced a life of poverty, yet they spend their time recruiting new members and collecting donations for the church.  Sure, half of it gets used for local charity, and some (certainly not all) of these projects actually do some good, but a large percentage of the money goes all the way to the top. It’s the greatest scam ever invented! Way better than any other pyramid scheme – they’ve even managed to make it tax deductable! I’m not saying the pope isn’t a smart guy.  It does take a certain degree of i... [More]

  I was looking back through some of the comments on my November 4 posting of "Same Sex Marriage - Why is this an Issue?" and I'm amused by some of the banter.  As a very devout "Born Again Atheist", I don't have much patience for religious ramblings.  Christianity is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned - religion is just a tool to pacify and control the populace, and there are a LOT of weak-minded people that just love drinking the cool-aid.  It's unfathomable that people still believe in this (excuse the expletive) crap. Religions get their power from telling people pretty much any story that will control the downtrodden (and open their wallets, of course) - with no regard for what the "truth" may be.  Over the years, they've gotten really good at making people believe that these random bed-time stories in the Bible (or Koran or Torah, take your pick) have some significance, an... [More]

  Here is the second of my two talks that I gave at the Seattle chapter of the Ethical Culture Society, this one is from November 4, 2004. (See yesterday's post for the first ...) * * * * * What do you believe? David Workman   People can be very fervent in their beliefs.  I’m talking about the good old fashioned argument of science versus religion.  By religion, I mean the organizations whose purpose it is to evangelize a monotheistic God. What do you believe in?  Is there a god?  Is there a controlling “force” in the universe?  Is our existence and our future pre-determined for us? Our beliefs are based on our own experiences, what our parents and teachers teach us, what we read, whomever we decide is telling us the truth. And what about our sometimes irrational interpretations of all of the above?  We often choose mentors, consciously or unconsciously, whom w... [More]