Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Notable Quotable

I entered the Lager (Auschwitz) as a non-believer, and as a non-believer I was liberated and have lived to this day. Actually, the experience of the Lager with its frightful iniquity confirmed me in my nonbelief. It has prevented me, and still prevents me, from conceiving of any form of providence or transcendent justice. . . . I must nevertheless admit that I experienced (and again only once) the temptation to yield, to seek refuge in prayer. This happened in October 1944, in the one moment in which I lucidly perceived the imminence of death . . . naked and compressed among my naked companions with my personal index card in hand, I was waiting to file past the “commission” that with one glance would decide whether I should go immediately into the gas chamber or was instead strong enough to go on working. For one instance I felt the need to ask for help and asylum; then, despite my anguish, equanimity prevailed; one does not change the rules of the game at the end of the match, nor when you are losing. A prayer under these conditions would have been not only absurd (what rights could I claim? and from whom?) but blasphemous, obscene, laden with the greatest impiety of which a nonbeliever is capable. I rejected the temptation; I knew that otherwise were I to survive, I would have to be ashamed of it.
- Primo Levi, holocaust survivor 


A man of thought and an amazing testament to the human will to live.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/misdefining-terms-for-purposes-of-propaganda/

 Dale Husband


This link contains a fabulous set of definitions for atheist, agnostic, etc


."Accepting the definition that an atheist is someone who lacks a belief in a divine being, then what is the term denoting someone who positively HAS the belief that no divine being exists?"

I define a non-theist as someone who lacks belief in any god. An atheist takes this one step further and does believe there is no god. Then there is the anti-theist, who not only denies theism, but is hostile towards all theists. And an agnostic is someone who does not claim to have any knowledge about the existence or nature God and thus no reason to either believe or disbelieve in God; he is strictly neutral on the subject.

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2.../

I point out these definitions of atheist, agnostic, and non-theist, which were generally accepted only a few decades ago, and many atheists today go ballistic and treat me like a heretic. Well, damn those morons! I have no use for them.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Notable Quotable

Helen Keller's quote regarding the bible "There is much in the Bible against which every instinct of my being rebels, so much that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge which I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention."

The Bible and Women

http://godisimaginary.com/i30.htm
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Debunking_Christians/Page20.htm
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html
http://new.exchristian.net/2010/09/mommy-does-god-hate-women.html