Red states preach family values, but blue states are better at putting that into practice.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 32 states, those with the highest percentage of high school students who say they have had sex are Mississippi, Delaware, West Virginia, Alabama and Arkansas. All but Delaware voted Republican in the last presidential election. 

Meanwhile, the five states with the lowest proportion of high school students who have had sex were New York, California, Maryland, Nebraska and Connecticut. All but Nebraska voted Democratic. 

When evangelical kids have sex, they’re less likely to use birth control — and that may be a reason (along with lower abortion rates) that red states have high teen birthrates.

Nine of the 10 states with the highest teen birthrates voted Republican in 2016. And nine of the 10 states with the lowest teen birthrates voted Democratic. 

“Red regions of the country have higher teen pregnancy rates, more shotgun marriages and lower average ages at marriage and first birth,” Naomi Cahn and June Carbone wrote in their important 2010 book, “Red Families v. Blue Families.” 

The liberal impulse may be to gloat: Those conservatives thunder about “family values” but don’t practice them. But there’s also perhaps a measure of hypocrisy in the blue states. As Cahn and Carbone put it: “Blue family values bristle at restrictions on sexuality, insistence on marriage or the stigmatization of single parents. Their secret, however, is that they encourage their children to simultaneously combine public tolerance with private discipline, and their children then overwhelmingly choose to raise their own children within two-parent families.

”Liberals, in other words, may be wary of strict moral codes, but they want to make damn sure that their own kids don’t have babies while in high school. It helps that they believe in comprehensive sex education and reliable birth control.

If this surprises anybody then you simply have not been paying attention. 

These same conclusions have been reached by a variety of studies over the years.

Preaching at kids that sex is wrong and that they should never partake of the forbidden fruit, did not work in the Garden of Eden and it does not work in modern times.

And demonstrating the family values of love, respect for others, and personal responsibility, is far more effective than calling somebody a sinner for engaging in normal human interactions.

Progressive states are just better, that is why I am working to turn mine into one.

Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is now fundraising off of allegations that he is a pedophile.

Roy Moore is out with a fundraising appeal that seems to relate to the WaPo story pic.twitter.com/oPNCthae9c

— Erica Werner (@ericawerner) November 9, 2017

Courtesy of the Daily Kos:

What’s an uber-conservative God-fearing Republican politician to do faced with careful, detailed reporting that, as a man in his 30s, he abused his position as an assistant district attorney to prey on teenage girls? If you’re Alabama’s Roy Moore, you fundraise off of it. That’s right, Moore is out with a fundraising email claiming that “The Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I’ve EVER faced.” 

"Vicious and nasty round of attacks" is Republican-speak for "People are telling the truth about me again."

You have to admit it takes some balls to actually send out a fundraising email that cites allegations of pedophilia.

And it appears that there are many who will continue to support this pig, and will likely send money to benefit his campaign.

Top Alabama Republican responds to Moore allegations: I'd trust Putin over Washington Post https://t.co/QhRXF8U1ma pic.twitter.com/mVWUwE6wpb

— The Hill (@thehill) November 10, 2017

One Alabama state representative even suggested that it was the women who should face prosecution:

“If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years. I think someone should prosecute and go after them. You can’t be a victim 40 years later, in my opinion,” Henry said. 

I think that pretty much sums up some of the thinking in Alabama.

Article makes case that world is more peaceful due to rise in Atheism.

Courtesy of the Guardian:  

The quiet truth behind the inescapable headlines about man’s inhumanity to man is that the world is actually becoming a more peaceful place. Deaths from war and conflict have been declining for decades – and, if current trends continue, we can make them rarer still. 

What mysterious force is sowing peace among humankind? One possible reason is that there are more atheists and nonbelievers than ever before. 

In America, millennials are the largest and least religious generation in the country’s history. The trend toward secularization in the US mirrors the movement in Europe and throughout the developed world. And poll after poll have shown that the nonreligious also lean more progressive and more pacifist on a wide variety of issues relating to violence: torture, the death penalty, corporal punishment, military adventurism and more. 

As long as humanity was in thrall to the violent morality of religious texts, our societies were warlike and cruel. As the American revolutionary Thomas Paine said, belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man. It’s only in the last few decades, as we’ve begun to cast these beliefs off, that we’re making real moral progress.

As an outspoken Atheist I of course want to think that the rise of non-deists is the reason for all kinds of positives in the world

And though I would agree that much of the warlike behavior we are witnessing in the world today is driven by religious ideologies,  I am not entirely convinced that doing away with religion automatically translates into a more peaceful world.

We kill for a variety of reasons, religion is just a convenient method by which to excuse our hatred or demonization of a group that we deem less worthy than our own tribes.

 So I am interested in your thoughts on the matter.

Apparently Bernie Sanders and I share the same religion. Update!

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

"Every great religion in the world -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism --essentially comes to do unto others as you would like them to do unto you," he said during CNN's Democratic town hall event on Tuesday night. 

Though Sanders was raised Jewish and believes in God, he identifies as a secular rather than a religious Jew. He doesn't often address his religion, and The New York Times notes that he sometimes even shies away from using the term "Jewish." 

But asked about his faith on Tuesday, he boiled it down to the belief that "we have got to work together." 

"It's very easy to turn our backs on kids who are hungry or veterans who are sleeping on the street, but I believe that what human nature is about is that everybody in this room impacts everybody else in all kinds of ways that we can't understand." he said. "That's my religion. That's what I believe in."

You know that's also what I believe in.

I obviously would not characterize it as my religion, but it is my philosophy.

I have to admit this is the answer concerning religion that I have been waiting to hear from a presidential candidate, and it is like music to my ears.

However having said that, it is also yet another reason why Sanders is unlikely to win a general election.

For all intents and purposes Bernie has just outed himself as an Atheist, more or less. And NOBODY is more reviled and mistrusted in this country than Atheists.

Christians especially are terrified of those who do not identify as religious, believing that morality is impossible without an all encompassing belief in God.

Preferably their god.

So even though Bernie Sanders has lived an incredibly ethical and honest life, the mere fact that he refuses to identify as religious, or let's face it Christian, makes winning the presidency a fantasy.

And believe me, probably nobody wishes that were less true than I.

Update: For those doubting my premise about the mistrust felt toward Atheists:   

Social science has long revealed high rates of secularphobia – the irrational dislike, distrust, fear, or hatred of nonreligious people – within American society. For example, a study by Penny Edgell of the University of Minnesota, from back in 2006, found that atheists come in last place when Americans are asked to rank members of certain racial, ethnic, or religious groups as potential spouses for their kids. And a Gallup poll from 2012 found that 43 pecent of Americans said that they would not vote for an atheist for president, putting atheists in last/worst place, behind Muslims (40 percent of Americans said they wouldn’t vote for a Muslim for president), homosexuals (30 percent wouldn’t), Mormons (18 percent wouldn’t), Latinos (7 percent wouldn’t), Jews (6 percent wouldn’t), Catholics (5 percent wouldn’t), women (5 percent wouldn’t) and African Americans (4 percent wouldn’t). 

Additionally, psychology professor Adrian Furnham found that people give lower priority to patients with atheist or agnostic views than to Christian patients when asked to rank them on a waiting list to receive a kidney, and legal scholar Eugene Volokh has documented the degree to which atheist parents have been denied custody rights in the wake of a divorce.

THAT is why no national politician in America will actually cop to being an Atheist, though in my opinion Bernie comes the closest.

I have read other interviews with him where he is even more blunt that belief in God plays virtually no part in his day to day life, nor on his political point of view.

Just a reminder that the tenets of the Satanic Temple are far more instructive and moral than the Ten Commandments.

There are seven fundamental tenets. 

• One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason. 
• The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. 
• One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. 
• The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo your own. 
• Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs. 
• People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused. 
• Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word

By now I'm sure that most of you realize that the Satanic Temple really has very little to do with Satan, and actually exists mostly to troll Christians.

I actually enjoy much of their work, and I might think about joining them if I were not already dedicated to repairing the reputation of Atheists instead.

According to one of the Duggars favorite pastors "sex belongs to Christians."

So this guy, John Piper, wrote this bit of brilliance on something called Charisma News: 

We might be tempted to think that, since sex is so sinfully misused and is so universally undermining to the all-satisfying beauty of Christ's holiness, maybe we Christians should have nothing to do with it. 

Paul says the opposite. It is the world that has stolen what belongs to believers. Sex belongs to Christians. Because sex belongs to God. "God created it to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." If it is used by those who do not believe and know the truth, it is prostituted. They have exchanged the glory of God for images. They have torn sex from its God-appointed place in the orbit of marriage. But they do not know what they are doing. And the price they will pay in this life and the next is incalculable. 

The pleasures of sex are meant for believers. They are designed for their greatest expression by the children of God.

So this might come as some surprise to all of the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Pagans, Heathens, Atheists, animals, fish, birds, etc. in the world who apparently have been having unsanctioned by God sex for thousands of years now.

You know it's bad enough that the Christians are trying to take over politics, education, and the definition of morality in this country, but when they start trying to claim dibs on sex, then we are going to have a serious problem.

And if you think that first part was weird get a load of Pastor Piper's definition of sex:

And the pleasures of sex are themselves an overflow of God's own goodness. This pleasure is less than what we will know fully in Him at His right hand. And in it, we taste something of His very exquisiteness.

Yeah you know I have had me a whole lot of sex in my life, much of it probably illegal in some states, but at no time did I ever consider tasting God's "exquisiteness."

And I feel dirty just typing that. Plus I'm not really sure what that is.

Pastor Picked a Peck of Pickled Pipers just so you know is also one of the Duggars favorite Christian bullshit artists. In fact future reality star Jessa Duggar Seewald recently quoted him on her Facebook page.

So I would assume that Piper also provided hot piping preaching to Josh Duggar at one time or another. Which leaves me wondering if incest, child molestation, and paying porn stars for rough sex is also just for Christians.

Because if so, I'm kind of alright with that.

Ben Carson says that one cannot have morality without faith in God. How did this idiot become a doctor again?

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

“Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory, you dismiss ethics, you don’t have to abide by a set of moral codes, you determine your own conscience based on your own desires,” Carson told Adventist Review, the magazine of the Seventh-day Adventist Church of which Carson is a member for a 2004 cover story. 

“You have no reason for things such as selfless love, when a father dives in to save his son from drowning,” Carson continued. “You can trash the Bible as irrelevant, just silly fables, since you believe that it does not conform to scientific thought. You can be like Lucifer, who said, ‘I will make myself like the Most High.’”

Have you ever read anything so stupid that you felt your brain start bleeding? Well I just did.

Actually the morality of the non-theist is far superior to that of the believer due to the fact that it is not based on the carrot and stick paradigm.

If you are a good person because you fear burning in the fires of hell for all eternity, or because you want to get rewarded with eternal life, then you are not a good person.

You are a selfish POS who is only doing the right thing so that your sky papa will spare the burning rod of hellfire and spoil you with everlasting life.

But wait Buzzfeed has more from a 2012 speech: 

“Can you prove evolution? No. Can you prove creation? No. Can you use the intellect God has given you to decide whether something is logical or illogical,” added. Carson. “Yes, absolutely. It all comes down to ‘faith’ — and I don’t have enough to believe in evolution. I’m too logical!” (Hang on that made me choke on my spit a little. Okay let's continue.)

Carson said the consequences for accepting the theory of evolution would be an abandonment of the human moral compass. 

“By believing we are the product of random acts, we eliminate morality and the basis of ethical behavior,” stated Carson. “For if there is no such thing as moral authority, you can do anything you want. You make everything relative, and there’s no reason for any of our higher values.”

God what a load of horseshit!

Morality has existed in one form or another LONG before Christianity, or even Judaism.  In fact it has existed long before religion itself, and even exists in the animal kingdom.

I cannot remember ever coming across a better example of a stupid smart person as Bill Maher has labeled these people.

Ben Carson reminds me of an autistic teenager who cannot tie his own shoes or remember his home address, but can flawlessly play Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11 without ever having taken one piano lesson.

In other words he is an idiot savant.

And what's with him never opening his damn eyes?

I could not agree more.

In 1995 book Jeb Bush suggested that public shaming and ridicule were good ways to keep women from having babies out of wedlock.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Public shaming would be an effective way to regulate the “irresponsible behavior” of unwed mothers, misbehaving teenagers and welfare recipients, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) argued in his 1995 book Profiles in Character. 

In a chapter called "The Restoration of Shame,” the likely 2016 presidential candidate made the case that restoring the art of public humiliation could help prevent pregnancies “out of wedlock.” 

"One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful." 

Bush points to Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, in which the main character is forced to wear a large red "A" for "adulterer" on her clothes to punish her for having an extramarital affair that produced a child, as an early model for his worldview. "Infamous shotgun weddings and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter are reminders that public condemnation of irresponsible sexual behavior has strong historical roots,” Bush wrote.

Well good to know that if we elect Jeb Bush to the White House that he will try to bring back the public shaming of women.

And seriously how does a guy like this have the nerve to write a book with the title "Profiles in Character?"

Seriously fuck this guy and everything he stands for!

Recent Gallup polling shows that Americans are moving left on a whole slew of issues.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Americans are more likely now than in the early 2000s to find a variety of behaviors morally acceptable, including gay and lesbian relations, having a baby outside of marriage and sex between an unmarried man and woman. Moral acceptability of many of these issues is now at a record-high level. 

The upward progression in the percentage of Americans seeing these issues as morally acceptable has varied from year to year, but the overall trend clearly points toward a higher level of acceptance of a number of behaviors. In fact, the moral acceptability ratings for 10 of the issues measured since the early 2000s are at record highs.

Of course as you can see from the graphic Americans are not becoming more accepting of EVERYTHING.

Americans have become less likely to say that two issues are morally acceptable: the death penalty and medical testing on animals. But Americans' decreased acceptance of these practices actually moves them in a more liberal direction.

This change may have much to do with the fact that fewer and fewer Americans self identify as religious and are no longer accepting the definitions of morality forced upon them by their local church, temple, or synagogue.

And in another recent study researchers found that one of the main driving forces behind this new morality, the millenials, are not simply embracing the left due to their age:

"Unlike previous studies, ours is able to show that millennials' lower religious involvement is due to cultural change, not to millennials being young and unsettled."

In other words Americans are becoming freethinkers, and with that comes a less judgmental attitude towards others, a more personal sense of morality, and far less shaming for what happens between two consenting adults in the bedroom.

Damn, it is a good time to be alive!

Nebraska becomes the 19th state to do away with the death penalty. And it is all due to an Atheist.

Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers.

Courtesy of Omaha.com: 

Cheers erupted and tears fell Wednesday as the Nebraska Legislature took the historic step of repealing the death penalty with a politically high-stakes override of the governor’s veto. 

Even as repeal supporters exchanged handshakes and hugs in the legislative chamber, a key defender of capital punishment vowed to keep the broader debate alive. Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha announced plans to pursue a petition drive to put reinstatement of the death penalty on the ballot. 

In the most suspenseful decision to play out in Nebraska’s one-house Legislature in years, lawmakers voted 30-19 to override Gov. Pete Ricketts’ veto of Legislative Bill 268. Without a vote to spare, the override replaced lethal injection with life in prison.

This is an especially impressive achievement since Nebraska is a red state.  And it is all thanks to one man. 

The outcome elicited a nod and a grin from the typically stoic Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who has tried for four decades to repeal the death penalty. As the controversial senator walked through the glass doors leading into the Capitol Rotunda, he was feted with chants of “Ernie! Ernie! Ernie!”

Ernie Chambers has tried and failed to repeal the death penalty 37 times before. This time he was successful.

Also worth noting is that Ernie Chambers is the highest ranking, openly atheist elected official in the country.

Chambers has also introduced a bill to get churches to pay taxes, defended the rights of the LGBT community, and once claimed that the Mafia had higher standards than the Catholic church because if their members were raping children they would "off them."

So to be clear, an Atheist, who doesn't believe in a higher authority, worked diligently for years on a pro-life bill that was finally passed just this year.

And they say that non-believers lack a sense of morality.

(H/T to The Friendly Atheist.)

Oh there's a word for it now. How convenient.

Let's face, it this has been going on for centuries if not longer.

Do religions cause violent behavior. No. Do they provide a convenient excuse for violence? Oh hell yeah!

Courtesy of Salon:  

With the possible exception of Buddhism, the world’s most powerful religions give wildly contradictory messages about violence. The Christian Bible is full of exhortations to kindness, compassion, humility, mercy and justice. It is also full of exhortations to stoning, burning, slavery, torture, and slaughter. If the Bible were law, most people you know would qualify for the death penalty. The same can be said of the Quran. The same can be said of the Torah. Believers who claim that Islam or Christianity or Judaism is a religion of peace are speaking a half-truth—and a naive falsehood. 

The human inclination toward peacemaking or violence exists on a continuum. Happy, healthy people who are inherently inclined toward peacemaking focus on sacred texts and spiritual practices that encourage peace. Those who are bitter, angry, fearful or prone to self-righteousness are attracted to texts that sanction violence and teachers who encourage the same. People along the middle of this continuum can be drawn in either direction by charismatic religious leaders who selectively focus on one or the other. 

Each person’s individual violence risk is shaped by a host of factors: genetics, early learning, health, culture, social networks, life circumstances, and acute triggers. To blame any act of violence on religion alone is as silly as blaming an act of violence on guns or alcohol. But to deny that religion plays a role is as silly as denying that alcohol and guns play a role. It is to pretend that religions are inert, that our deepest values and beliefs about reality and morality have no impact on our behavior. From a psychological standpoint, religions often put a god’s name on impulses that have subconscious, pre-verbal roots. They elicit peak experiences like mystic euphoria, dominance, submission, love and joy. They claim credit for the moral emotions (e.g. shame, guilt, disgust and empathy) that incline us toward fair play and altruism, and they direct these emotions toward specific persons or activities. In a similar way, religions elicit and channel protective reactions like anger and fear, the emotions most likely to underlie violence.

.....

Despite the fact that violence is repeatedly endorsed in sacred texts, most Christians, Muslims and Jews never commit acts of violence in the service of their religion. Similarly, millions of people consume alcohol without insulting, hitting, kicking, stabbing or shooting anyone. Most of us are peaceful drinkers and peaceful believers. Yet, statistically we know that without alcohol assaults would be less common. So too, we all know that when suicide bombings happen, or blasphemers and apostates are condemned to die, or a rape victim is stoned to death, Islam is likely to be involved. And when we hear that an obstetrics doctor has been shot or a gay teen beaten and left for dead, or a U.S. president has announced a “crusade”, we know that Christianity was likely a part of the mix.

I have essentially been saying this very thing for years.

We keep hearing that we get our morality from God, but the facts are that the sacred texts which purport to speak for these gods are as morally ambiguous as the human beings who wrote them. (Strange how that works out.)

Unfortunately because we are indoctrinated to believe that the lessons of these manuscripts are divinely inspired many of us never question them or subject them to the same critical thinking that we use when we select which neighborhood to live in or which car to drive.

And of course it also lowers the defenses of believers, allowing them to be manipulated by those claiming a direct line to the god that they worship.

In my opinion doing away with these religions would force humans to take responsibility for their own morality,  that may seem a little messy to some but ultimately it would force people to examine their choices and learn from their missteps rather than follow a blueprint written thousands of years ago by primitive sand dwellers

Apparently people are still surprised that secular parents are raising children with good morals and values.

Courtesy of LA Times:  

So how does the raising of upstanding, moral children work without prayers at mealtimes and morality lessons at Sunday school? Quite well, it seems. 

Far from being dysfunctional, nihilistic and rudderless without the security and rectitude of religion, secular households provide a sound and solid foundation for children, according to Vern Bengston, a USC professor of gerontology and sociology. 

For nearly 40 years, Bengston has overseen the Longitudinal Study of Generations, which has become the largest study of religion and family life conducted across several generational cohorts in the United States. When Bengston noticed the growth of nonreligious Americans becoming increasingly pronounced, he decided in 2013 to add secular families to his study in an attempt to understand how family life and intergenerational influences play out among the religionless. 

He was surprised by what he found: High levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation. 

“Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious' parents in our study,” Bengston told me. “The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose.” 

My own ongoing research among secular Americans — as well as that of a handful of other social scientists who have only recently turned their gaze on secular culture — confirms that nonreligious family life is replete with its own sustaining moral values and enriching ethical precepts. Chief among those: rational problem solving, personal autonomy, independence of thought, avoidance of corporal punishment, a spirit of “questioning everything” and, far above all, empathy. 

For secular people, morality is predicated on one simple principle: empathetic reciprocity, widely known as the Golden Rule. Treating other people as you would like to be treated. It is an ancient, universal ethical imperative. And it requires no supernatural beliefs. As one atheist mom who wanted to be identified only as Debbie told me: “The way we teach them what is right and what is wrong is by trying to instill a sense of empathy ... how other people feel. You know, just trying to give them that sense of what it's like to be on the other end of their actions. And I don't see any need for God in that. ...

That last part is dead on.

You know I don't talk about it much but I was married for fourteen years to the daughter of a minister.

She had a lot of weird hangups concerning nudity, alcohol consumption, and using curse words, but virtually no problem with lying, taking things that did not belong to her, or saying terrible things behind people's backs.

In the marriage it was also up to me to deal with setting guidelines for the children, and it was not uncommon to have little to no backup from my Christian wife.

However I must have done something right, because my daughter is an even bigger stickler for the rules than I am, and often functions as my moral sounding board when I stumble into a gray area.

And NO she did not get that way by way of HER Fundamentalist mother either.  Trust me on that.

Religion is critical to the functioning of democracy? Well that's just a load of crap.

The above video was recently e-mailed out to the students of Troy University by their chancellor with the following message: 

Dear Trojans: 

As we approach a New Year I am reminded of the blessings we enjoy within a democracy which is the envy of the world. 

For your pleasure — and as a reminder — I am sharing with you a 90 second video which speaks to America’s greatness and its vulnerability. 

May your New Year be blessed! 

Jack Hawkins Chancellor

As you can imagine that did not go over too well with those students who were NOT religious and now the American Atheists have written the chancellor a letter demanding an apology.

Personally I am once again amazed that religious people are still so completely convinced that without religion this country would spin completely out of control, as if it alone is behind the success of America.

Religious morality is not the creation of God.  Instead both it and God are the creation of man.

And so are laws that govern this country.

They exist to help those who cannot find it within themselves to do the right thing without fear of punishment or incarceration. For those of us with an innate sense of morality we do not really need to live under the threat of eternal damnation, or imprisonment, in order to treat others with respect.

We do it because it is how we ourselves also wish to be treated.

As a wise man once said: 

I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.

Ain't that the truth?

So yes this country, its democracy, and its people would do just fine if there were no more religion.

It is the churches which cannot exist without faith, not America.

New poll shows that the more religious you are the more okay with torture you are. I know, right?

Courtesy of Libraland:  

One characteristic, above all else, defines the sociopath: an utter lack of guilt or remorse. One characteristic, above all else, defines Christianity: freedom from guilt and remorse. Christianity, as a rule, doesn't explicitly endorse the worst possible things a person can do. But it does forgive them, and that insidious negation of conscience is a quietly lethal thing. Anything's possible when you don't have to live with the guilt of doing it. And as one poll from NBC shows, even a group less trusted than rapists can be good, if there's no one around to take away the guilt of being bad. 

The poll comes from MSNBC's This Week in God, 12/20/14 edition. It was conducted in concert with MSNBC's friend in print, the Washington Post. First up, this question, with results sorted by race and religious affiliation, or lack thereof:

 The poll also asked the respondents if the CIA torture was justified. This how they answered in response to that question.

In the headline to this article over at Liberland was the word "shocking." However nothing about this shocks me.

The idea that people of faith are more moral or ethical is false, and one of the main reasons that I started The Immoral Minority in the first place.

Anytime any group claims to be the moral superior of others not in their group you can be dead certain that that is where you will find the most morally corrupt of them all.

Architect of CIA torture program claims that release of Senate report put his life in danger. Bummer.

Courtesy of TWC Central:  

The "architect" of the CIA's interrogation program, James Mitchell, accused Senate Democrats of putting his life in danger last week when they released a report detailing the program's "brutal" abuses. 

"They issue this report that essentially stirs up all the crazies and all the jihadists. So now we're getting death threats," Mitchell, a retired Air Force psychologist, said during a Monday night Fox News interview. 

"I'm angry about this. They have a foregone conclusion. They put my life in danger. They put the lives of other CIA personnel ... and our families in danger for some sort of morale high ground?" he said. "You can probably tell I'm a little agitated by this. For me, I don't want to die because the Democrats in the Senate don't have the courtesy to ask the CIA to explain what they view as abuses that occurred."

Hang on I'm going to try and gin up a little sympathy.

Nope, don't give a shit.

The Uniform Code of Justice says that military personnel have a duty to disobey unlawful orders.

As a former member of the Air Force this guy should have known that. And as a human being he should have done that.

Turning foreign exchange students into slave labor by threatening to have them deported. Just things Christian Bible School presidents do.

Courtesy of The State:

Reginald Wayne Miller, the president and founder of Cathedral Bible College, is not allowed to set foot on the college campus in Marion or communicate with any of the school's current or former foreign students as an investigation continues into allegations that Miller threatened to cancel foreign students' visas if they did not work long hours for little pay. 

Those terms are part of a $250,000 secured bond that Magistrate Judge Thomas Rogers set for Miller during a detention hearing Friday in federal court. In addition, Miller will be on home detention and will be required to wear an electronic monitoring device. 

"I don't think we've identified all of the potential victims yet," said Carrie Fisher, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case. Fisher said some victims may have already left the country and some may be former students who have yet to come forward. "Our investigation just started this week." 

Miller, who wore shackles and orange prison garb at the hearing, did not speak except to tell Rogers that he understood and agreed to the bond requirements. His public defender, William Nettles, said Miller's friends and family will attempt to raise the money needed for bond. Miller also turned over his passport to court officials. He was still booked into the Florence County Detention Center as of Friday afternoon. 

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations filed a criminal complaint against Miller this week saying they have probable cause to charge him with forced labor, a felony that carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years for each count. Investigators say Miller forced foreign students to work at the campus and his personal residence for as little as $25 per week. Miller threatened to cancel the students' visas if they complained or didn't comply with his demands, according to an affidavit filed this week. 

You know what continues to piss me off, is that people insist on believing that being an Atheist automatically makes you an immoral person, when there is so much evidence to suggest that it is Christians who seem to lack any sense of morality.

Of course if I were to suggest such a thing I would be completely unjustified in doing so, but that never stops those on the other side now does it?

And just how many young people sat it this man's feet while the preached to them about love, morality, and sin? Perhaps instead what they really learned was oppression, hypocrisy, and greed.

New polls shows that Americans would rather vote for an elderly, pot smoking, philanderer, than vote for an Atheist. Oh come on!

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Americans would more likely support a philandering presidential candidate than an atheist one -- by an 18 percent margin -- according to a Pew Research Center poll published Monday. 

While 35 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who had an extramarital affair, 53 percent of Americans indicated that not believing in God -- the trait viewed most negatively of the 16 tested -- would make them unsupportive of a candidate. 

In accordance with a widely cited study by the University of Minnesota, which found atheists to be the most disliked and distrusted minority group in the nation, only 5 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a secular candidate.

Okay this is really starting to piss me off.

This is the problem with politics in this country. Any liar, charlatan, or fool can attract support simply by draping themselves in the camouflage of  religion.

Yet the most upstanding, trustworthy, ethical candidate imaginable will see their chances crumble once their lack of blind faith is revealed to the ignorant masses.

I would place my morality against the average Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim any day of the week.

One of the biggest falsehoods of all time is that belief in God is necessary in order to be moral.

I contend that just the opposite is true.  How moral is a person really who believes he cannot do wrong without receiving everlasting torment, or sabotaging his chances for eternal life?

And how morally superior is the man, or woman, who lives a just and moral life simply because they recognize that it is the best way to contribute to the world?

Navy Seal caught smuggling 10 kilos of cocaine into the country.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:

A Navy SEAL who served in the military for 14 years and worked on covert anti-drug operations has admitted to smuggling 10 kilos of cocaine into the United States, according to records from the federal district court in Miami and a source familiar with his service. 

The SEAL, Angel Martinez-Ramos, left active duty in 2010 but continued to deploy on missions as a reservist, court papers say. He had drug paraphernalia, including a money-counting machine and drug-testing equipment, at home, the documents say. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine and is currently in custody in Miami awaiting sentencing. 

His case comes in the wake of another embarrassment for the elite SEALs, the commandos famous for killing Osama bin Laden. Earlier this year, two former members of the group died after consuming heroin and alcohol on a commercial ship they had been hired to protect from pirates.

I want to make it clear that this post should in no way be perceived as anti-military in any way.

However I think it is important to remind people that the current deifying of our men and women in the armed services needs to stop.

Many of those in our fighting forces are exemplary and honest human beings, who courageously put their lives on the line to protect American interests overseas. Not our freedom, but our interests.

It must be remembered however that some of these guys are simply average men doing a very challenging job, who may or may not have the highest ethical or moral standards. As we have seen all too often.

Whenever we put any group of people on a pedestal, like the Right Wing so often does with our military, we risk not paying critical enough attention to who they are, and what they do.

Don't forget that these are individuals who travel to a foreign land and kill citizens of that land when ordered to do so, without ever knowing for sure if they are innocent, guilty, or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sadly we need people like this in the world, but we should always remember that a job like that requires a certain ability to suspend their empathetic natures, a skill that some pick up over time, and which some never had holding them back in the first place.