God Thrown Under the Bus

In the wake of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s relentless billboard attacks on religion which have erupted across the United States, the British Humanist Association in association with The Abhorrent Atheist Advocate Richard Dawkins are said to be plotting an attack on God himself using the city busses of London.

If you visit London, you would be well advised to avoid riding the busses. God has surely lifted his protection from the treacherous London bus system, as He will from those of Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh if the campaign is in fact extended to those cities.


According to “Professor” Dawkins (who graduated from and teaches at Godless Oxford rather than a respectable Christian University), “Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride – automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children.

“Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side. This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.”

“Thinking is anathema to religion!?” I am going to pray for the good Lord to help me understand what that means, but I don’t think it glorifies God, so it’s wrong.

If our busses and advertising banners can be twisted to such ignoble ends, then perhaps it’s time we did away with all of them. Remember, as Stephen Green of Christian Voice said of this despicable campaign, “Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.”

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Video

For the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), graphic artist, animator and video editor Seth Brau has created a four and a half minute video laying out the basic rights listed in the declaration.

The UDHR was created in response to the atrocities committed around the world in World War II, and it was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. In 1976 it was, as part of the International Bill of Human Rights, given the dubious force of international law after being ratified by a sufficient number of member nations.

The United States sadly did not ratify it until 1992, and our government was even then unwilling to actually put those laws into effect leaving the “ratification” as a very hollow show of support for the bill. For example, despite the fact that executions are outlawed by the bill, the US continues to execute prisoners making it the only western country to continue this barbaric practice.

Last year the US was 5th in the world in the number of executions carried out, officially trailing only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and leading Iraq. Is this the group we should throw our lot in with, or should we follow the majority of the world and end this and other shameful abuses that continue to mar our reputation around the world?

For more information on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or to see a high quality version of the video, please visit the Human Rights Action Center.

Morality Note to Backpack Radio Listeners

If any of you heard Vocab on the Backpack Radio show tonight saying, if I remember correctly, that someone from this site said there was no way we could tell people that torturing babies for fun was wrong, I would like to briefly answer that.

While we each have our own individual ideas and viewpoints, and they are sometimes misunderstood, I don’t believe that any of our members would say that torturing babies for fun, or for any reason, was acceptable behavior.

We don’t need a god-given moral law to determine that. We know and understand pain and death, and with the exception of sociopaths who are devoid of empathy, we also apply this understanding to other people, and in many cases even to other animals.

Although we can’t say “this is wrong because God says so”, we can say that it is wrong based on our own sense of right and wrong or the general consensus of our society on the issue.

Just like we have generally come to an agreement that the animal and even human sacrifices depicted in the Old Testament are wrong, along with stoning disobedient children to death (which is also in the Old Testament among many other murders of men, women and children), it is only the most aberrant people who would consider torturing babies to be fun or even close to acceptable.

I think that the widely varying ideas of morality, even within a single religion, are a good indication that, as we believe, a person’s sense of right and wrong is built up out of all of their experiences and all of the things that are taught to them (particularly as children) on the foundations of their own minds which are shaped by purely physical processes.

We may not have a god to tell us what is right and wrong, but we do have a sense of empathy and the capacity for rational thought, and that is enough.

ASU SFTS: October 2008 Meetings

October 3, 2008
6:00 pmto8:00 pm
October 10, 2008
6:00 pmto8:00 pm
October 17, 2008
6:00 pmto8:00 pm
October 24, 2008
6:00 pmto8:00 pm

Having a club table on campus almost every day last week, along with the crazy rantings of “Preacher JK” for two days, has brought us a large crop of new members. We intend to keep the table running as much as possible, and we will keep pushing to get more new members signed up and active in the group.

If you are a member or if you’re interested in joining, please let us know what you want to get out of the group. As we are currently in the process of re-forming, there is plenty of room for new members to help shape the direction the club will take in the future, so please participate!

We will be adding specific Halloween events as the month goes on and plans are finalized, but if you are interested in helping with the planning, please attend club meetings or talk to us on the forum!

ASU SFTS Religulous Screening

October 4, 2008
4:00 pmto7:00 pm

Members and friends of the Secular Free Thought Society of ASU are invited to attend the 4:30 PM showing of Religulous at Tempe Marketplace in Tempe, Arizona. We plan to be there by 4, and even earlier might be better since we want to get a large block of seats together.

Sadly it is just a regular public showing since we don’t have the extra money to rent out a whole theater for the group, so we all have to pay for tickets. On the bright side though, the ticket sales will support the development of future movies in this vein, so get as many people as you can to see it whether it’s with us or not!

Mill Avenue Resistance – October 2008

October 3, 2008
9:00 pm
October 4, 2008
8:00 pm
October 11, 2008
8:00 pm
October 18, 2008
8:00 pm
October 25, 2008
8:00 pm
October 31, 2008
6:00 pm

October is shaping up to be a good month. Not only do we expect an infusion of new blood through the Secular Free Thought Society’s recent recruitment drive, but we should also have some fun new projects and events coming to fruition this month.

If you’re interested in participating in any of our events, or the Secular Free Thought Society’s, keep an eye out and we’ll post them here for you.

The Friday night experiment has had some success, particularly due to the fact that the Friday night preachers just aren’t very good. They have also been there less consistently than the Saturday night brigade, so we may have less scheduled events on Fridays if they don’t show up often enough. We will still check for preachers, but if they’re not there then we probably won’t be either.

If you notice preachers on Mill or at ASU and you don’t see any of us there, please let us know when and where they are and we’ll see what we can do about it.