The Rational Fool: January 2010

humor

Laughter is the best medicine ...

... for this chronic pandemic called "Religion", too.

On Thursday, protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church showed up in front of the Twitter's office in San Francisco, equipped with posters proclaiming the power of their god over people who chose to be governed by Constitutional morality, and not Christian morality. Their vindictive god hated everyone from women to homosexuals to Jews to Barack Obama. When they arrived at their venue, they were greeted by a far bigger crowd of men and women with a sense of humor and a message, "Your signs are as ridiculous as ours, so go on, get a life, fellows!"

They, the religulous —

We, the people —

Now, that, according to me, is freedom of speech in action!

Hat tip to praxis for the link.

spotlight

Equal Rights Now

Three decades, and the march to equal protection in law for men and women of the Islamic Republic of Iran continues:

Today, Equal Rights Now, an organization against women's discrimination in the Islamic Republic of Iran, has issued the following Manifesto of the Liberation of Women in Iran:

Manifesto of Liberation of Women in Iran

This March 8th, in memory of Neda, symbol of people of Iran’s struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran

Manifesto of Liberation of Women in Iran

The very existence of the Islamic regime of Iran is incompatible with freedom of women. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a misogynist state, architect of gender apartheid and perpetrator of three decades of the most odious forms of abuse, discrimination and violence against women in Iran. A society cannot be free if women are not free. Without the overthrow of the misogynist Islamic regime, women in Iran will not achieve their rights. The Islamic Republic must go! This is the message of Neda Agha Soltan, the symbol of the ongoing revolution in Iran; it is the decree of the brave women who at the front lines of people's protest have been challenging the entire Islamic state for the past seven months.

Thirty years ago on March 8th, 1979 in Iran, we freedom-loving women and men stood up to the reactionaries who had just come to power, with shouts of No to compulsory veil! Today, with the painful and bloody experience of three decades of gender apartheid, gender slavery and nonstop suppression of women behind us, we state even more clearly and forcefully, along with the young and progressive generation of today, that the Islamic Republic, as a misogynist state, as a regime of gender apartheid must be overthrown. We say that the leaders of the Islamic Republic must be arrested and put on trial for systematic crimes against millions of women, for crimes against humanity. This is the decree of the revolution in Iran. With the overthrow of the Islamic Republic we will lend a helping hand to millions of women in Islam-stricken countries who are prisoners of terrorist Islamic states and gangs and honour-worshiping, male-chauvinistic Islamic traditions.

Today, support for the ongoing revolution in Iran can and should become a vast international movement. March 8th is International Women's Day, which this year bears the mark of solidarity with women and people in Iran in the struggle to topple the Islamic regime. We call on women’s rights activists and organisations to express their solidarity with the women’s movement in Iran, while remembering Neda Agha Soltan as the symbol of the revolutionary movement against the Islamic Republic. March 8th this year is the day of solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran for freedom ...

You may read the entire manifesto here. I urge every reader of this blog to join in support of Mina Ahadi, Mahin Alipour, Shahla Daneshfar, and Maryam Namazie of Equal Rights Now, and sign the manifesto to end the gender apartheid in the Islamic Republic of Iran [please scroll down to the bottom of the manifesto page].

Thanks.

spotlight

No, Virginia, you don't have a vagina!

Wondering if Peter knew what a girl looked like "down there", Anne Frank, 15, wrote this entry in her diary on March 24, 1944:

But to get back to the subject. How on earth can you explain what it all looks like without any models? Shall I try anyway? Okay, here goes!
...
The lower part looks as if it were just skin, and yet that's where the vagina is. You can barely find it, because the folds of skin hide the opening. The hole's so small I can hardly imagine how a man could get in there, much less how a baby could come out. It's hard enough trying to get your index finger inside. That's all there is, and yet it plays such an important role!

A concerned parent in Culpeper County, Virginia, would not have their fifteen or sixteen year old read any of this. They complained to the county school authorities: "No, Virginia, there is no vagina. As certain as I am that there is a Santa Claus. We must banish the complete version of the Diary of a Young Girl from the eighth grade curriculum and the libraries, before it corrupts our pure and innocent. Before they fall prey to the wily temptations of the devil in the disguise of perhaps the most famous fifteen year old in the world!" And, the school obliged.

That their pure and innocent will be legally eligible to marry in Virginia, now, or a year from now, is irrelevant for the complainant or the school board. As long as they remain unaware of their own vagina, they can marry, have sex, and give birth to babies, for all we care. To know where it is, what it is like, and what it does, however, will be sacrilegious!

All along I have been thinking that the Talibans are the crazy ones!

humor

If there's an Elephant in the Cupboard ...

Ever since I moved into my modest house in San Jose, California, I have been noticing strange things happening around the place.

Returning from work, I would see books on the floor, fallen from an adjacent shelf... Pieces of china strewn around the dining area... All this, when everyone in the family had been away at school or work! I could swear that they were all neatly stacked on the shelf or the sideboard, when I left home.

Out in the back yard, half-eaten apples and bananas appeared mysteriously besides the rose bushes. Coincidentally, my son had his school cut short on that day for a teachers' meeting or something. David, 10, however, swore to me that he hadn't gone anywhere near the fruit basket.

It's not just me. My wife has noticed some funny stuff, too. One day, when she returned early from her work, she heard muffled sounds emanating from the bedroom of our daughter, Mia, 15. You know, huffing and puffing, oohs and ahs. The kind of sounds that you hear at 11 p.m. from the suite next door in the hotel, when you are trying desperately to sleep after a long day.

Alarmed, she knocked on the door. Mia opened it with a questioning look on her face. When asked about the sounds, she waved it away with, "I have been watching T.V., Mom". Pressed about the exact nature of the sounds, she denied that she was not watching any porn, anger and tears swelling in her eyes.

Then, this matter of dirty pots and pans in the kitchen sink, steadily accumulating over the past four days. My wife, who had been traveling the previous week, was furious. How could I be so impervious to this filth? Do I care about anything at all besides the NBA playoffs? What sort of an example was I setting for our kids? I pleaded with her vainly, "Unless I am struck with a bout of short-term amnesia, honey, I have been diligently loading them in the dishwasher... every night, of course!"

All of us, David, Mia, Honey, and me, are totally mystified.

"Could it be the elephant hiding in the cupboard... Dad... Mom?" asked my two year old, Felix, wide eyed. Oh, yes, the elephant in the cupboard! Stupid me.

Wait a minute. If there's an elephant in the cupboard, why don't we hear it trumpet? Hm, puzzling, indeed!

Inspired by an article from the BBC Magazine, Why does God allow natural disasters?

But, as for those who believe in an all-good, all-powerful agent-God, we've seen that they face a question that remains pressing after all these centuries, and which is now horribly underscored by the horrors in Haiti. If a deity exists, why didn't he prevent this?

spotlight

Help for Haiti

From the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS):

Non-Believers Giving Aid: a religion-free way to help disaster victims

Spurred by the horrific suffering in Haiti, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) has set up a dedicated bank account and PayPal facility to collect donations to non-religious relief organizations. This new account is in the new name of Non-Believers Giving Aid, with all of the money donated being distributed to disaster relief.

Clearly the immediate need is for the suffering people of Haiti, and all the money raised by this current appeal will go that cause, but the new account will remain available for future emergencies too.

There are, of course, many ways for you to donate to relief organizations already, but doing it through Non-Believers Giving Aid offers some advantages:

1. 100% of your donation will be go to these charities: not even the PayPal fees will be deducted from your donation, since Richard will personally donate a sum to cover the cost of these (capped at $10,000). This means that more of your money will reach the people in need.

2. When donating via Non-Believers Giving Aid, you are helping to counter the scandalous myth that only the religious care about their fellow-humans.

It goes without saying that your donations will only be passed on to aid organizations that do not have religious affiliations. In the case of Haiti, the two organizations we have chosen are:

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières)

International Red Cross
You may stipulate using the dropdown menu which of these two organizations you want your donation to go to; otherwise, it will be divided equally between them...

Ignore the babble from the mullahs, priests, and televangelists, mindlessly equating natural calamities to the wrath of their vengeful gods upon the humanity for its alleged "failings". While religion is busy playing this blame game, it's time for us the people to step up to conduct our own affairs. Reason demands that we help our neighbors in dire need in any way we can.

PLEASE DONATE FOR HAITI NOW. THANKS.

spotlight

Pat Robertson's Voodoo Geology

Who says earthquakes cannot be predicted? No sir, not according to Pat Robertson, a leading American televangelist. In fact, yesterday's 7.0 earthquake in Haiti has been predicted more than two centuries ago, says Mr. Robertson. Unbelievable? Listen to the man himself:

In case you didn't get it quite right from the video, here's the transcript:

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal.

And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle on the one side is Haiti the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come.

What Pat Robertson is referring to is a Voodoo ceremony in 1791 Haiti, then under the French rule, that might or might not have taken place. Known as the Bois Caiman Ceremony, it is supposed to have signaled the beginning of the Haitian Revolution against the French. A Boston Tea Party of sorts, perhaps. Ever since, with hurricane after hurricane, and now with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, the Haitians have been paying for their original sin, according to Robertson. If only had Haiti paid attention to the other famous predictions of this idiot savant in Voodoo geology and more, they may have been spared this tragedy.

For example, Predicting 9/11 was a piece of cake for Pat Robertson and his fellow specialist in Voodoo politics, Jerry Faldwell:

Falwell: throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen.

Robertson: I totally concur ...

It's that simple. All they had to do was to extrapolate the secular and feminist trends in the U.S. of A., and voilà, god will certainly bring death and destruction upon liberal New York!

Then came Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Once again, Robertson easily proved the precise relationship between abortion and hurricane, using Voodoo climatology:

I was reading, yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he used the term that those who do this, "the land will vomit you out." That -- you look at your -- you look at the book of Leviticus and see what it says there.

I wish the scientists and the leaders, who met in Copenhagen last year, had heeded Robertson's advice and "looked at the book of Levitcus", don't you?

Robertson could even predict catastrophic events to affect individuals. With clear and unblemished reasoning based on his expertise in Voodoo neurology, Dr. Robertson knew immediately after Israel's pull out from the Gaza strip that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would be felled by a stroke:

... I think we need to look at the Bible and the Book of Joel. The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who, quote, "divide my land." God considers this land to be his. You read the Bible, he says, "This is my land." And for any prime minister of Israel who decides he going carve it up and give it away, God says, "No. This is mine." And the same thing -- I had a wonderful meeting with Yitzhak Rabin in 1974. He was tragically assassinated, and it was terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless, he was dead. And now Ariel Sharon, who was again a very likeable person, a delightful person to be with. I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point of death. He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or United States of America. God said, "This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone."

Wow, the man is amazing! I appeal to President Obama to immediately appoint him as the Secretary of Homeland Spirituality, Special Envoy to the Kingdom of God, and the Director of National Voodoo Science Foundation. If you needed more self-referrals to the spirit of Christianity shining through the mouth of Pat Robertson, please visit here. Thanks.

spotlight

Miep Gies

b.15 February 1909 — d.11 January 2010

From an interview, Miep Gies remembers Anne Frank, 1998:

Interviewer: How do you look back on the war years?

Miep Gies: 'I often wonder how it could have happened, and why. I've struggled with this a great deal. Once we were talking about it together and I said to Jan, "This is what I think. We've been allowed to go on living. We have to keep on going, no matter how difficult it is. We can't stand still, because those who stand still fall by the wayside. "But you're just a human being. And a human being has to have something to hold on to. So I continued, "In those dark days during the war we didn't stand on the sidelines. We offered a helping hand, we committed our very lives. We couldn't have done any more than that."

Freedom means ... respect for the lives of others. Farewell, Miep Gies, we will miss you.

humor

Imagine there's no pants ...

Well, the billions of my fellow humans in theocratic and totalitarian societies, living in utter boredom and worse, could only imagine. Nopes, you can't show even an inch of your skin, lest you be roasted in hell fire! For us the free, no moral police, and no problem. Not even in bitter cold New York. Watch the fun: