Religion is constant enemy of progress

Fleeing Islamist extremists torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu, the mayor said Monday, as French and Malian forces closed in on Mali's fabled desert city.

"It's truly alarming that this has happened," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Mali's capital, Bamako, on Monday. "They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people." 

This is similar to events that occurred in the Dark Ages. Then, Christians took science books, bleached the writing from their pages, and painted prayers on them. Out with productive science, in with useless religion. We lost nearly 1,000 years of human progress then. Will we lose all of science today, as religion rears its ugly head all over the world?

I worry that, given a cataclysm such as a world-wide epidemic that reduced the human world population by half or more, religious lunatics would take over the world and disavow all scientific knowledge. It's very possible. This is one reason (among many) why we must rid the world of religion. It is and always has been humanity's enemy.

Muslim wingnuts just like Christian wingnuts

In Indonesia, wingnuts want to increase the amount of religion taught in schools. And when we look at their reasoning for this move, we see it's the same argument made by Christian wingnuts in the U.S. who want to inject prayer into the public school curriculum.

Officials who back the changes say that more religious instruction is needed because a lack of moral development has led to an increase in violence and vandalism among youths, and that could fuel social unrest and corruption in the future.

Yeah, that'll work. And pretty soon it will be the year 1400 again -- and there will be no more problems from feisty young people. Hooray!

From country to country, religious wingnuts sing the same damn song. If we could only return to the dark ages, things would be swell. Indeed.

Blasphemy laws: not a good idea

There's a good op-ed this morning in the NYT about the inadvisability of passing anti-blasphemy laws. As I've said here many times, they are inimical to a free society and, if allowed to proliferate, will bring on the next Dark Ages.

This moment in America

I admire rational bloggers who write on a daily basis about the times we're living through. I can only do that occasionally. There is so little sense in American life right now. My question is always, "How can I pick one thing to rail against?" I can't because everything is so stupid in our country.

I write regularly about the Roman Catholic church not because it's so evil -- which it is -- but because it has chosen to attack me and every other gay person in the world. It's like when your country is bombed: you have to fight back. But other than this one defense measure, I can't write about society very often. It's just too damned stupid.

Here's a task for you: think of a person who is fighting for world peace. Go ahead, I'll give you a moment... Can't come up with one, can you? That's because no one is doing this. How weird is that? Nor is any candidate running for office on a platform of truth. We don't do truth in this country anymore. Instead, we've opted to accept anything that is flung at us, as long as we can keep on eating all the donuts we want.

Just look at the nonsense that surrounds us. There are people fighting for (and passing) laws against Sharia -- which doesn't exist in this country except in the hearts of the Christian American Taliban who are the very people pushing for these amendments. Or listen to the fools who say you can't have gay marriage because it -- duh -- somehow magically affects the "sanctity" of straight marriage. When there is no logic in an argument, there is no way to refute it. These people can't think.

Americans don't have real choices anymore. Shall we choose the empty suit for our next president so he can give all our money away to his friends? Or should we stick with the Nobel Prize-winning torturer/murderer/drone killer president that we have? These are the sorts of wooden choices available to Americans-- and none leads to the exit. We're stuck here.

These are scary, awful times. People can't tell right from wrong and half of all Americans believe a sky god created humans within the last 10,000 years. Without evolution! How can you work with a populace like that?

That's why I can't see blogging on a daily basis about serious issues. To me, it would be like beating my head against a brick wall, daily. Instead, I spend my time writing subversive fiction. I want to affect this stupid world of ours and I think writing is my way to do this. Without the ability to write novels, I'd give up.

We all have to do something to fight the coming Dark Ages. Because make no mistake about it, that's what we're heading into. So what are you doing to make this a more sensible world?