Fourteen year old boy fails his test for putting: "this didn't happen" as his only answer to the question, describe the book of Genesis. Technically I guess he's right, but to have scored higher, he might have scored better if he had elaborated on the myth or the story as apocryphal at the very least. Either way. I take my hat off to him and support his stance against being taught rubbish at his age, when he could be learning things of actual use. People like this young man give me hope for the future, especially as he seems quite adamant the whole class are non believers too. Religion is very slowly it seems is dying.
Following the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, on September 25, 2012 when the leaders of Indonesia and Pakistan spoke up for the condemnation of blasphemy. UNGA President Vuk Jeremic speaks to RT's Marina Portnaya.
The two most Muslim populated countries used their time at the United Nations General Assembly to call for a global anti-blasphemy protocol/resolution. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Pakistan counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, both argued that insults against Mohammed, Islam’s prophet, incite violence and are not legitimate free speech.
Yudhoyono pointed out that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says the exercise of rights and freedoms is subject to “the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.”
Blasphemy is without a victim. It's one thing to be offended
personally, it's another thing altogether to be offended on
behalf of some invented deity.
UNGA President Vuk Jeremic speaks to RT's Marina Portnaya.
RT:
General Assembly resolutions are not binding on states, even less binding on individuals. From what I understand the GA is going to be considering an anti-blasphemy resolution, a resolution proposed in the aftermath of the violent reaction on the anti-Muslim film made in the US. If adopted, what can it achieve?
VJ:
The decisions of the General Assembly carry significant moral weight. And given that they are reached within the universal representation of mankind, I think they carry a very-very special message with regard to blasphemy, something that in my opinion can affect stability in the entire world. And it goes really to the heart of the frictions that are in many ways coloring the security, economic and geopolitical situation of today. There are a lot of people who have different points of view on this issue and it’s mainly the religious feeling versus that of freedom of speech. As a president of the General Assembly I will do my best to work with all sides, all parties to this debate and the General Assembly, to make sure that the 67th session resolution on blasphemy does carry significant moral weight and is backed by a vast majority.
Previous defamation resolutions were overturned by the UN, replaced with Freedom of Opinion and Expression - See Below.
“General Comment No. 34, Article 19: Freedom of Opinion and Expression,” issued on July 29, 2011. Here are some excerpts:
Freedom of opinion and freedom of expression are indispensable conditions for the full development of the person. They are essential for any society. They constitute the foundation stone for every free and democratic society. The two freedoms are closely related, with freedom of expression providing the vehicle for the exchange and development of opinions. (Paragraph 2)
Freedom of expression is a necessary condition for the realisation of the principles of transparency and accountability that are, in turn, essential for the promotion and protection of human right. (Paragraph 3)
States parties should put in place effective measures to protect against attacks aimed at silencing those exercising their right to freedom of expression. (Paragraph 23)
Restrictions on the right of freedom of opinion should never be imposed. (Paragraph 49)
Peter: Ground Zero. So this is where the first guy got AIDS.
Brian: No, Peter, this is the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks!
Peter: Oh, so Saddam Hussein did this?
Brian: No.
Peter: The Iraqi army?
Brian: No.
Peter: Some guys from Iraq?
Brian: No.
Peter: That one lady who visited Iraq that one time?
Brian: No, Peter, Iraq had nothing to do with this. It was a bunch of Saudi Arabians, Lebanese, and Egyptians financed by a Saudi Arabian guy living in Afghanistan and sheltered by Pakistanis.
Peter: So...you're saying we need to invade Iran?
"Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku-Klux-Klan or the Fascists?"
The argument from design
The next step in this process brings us to the argument from design. You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world were ever so little different we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application. It is an easy argument to parody. You all know Voltaire’s remark, that obviously the nose was designed to be such as to fit spectacles. That sort of parody has turned out to be not nearly so wide of the mark as it might have seemed in the eighteenth century, because since the time of Darwin we understand much better why living creatures are adapted to their environment. It is not that their environment was made to be suitable to them, but that they grew to be suitable to it, and that is the basis of adaptation. There is no evidence of design about it.
When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience has been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it. Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku-Klux-Klan or the Fascists? Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions of temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending – something dead, cold, and lifeless.
I am told that that sort of view is depressing, and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that they would not be able to go on living. Do not believe it, it is all nonsense. Nobody really worries much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out – at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation – it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things. (Bertrand Russell - Why I am not a Christian.)
Church Challenge to IRS Political Restriction - “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” 7th October - mass breaching of the clause set out by the IRS statute of 1954.
A group of Pastors are opposing the political restriction placed upon religious 501(c)3 organisations by the IRS Johnson amendment of 1954. The IRS states that a church can speak up on issues like abortion and contraception, but can't endorse or directly campaign against any particular political candidate. A group of Pastors are blatantly breaching this clause and sending the IRS recordings of them doing so in the hope they will be challenged giving the church its opportunity to fight the constitutional issues surrounding the political restriction. Pastors are confident this clause will be struck down as unconstitutional, the IRS have been strangely quiet on the issue
Irrespective of whether a 501(c)3 endorses any particular candidate or not, this does not stop it lobbying government on issues such as abortion, contraception, bioethics to name just a few and the cost to religious organizations in the USA annually is in excess of $390 000 000. (Pew Report) This must be extremely frustrating to atheist taxpaying Americans knowing they are subsidizing religious lobbying on moral issues so diametrically opposed to their own.
Where exactly is the separation of church and state? The front line battle has up until now focused upon council meeting prayers and nativity scenes while religion runs all over the constitution making a mockery of it. Attack of the Theocrats by Sean Faircloth is an excellent read relevant to church and state separation, please see the link directly below the following two videos
