Hello all,
I haven't been on this site for quite a while now, and am very pleased to see how active it is. It's good to know that there's a lot of youth beginning to think rationally about the world around them.

Since my last post here, I've become a relular member of the atheist podcast "Vox Populi", hosted by Hellbound Alleee. It's "the show by atheists, for atheists" in which the team members answer "questions relevant to the atheist life". For those of you that haven't heard it, I suggest you check it out at [url=http://]www.hellboundalleee.com/voxpopuli[/url]

Also, I've started writing my own blog at blogspot entitled [b]The Freedom to Say 2 + 2 is 4[/b], at [url=http://]http://freedom224.blogspot.com[/url] So far I've mostly been discussing anarchy and morality, but as I state on my first post ("2 + 2 = 4"), I eventually plan to be writing topics in regards to atheism/theism (probably as it pertains to fundamentalism, right now, because I'm taking a course and reading several books on it right now). Even so, the questions of anarchy are very similar in nature to those of atheism, so if you want to continue the rationalism, continue the quest!

So someone I know posted this as a note on Facebook today, and I felt it worthy of a rant. (Format edited for improved readability!)

"Love vs. Sexby Joe Garry (notes) 10:28pm Wednesday, Oct 11
A teenage girl about 17 had gone to visit some friends one evening and time passed quickly as each shared their various experiences of the past year. She ended up staying longer than planned, and had to walk home alone. She wasn't afraid because it was a small town and she lived only a few blocks away.
As she walked along under the tall elm trees, Diane asked God to keep her safe from harm and danger. When she reached the alley, which was a short cut to her house, she decided to take it. However, halfway down the alley she noticed a man standing at the end as though he were waiting for her.

While I’m going to be focusing on the concept of afterlife as it applies to Christianity, because that is mostly what I deal with, I think that many of the points I bring forth are applicable to other afterlives and the concept in general. In this post I will be discussing three possibilities: heaven, hell, and ceasing to exist. As I have just listed them is how I would personally rate them least desirable-to-desirable.

The first and most important concept to grasp to understand why I arrived at this point is that of infinity. An afterlife in the classical view is an infinite period after the physical body has left. Such an existence also has another necessity – some form of existence independent of the physical body – which will be discussed later on as well.

A lot of the stigma against things like atheism in this country probably coem from a feeling of threat from people that have different values and beliefs. They say we're afraid of what we don't know, and we're afraid of change, and I believe this is certainly true of most people. Many people feel content with the system they grew up in and don't even think of the alternatives, or even view them as dangerous or lunatic fringe.

Anarchy has that same stigma going with it. People associate it with violence and chaos, using it as a synonym. Some of this does have basis in fact, of course - many anarchists have been known to engage in violence or destruction in order to achieve their message. And in fact, there may come a time where violent overthrow is necessary. Our founding fathers knew this - after all, they had to fight such a battle! - and that was a large part of the right to bare arms. As I've mentioned in my other posts, it's necessary in order to keep the government afraid of, and thus repsonsive to, the people.

Why am I an atheist? I have occasionally been asked why I don’t see god, or why I deny god. I have been told many times I’m not really an atheist; that I really believe in him at heart. I have heard all sorts of things that simply don’t mesh with the reality of why I am an atheist. I am not an atheist because I’m rebelling from god, or because I haven’t looked at the world around me, or because I’m afraid of punishment and thus deny god.

So why AM I an atheist? Perhaps we should start with a background of me in association with religion. I grew up being a very weak Christian. My family was not at all religion centered – in fact, the only religious training I got was a very broad study of some of the happier stories of the Bible with my aunt, who is a Jehovah’s Witness. My view could have been described as a theistic evolutionist. I did pray regularly, and from my heart, but never attended any churches as a child or even through adolescence. I thank my parents so very much for not indoctrinating me from the start in religion, because it left me free of the dogma associated with church and left me to freely question everything.

On my campus today they were setting up for some sort of military/patriotic related event. There were plenty of marines (or were they another branch) and rows and rows of foldout chairs. As a friend and I were walking by, she said something along the lines of not caring about it. I agreed. I don't get the whole nationalism thing, and I never have.

It always bothers me when people support something without basis. Usually, this is religion that I speak out against, but nationalism is little different. The parallels to religion are certainly there. People pledge their faith to the country to guide them to prosperity and good times, without properly questioning why they're doing so.

A Pentecostal I've been talking to over MySpace told me that he had physically heard God. This raised a point that I had never really thought about, concerning the supernatural and our capability of interacting with it. I'm going to discuss our means of observing the world around us, and how it is incompatible with measuring and/or observing the supernatural world, removing the possibility for interaction between the two.
Firstly, let’s talk about what the supernatural is and isn’t. The supernatural is “of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal” (Dictioanry.com). So, basically, the supernatural is anything that is beyond nature. Seems pretty basic. Super – beyond, nature – nature.

I have great difficulty understanding how people can support the death penalty. We're talking about killing people because of revenge and inconvenience.

So why do people support this? Some people contend that it's justice to have the people who commit heinous crimes to be killed and removed from existence. Others claim it's a deterrent to future crimes. Others that we should waste our taxpayer money keeping these people alive in prisons.

Why do I NOT support the death penalty? Firstly, because the above are all bullshit arguments for the death penalty. Secondly, I find it hard to jsutify the killing of somebody who is in prison and no longer puts the peoples at risk (I advocate life improisonment for such cases that the death penalty would be used), and because of the possibility (and reality) that innocent people are on death row.

This was going to be a much longer post, but somebody just posted a blog about gay marriage, so I'm just going to touch up on some of the ridiculous arguments that pop up in conversations with people who denounce gay marriage (not just Christians). Here are some common excuses:

1) Marriage is between a man and a woman.
-This is the point of inequality, but for some reason people think that it's a valid argument against gay marriage. The reason this issue exists is because the definition of a legal marriage is too narrow and exclusive. The defining of marriage between a man and woman is compeltely arbitrary, considering what a marriage is - a union of (at least) two consenting adults. The main benefit of this is benefits that aid one of the partners after another dies or get ill. Beyond that, at least in today's age, everything else attached to is an extra.