Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money – George Carlin,

Late Night Randomness

Just saw Avatar, the plot is beyond predictable but the visuals are like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It really needs to be seen in 3D preferably on a IMAX screen, it will submerge you in another world. As this technology gets down to a reasonable price I would love to see what a director like Guillermo del Toro could do with it.

Privilege, You’re Soaking In It

I know I went on a rant recently about how oppressors don’t get to define what is an appropriate response by a oppressed group to some remark or action by a member of the oppressor class. I now have to add being a member of an oppressed group does not give you the right to tell another oppressed group that they are overreacting.

I bring this up because of a dust up on twitter today, an atheist told some trans-woman they were over reacting to a routine by Colbert on his show. I have not seen the bit and only followed part of the conversation but the content of the bit is not the point. You do not get to tell a member of an oppressed group they are over reacting and then fall back on the ‘but I’m oppressed to!’ whine when called on your lack of knowledge of the other person’s situation. But that is exactly what happened.

The atheist should have been able to empathize with the trans-women given all the shit atheists take from the theists. But he was blinded by his white male privilege. As a white former male person I recognize the arrogance that comes from having your ideas and opinions valued over all others. No life experience or ideas are valid unless you validate them. I took me a long time to figure out how to take the blinders off and really see the world. Being a progressive or a would be ally does not absolve you from confronting your own privilege. A white, straight cis-male, no matter how good his intentions, is still a total jerk when insisting he knows what should or should not piss off trans-women.

From The Lavender Menace To Trans Misogyny

When the National Organization of Women had just been founded in 1969 Betty Friedan called for expelling lesbians from the organization calling them a Lavender Menace who would stand in the way of NOW achieving it’s goals. In her 1978 book Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism Mary Daly called trans-women ‘Frankenstein’ while ignoring trans-men’s existence entirely. This to me is not progress. It is a formally excluded group deciding to exclude a even more marginalized group. This sort of crap happens all too often and I’m sick of it. We either liberate everyone or we’re all still trapped in a hierarchy of oppression.

The Return Of The Friday Random Thirteen

Because I have a fascination with Music and Prime Numbers

Space Oddity by David Bowie
Stupid Girl by The Rolling Stones
Hurry On Sundown by Hawkwind
Shout It Out Loud by Kiss
Bad Reputation by Joan Jet & The Blackhearts
Dragons & Fables by Hawkwind
Flight Of The Rat by Deep Purple
Bottom Of The Sea by George Thorogood & The Destroyers
Words by Missing Persons
City Don’t Cry by Page & Plant
Is There Something I Should Know by Duran Duran
God Save The Queen by Sex Pistols
Charles Atlas Song (reprise) by Tim Curry

The last thirteen songs that iTunes DJ mode called up

What Some Feminists, Gays And Theocrats Have In Common

What you may ask could feminists, gays and christian theocrats have in common? A refusal to view trans-men and women as anything other than mentally ill people who should be denied any medical help but coercive therapy to ‘cure’ them of their delusions. What with Ron Gold claiming we don’t exist, the late Mary Daly calling us ‘Frankensteinian’ and the Family Research Council throwing a snit fit over Federal Government banning employment discrimination based on gender identity this attitude has been more obvious than it usually is. They all ignore the growing medical consensus that transgender identity is a medical condition not a mental illness. The other thing they all have in common is that sense we are mentally ill we need NO legal protections. That this is a death sentence for many of us doesn’t bother them in the least for none of them consider us really human. I would just like to say to them in the kindest way possible FUCK OFF AND DIE

Genderqueer 101 A Definition

I can only give the definition that works for me. The clearest is that gender queer is not fitting into even the broadest definition of the gender binary of male/female as the only choices. For me personally it means that I am currently male bodied but my sense of self is far more female but there are aspects of me that are still quite male and others that are gender neutral. My sense of gender is not fixed and though I would love to use hormones to alter my body my sense of my gender does not depend on my physical appearance. For me gender identity is not a point on a line but a probability cloud like a electron.

Does thus definition help or is it too ambiguous

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

If God kills, lies, cheats, discriminates, and otherwise behaves in a manner that puts the Mafia to shame, that's okay, he's God. He can do whatever he wants. Anyone who adheres to this philosophy has had his sense of morality, decency, justice and humaneness warped beyond recognition by the very book that is supposedly preaching the opposite. — Dennis McKinsey

With a hat tip to Doggy Style

A Injury To One Is A Injury To All

That is a motto of my union, The Industrial Workers Of The World. It’s a motto I believe in and try to live by. Unless we stand up for the rights of everybody, even those who do not support us, we open ourselves to a dived and rule strategy. If the bosses can get us competing with each other for position in a hierarchy of oppression and some recognition and legal protections they know we will be too busy to fight them.

So I will always strive to practice solidarity. That does not mean I won’t call out groups and individuals I see willing to sell out others for some small gain for themselves. Also while I might actively support your goals I won’t support your organization if I see you practicing exclusionary bullshit *cough hrc cough*

So if you call yourselves a social justice group fucking fight for EVERONES rights or admit you’re a bunch of privileged wana be’s

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter..- Thomas Jefferson,

And for the New Year a tripple header

In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it.- Benjamin Franklin,

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.- John Adams,

All from our founding fathers, a ‘Christian’ nation indeed.