Common Criminal

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Edwin Lyngar

I sure hate to defend the constitutional rights of religiously motivated lunatics, but accused bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, deserves every protection afforded to him in the constitution.  The right wing in America is apoplectic that Dzhokhar is being treated like a criminal, and they would like to see him denied his basic constitutional rights as an accused criminal.

Should Tsarnaev, an American citizen, be denied habeas corpus, a right to a trial or Fifth Amendment protections, just because of the motive of his crime?  This is a new requirement I’ve never seen before.  If we don’t “like” a criminal’s motives, should we then just ship these undesirables off to Guantanamo Bay? (John Stewart nailed it.) Continue reading →

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The Updated Ten Commandments From Republican Jesus

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Edwin Lyngar

From regular contributor Mike Lytoris, we have a revision of the ten commandments.  I also think regular contributor RobRoy had a hand in them too.  Since they are inspired by Republican Jesus, of course we’ve added two more for an honest twelve.

1. And Jesus spaketh unto the Apostles, saying unto them, “Goeth not into the world meek and mild as newborn sheep, but rather taketh with thee a semiautomatic rifle utilizing a medium grade standard NATO round. And fireth not thee once, but twice unto each tango thou spottest, thereby ensuring thine enemies immediate return to the firey pit where no true believer ever goeth.”

Our Lord and Savior of the AR15.

2. “Thou shalt separate both church and state…officially. Unofficially, thou shalt understand that christian values built and run this country.”

3. Thou shalt advocate for the free expression of religion, provided it is MY religion and not some other yahoos. In the case of such yahoos, they shall be called evil demons, lying serpents, yea and even Satan hisownself.

4. Thou shalt be merciful and forgiving, but only to the righteous. Those who do not walk the true path shall have stones and slurs cast upon them, yea upon their Continue reading →

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I’ll Pray for You

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Edwin Lyngar

I offended a religious friend of mine, and I have to admit that I regret it.  My friend offered a joking, “I’ll pray for you,” and I offered a casual, humorous (I thought) blasphemy in return.  I forget that religious people are actually offended by blasphemy, and my friend was a little hurt.  I must admit that I can be too quick with “religion is a load of shit” talk, and there’s no reason to walk around offending otherwise pleasant, kind people.

However, atheists like me are not the only people who say routinely offensive things, and many religious people have no idea how often they offend agnostics, atheists and even members of other religions.  Let’s reexamine the idea of a “prayer offering” to perhaps help my religious friends to be more inclusive in their lives. Continue reading →

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Todd Starnes – The Worst Person You’ve Never Heard Of

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Edwin Lyngar

It’s easy to disdain Pat Robertson, and you can be sickened by the mere mention of Bryan Fischer.  However, as these two theocrats are at least honest about their intent to turn America into a Christian-themed version of Iran, replete with women as second class citizens, homosexual outlaws and criminal atheists.

More insidious are the host of other commentators, bloggers and “journalists” who claim to love America but who really want to destroy everything about our secular democracy.  Chief among these sinister bastards is Todd Starnes.  Here is a nice blurb about his book that gives you a bit of info on the guy:

“Dispatches From Bitter America” was released earlier this year. The book is a collection of essays detailing how President Obama has declared war on the values that made this country great.

You probably haven’t heard of Mr. Starnes, but I follow him. Continue reading →

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Drop that “Hitler” and Back Away Slowly

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Edwin Lyngar

New observations from RobRoy McCandless.  This topic should interest secular-minded people, because Hitler is thrown around so often as an example of atheism gone bad (even though he was Catholic). — Edwin Lyngar

“You know who else liked dogs?  Adolf Hitler, that’s who!”

 The Hitler/Nazi parallel argument is old.  It’s so old that we can trace it back to the pre-Mad Men times of 1951 when philosopher Leo Strauss (a conservative, by the way) coined the term “Reductio ad Hitlerum”.  The dog Latin reflects the fallacious reasoning that occurs when a position, any position (seriously, ANY position), is compared to that held by Hitler or the Nazi Party, and therefor is wrong, bad and / or evil.

This argument is so tiresome that it received a second summarization in 1990 by Mike Godwin who coined Godwin’s Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. Continue reading →

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Patriotism, Jesus and the Pledge of Allegiance

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Edwin Lyngar

I saw this post on Facebook yesterday (above).  I see something like it almost every day.  It’s one of the things I like least about Facebook and the Internet in general.  I don’t block or avoid these types of posts, because I am a grown up. I can handle it when confronted with opinion that runs contrary to my own.  That’s the difference between a thinking person and a blind partisan. Dissenting opinions can’t hurt me.

As I see these posts from time to time, I notice that every one of them have a combination of the same bits of rhetorical Lego, used to build grand cathedrals of flawed logic. Continue reading →

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