A Christian asshole was criticizing Charles Darwin. This is what I wrote for the fucking moron.

Charles Darwin was the most important person who ever lived. He changed the way the world thinks. He made it possible to throw out superstitious nonsense and replace it with science.

I found this at PZ's website: "Why I am an atheist." This is one of several posts about why people threw out the god fantasy. A lot to read but the whole thing was very well done.

Why I am an atheist – Jeff Duval

I’ve been an atheist since before I knew the word “atheist” existed. It still seems silly to me that we need a word to describe people who aren’t convinced by a claim that has zero evidence behind it. After all, we don’t waste time talking about a-ghostism or a-sasquatchism as if these were worldviews that had content and needed followers gathering weekly to reinforce.

I was raised in a mildly Roman Catholic, French-Canadian family in rural Maine. When I was a child, we went to mass occasionally and my siblings and I attended catechism classes after school. We had a big, creepy painting of Jesus with his crown of thorns in the foyer, crucifixes over many doorways, and a little ceramic nativity set my mother made under the Christmas tree. I always thought the nativity was cute, but the bloody, suffering dude disturbed me to no end. Why do we have such macabre taste in home decor? My journey from skeptical Catholic to atheist happened early, between the ages of about 7 and 12.

The first thing that struck me as odd was the fact that we went to two different places to learn about what sounded like history, and the learning process was so different. Why don’t I hear about Jesus stuff in history class at school? If this stuff really happened, shouldn’t we be learning about it there, too? Why do we have to go to a completely different place, with a weird, cultish atmosphere, dress up fancy and do a bunch of chanting? Why is it all Jesus all the time and nothing else at church? Why is there only one book to be obsessed over, when at school we have many books?

I remember when the Santa Claus myth was busted open thinking it sounded very similar to the core concept of our religion – an omniscient, bearded father figure simultaneously scrutinizing the behavior of millions of children and defying physics one night a year to deliver them all gifts, never to be seen, conveniently residing in a place I can never get to. Is God just Santa Claus for grown ups? Sounds like precisely the kind of story people would make up to keep other people in line.

The second thing that struck me as odd was the antiquated, barbaric flavor of the content we were subject to at church. Talk of holy ghosts, crucifixion, resurrection, original sin and some wizard scapegoat didn’t make a lick of sense to me. If this stuff is even possible, why doesn’t any of it happen today? Why are all these alleged miracles conveniently tucked millennia in the past when no one knew anything about anything? Why is there no mention of any of this at “real” school? Why does the bible sound like it was written by repressed patriarchs from ancient history? Why does God care about how we sacrifice a ram? Why does he even want that? Does anyone even do that? How does any of this have any bearing on modern life? Of course, I didn’t have the vocabulary or philosophical foundation to articulate those questions specifically, but those were the kinds of thoughts coalescing in my mind as I sat, bored to tears in the pews.

I watched a lot of PBS growing up. I was enamored by Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, Nova, 3-2-1 Contact, and later Bill Nye. I loved science programming and have always had an insatiable curiosity about how things actually work. I began to understand what the difference was between how I was learning in school and from science programs and how I was being indoctrinated at church. The difference was evidence and explanation. With science, I was being shown the evidence by way of experiments. I could see claims being vindicated by test results in real time. I was being given explanations that really explained things by describing working mechanisms. At church I never saw any experiments and no mechanisms were ever described. The reasoning always seemed to come down to “it says in the bible” or “God did it,” which, of course, is circular logic, does no explanatory work and simply pushes the causal chain back one step. The “it’s magic” kind of answers just weren’t satisfying me at all. How did God/Jesus do it? How can you possibly know what heaven is like? It began to strike me that Christians cared more about preserving the idea of God than explaining how he went about his work.

I remember learning about Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology as well as other religions like Islam and Hinduism at school and thinking these “myths” sounded very familiar. I saw a lot of parallels between these myths and the stories I was hearing at church and reading in the bible. The same kind of barbarism, miracles and musty language were at play. Why do they have several gods and we only have one? Why, when it comes to things like heliocentrism or gravity, everyone is on the same page now, but when it comes to origins of life and what happens after death, everyone believes different things? They can’t all be right, right? Could it be that Christianity is just another ancient set of myths that landed in my lap because I happened to be born in a Christian part of the world? Could it be that every culture started with its own set of anthropomorphic allegories to describe the universe, then science comes along and renders them obsolete with real explanatory work? That would certainly explain all my earlier questions.

I remember playing in the woods, observing closely the natural world around me brought even more questions. If this is the handiwork of a god, I’m not impressed. Why do people go blind and deaf? Why are some people deformed or diseased or psychotic? Why is there so much wanton waste and destruction? Why are there gross things like maggots? If the universe really were perfect for life, wouldn’t it just be verdant arborea to infinity in all directions? What’s with stranding us on a rock with shifting climates and tectonics in the middle of a vast vacuum? Why this convoluted process of reproduction and gestation? Why doesn’t God just snap his fingers and blink each individual into existence the same way he did with Adam? I remember looking at the structure of leaves and the way plants and trees bend toward light. I remember looking at snowflakes melt on my mittens and images of capillaries and nerves and thinking, “I just don’t see design here. I don’t see intention or purpose. I see fractal noise. I see chemistry competing for space, finding niches, branching out and growing wherever and however it can. If this vibrant complexity is, however, the result of purely natural forces, I’m deeply impressed.” Again, these thoughts were not that clearly articulated at that age, but those were the kinds of thoughts I was having. I just didn’t know how to put them into words, so I didn’t voice them to anyone.

I remember watching an episode of Cosmos where Carl Sagan described evolution by natural selection and it blew my mind. So many things came into focus. I suspected it had to be something like that. I remember hearing my grandmother say, “I didn’t come from no monkey,” and I thought, “but look at how similar we are. If all the species of dogs we have today descended from wolves, it’s no stretch at all for humans to descend from ape-like creatures. Isn’t it so much more amazing to understand this process than lazily chalk it up to magic?”

This lead me to ponder further about why people might believe these myths. It seemed obvious that no one wants to die and the idea of heaven was very much wishful thinking. I had no reason to think being dead would be any different than not yet being born. It was certainly comforting to think that in times of loneliness, depression and doubt I could pretend the supreme, infallible boss of the universe was on my side and listening. That also seemed insanely conceited, though. People claiming they had a personal relationship with the inventor of the universe sounded a lot like, “Oh yeah, well my daddy is the President, so you better listen to what I say!”

I had a rosary I received as a First Communion gift. I was supposed to pray with it every night. I didn’t do it very often, though. What’s the use, it’s just wood and twine? I never hear the slightest peep from this god. What kind of petty game is he playing where he expects belief but never reveals himself? If he really cared wouldn’t he just hang out with us in an obvious manner? Wouldn’t he hold press conferences on the news every week? I just don’t see God anywhere at all. It seemed like all everyone was doing was pretending. Praying seemed like pretending. Worshiping seemed like pretending. Having faith seemed like pretending. As a child I did a lot of pretending I was a robot shooting lasers or a superhero soaring through the sky and moving boulders with my mind. Communicating with God seemed to yield the exact same results.

As I learned more and more about the real universe at school, in Time-Life books, encyclopedias, PBS shows, etc., and saw how many times throughout history the answer “God did it” was replaced by natural processes discovered by scientists, I saw God’s hand recede further and further until I became comfortable with the idea that there was probably a natural explanation for everything.

I remember the news constantly filled with stories of unrest in the Middle-East. Here’s a group of people who believe one thing clashing with people who believe something else. They all think God is on their side and are willing to die for their beliefs. I remember hearing about the Salem witch trials and the Crusades in history class. I began to see the pernicious effects of believing in things that are not true. I began to see how much good science had brought to our quality of life and how it can be undone by ignorance and mob mentality. I began to get the sense that if I were born a thousand years ago, I might have been burned at the stake for having all these doubts. I began to get the sense religion was something that needed to go.

I found myself regarding religion the same way I regarded Santa Claus – a childish superstition. This then begged the question, “Am I crazy or is everyone else crazy?” It all seemed so absurd, so obvious. I still had no idea what an atheist was or that there were even other non-believers out there. I remember one Easter after mass, my cousins were speculating about God and I said, “meh, I don’t believe in God anymore.” I didn’t plan to say it. I didn’t have any premeditated desire to inform my family. I had never even formed that precise thought in my head before that moment. I arrived at it just then and it just slipped out as casually as if I were talking about Santa. It was an involuntary reaction, like when the doctor taps your knee. I had assumed that notion and all the others that had occurred to me over the years must also have occurred to others. It’s so hard to believe in the first place, everyone must have considered it, right? The gasps of horror said otherwise. One of them ran out of the room shouting, “Jeff said he doesn’t believe in God!” I don’t remember anything being made out of it after that. I got the sense no one took it seriously and either thought I was joking, being a troll, or just weren’t surprised given my enthusiasm for science.

As we got older and it became apparent my siblings and I had no enthusiasm for church, we just stopped going. No one seemed to miss it much.

One night, there was a Penn & Teller special on network TV. I loved it because they explained how their tricks worked after performing them. They didn’t insult my intelligence by pretending they had special powers. At the end of the show, as the camera dollied out, Penn waved and said, “..and remember, there is no Go..” and cut to commercial. I was stunned. Wait, what? Did that guy say, “There is no God,” then get cut off? There’s someone else on Earth who feels the same way I do and has the brass testicles to declare it on national television? My conviction was boosted another notch. I had my first atheist role model. Technically, it was Carl Sagan, but from watching Cosmos, I hadn’t yet realized he and many scientists were actually non-believers. No one talked about those things openly. Of course it was never one single influential person or idea that converted me, but many over the years, slowly and meticulously collapsing indoctrinated claims of faith under the weight of rigorous, rational inquiry until I had swayed to a position of pure incredulity.

To this day I happily engage in debate even at inappropriate times. I’m always open to new evidence, but have yet to hear an argument for theism that isn’t a tangled bird’s nest of fallacy.

Thanks to all communicators of science. You are my champions and you are the best people.

Jeff Duval

"When you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe."

North America has lost 3 billion birds since 1970. To help the birds, instead of watching cat videos, kill the fucking cats. And get rid of Fucktard Trump.

Opinion

New York Times - Three Billion Canaries in the Coal Mine

What does it mean for us that birds are dying? And what can we do about it?

By Margaret Renkl
Contributing Opinion Writer

September 29, 2019

A Magnolia Warbler found recently on a suburban lawn in the northeast. 

NASHVILLE — During the nearly quarter-century that my family has lived in this house, the changes in our neighborhood have become increasingly apparent: fewer trees and wildflowers, fewer bees and butterflies and grasshoppers, fewer tree frogs and songbirds. The vast majority of Tennessee is still rural, and for years I told myself that such changes were merely circumstantial, specific to a city undergoing rapid gentrification and explosive growth. I wasn’t trying to save the world by putting up nest boxes for the birds or letting the wildflowers in my yard bloom out before mowing. I was hoping only to provide a small way station for migrating wildlife, trusting they would be fine once they cleared the affluence zone that is the New Nashville.

I was wrong. A new study in the journal Science reports that nearly 3 billion North American birds have disappeared since 1970. That’s 29 percent of all birds on this continent. The data are both incontrovertible and shocking. “We were stunned by the result,” Cornell University’s Kenneth V. Rosenberg, the study’s lead author, told The Times.

This is not a report that projects future losses on the basis of current trends. It is not an update on the state of rare birds already in trouble. This study enumerates actual losses of familiar species — ordinary backyard birds like sparrows and swifts, swallows and blue jays. The anecdotal evidence from my own yard, it turns out, is everywhere.

You may have heard of the proverbial canary in the coal mine — caged birds whose sensitivity to lethal gasses served as an early-warning system to coal miners; if the canary died, they knew it was time to flee. This is what ornithologists John W. Fitzpatrick and Peter P. Marra meant when they wrote, in an opinion piece for The Times, that “Birds are indicator species, serving as acutely sensitive barometers of environmental health, and their mass declines signal that the earth’s biological systems are in trouble.”

Unlike the miners of old, we have nowhere safe to flee. Nevertheless, the current administration has been rolling back existing environmental protections faster than environmentalists can respond to the ceaseless bad news.

On the other hand, we’ve been here before. Not here, precisely, but close enough to have seen what can happen when large numbers of people demand action. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” — which was published on September 27, 1962, almost exactly 57 years ago — made readers understand the cumulative effects of pesticides on the food chain. The resulting outcry led to a ban on DDT, which in turn was instrumental in allowing raptors like bald eagles and peregrine falcons, which exist at the top of their own food chains, to recover. One bit of good news in the new report in Science is that both of those species are now thriving.

With climate deniers occupying both the White House and the United States Senate, we seem to be a long way from achieving anything like the kind of bipartisan effort that led to the recovery of the bald eagle. But as avian research-and-advocacy organizations have pointed out, we are not entirely powerless. While continuing to pressure our elected leaders to do right by the planet before it convulses completely, we can also tend our own gardens with an eye toward giving birds a better chance:

Maintain a brush pile so songbirds have a place to hide from predators.

Let dead trees stand as nesting sites for cavity-nesting birds and a food source for insects. The insects will in turn provide protein for birds.

Plant fruit-and-nut-bearing trees and berry-producing shrubs. Native birds evolved to eat native plants, so make sure everything you plant is native to your area.

Swear off herbicides and insecticides, in your yard and refrigerator. A chemical-free yard provides safe food sources for birds, and organic farms provide the same benefits on an agricultural scale.

Keep fresh water readily available. In a drought, it’s easier for birds to find food than clean water.

Use traps instead of rat poison, many forms of which move up the food chain to raptors, like owls and hawks, that eat rodents.

To protect existing forests, buy sustainably sourced wood and paper products, eat less beef, drink shade-grown coffee.

Keep house cats indoors. Even well-fed cats kill birds.

Reduce bird collisions with glass by keeping screens up year-round or installing guards that interrupt reflections.

Eliminate single-use plastics, many of which end up in the oceans where seabirds consume them at lethal levels.

These efforts alone won’t save North American birds. A true solution will require concerted effort: the political will to address climate change, conservation strategies that restore habitat, policies that consider wildlife needs as well as human needs. More than anything, it will require a comprehensive understanding that wildlife needs are human needs.

None of this will happen without a wholesale shift in this country’s politics, and while that might seem impossible, it isn’t. The Republican Party today may be little more than a political wing of the fossil-fuel industry, but it needn’t be that way. The Environmental Protection Agency that President Trump seems intent on destroying was created by President Richard Nixon, a Republican.

Margaret Renkl is a contributing opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South. She is the author of the book “Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss.”

The Bible-thumpers of Idiot America

Here in Idiot America, the disgusting Bible is a big fucking deal. Millions of American fucktards get all their anti-science fantasies from the Bible, for example the magical creation of human apes. They devote their entire pathetic lives studying this ancient bullshit book.

I'm adding this to my list of favorite quotes. It's about the Bible:

"a bigoted, hateful, bronze-age cult-book"
-- Jeff

The fucktard president of Brazil: Since Mr Bolsonaro took office on 1 January, the government body charged with protecting the rainforest has seen its budget cut by 25%, while funding for the prevention of forest fires has been cut by 23%.

Brazil worker who protected indigenous tribes killed in Amazon

• 9 September 2019

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• Amazon fires

Image copyrightREUTERS

Image captionActivists say Brazil's government is failing to protect those who defend the rainforest

Police in Brazil are investigating the murder of an official who had worked to protect indigenous people from farmers and loggers attempting to seize land.

Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was reportedly shot twice in the head in the city of Tabatinga, near Brazil's borders with Colombia and Peru.

Union officials said Mr Santos was shot in front of members of his family.

The killing comes amid international outrage over the rate of destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.

At least 80,000 fires were recorded there between January and August this year - more than double the number in the same period last year.

• Amazon fires: How bad have they got?
• The animals caught in the Amazon fires

Brazil's populist President Jair Bolsonaro has drawn intense domestic and international criticism for failing to protect the region.

He has often stated support for farmers and loggers working in the region, while criticising environmental campaigners and slashing the budget of the country's environmental agency.

Murder on a busy street

The union which represents staff at Brazil's indigenous protection agency, Funai, said Mr Santos had been shot twice in the head as he drove his motorcycle down a busy street.

INA officials said he was killed in retaliation for his work at the Vale do Javari reserve, where for years he helped prevent hunters, farmers and loggers illegally entering the area.

The reserve is said to be home to the world's highest concentration of uncontacted indigenous tribes.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionActivists say Brazil's government is failing to protect those who defend the rainforest

Mr Santos served more than 12 years at Funai, including five as chief of environment services at the Vale do Javari reservation, INA said.

The union called on the Brazilian government to demonstrate Brazil "no longer condones violence against those who engage, under the rule of law, in the protection and promotion of indigenous rights".

Brazil's land and environmental activists have long been a target for the mining and logging industry. According to the environmental watchdog Global Witness, Brazil was the deadliest country in 2017, with a record 57 such activists killed, of 201 deaths worldwide.

Brazil was eclipsed last year by the Philippines, where 30 activists were killed, of 164 worldwide, Global Witness said.

• Amazon fires: Ten of your questions answered
• Are forest fires as bad as they seem?

Hundreds of government environment workers in Brazil last month signed an open letter warning that their work had been hampered by President Bolsonaro.

Since Mr Bolsonaro took office on 1 January, the government body charged with protecting the rainforest has seen its budget cut by 25%, while funding for the prevention of forest fires has been cut by 23%, according to data collected by the Reuters news agency.

In the same period, the number of fines issued to environmental criminals fell 29% and the collective value of the fines fell 43%, according to the Reuters data.

At a summit in Colombia on Friday, seven South American countries agreed measures to protect the Amazon river basin.

Related Topics

• Peru
• Amazon rainforest
• Brazil
• Ecuador
• Amazon fires
• Colombia
• Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest

You want to click this link. Somebody created a fantastic four minute video about the little blue dot we live on. The video is called "Earth". Even the music is well done.

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/2018/05/somebody-created-this-fantastic-4.html

Update: You can see it here:

An important quote that makes science deniers cry.

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
-- Theodosius Dobzhansky

Mr. Dobzhansky was god-soaked but his famous quote is correct. Every biologist in the world agrees with it.

A google search showed that this quote makes Christian fucktards cry.

This blog has a post (April 11, 2019) that explains why this quote is definitely true. It's a copy & paste job from National Geographic.

"Evolution is clearly a tinkerer, not an engineer; it has to work with yesterday's model."

National Geographic - The Downside of Upright

The special substance

I wrote this at the Wall Street Journal:

Smoking anything is wrong but "shortbread treats laden with cannabis" might be OK if not used before work and not used before driving a car.

It's going to be legal in Illinois 3 months from now. Since I don't work and I don't drive I might try a marijuana edible. My Social Security income will pay for it. Thanks taxpayers.

The Christian disease

"Scientists have discovered a gene amongst Christians dubbed the 'Santa Clause Gene', that makes them likely to believe in childish fantasies. Is this going to change the way we treat and hopefully, one day, maybe even cure Christians?"

Can the Christian disease be cured? I don't think so. Extreme stupid can't be fixed.

I suggest click the link. It's a post I wrote for this blog 7 years ago. Misconceptions about evolution, the religious implications of evolution, and lots of other stuff.

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/2012/05/evolution-deniers-deny-evolution.html

A post I wrote for this blog 8 years ago. It's about a Mississippi moron. Please click the link.

March 4, 2011

A Mississippi moron

"The future is going to be great. Space exploration is one of those things."

Science & Environment

Elon Musk upbeat on Starship test flights

By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent

The Mk1 Starship will begin high-altitude tests in the coming weeks

The American entrepreneur Elon Musk has given a further update on his Starship and Super Heavy rocket system.

He plans to use the new vehicles to send people to the Moon and Mars, and also to move them swiftly around the Earth.

The SpaceX CEO is in the process of building prototypes and plans to start flying them in the coming months.

The Mk1 version of his Starship would begin high-altitude tests in the next one to two months, he said.

"This is the most inspiring thing I've ever seen," the entrepreneur told an audience gathered at the company's Boca Chica, Texas, facility where the prototype has been assembled.

"So this thing is going to take off, fly to 65,000 feet, about 20km, and come back and land. So that giant thing, it's really going be pretty epic to see that thing take off and come back."

The 50m-tall Starship will eventually fly atop its booster, the Super Heavy.

A first test flight of this booster, carrying a Mk3 Starship, could go to orbit as early as next year, Mr Musk said.

SpaceX engine testbed makes minute-long jump

Musk promises '10km Hyperloop tunnel'

Leaky component led to SpaceX explosion

Starship will be the most powerful rocket in history, capable of carrying humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond

Both parts of the system, which together would stand 118m tall on the launch pad, are being designed to be fully reusable, making propulsive landings at the end of their mission.

Mr Musk has given updates on the development of the new rocket system at regular intervals. He wants the future vehicles ultimately to replace his current fleet - the Falcon 9 and its bigger cousin, the Falcon Heavy.

He already has one customer on the books for a Starship flight - the Japanese Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who wants to go around the Moon and back with a group of artists.

Three Raptors on a Starship

Speaking at the Boca Chica event, the CEO outlined his latest thinking on the use of materials, changes in aero surfaces and the progress being made with the methane-burning Raptor engine that will power both the Starship and the Super Heavy.

The SpaceX boss explained his switch to using steel over carbon fibre in building the Starship was in part down to cost. Steel is $2,500 per ton whereas carbon fibre is $130,000 per ton. The Starship will feature heat-resistant tiles in those areas likely to experience the highest temperatures during a descent back through the atmosphere.

He also pointed to the four fins - two at the front, two at the rear - that will help control that re-entry; and to the Raptor engines. The Mk1 prototype has three, but operational versions will have six.

The Super Heavy booster, on the other hand, could have up to an extraordinary 37 Raptors all firing in unison.

Mr Musk will be using the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for some launches, but Boca Chica also features in his flight plans.

This, he recognises, would mean considerable disruption for residents, and the SpaceX company is therefore trying to buy people out.

"We've made an offer to that effect," he said.

Mr Musk has been criticised in the past for obsessing about going to Mars when there are many issues that need attention here on Earth.

He told his audience that the problems on our planet were not a reason to stop looking outwards.

"There are many troubles in the world, of course, and these things are important and we need to solve them. But we also need things that make us excited to be alive, that make us glad to wake up in the morning and be fired up about the future, and to think, yeah, the future is going to be great. Space exploration is one of those things."


Mr. Musk says a Starship could put 100 people on the Moon SpaceX artwork envisions Starship missions going further out across the Solar System

Related Topics
SpaceX
Space exploration
Elon Musk

Muslim fucktards have to be evolution deniers.

An interesting thing about Islam (aka the world's largest terrorist organization), a childish belief in magical creationism is required. If Muslims figure out evolution is true then they have to throw out Islam.

When Muslims throw out Islam they don't replace Islam with another cult. Instead, they become atheists, aka normal people.

The problem is the Muslim theocracies have made teaching evolution a crime. Teachers could be killed if they said evolution is true.

This is more evidence for the idea that Charles Darwin killed the Allah fantasy.

A few years ago I found a website infested with Muslim assholes. I tried to explain why their magical creationism fantasy was wrong and why evolution is the strongest fact of science. They became very angry. I'm surprised they didn't blow themselves up.

Who is more retarded, Christian fucktards or Muslim scum? I think they're equally insane and equally stupid.

"Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world." This means more violence, more insanity, and more stupidity.

How many god-soaked fucktards are there around the world?

"Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world – more than twice as fast as the overall global population. Between 2015 and 2060, the world’s inhabitants are expected to increase by 32%, but the Muslim population is forecast to grow by 70%."

"Faith is on the rise and 84% of the global population identifies with a religious group. What does it mean for the future?"

There's that word again, "faith". Faith is required to believe in moronic childish bullshit.

The 84% thing - This is more evidence for the idea that most human apes are just plain fucking stupid.

Not everyone at the god-soaked Wall Street Journal is a Christian asshole. A normal person wrote about the stupidity of religions.

Nice fairytales, but let's base our lives on evidence not myths: all religions are cults. And these cults/religions poison everything.

And there's no such thing as a moderate religion/cult; those are called hobbies. Smart people view cults/religions as historical relics, as meaningless as an appendix, or an old scar. God is not great. Get over it and join the modern world.

Do you belong or support any cults/religions? Then you’re retarding progress and holding back human progress… Renounce the cult/religion you were born into, remove your name from their membership lists, challenge all tax breaks for these neanderthals, refuse to salute clerics, imams, priests, rabbis, etc., become an atheist, and be done with bronze-age primitives telling you how to live your life.

That’s the way you can help build a better world.

-- William Resham

This is Islam. Never ending violence.

New York Times - Afghanistan Election Draws Low Turnout Amid Taliban Threats

By Mujib Mashal, Fahim Abed and Fatima Faizi

September 28, 2019

KABUL, Afghanistan — Braving an all-out Taliban threat and the fatigue of repeated flawed elections, Afghans on Saturday voted to choose a president for a country suffering through one of the most violent periods in its recent history.

At a time when there is fighting in nearly two dozen of the country’s 34 provinces on any given day, it was feared the election would be marred by widespread bloodshed. While there were dozens of smaller attacks on Saturday, the security forces appeared to have prevented any mass-casualty assaults.

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said about 68 attacks had been carried out on election targets, resulting in the deaths of three police officers and the wounding of 37 civilians and two army soldiers.

But tallies arrived at by The New York Times, from conversations with local officials across the country, determined that at least 30 security personnel and 10 civilians were killed on Saturday, and at least 40 security forces and 150 civilians wounded — much higher than the official reports, but in line with the average daily toll of the country’s long-running war, now in its 18th year.

The Taliban aren’t the only danger posed by this election: There are worries that, as the vote tallying begins, the results could paralyze the government, lead to a prolonged political crisis and complicate efforts to reach a peace deal to end the war. Results are not expected for weeks, and a runoff is likely.

The vote has turned into a battle between two bitter rivals, the incumbent president, Ashraf Ghani, and his government’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah. A dispute between the two men during the fraud-ridden 2014 elections nearly split the country, resulting in an American-brokered unity government.

Saturday’s voting took place at about 4,500 polling sites, about 2,500 fewer than during the 2014 election, as violence has spread.

The national election commission in Kabul struggled to calculate exact figures from hundreds of polling sites, as insurgents launched attacks, blocked highways or blew up communication towers that affected phone signals in large parts of the country.

While the flow of information was slowed by attacks on the communication system, the commission’s initial figures showed that turnout might be around two million, a historical low.

In parts of the country, including Kabul, complaints trickled in about technical problems. One frequent complaint was that voters could not find their names at the polling stations where they had registered to vote. Such registrations were introduced to curb mass fraud.

The voting also took place amid eroded trust in the country’s election bodies, with consecutive elections marked by confusion and fraud — and election officials often implicated. All 12 commissioners who oversaw last fall’s parliamentary election, which resulted in an extended, and sometimes violent, disagreement about who should lead Parliament, were fired, and nine were sent to prison.

Afghanistan’s new election commission had promised measures to ensure a cleaner vote, including a mandatory biometric verification process that required a voter’s fingerprints and a photo to prevent large-scale ballot stuffing.

But the continuing lack of trust leaves room for a contested result, with Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah, as well as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a militant leader only recently reconciled with the government, all signaling that they see themselves as winning the contest and that any other outcome would indicate fraud.

As polls closed late Saturday, the country’s election chief, Hawa Alam Nuristani, seemed confident that her team had managed a less-tainted vote.

“Despite all the challenges, we witnessed the responsible and committed presence of Afghan citizens in voting centers,” Ms. Nuristani said. “We witnessed a better election compared to other elections.”

Across Afghanistan, it was clear that security was at the top of voters’ minds. At a time when wedding halls and educational centers have been hit with deadly bombings, many feared voting queues could be easily targeted by the Taliban, which had vowed to stop the election.

“The turnout is low because of threats,” said Najib Jabarkhel, a voter at a heavily guarded polling center in Kabul, the capital. “The Taliban have threatened that if you go to vote, bring your shroud with you.”

Protecting the balloting has added to the load of security forces already stretched thin by the daily routine of the war. More than 70,000 soldiers and police officers had been given additional duties of protecting the electoral process, and the country’s commando forces carried out dozens of special operations in the days leading up to the vote.

While it appeared that those measures had exceeded expectations in preventing Taliban attacks, an extended political standoff, if it occurs, could threaten the cohesion of the national security forces, which have endured years of conflict and been sustained only with tens of billions of dollars in aid from the United States and its allies.

Reflecting such fears, when they formed a coalition government in 2014, Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah divided the security ministries, with Mr. Abdullah leading the police and Mr. Ghani leading the army.

Western and Afghan officials, however, say the risk that the security forces will be dragged into a political dispute has been reduced in recent years: A younger generation of leaders has made progress in professionalizing the forces, these officials say, and the new leaders are less partisan than their predecessors.

“Our No. 1 priority is securing the day, and making sure Taliban threats are minimized,” said Massoud Andarabi, Afghanistan’s acting interior minister. He has worked to keep provincial police leaders and others out of politics, he said, “so that we have legitimacy in a difficult time.”

Mr. Andarabi said both Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah had made clear to him they wanted the security forces to stay clear of their political rivalry.

“Elections will go, institutions will remain,” he said.

A total of 18 candidates — from a former intelligence chief to a former militant leader to a university lecturer and a surgeon — registered to challenge Mr. Ghani. But campaigning was slow in the initial weeks, as the United States appeared to be nearing a deal with the Taliban that cast doubt on whether these elections would proceed at all amid efforts to reach a wider political settlement with the insurgency.

When President Trump called off the peace talks, the elections became certain again and campaigning intensified.

Both Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani built large coalitions in their bids to win the contest. Many experts and officials suggest a repeat of 2014 is likely, with neither candidate getting the required 50 percent in the first round, forcing a runoff.

Preliminary results are not likely to be determined until Oct. 17 at the earliest, and final results not until Nov. 7 or later.

Mr. Ghani, 70, is an American-educated anthropologist who formerly worked at the World Bank. The first time he ran for office, in 2009, he got about 3 percent of the vote. He became president in 2014 in a disputed election, and has now casts himself as the “state builder,” asking for a second term to build strong institutions for Afghanistan.

Mr. Abdullah, 59, is an ophthalmologist who rose through the ranks of the anti-Soviet fighters and then became foreign minister after the Taliban were toppled in 2001. This is his third time running for the presidency.

He is presenting himself as the moderate leader who can work with a broad coalition, in contrast to Mr. Ghani, who has alienated many political leaders — including his own vice president, who now backs Mr. Abdullah.

A third candidate, Mr. Hekmatyar, made peace with the government only in 2017, leaving behind a small but stubborn insurgency. Mr. Hekmatyar was one of the main faction leaders during civil wars in the 1990s that left Kabul in ruins.

Only fraud could deprive him of a clear victory, Mr. Hekmatyar recently declared, adding a veiled threat.

“Don’t make us regret our return, don’t make us regret our participation in elections, don’t force us to chose another option — we can do that, and we have the experience of it also,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Najim Rahim from Mazar-i-Sharif, Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Farooq Jan Mangal from Khost, Zabihullah Ghazi from Jalalabad, and Assadullah Timory from Herat, Afghanistan.

This is Islam.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1293167/Latest-ISIS-execution-video-shows-man-s-head-crushed-rock.html

I think this is the best definition of atheism.

"Atheism is the world of reality, it is reason, it is freedom, Atheism is human concern, and intellectual honesty to a degree that the religious mind cannot begin to understand. And yet it is more than this. Atheism is not an old religion, it is not a new and coming religion, in fact it is not, and never has been, a religion at all. The definition of Atheism is magnificent in its simplicity: Atheism is merely the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness."

-- Emmett F. Fields

Gabriel FAURE': Pavane, Op. 50 - Paintings By "CLAUDE MONET"

Despite the odds I won an interesting chess game. Very sloppy on both sides but it's fun to win. Time control: Each player gets 10 minutes for the entire game. I had the white pieces.

https://lichess.org/Ltx7tW50/white#0

The stupidity of Christians is overwhelming. This is what I wrote for a fucktard at the god-soaked Wall Street Journal.

Fucktard: "After all, the universe -- at 13.8 B yrs --- is too young, statistically speaking, for all the complexity involved to have happened just by chance."

What I wrote: "Complexity therefore the Magic Man did it."

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The idiot for Jeebus is looking for an excuse to justify his magic god fairy of the gaps. Science makes this moron cry.

The Magic Jeebus Man was too lazy to get a real job.

Ludwig Van Beethoven's 5th Symphony

Born	Bonn
Baptised	17 December 1770[1]
Died	26 March 1827 (aged 56) Vienna
Works	List of compositions
Signature

Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the classical and romantic eras in classical music, he remains one of the most recognized and influential musicians of this period, and is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time. Beethoven was born in Bonn, the capital of the Electorate of Cologne, and part of the Holy Roman Empire. He displayed his musical talents at an early age and was vigorously taught by his father Johann van Beethoven, and was later taught by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At age 21, he moved to Vienna and studied composition with Joseph Haydn. Beethoven then gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist, and was soon courted by Prince Lichnowsky for compositions, which resulted in Opus 1 in 1795.

The piece was a great critical and commercial success, and was followed by Symphony No. 1 in 1800. This composition was distinguished for its frequent use of sforzandi, as well as sudden shifts in tonal centers that were uncommon for traditional symphonic form, and the prominent, more independent use of wind instruments. In 1801, he also gained notoriety for his six String Quartets and for the ballet The Creatures of Proheus. During this period, his hearing began to deteriorate, but he continued to conduct, premiering his third and fifth symphonies in 1804 and 1808, respectively. His condition worsened to almost complete deafness by 1811, and he then gave up performing and appearing in public.

During this period of self exile, Beethoven composed many of his most admired works; his seventh symphony premiered in 1813, with its second movement, Allegretto, achieving widespread critical acclaim. He composed the piece Missa Solemnis for a number of years until it premiered 1824, which preceded his ninth symphony, with the latter gaining fame for being among the first examples of a choral symphony. In 1826, his fourteenth String Quartet was noted for having seven linked movements played without a break, and is considered the final major piece performed before his death a year later.

His career is conventionally divided into early, middle, and late periods; the "early" period is typically seen to last until 1802, the "middle" period from 1802 to 1812, and the "late" period from 1812 to his death in 1827. During his life, he composed nine symphonies; five piano concertos; one violin concerto; thirty-two piano sonatas; sixteen string quartets; two masses; and the opera Fidelio. Other works, like Für Elise, were discovered after his death, and are also considered historical musical achievements. Beethoven's legacy is characterized for his innovative compositions, namely through the combinations of vocals and instruments, and also for widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto, and quartet, while he is also noted for his troublesome relationship with his contemporaries.

Wikipedia - Ludwig van Beethoven