Regular readers may remember I have a particular least favorite state in this union. One that often relies on religious fear and deception and hard right-wing extremism in favor of established American values. Of course, I'm referring to Oklahoma. The government in place here has got to be the most oppressive, ignorant and downright cruel in the nation. I think I'd feel safer driving through that Mexican city in from Dusk till Dawn with all the vampires and Cheech Marin.
Well, these liberty squelching shit stains are at it again, in, perhaps, their most egregious offense. According to a new law, which the state senate had to override a gubernatorial veto to pass, a woman seeking an abortion in the state of Oklahoma must undergo a series of insulting, invasive and cruel measures including being forced to undergo an vaginally-inserted ultrasound (yes, it specifies vaginally-inserted) and be shown the pile of cells before she is treated. As if the state is saying "Look, this is the baby you're killing! Hope you're OK with that!!!" Isn't this the same political group that didn't want the government to even supply a public option for health care? Now they want to shove something up your vagina! Fuck you liberty, hello tyranny.
The new statute requires the person performing the ultrasound to describe the dimensions of the fetus, whether arms, legs and internal organs are visible and whether there is cardiac activity. It also requires the doctor to turn a screen depicting the ultrasound images toward the woman to see them.
OK, you can find out about all the disgusting other provisions yourself and of course, it's not even worth making the argument that this is anything other than state lawmakers trying to shame, guilt and, ultimately, dissuade women out of getting abortions even in cases of rape, incest, forced marriage or who-gives-a-fuck-what-the-reason-is.
But what would make people want to do this? What would make lawmakers want to rule over their people in such a cruel and humiliating manner? Let's examine a few possibilities.
It couldn't be that they're representing their constituents — if that were the case, they would have been a public vote or a ballot measure. They're clearly not interested in what their voters have to say on the matter. Although, even if they did it wouldn't matter. The majority shouldn't be able to dictate the morality of a medical procedure required by a few (especially since it's constitutionally protected).
It couldn't be that they think that this measure will save money, obviously, adding more procedures is going to require more supplies, more working hours, more costs. How's that for 'conservative.'
It couldn't be that they think it's medically beneficial. Of course, an ultrasound in no way prepares or aids either a doctor or a patient for an abortion, I'm a little embarrassed that even needs to be said.
In fact, Linda Meek, executive director of Reproductive Services of Tulsa, told the Associated Press equiring women to listen to a description can be traumatic, she said, especially for rape and incest victims and women with fetal abnormalities or whose pregnancy threatens their own life.
It’s been difficult for some of the patients,” Meek said. “We’ve had patients leave the ultrasound room in tears because of what they had to hear.”
It can't be that, as one of the suspects behind this state-sponsored mass-rape puts it, the aim is to prevent something a woman will regret.
We all know, 80% of women who get abortions don't regret the choice: But 100% of them, at least in Oklahoma, are now to be shamed and humiliated in an effort to change their minds. It's the state trying to influence you. An invasive, unnecessary, litigiously risky, potentially harmful, government mandated, undemocratically-passed piece of government legislation designed to strongly influence the free market? That's not conservative. That's not American. You know what it sounds like to me?
But even without that anecdote, it's clear that Oklahoma is a stronghold of Christo-fascist fundamentalists. Religions teach you that they're more important than reason, than the Constitution, than human empathy. Save that the religion actually doesn't say anything about abortion, but because a certain group of people have chosen to view it that way, it has become such. Christianity is, according to Christians, against this particular medical procedure and since they believe that their god feels that way, nothing is too harsh for those opposing it. So, even if it's inhumanely cruel to sit a woman in front of a screen with a camera shoved up her vagina screaming "this is what you're killing!!" Even if it goes against everything your particular political party stands for; even if it flies in the face of the constitution and the judicial system and the majority of Americans and medical science and all the other things we actually base out lives on, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters when you're convinced that your god feels a certain way. And look what happens when you gather a bunch of Bible-beating reactionaries together, stir them up with fear of a black president and give them any degree of power.
To tarnish image of real atheists, religious theists call all immoral theists as practical atheists, while in reality that is the reality of all theists. Religions, spirituality, theism, etc. are all created to mislead people and terrorize them in the name of God to subscribe to the most flourishing business - religions, of humanity.
What is the reality of atheists - are they immoral persons. To answer this question, I would like to begin with basics of humanism. Humans have the most developed brain of all the species of life, so basically have the developed faculty of thinking - the brain.
Apart from brain, all species of life have their minds located in each organic system of their bodies. Each of these minds monitor and regulate functionality of the organic system of the body in which the mind is located. All desires of the body also arise in one or more of the organic systems of the body inducing the person to act for a gratification. The person may act instantaneously on the arousal of a desire, or may send the signals to brain for thinking on the appropriateness of the desire and to act only if it is right or moral. So, no thinking person acts merely on his/her desires but does so after some thinking on the appropriateness, and hence is essentially bound by morality.
Another aspect which needs consideration is conformism. Today, theism is being followed by a huge majority of humanity while the atheists are in minority. It is always easier for a person to side with a majority than siding with the minority. For siding with the minority, the person has to consider all pros and cons of his/her actions, which requires a lot of thinking. So, all atheists are basically thinkers who refuse to go by majority view or act on their desires of body organic systems.
This proves that all atheists are highly moral persons and no trace of immorality can ever touch them, just because they are basically thinkers. So atheism in practice is 'thinking' which can never be immoral.
"It is an assault on the freedom of expression" — Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The freedom to ridicule and mock a corrupt system is a vital aspect of freedom anywhere. It just is. There's no two ways about it. When those who decry the 'new atheist movement' (a title, I should add, given by people outside of the movement it describes and, as far as I know, not generally approved of by those individuals, myself included.)as being mean-spirited suggest that every religion is beautiful and deserves respect, they're tearing down that pillar of democracy. And without that pillar, the whole thing could easily collapse. As someone who appreciates his freedom, you can imagine, then that I get especially pissed off when losers who seek to be oppressed or seek to oppress others stand in the way or try to intimidate those who keep satire alive. But it keeps happening.
Look what's been going on with Comedy Central's long-running political cartoon South Park. In their second attempt to break the door down on Islam's perma-threat to anyone who depicts their child raping prophet, in good light or bad. Naturally, the media was able to find some obscure radical Islamo-fascist group willing to threaten violence over it and now Comedy Central is, of course, putting the breaks on this episode. But it's not that all of Islam is going to bomb the Comedy Central offices or stop watching South Park, as if they ever did. It's just the looming threat and the mysterious silence from the Muslim community. To be fair, lots of Muslims are responding and demanding the violence stop, but the fact that they're offended remains.
You don't have to be an extremist Muslim to want to censor your world. Look, when I was in college, I was the editor of the newspaper. After I graduated (But was still involved on campus) I was called back to deal with an issue my successor couldn't deal with. Apparently, in a story about the Jyllands-Posten Danish cartoons in 2005, the school's Muslim-student group granted the paper an interview, on the condition that we don't run the image. Well, the message got to the reporter, but not the page editor and the image ran.
Then, the student group and I had a long conversation. It was evident to me at the time, when I wasn't even calling myself an 'atheist,' although I was one, that the Muslim student group was not interested in tolerance for all religions or in cultural understanding or in sensitivity. They're interested in Islamic Exceptionalism. Even the innocent, liberal, American-Muslim student group at a college subscribes to the idea of Islamic Exceptionalism. They are the kings of a culture that lives by rules it cannot understands, explain or defend. The reason Muslims don't want Mohammed depicted is a bullshit reason, similar to the Christian ban on idol worship. Notice how quickly Christianity tossed out that commandment, been to a Catholic Church? But, of course, it's only a problem for them. For those who believe it. For Muslims. Muslims can't depict their fucking prophet, but they can't control the world. And they seek to, for sure. There can be no clearer example than this little microcosm. A TV cartoon here, a college newspaper there. It doesn't matter that in my situation no one threatened me with violence. What matters is that they try to force others to live by their rules, which themselves don't even have good reason.
And, of course, the harm is it doesn't matter what the reason for rules like 'no depictions of Mohammed' or their 'if there's grass on the field, play ball,' approach to sexuality, the religion has no room for questions or reason, just obedience. Submission. Islam, like all religions, doesn't teach people to think—it forces a thought on them. Submission.
By the way, confidential to the Muslim student group from my old college:
After taking a few months off from the blogging scene, I've decided to try and keep this blog from dying, as I got some really positive feedback during the first few months of it, and the more I experience of the world around me, the more important I realize it is for me to do keep getting information about atheism out there, and to encourage discussion and debate. It is even more apparent to me than before that religion does much more harm to society than it does good, and I hope this blog continues to get a few readers and spark a few interesting discussions.
Professor Antony Flew, who became a deist just six years ago after championing atheism for most of his life, died last Thursday after “long illness,” according to an obituary placed by his family Tuesday in the Times of London.
Whatever we know, we know it with reference to something else or we can say that we live in a relativistic world. Things are known as bigger or smaller relatively, as black or green as compared to assumed names of different shades, of this or that size as compared to a given scale, etc. All such examples prove that human brain perceives things in relation to some thing else used as a reference, and not anything in absolute terms.
Hypothesis of God or theism is based on absolutism of this concept, so is beyond human perception. And whatever is beyond perception, can not be even put forward even as a hypothesis honestly. This proves that absoluteness of God is hypothesis put forward with malicious intentions to confuse people and do a fraudulent business in the field of Godliness.This is the basis of agnosticism.
Another meaning given to 'absolutism' is 'knowing something fully'. Although this definition is not correct, even knowing a thing fully blocks further efforts of knowing the thing in more detail through scientific investigations, and thus is paralyzing to human curiosity. Since, knowledge base about everything remains always expandable, no knowledge is or shall ever be absolute. So even this definition of absolutism is infeasible.
When we always have limited knowledge, we can never say anything with surety. What may be best said is with relative to the current knowledge base of humanity which is ever expanding. Any malicious element in this knowledge base gets also expanded through hypotheses after hypotheses. In case of theism, these are made prevalent in society through terrorizing people in the name of a super-power named God, which no body knows.
As a general rule, people get afraid of unknown things and forces. Since God remains unknown since its inception about 2,500 years back, its terror continues in the minds of people which some cunning business-persons of this field take undue advantages thereof. this is the reason for genesis and continuance of theism in the world.
Nobody need to oppose a concept if it is not demoralizing to humanity through terror. Since, theism is used to terrorize people and dehumanize them, a counter-attack became necessary giving birth to atheism.
The words 'Atheism' and 'Atheist' are derived from Greek roots 'Atheos' which means non-existence of Theos'. So, an understanding of these terms starts with understanding of the word 'Theos'. My research work of nearly 20 years now is focused on 'Theos'. I would like to put fort my views here.
Theo was an ancient race originally residing on the piece of land now known as Thailand, which should have been 'Theoland' indeed. Theos had a great family of Purus about 2,500 years back from now. On expansion of the family and their confidence of building a vast civilized humanity, three brothers of the family Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar, moved to a vast piece of flat fertile land, now known as Indian subcontinent. Here, the rivers were in plenty to provide potable water and they decided to make human settlements in areas covered by rivers Ganga and Yamuna in north India. Here Theos were called as 'Devas' who developed a new language 'Devnaagaree'. They also recorded their scientific developments and historical facts, as 'Vedas' and Puranas, the most precious scriptures of India even today.
At that time, this piece of land had forests all over with sparse human population which neither knew agriculture not had techniques of building houses. Purus started clearing forests, building houses for the population, processing minerals obtained from the land and started cultivating land for growing food-grains. Their achievements were great and the land soon became rich in wealth and human population. They started trading their commodities to other human populations, particularly Greece, another citadel of human civilization at that time.
At that, many human races were wild wandering from place to place to ward off hardships of temperature variations over climatic cycles. It soon became their profession to attack civilized human populations, particularly the Greeks, and get away with whatever they could find for their consumption. These races were mainly on the piece of land now referred to as West Asia.
Reputation of India as a rich land soon reached their ears also, and they arrived in India in the name of spreading a religion - Judaism, and settled themselves in southern part of Indian subcontinent. Soon Krishna became their leader who used to pose as an incarnation of God. Struggles between Theos and Judas ensued culminating into a world war referred to as 'Mahaabhaarat', in which Theo group was defeated. This war was participated by Alexander from the side of Judas and Aryans on the Theos side.
To eliminate the reputation of Theos from the people's minds, the Judas mistranslated the scriptures in another language now known as modern Sanskrit to spread concepts of religions and God through these scriptures. For this purpose, real meanings of terms used in scriptures were altered to serve their nasty purpose of misleading the people. These nasty translations are still popular in India. They also spread that Theos were imaginary super-natural divinities, different incarnations of God. Thus, the word 'Theo' became synonym with 'God'.
Those believing in existence of God are now known as Theists, and those opposing this misleading concept are Atheists. Here, it is noteworthy that Atheists are not anti-Theos, but only anti-God.
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The freedom to ridicule and mock a corrupt system is a vital aspect of freedom anywhere. It just is. There's no two ways about it. When those who decry the 'new atheist movement' (a title, I should add, given by people outside of the movement it describes and, as far as I know, not generally approved of by those individuals, myself included.)as being mean-spirited suggest that every religion is beautiful and deserves respect, they're tearing down that pillar of democracy. And without that pillar, the whole thing could easily collapse. As someone who appreciates his freedom, you can imagine, then that I get especially pissed off when losers who seek to be oppressed or seek to oppress others stand in the way or try to intimidate those who keep satire alive. But it keeps happening. 
