Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Once again my pet peeve scab has been plucked. A Humanist leader is profiled on the CNN website talking about forming warmed over religious services he calls ‘congregations’. This is my pet peeve because I don’t care for using religious terms with new definitions. It is being abstruse in the least and at most dishonest. A church or congregation without god is not something I need and I wish we would get media coverage that shows how Humanism is totally different than theism.
In his dissent in United States v. Windsor, Justice Antonin Scalia once again showed he lacks any judicial values beyond his selfish ends. His reasoning for dissenting basically came down to his view that the court lacked the power to invalidate a law democratically adopted. Yet he found no such concern in invalidating the Voting Rights Act yesterday. It is obvious that his personal view of the law determines if he thinks the court has the power to give a ruling. In my world that is known as being a hypocritical asshat.
One of the big reasons I don’t trust ‘The Media’ nor like them much is their complicity in supporting the one percenters. Corporate control of news media gives us press releases passed off as facts and political talking points going unchallenged as long as they support the corporations. We see the same behavior in the coverage of whistle blower Edward Snowden, where ‘The Media’ is more concerned in his location than in the facts he disclosed about the domestic surveillance program by the NSA. Hey media, I don’t give a shit where the guy is – when are you going to talk about the spying he uncovered?
This past Sunday, corporate tool David Gregory said some stupid shit as David Sirota points out:
The Congress is considering a Farm Bill right now that could cut $20 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which is also known as Food Stamps. It is part of the social safety net where the government provides some help for people to buy food when they are poor or have low income. The reason for the cuts is the same tired false assumptions Republicans make about poor people. Many in the GOP claim that Food Stamps make people dependent on the government, the program is being abused, or worse that charity will cover the need. Like all GOP claims, their attack on food assistance is full of crap.
Some Christians and right wingers cry and whine about their freedom of religion being suppressed when their Christian privilege is called out or shut down. But time and again, when the roles are reversed, those same Christians see no problem in suppressing points of view that contradict their beliefs. Orange County School Board in Florida allowed a Christian group to distribute literature, including the Holy Bible, in their high schools. When an atheist group wanted to do the same the school district and the schools did everything they could to sabotage the effort. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is suing the school district in Federal court.
Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist has the details: